The Trump administration made a small but conspicuous mathematical error in announcing its new nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration policy analyst pointed out Saturday.

The flub came as President Donald Trump announced he would nominate Lance Schroyer, described as a former Oklahoma state trooper and Marine, to serve as the next director of ICE. According to reporting from journalist Priscilla Alvarez, the agency has not had a Senate-confirmed director since 2017.

That timeline is where the administration ran into trouble.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration analyst who closely tracks the agency, flagged that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had characterized the nominee as the first Senate-confirmed director in 11 years — a figure that doesn't square with the math.

"Someone there did the math wrong," Reichlin-Melnick wrote, noting that the actual gap "would be just under 10 years" rather than 11.

The discrepancy is minor in the scheme of things, amounting to roughly a year's difference in how long the agency has gone without a permanent, Senate-confirmed leader. But it's the kind of easily checkable detail that tends to draw attention when it appears in an official announcement from a cabinet secretary.

ICE has been led by a series of acting directors since the departure of its last confirmed chief, a vacancy that has stretched across multiple administrations even as the agency has taken on an increasingly central role in Trump's immigration agenda.

Schroyer's nomination, if confirmed by the Senate, would end that years-long stretch. Whether it spans 10 years or 11, the gap underscores how long one of the administration's most prominent enforcement agencies has operated without a permanent leader installed through the full confirmation process.

A journalist flagged how a Trump lie was exposed by a recent photo.

On an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, host Joanna Coles said she's "slightly fascinated" that Trump "gets away" with lying about his height. Coles said she noticed he's "shrinking" after looking at a picture of him standing next to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).

"He's shrinking into the giant shrimp that Steve Bannon said that he was," Coles said. "I think that Donald Trump is literally shrinking as we see him."

Trump's height has been reported as 6'3" by other outlets citing his medical records. Coles said that Thune stands at 6'4", and when she saw them standing next to each other earlier this week, she thought Trump is "definitely not 6'2"," she said.

"John Thune looks like he's got four inches on him there," Coles said. "I know size isn't supposed to matter, but I think it does in this situation."

Trump biographer Michael Wolff noted, "Donald Trump is 80, and, you know, you shrink."

Thune looked more "presidential" standing next to Trump, Coles added, while Wolff described Trump as "grotesque, clownish."

Coles joked that Trump has "accelerated shrinking syndrome," a diagnosis she made up on the spot because of its initials.

A former senior Department of Homeland Security official said Saturday that Vice President JD Vance's recent comments dismissing Watergate amount to a "tacit admission" that the Trump administration's conduct is more serious than the scandal that ended Richard Nixon's presidency — and could ultimately make it easier to hold administration officials accountable.

Miles Taylor, the former DHS chief of staff who now runs the group Defiance.org, made the remarks during an appearance on MS NOW's "Alex Witt Reports," responding to Vance's claim that Watergate would be little more than a brief news story if it happened today.

Taylor offered a grim partial agreement, saying that compared to what President Donald Trump is doing now, Watergate might warrant only a multi-day story. The reason, he argued, is that Trump has done things he described as substantially more unconstitutional than Watergate — and Vance's comment, in Taylor's view, was an acknowledgment of exactly that.

But Taylor drew a sharp distinction between the two presidencies. Nixon, he noted, tried to cover up his abuses. Trump and his team, by contrast, have carried out actions that federal judges have ruled facially unconstitutional out in the open, without any attempt to hide them.

That brazenness, Taylor argued, cuts both ways.

He pointed to prosecutors who previously worked in the Justice Department who believe the administration's open defiance of the law will ultimately work against it. By wearing what Taylor called the lawlessness on their sleeves, officials may be handing a future Democratic Congress and a future administration the evidence needed to pursue accountability.

Taylor framed the dynamic as a double-edged sword for the administration — the same out-in-the-open conduct that alarms defenders of the rule of law could, down the line, become the basis for holding those responsible to account.

Influential conservative commentator Erick Erickson warned this week that the Trump administration is being outmaneuvered by Iran, arguing that President Donald Trump waited too long to act and has now boxed himself in over oil prices.

Erickson, a longtime radio host and writer with a substantial following on the right, did not mince words in his assessment of the administration's posture toward Tehran.

"Iran is playing this administration like fiddle," he wrote.

According to Erickson, the core of the problem is timing. He argued that Trump "waited so long that oil prices became a crisis" and now finds himself unable to take any step that might jeopardize the flow of oil.

Erickson went further, claiming the president had effectively conceded the bind he was in. Trump "admitted as much publicly," Erickson wrote, adding that the president "was afraid of a depression."

The contrast Erickson drew was pointed: while Trump fears the economic fallout, "Iran is not."

The post was a notable shot from the right flank, coming from a commentator who is generally aligned with Republican politics rather than an outside critic of the administration.

The criticism adds Erickson's voice to a chorus questioning the administration's handling of Iran, made more striking by the fact that it comes from within conservative ranks rather than from the president's usual liberal opponents.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson's recent "protection program" comment reveals his true fear, according to an ex-GOP operative.

Johnson's comments came at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual conference on Friday, where he said, "I run the protection program. I'll take care of you." Johnson made the remark in the context of a warning about electing Democrats in the midterms, which he said will lead to committees investigating Trump along with his family, Cabinet, donors and allies.

According to a Saturday piece by Steve Schmidt, the "extraordinary" and "astonishing" remarks reveal that "Mike Johnson is panicking" about accountability.

"Mike Johnson isn't panicked because he believes innocent people will be persecuted," Schmidt wrote. "He's panicked because he understands that accountability may finally be coming to Washington."

Johnson's speech "sounds like dialogue written for Burgess Meredith playing the Penguin in the old 'Batman' TV series," Schmidt continued.

"He knows there will be subpoenas. He knows there will be hearings. He knows there will be oversight," Schmidt wrote. "He knows investigators will begin asking questions that should have been asked years ago — and he knows the answers may be devastating."

Schmidt predicted that if a Democratic majority "should reclaim the Speaker's gavel in the House" after the November midterms, they would "understand the assignment."

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) seized on Vice President JD Vance's recent comments downplaying Watergate this week, warning that the remarks reveal something fundamental about how the vice president views presidential power.

Murphy was responding to reporting from journalist Aaron Rupar, who flagged Vance's comments at an event tied to the Richard Nixon Foundation. According to that account, Vance said Nixon's "historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so," and joked that if Watergate "happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hours news story." Vance reportedly added that "the idea that it took down a presidency is crazy."

For Murphy, the remarks were not a throwaway line but a window into the administration's governing philosophy.

"I actually think this statement is a big deal," the senator wrote. "Because it tells you all you need to know."

He then spelled out what he believed Vance had revealed.

"They believe, in their bones, in an imperial presidency where the executive rules absolutely and uses his power to destroy enemies and enrich himself," Murphy wrote.

The exchange adds to a growing back-and-forth over Vance's Nixon comments, which have drawn criticism from Democrats who see in them an attempt to rehabilitate a president forced from office over abuses of power. Hillary Clinton earlier took her own shot at Vance over the same remarks.

Watergate, which unfolded after a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972, led to Nixon's resignation in 1974 amid mounting evidence of a cover-up and bipartisan pressure to step down.

Murphy, a frequent critic of the administration who has positioned himself as a vocal warning voice about democratic backsliding, framed Vance's apparent dismissiveness toward that history as a tell — a signal of how the current White House understands the limits, or lack thereof, on executive power.

A Nobel laureate held the world's richest man Elon Musk responsible for the deaths of millions of children in a scathing takedown.

Renowned economist Paul Krugman called Musk "a horrible, terrible person" in a recent episode of his podcast. Krugman mostly focused on Musk's cuts to USAID while in the Trump administration.

"For most of last year, Elon Musk was the second most powerful man in America," Krugman explained. "He was running a large part of the government's budget, and during that time, he established a track record of evil incompetence."

Musk "fed USAID to the wood chipper," and "more or less personally set out to destroy this aid agency, set out to cut off healthcare, nutritional assistance, just basic necessities of life for millions and millions of extremely desperate people," Krugman said, adding that "he did so callously, carelessly."

Krugman continued, saying, "I mean, really evil and really incompetent on enormous scales, and why aren't people talking about it more?"

USAID was "the principal channel for aid to the most desperate, poorest people in the world," Krugman continued. Cuts by Musk have "led to millions of unnecessary deaths, including millions of children," Krugman added, saying the point was proven by studies, health models, and "field evidence of widespread death as a result of the cancellation."

He described Musk as "quite evil," and "very much like Trump, somebody who can dish it out, but can't take it, can't even handle the kind of criticism that any public figure should expect to receive," Krugman said.

Conservative legal activist Mike Davis floated an aggressive immigration crackdown this week if the Supreme Court rules against the Trump administration on birthright citizenship, including a call to prioritize the detention and deportation of women of childbearing age.

Davis, a prominent ally of President Donald Trump who heads the Article III Project, framed his posts around the expectation that the high court will rule against the administration's position. He accused the justices in advance of preparing to "lawlessly" extend birthright citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants.

In one post, Davis wrote that if the court "lawlessly pretends we fought a Civil War and passed subsequent laws to give birthright citizenship to illegal aliens, we must ramp up third-country detainments and mass-deportations."

"With no mercy," he added.

He then went further, singling out a specific group as a target.

"We must start with birthing-aged women," Davis wrote, closing the post with a single word: "Adios."

In a related post, Davis reiterated the framing, declaring that the Supreme Court was "going to lawlessly give away birthright citizenship to illegally aliens" and that the response should "make the top priority birthing-aged women."

That post was attached to a message from Homeland Security official Markwayne Mullin, who had touted the administration's deportation efforts as targeting "illegal alien criminals" including "rapists, murders, pedophiles, and gang members."

Davis is no fringe figure in the movement. He has been floated for senior legal roles in Trump's orbit and has positioned himself as an enforcer for the administration's most combative legal positions.

His suggestion that deportation efforts should begin with women based on their reproductive capacity drew immediate attention on X.

The Supreme Court has not yet issued its ruling in the birthright citizenship case.

A spat between two Supreme Court justices is putting Trump’s plans in jeopardy, a legal expert noted.

Justice Samuel Alito looks poised to stay on as a counterweight to Justice Sonia Sotomayor after their "wacko interaction" spilled out into public view, Michael Popok said during a recent episode of the Unprecedented podcast.

Sotomayor read her "powerful dissent" to Alito's majority opinion on an asylum case, Popok noted.

"So Alito was done reading his summary of his decision, and next up was Sotomayor, and she read big portions of her dissent, and really, I mean, accused the court of being heartless, of comparing it to that famous ship that was turned away by numerous countries filled with Holocaust survivors," Popok explained.

Popok and his guest host, legal analyst Dina Doll, also brought up that Trump is hoping Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas will step down, opening the way for him to add a new conservative justice or two before the midterms.

"Honestly, I thought after that interaction, maybe Alito will not step down this summer because I think he sees himself as this necessary person, probably, to combat Sotomayor right now," Doll said. "It's just the ego in him."

Doll continued, "Somebody like that thinks that they need to be in charge, that nobody else can carry the mantle."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went after Vice President JD Vance Saturday over his comments downplaying the Watergate scandal, using the moment to land a pair of pointed jabs at both the vice president and the Republican Party.

Clinton was responding to a New York Times report headlined "Vance Downplays Watergate and Compares Himself to Nixon." According to the story, Vance argued that the scandal which ended Richard Nixon's presidency would amount to "like a 12-hour news story" if it unfolded today, and suggested the "deep state" had been responsible for taking Nixon down.

Clinton's first swipe took aim at Vance's grasp of the history itself — and at his administration's record on book bans.

"Maybe Vance doesn't know this history because it's in one of the books his administration banned," she wrote.

Her second was aimed at the broader Republican Party, drawing a contrast between the lawmakers of the Watergate era and those serving today.

"The difference between Watergate and now is that back then, Republicans actually did something about a law-breaking president," Clinton wrote. "Today, they only roll over for their cult leader."

The reference points to the bipartisan reckoning that followed the Watergate break-in, when Republican leaders ultimately pressed Nixon toward resignation rather than defend him through impeachment proceedings.

Vance's reported framing inverts that history, casting Nixon less as a president brought down by his own conduct than as a target of unelected government forces — a narrative that echoes the grievance politics central to the current administration.

Clinton, a frequent and unsparing critic of President Donald Trump and his allies, has shown little hesitation in needling the administration on social media, and her latest post folded two of the left's recurring criticisms — book bans and Republican deference to Trump — into a single response.

Trump ended up making one of his political rivals look better with online critics after a swipe backfired.

In a Saturday Truth Social post, Trump shared a picture of himself when he was younger in his military school uniform next to a picture of an 18-year-old Obama with a cigarette in his mouth while donning a fedora.

However, online critics reacted by saying that Obama looked better and brought up stories about Trump when he was that age.

"Trump just posted a photo of Obama aura mogging him," wrote political commentator Adam Mockler.

"Trump was in his 20s when the DOJ began investigating him for discriminating against Black renters," noted political watchdog account PatriotTakes.

"We all know who the better hang is," posted journalist Aaron Rupar.

"Imagine posting a side by side making your opp look so awesome and you look like a giant big earred dweeb," wrote political strategist Matt Royer. "He really thought he cooked here."

"Trump was actually 17-18 in this photo," political news network MeidasTouch noted. "His parents sent him to a military boarding school for behavioral issues & bullying. Now he uses the photo to pretend he was in the military."

Political strategist Chris Jackson reacted by posting a picture of a smiling Biden in his twenties with the caption, "Joe Biden at 20 > Donald Trump at 20."

Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted about eleven days as President Donald Trump's communications director in 2017, says he finally understands a children's story that puzzled him as a boy — thanks to the man he once worked for.

In a post shared with his followers, the former White House aide turned vocal Trump critic offered a blunt assessment of the president's fitness, writing that Trump "is not well and he's probably too old for the job." Scaramucci acknowledged the line wasn't "politically correct," but argued it was "probably right."

The bulk of his post, however, was less about Trump than about everyone around him. Scaramucci described an administration paralyzed by fear, staffed with people afraid of losing their jobs, afraid of being attacked online, and afraid of being primaried by a challenger Trump himself would select to take them out.

"That's why we're frozen," he said.

Then came the epiphany that gives the post its punch. Scaramucci recalled his first-grade teacher reading the class "The Emperor's New Clothes," the fable in which a vain ruler parades naked while terrified subjects pretend to admire his nonexistent garments. As a child, he found the premise absurd, wondering why anyone would go along with such an obvious lie.

"I'm 62 now," Scaramucci said. "Now I get it."

The implication was hard to miss: in Scaramucci's telling, the people surrounding Trump are the courtiers too frightened to say what they plainly see, and Trump is the emperor convinced of his own splendor.

Scaramucci has spent years warning about his former boss, but the fable framing casts the dysfunction less as a policy failure than as a psychological one, sustained by everyone too afraid to point it out.

Three days into the 16-day Great American State Fair organized by the President Donald Trump-linked group Freedom 250, the event is already “falling apart at the seams,” argued prominent liberal commentator and podcast host Adam Mockler on Saturday.

“Just like everything else Donald Trump touches, this Great American Fair is falling apart at the seams,” Mockler said in a video published on social media Saturday. “We are at day three of his 16-day fair that is funded by our taxpayer dollars to the tune of $80 million, and it’s falling apart.”

Critics have already noted what they say are small crowd sizes and near-empty exhibits, but several other issues appeared to plague the event within its first few days, including power failures that stalled a Ferris wheel and melted ice cream.

“The exhibits are entirely empty, the fields have nobody in them. Even the main attraction, the Ferris wheel, ran out of power last night and was shut down all evening,” Mockler said.

“We have melting ice cream, we have not enough tables so kids are being forced to eat on the ground. And on top of all of that, even some exhibits have a Confederate flag… I mean, it doesn’t really matter because they’re all empty anyway.”

The Great American State Fair got off to a rough start weeks before opening to the public last Thursday after performing artists bailed on the event upon learning of its ties to Trump. The president would go on to attack the artists for “getting ‘the yips’” and floated himself as a suitable replacement for the musical acts.

“The pungent odor of Kristi Noem lingers in Washington.”

Those are the opening words of longtime conservative columnist George Will, whose column in the Washington Post hammered the 6-3 Supreme Court majority for wrongly dismantling the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program depended upon by hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

According to Will, the conservative majority deliberately ignored overwhelming evidence that Kristi Noem's actions were driven by racial "animus," and therefore "violated the pertinent law."

As he pointed out, within three days of the former Department of Homeland Security head terminating TPS for Haitians and Syrians, which led to the court case that made its way to the nation's highest court, Noem publicly recommended "a full travel ban on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies" who "slaughter our heroes" and "suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars."

He dryly added, "She [Noem] refrained from echoing Trump’s assertion about kitten-cooking Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. This marks her as a MAGA moderate. JD Vance spread the pet-eating fiction because he said creating 'stories' (his word) makes the media notice Americans’ suffering."

"Surely justices are not required to ignore such rhetoric? And although thoughtful people disagree about whether, or how much, justices should consider the downstream consequences of their rulings," he suggested.

Expressing his disappointment with the conservative-majority court, he offered, "Time and freshening breezes will cleanse Washington, dissipating the legacies of appointees like Noem, and of the president who chose them. The court’s mistaken ruling she provoked will be more lasting."

Emmy Award-winning journalist Eric Flack of WUSA9, a CBS-affiliated D.C. news station, toured the Great American State Fair on the National Mall and found that the fair’s state exhibits ranged wildly in quality.

Exhibits for Connecticut and Maine, for instance, were especially empty.

“Connecticut and Maine are sharing a space and basically just put up some chairs and their state logos,” Flack said in a video he published Saturday on social media.

Some states didn’t participate in helping craft their own state exhibits at all, Flack said. North Carolina’s exhibit, for instance, had no involvement from North Carolina officials, and instead was organized by the company that built tractor trailers for Freedom 250, the organization linked to President Donald Trump that organized the fair.

“Their exhibit is a race car and some North Carolina potatoes,” Flack said, his video showing a small box of potatoes sitting on the ground.

Some states saw above-average interest among attendees, such as Arizona’s, which featured a "black light star experience" and “free cactus pens.” Most state exhibits, however, were largely informational, Flack said.

“Most of the rest of the states and territories just seemed to be using the Great American State Fair as a ‘great American visitors bureau,'” Flack said.

Critics have also noted what appears to be small crowd sizes at the fair, officially started last Thursday but stumbled weeks earlier when performers pulled out after learning of the event’s ties to Trump, who went on to tout himself as a suitable replacement.

Add anti-immigrant activists to the list of Donald Trump allies who feel betrayed by the president after he cancelled a major policy announcement in Wisconsin in early June and instead revealed it in a little-noticed memo.

At the same time, the president has aggravated a substantial number of his MAGA followers by starting a war with Iran, annoyed GOP lawmakers by insisting they pass his SAVE America Act, and seen his approval numbers crater due to the high cost of living. He now he has the Stephen Miller wing of his party mad at him.

According to Washington Post's reporting, the administration announced it would allow dairy farms to bring in migrant labor via an under-the-radar department memo after quietly shelving plans for a public announcement in Wisconsin in early June. One lawmaker and two trade groups confirmed the deliberate coverup, speaking on condition of anonymity about internal discussions.

"We certainly see this as a very good first step," said Trey Forsyth, a lobbyist for the National Milk Producers Federation. "We're just excited to see them doing what they can."

Anti-immigrant activists were not so forgiving.

Rosemary Jenks, founder of the Immigration Accountability Project and member of the Mass Deportation Coalition, articulated their fury in telling the Post, "There's no question that American workers will be pushed out of the dairy industry because H-2A workers will be cheaper."

The report notes that the embattled president has been "trying to address mounting dissatisfaction among farmers fed up with soaring fuel prices, tariffs and fertilizer inflation. On Thursday night, Trump hosted farmers at the Rose Garden Club at the White House to shore up support with a key constituency."

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly attempted damage control in a statement, claiming Trump "listens to a variety of opinions on any given issue, but ultimately decides based on what he feels is best for the country." She framed the policy as merely "clarifying laws currently on the books."

But the Immigration Accountability Project's Jenks dismissed the argument, firing back, "The law that Congress passed very clearly says that H-2A workers have to be temporary or seasonal. Last I checked, there are no dairy animals that take breaks."

Violence near the Strait of Hormuz continued for its third consecutive day Saturday after “American targets” in Bahrain were hit by suspected Iranian strikes, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“Iran didn’t specifically claim responsibility for the attacks. But state media said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had carried out strikes against American targets in the region and reasserted Iran’s claim of control over traffic in the strait,” the Journal’s report reads.

The most recent exchange of violence between the United States and Iran began Thursday after the Iranian military struck a ship passing through an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz. The Trump administration responded with a series of strikes on Iranian missile and drone locations.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a U.S. official told the Journal that two Iranian drones had been shot down Saturday over Bahrain, where the U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain base is stationed.

“One [drone] was shot down by a ground-based defense system and the other landed in a remote airfield area without hitting any target,” the Journal reported, paraphrasing the U.S. official. “Bahrain didn’t detail any damage from the attack.”

Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit filed against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has hit a treacherous hurdle in a new legal filing in Florida where the suit was filed.

According to The Telegraph, BBC lawyers have filed discovery demands requiring Trump to disclose his "telephone logs, calendars, schedules, and diaries," spanning November 3, 2020, through January 20, 2021—the critical period encompassing the Capitol insurrection.

The demand represents a calculated legal strategy by the network to force Trump to either produce damaging evidence or risk judicial sanctions for non-compliance, with the Telegraph reporting the BBC is essentially putting the president and his lawyers in the awkward position of having to lay all their cards on the table.

The report notes that the American president initiated the lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages over BBC Panorama's reporting that the network had allegedly spliced separate segments of Trump's January 6 speech in a way that misrepresented his words. The edited version suggested Trump urged supporters to "fight like hell" and storm the Capitol.

Trump's legal team is fighting back aggressively, accusing the BBC of attempting to "put the president on trial for the riot" rather than defend against the specific editing allegations, according to the report.

"Defendants are attempting to use this action as a vehicle to conduct a trial as to the events that occurred on January 6," Trump lawyer Alejandro Brito has argued in court filings, complaining, "Defendants' attempts to defend themselves do not entitle them to carte-blanche discovery."

For its part, the BBC isn't backing down and is also demanding that Trump's legal team "identify all persons with whom [Trump] had communicated regarding any aspect of the January 6, 2021 'Stop the Steal' rally, including but not limited to planning the event, your January 6 2021 speech at the event, and discussions about the event after the fact."

The strategy signals what could become a "protracted legal battle," according to The Telegraph — noting that the trial date has been set for February 2027, leaving open months of legal wrangling and accusations.

Critics pounced on President Donald Trump Saturday after video emerged that appeared to show less-than-anticipated crowd sizes at the Great American State Fair.

Organized by the Trump-linked group Freedom 250, the Great American State Fair officially got underway on Thursday, but had already stumbled weeks earlier when performers pulled out en masse after learning of its ties to Trump. In the wake of the mass exodus of artists, Trump floated himself as a suitable replacement.

As of Saturday, the fair was described by The Atlantic’s Kelsey Ables as an event with “holograms, free Frosties and a lot of Donald Trump,” but its crowd sizes drew even more attention from countless political commentators.

“I've seen more people at my local diner,” noted information technology expert Carl Sizelove, who runs the popular political commentary account “Badd Company” on X, in response to video of the fair that showed a sparsely populated National Mall.

MeidasTouch reporter Aaron Parnas compared the fair to the infamous Fyre Festival, a 2017 music event that ended up as “the world’s biggest festival flop” and landed its creator behind bars. Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) took the small crowds as a sign that “people aren’t very MAGA after all.”

And Kyle Kulinski, a prominent progressive political commentator and podcast host, argued that the fair’s crowd sizes represented the United States’ deterioration under Trump.

“We had a good run but clearly we didn't make it to 250,” Kulinski wrote Saturday in a social media post on X to his nearly 560,000 followers.

Donald Trump's increasing unpopularity with conservative voters who are dissatisfied with his second term was given voice in interviews with Reuters, who appear to be ready to take out their frustrations on Republicans on the ballot in November.

The disaffection stems from a toxic combination of failures: the controversial Iran war agreement, punishing tariffs that have gutted small businesses, and a litany of broken campaign promises.

The Iran deal has proven particularly damaging. Trump's interim agreement to end the war with Iran—which reopened the Strait of Hormuz, lifted U.S. oil sanctions on Iran, and authorized a $300 billion reconstruction fund—has dragged his approval to historic lows.

Juan Rivera, 26, a Trump voter who recently canvassed Latino voters near San Diego, captured the sentiment bluntly, telling Reuters: "He criticized his predecessors about negotiating with terrorists, and he's basically done the same exact thing."

Rivera's frustration extended beyond hypocrisy. He recalled that conservatives are so "demoralized" by the president's handling of the war that they've lost all motivation to support Republican candidates in the midterms.

"A lot of people say: 'Why should I vote when the president's not doing what he promised?'" Rivera claimed.

Steve Egan, 65, a Tampa businessman, said he "soured on Trump" in 2025 when tariff-triggered price hikes devastated his business. The Iran deal only deepened his alienation. Egan now views the war as a "strategic failure" that accomplished nothing beyond jacking up gas prices.

"Right now it doesn't seem like it's been worth it to go through all that," Egan said, noting that the stated goal of regime change "didn't happen." His contempt for the president has reached such depths that Trump's endorsement would be "the kiss of death" for any candidate seeking his vote.

Robert Billups, 35, of Washington state, represents another crucial shift: the defection of swing voters. While cautiously optimistic the Iran peace deal might hold, he believes the war has spawned more hostility toward the United States than it prevented.

Vice President JD Vance, who led negotiations with Iran, has fallen sharply in Billups's estimation, who admitted he was wavering when it comes to the 2028 presidential election.

"Whoever has a better strategy this time, I'm gonna vote for them regardless of their party," he warned.

As the number of Americans arrested for touching the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool continues to grow, the Trump administration appears to have enacted new security measures to discourage loitering, video of which circulated online and left onlookers floored.

Freelance journalist Amanda Moore published video of the Reflecting Pool that appears to show a "surveillance machine,” as Moore described it, relaying an audible message to those passing by the water’s edge.

“Loitering is not permitted in this area. Please proceed to a designated location. Thank you for your cooperation,” a voice could be heard in the video being broadcast.

The reactions were swift. John Ganz, an author and writer, called the scene at the Reflecting Pool a “dystopian satire.” MeidasTouch Editor-in-Chief Ron Filipkowski said the video appeared “Orwellian,” and tennis legend Martina Navratilova argued the scene perfectly encapsulated President Donald Trump’s tenure in the White House.

“Everything Trump touches, dies,” Navratilova wrote Saturday in a social media post on X to her nearly 500,000 followers. “This reflecting pool makes it quite clear. Even with all the algae [that’s in] it.”

A number of other critics commented on the absurdity of “loitering” being prohibited at the Reflecting Pool.

“They turned the Lincoln Memorial into a Lowe's parking lot,” wrote journalist Goad Gatsby.

“No reflection permitted at the reflecting pool,” wrote Adam Klasfeld, editor-in-chief of All Rise News.

After watching a montage of clips of Donald Trump dismissing American consumers’ economic woes, an MSNBC regular noted the president’s physical decline with a new observation.

Speaking with host Jacob Soboroff, attorney George Conway claimed, “I hear a longstandingly mentally ill man, a narcissistic sociopath who is cognitively declining in his elder years, becoming increasingly disinhibited.”

Continuing in that vein he added, “He is somebody who basically doesn't care about anything because, you know, he's obviously physically unwell. We don't know whether he was the person who got that Eli Lilly drug through the compassionate use exemption, and we don't know exactly what his health is — he's drooping on one side.”

“Did he have a left hemisphere CVA?” Conway asked while gesturing at his own face and mistakenly calling it a "CB."

“We don't know any of that, because they obviously would lie to us about any of it,” he added. “He just knows that he doesn't need to answer to anybody anymore, and that's why he's seeking to — he’s just basically doing whatever he wants.”

- YouTubeyoutu.be

Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York ripped into Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Friday night for saying that Republican control of Congress is the only thing keeping President Donald Trump from being held to account for his numerous scandals and abuses of power during his second term in the White House.

Asked about comments made by the Speaker earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez told MS-NOW’s Jen Psaki that Johnson characterized future efforts to investigate for possible misdeeds or corruption by Trump, his family members, or members of his administration “as though it’s some partisan witch hunt,” she said. “But if you don’t want to be prosecuted for crimes, don’t do crimes.”

Ocasio-Cortez, often referred to by her initials AOC, had been asked about remarks Speaker Johnson made at the annual summit of the right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group with close ties to Trump and the Christian nationalist movement that supports him.

“If we lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats—y’all, impeachment isn’t even the real concern,” Johnson told the crowd. “They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted.”

The House speaker added, “I run the protection program. We’ll take care of you, OK?”

Johnson’s remarks unsurprisingly sparked a series of critical reactions, including AOC’s.

“Mike Johnson saying the quiet part out loud: protect the powerful. Screw everyone else,” said Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Pa.).

“The Speaker of the House just talked like a guy guarding an operation that can’t survive daylight,” said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). “Because that’s exactly what he’s doing.”

“You don’t need a ‘protection program’ for people who did nothing wrong,” Levin continued. “You need one when you’re afraid of what the books would show. Congress is supposed to be a check on power, not the muscle protecting it. Johnson is a total disgrace to the office. November can’t come fast enough.”

What Johnson is “talking about,” explained AOC in her interview with Psaki, is a Republican Party in Congress “running a protection racket” for Trump and his cronies, both in and out of government.

“And we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called one of the largest pedophile protection programs in American history,” she continued, referencing the scandal surrounding the disgraced convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

“And so when Mike Johnson tells a group of wealthy donors, I’m the only thing standing between you and a consequence, that should rattle at the conscience of every American,” she said. “What he wants to do is create—or rather, not even create, because it’s already been created—but protect a class of impunity in America that says, ‘You can commit whatever crime, and so long as you pay a check to us, we will protect you.’ And that is a model of extortion in American politics. And you know what? That’s their pitch.”

Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, responded to Johnson’s comments by detailing just a few examples of possible corruption by Trump that deserve much more scrutiny and congressional oversight.

“Trump has almost tripled his net worth during this term. His sons bought drone companies and immediately received military contracts right before Trump started another war. Trump threw a crypto contest to see who could buy the most of his meme coin, with the prize being exclusive access to him in his presidential capacity,” D-Arrigo noted.

“His son-in-law is getting billions in business deals from the countries and oligarchs wanting political favors. Large donors are spending millions to get pardons and investigations dropped. Trump is still actively covering up the Epstein files,” she added. “And these are just a handful of the things that were publicly reported on—imagine what we don’t know about yet.”

D’Arrigo called on voters to help “flip the House” away from the Republicans and investigate these examples of grift and corruption as well as others.

Vice President JD Vance struggled to answer pointed questions about the Trump administration's tentative peace deal with Iran during a tense appearance Friday on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher,” particularly when asked about the supposed destruction of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Mediaite reported Saturday.

Maher pressed Vance on what the administration had actually achieved, noting that a central demand going into negotiations was sending inspectors into Iranian facilities, something that has yet to happen.

"We've got to get in there and we've got to get the dust," Maher said, referring to past comments from President Donald Trump. "And we didn't get in, so how do we get the dust?"

Vance attempted to draw a distinction between Iran's ability to enrich uranium – which he claimed had been destroyed – and its existing stockpile of highly enriched material, which he acknowledged the United States has not secured.

"If we never get it... it's buried deep underground and they don't have the ability to turn it into a nuclear weapon," Vance said. "So the program is functionally destroyed."

Maher continued pressing.

"How do we know that?" he shot back.

“Well, because you need functioning centrifuges that can actually spin,” Vance responded.

Maher pressed him again.

“But what was all the talk about, we’ve got to get in there and we’ve gotta get the dust?” Maher said. “We didn’t get in, so how do we get the dust?”

Vance repeated his previous assertion that Iran’s supply of highly enriched material was inaccessible, an answer that didn’t appear to satisfy Maher, who promptly shifted to another topic.

President Trump's carefully constructed vision for transforming the nation's capital is literally falling apart.

The Great American State Fair, meant to showcase his grandiose architectural ambitions, has spiraled into a three-day disaster of musical acts boycotting, equipment failures, tiny crowds and now a deteriorating replica arch buckling under less-than-ideal weather conditions.

According to New York Times reporting, the centerpiece of Trump's fair—a scaled-down version of his proposed 250-foot "Triumphal Arch"—is already showing signs of structural failure. The vinyl covering, stapled over a wood frame and emblazoned with "One Nation Under God," had begun "buckling" under the combined assault of high temperatures, humidity, and rain.

The arch represents Trump's broader vision for the nation's capital: a planned White House ballroom, renovated golf courses, and the repainting and sealing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool – all of which have come under scrutiny and criticism.

Three days into a 16-day event, Trump's showcase for his ambitions is becoming another debacle, with sparse attendance under a sweltering sun, power failures disabling the Ferris wheel for hours, and a cancelled concert by headliner Vanilla Ice with days still to run.

Trump's opening performance set the tone. As the Times noted, "Trump gave a short campaign-style welcome speech on Wednesday before a thin crowd, asserting that in his second term he had brought back a country that was 'dead' under his predecessor."

Nearly one year after the passage of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), close to 5 million fewer Americans received federal food assistance in March when compared with the previous year, leaving an untold number of people scrambling, The Hill reported Saturday.

Sheila Boyd, an 81-year-old New York resident, was among those who did not get booted off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) but did have her benefits significantly reduced under the OBBBA’s stricter work requirements and fewer exceptions. She previously received $298 a month, she told Nexstar’s WPIX, but abruptly had her benefits slashed to $24 a month.

“I can’t buy nutritious food. Who lives on $24 a month?” Boyd told Nexstar’s WPIX. “I need more money to eat.”

Boyd said that she often skips meals and largely relies on donations to eat. She added that she had lost weight since her federal food assistance was gutted.

“I weigh 102 pounds. I’m trying to sell things… like jewelry. My whole lifestyle is different now,” Boyd said. “I spend most of my day trying to find a way to get money to sell things. You know you work hard all your life… it’s a slap in the face. I think it’s unforgivable.”

Tax cut extensions enjoyed primarily by the wealthy were the chief achievement of the OBBBA, funded largely by significant cuts to social safety net programs like SNAP and Medicaid. The cuts are projected to boot as many as 22.3 million Americans off of SNAP over a decade, and “at least” 10.5 million off of Medicaid by 2034.

Billionaire Leon Black, the former CEO of Apollo and associate of Jeffrey Epstein, was fiercely condemned Friday after fleeing an interview with members of the House Oversight Committee.

“Leon Black had a chance to do the right thing and help us bring justice to the survivors. Instead, he ran out of the room when he was pressed for information about his non-disclosure agreements with women and his relationship with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member of the committee, in a statement released Friday.

“He has now been subpoenaed and must provide real answers to the Committee. He will be held accountable if he doesn’t comply with our investigation.”

Black was long a client of Epstein’s, paying him around $170 million for what he claimed to be financial services and advice. Black has been accused of sexual abuse by several women, but has denied any wrongdoing. Black has also been close friends with President Donald Trump for decades.

Leaked emails from imprisoned Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell suggested she may have weighed offering Congress new information about Black in a bid for clemency, a theory floated by famed reporter Julie K. Brown, the journalist whose reporting led to Epstein's 2019 arrest.

Justice Department files released by the Trump administration as part of its publication of Epstein documents found that a woman told the FBI that Black had become “sexual” with her during a massage, and another told the FBI in 2020 that Black had raped her years earlier. During his interview Friday, Black addressed the aforementioned accusations directly, calling them “demonstrably false.”

Appearing to go off-script at a conservative gathering on Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) suggested that he is the last thing saving Donald Trump, and just as importantly, his supporters, from new investigations because he will run interference for them.

Speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual summit, Johnson warned supporters that if Democrats take control of the House, they would "turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body" and target "Trump, his family, his Cabinet, his donors, and his allies."

He then admitted "I run the protection program. I'll take care of you."

The phrase "protection program" caught the ear of MSNOW's Steve Benen, who noted that after Trump returned to the White House, "the GOP-led Congress continued to show very little interest in legislating, but this time, lawmakers also abandoned their oversight responsibilities to an almost cartoonish degree, pretending not to notice any of the incumbent president's many abuses and scandals."

According to the analyst, with the bill for compliance coming due, Johnson was serving notice that the GOP would go into bunker mode if the House was lost to Democrats.

"It was nevertheless remarkable to hear a sitting House speaker declare, out loud and in public, that he wants and expects to run a 'protection program' — a phrase more commonly associated with organized crime — on behalf of the White House."

WASHINGTON — Capitalist or (democratic) socialist? That’s the question starting to drive a wedge between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party.

Democratic Party leaders say there’s nothing to see here, even after the three progressives New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed won their primaries earlier this week, which has the party’s leftward flank all but dancing in the streets.

“What we are seeing is a shift into a new era of American governance that for the first time is starting to not be governed by that baby boomer generation,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told congressional reporters Thursday. “I do think that we're starting to see a new time.”

On the other side of the political coin, Republican pundits and members of Congress alike are now giddy going into the midterms as they prepare to paint the entire Democratic Party as far-left whackos.

“It’s indicative of where the Democrats are going,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) told Raw Story. “Their party's more radical.”

The pledge dividing Democrats

Democratic leaders are trying to downplay their party’s differences, but it’s undeniable that there’s a debate raging amongst Democrats over whether (democratic) socialism is the proper response to two terms of President Donald Trump and the broader MAGA movement.

Even before this week’s New York City primary returns, moderate Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Adam Gray (D-CA) signed onto a new Promise to America pledge that declares: “we are capitalist, not socialist.”

The pledge itself is dividing Democrats.

“I don't even know what that is. I think it's a made-up thing,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) told Raw Story. “I honestly have heard zero about this. I have heard zero about it. I do not take it as a serious anything.”

Pocan, a chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, dismisses this latest effort by moderate Democrats.

“If someone is actually coming up with an idea like that, they have so much extra time that they need to either learn how to knit or something else constructive,” Pocan said.

The idea’s real, alright. At last check, there are now 15 signatories to that Promise to America pledge.

Screengrab of Promise to America pledge

Ten signatories are current Democratic members of the House, while the others are candidates running in battleground districts in Arizona, Colorado, Texas and two in North Carolina.

Democratic Party leaders may not want to admit the growing divide in their ranks, but they’re also doing all they can to avoid the “socialist” labels being lobbed from the right.

“I'm a capitalist,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, told Raw Story at the Capitol.

“So you're not worried about these wins in New York?” Raw Story pressed.

“I'm not,” Aguilar said before he explained Democrats’ strategy to regain control of the House by capturing 218 seats nationwide this fall. “Look, our path to 218 didn't have anything to do with, like, those races, so our ability to get the majority is, you know, the same today as it was before New York and so we just got to go win. My assumption is they're going to be members who support the Democratic agenda here.”

“Socialists sliding right into communists”

Because the three progressives won primaries in solidly blue districts, this week’s New York returns aren’t changing Democratic leaders’ math ahead of November, but it’s a different story on the other side of the aisle.

“A wake-up call. We're at the precipice of a movement that has never worked in the history of this country or the world,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told Raw Story. “People need to realize votes have consequences. They're going to destroy New York as California's been destroyed.”

While Democratic leaders deny a far-left shift for the party, Republicans argue that having more progressives in Congress will surely impact the party’s agenda should they win this fall.

“Socialists sliding right into communists, depending on your political worldview,” Donalds said. “People are saying how this town doesn't work. Well, with people like that coming here, it's going to work even less.”

Donalds is running for Florida governor, but he’s still been following the redistricting battles nationwide and says the GOP is well situated going into this fall’s midterms.

“I'm feeling good about November,” Donalds said.

“Why?” Raw Story asked.

“Well, I mean, are Democrats motivated? Yeah, they are,” Donalds said. “But I also think that, you know, for Republican voters, you know, we largely accomplished a good chunk of what the president set out to do when he ran two years ago.”

Like most card-carrying Republicans, Donalds is banking on his party being buoyed at the polls by Trump’s migration crackdown and economic growth. But he’s smiling.

“I think voters want to have common sense in their government,” Donalds said. “We'll be fine.”

More moderate Republicans who are perennial targets of Democrats aren’t so bullish, though.

“Your thoughts on the Democratic Socialists who won up in New York?” Raw Story asked. “Does that help you and other more moderate Republicans out?”

“That's between the voters and the candidates. I mean, they made their choice,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) told Raw Story. “Certainly not an ideology I subscribe to, that's for sure, but I respect the democratic process and that's who was selected.”

“We're starting to see a new time”

With seven incumbents having now been ousted by primary voters on both sides of the aisle, this year’s midterms are “already above the postwar historical average” for incumbent losses, according to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Sensing voter anger with the Washington establishment, a record-breaking 76 incumbents are leaving Congress at the end of the year.

In more than 20 states and a handful of U.S. territories, primary voters have yet to weigh in this cycle, but change is surely in the air coast to coast.

“I do think that we're starting to see a new time,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on the Capitol steps. “It's normal to see these developments happen. I think this is part of that process. And again, I think this is about ideas.”

To Ocasio-Cortez and her progressive “Squad,” this electoral upheaval is long overdue.

“This is about fighting for not just any change, but actual substantive change that people are going to feel in their lives,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And so I think what people want to see is, you know, while there may be personalities, I think what they want to see is policy.”

The laundry list of demands from progressive voters is long, which is why AOC says the Democratic Party can’t take the energy and enthusiasm from their party’s far-left base for granted.

“Are we fighting to guarantee health care for every American? Are we trying to raise wages? Are we tackling corporations that are, you know, price gouging us, building out AI data centers and poisoning people's water wells? Are they going to see us actually take these people on?” Ocasio-Cortez asked. “Or are they going to see us take their money and look the other way?”

To Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow progressives, no matter the label, their mandate is clear.

“What we are seeing is people want us to take a vigorous approach in taking on big money,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Mary L. Trump, the niece of President Donald Trump and daughter of Mr. Trump’s late brother, Fred Trump Jr., revealed this week what she argued had shaped her uncle into “a destroyed human being.”

Trump’s father, Fred Trump, a successful real estate developer, gave his son and current U.S. president “at least $413 million in today’s dollars,” and “much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s,” The New York Times reported in 2018. That enormous sum of money, Mary Trump told former MSNBC host Joy Reid in an interview published this week, played an outsized role in shaping “the controversial president’s upbringing and future outlook,” The Mirror reported Saturday.

“I think the greatest indictment of my grandparents is that they had five children, and in very different ways, every single one of them was a destroyed human being,” Mary Trump told Reid, according to The Mirror. “Now, my grandmother is a separate issue, but my grandfather was the one with all of the power in the family. He was a sociopath. So that's a real big disadvantage to start your life at.”

Mary Trump also argued that Fred Trump's apparent favoritism toward Donald Trump over his siblings only deepened what she characterized as the president's obsession with money.

“And the only thing literally that he...that mattered to him was money. And he taught his other children that lesson, too,” Mary Trump said.

“Thankfully, my dad wasn't like that, but Donald certainly was. And he turned my entire family into a zero-sum game. There could only be one person. And my grandfather, for reasons that I still don't completely understand, picked Donald. And over the course of my grandfather's life, he threw $410 million at Donald, all of which he squandered."