With the primaries over, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand said Thursday his general election approach will remain focused on bipartisanship and finding “reasonable” solutions for Iowans as he faces off against businessman Zach Lahn in November.

Sand spoke at the Iowa Association of Business and Industry conference in Coralville. The nonpartisan gubernatorial candidate forum, which took place two days after the June 2 primary, had also issued an invitation to the GOP gubernatorial nominee to speak before the winner of the nomination was known. ABI staff said they had reached out individually to Zach Lahn after his Tuesday victory in the Iowa GOP gubernatorial primary and asked him to speak the Thursday event, but the Republican was not able to attend because of the short turnaround.

Sand told the crowd many of Iowa’s challenges in economic growth and healthcare stem from Republicans holding a trifecta in Iowa for more than 10 years — but said he did not believe this was a “partisan problem.”

“I like to tell people, ‘If you think that the answer to that is to give the other party 10 years of one-party control, I invite you to please visit California, visit New York,'” Sand said. “The other party having all the power isn’t the answer, because it leads you to the same problem. … Part of how we have gotten to this position is because we have had too few people in, with too much power, for too long. They have fallen into temptation, looking out for themselves and their friends. This is not good for Iowa, it is not good for our business environment, it is not good for recruiting and retaining talented people in the state of Iowa.”

Sand said what he offers as a gubernatorial candidate is not Democratic control, but a mandate for Democrats and Republicans to work together.

“If I win this race, I’m going to be working with the Republican Legislature, right?” Sand said. “If that is news to you, good morning. You slept in. It’s 2026. There is a super majority of Republicans in the Iowa House by one seat, there is not a supermajority in the Iowa Senate, also by one seat. That means everything that we do is going to be supported by people in both parties. I think that that is what most people actually want. They will not be able to just do whatever they want, they’re gonna have to come talk to me and explain it in a way that gets somebody like me to say, ‘yeah, seems reasonable.’ Which means that when a budget gets passed, everybody in this room is probably going to be able to say, ‘yeah, seems reasonable.'”

There was not a contested primary race for the Democratic nomination — and Sand, who currently serves as the state auditor, has led in fundraising so far in 2026 compared to the Republican field. Though the Iowa governor’s seat has been held by a Republican for more than a decade, political forecasters rate the seat as a “toss-up” heading into the midterms, both because the seat is open as Gov. Kim Reynolds is not seeking reelection and because election watchers believe Sand is a candidate who could gather bipartisan appeal.

Republican leaders have said Sand is falsely claiming he is a moderate on his gubernatorial campaign trail. After the gubernatorial primary, Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann called for Republicans to rally behind Lahn as the candidate who will “work to keep Iowa the best place to live, work, and raise a family.”

“Now it is time to unite behind our nominee and stop Democrat Rob Sand who would take our state down the same failed path as Illinois, Minnesota, and California with higher taxes, bigger government, and less freedom,” Kaufmann said in a statement. “Iowa’s future is on the ballot, and Republicans must stand together to keep our state moving in the right direction.”

Though Sand shared policy positions and stances that he said differed from many Democrats, he also spoke in opposition to several measures instituted by Republicans in the past 10 years, like Medicaid privatization. As he spoke before the group of Iowa business owners and leaders, he fielded questions from members of the audience who were in support of actions taken to lower taxes in the state.

Sand fields tax question

David Bywater, with the Economy Advertising Company in Iowa City, said “Iowa’s gone from one of the highest tax states in which to do business to a more competitive state, allowing Iowa employers to reinvest in their operations and their people, and to provide individuals with more take-home pay” under recent state tax law changes, and asked Sand to share his views on the state’s tax climate and potential changes.

Sand responded, “I think that some of the tax reforms that we have done in Iowa over the last few years have been necessary.” However, he also said he wants “to know where I am before I decide what direction I am going,” in appraising the impacts recent tax cuts — and said he was concerned about the state’s ongoing budget deficit, which he said was a “fiscal time bomb.”

“There’s a principle that I have spoken about — and that all of my predecessors as state auditor have spoken about — which is you do not use one-time money for ongoing expenses,” Sand said. “And yet, that’s what we have been doing, and we have been doing it year after year after year. I think that that is a problem, and anyone who wants to tell you that that isn’t a problem, they’re either trying to deceive you or they themselves aren’t tuned in to what this looks like in the long term. This surplus is there because both of the last two presidents have showered money on every state, and now different states have used it different ways. Iowa decided to stockpile it, and they’re using that stockpile to pay and cover those deficits. I am not telling you that that is the wrong thing to do. I am telling you that will end.”

Sand said his top priority is figuring out how to address the ongoing budget deficit “right before the bomb explodes,” which he said could be done by finding new sources of revenue for the state. He pointed to his proposal to legalize and tax recreational cannabis products as one way the state could generate funding.

While Lahn did not appear at the ABI event, Sand told reporters he is prepared to face Lahn as the GOP nominee, and aims to continue on the campaign’s current path of speaking with Democrats, Republicans and independents at events across the state. He has announced campaign stops from June 17 through Sept. 30 as part of his 2026 100 Town Hall Tour, paired with a policy proposal to require elected officials hold public town halls to qualify for the ballot.

Sand said there are currently no debates or forums scheduled where he will face off against Lahn.

With California continuing to count the results in major races, Republicans continue to cling to second place in the gubernatorial primary and the mayor of Los Angeles, but the gap is narrowing as disproportionately Democratic late mail ballots continue to be processed, raising the possibility that Republicans could eventually slip to third and be locked out of one or both races.

The development has led to an explosion of conspiracy theories from MAGA activists on social media — but more strangely, reported Semafor's Max Tani, the prominent gambling platforms Kalshi and Polymarket appear to be sponsoring some of those conspiracy theory posts.

For instance, she noted, right-wing influencer account "Gunther Eagleman" posted "They're stealing it, aren't they?" in response to a Kalshi post flagging current third-place progressive Democrat Nithya Raman trading at 60 percent odds to overtake right-wing reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the Los Angeles mayoral race — and it was flagged as a "paid partnership" post with Kalshi.

In another instance, right-wing streamer Kangmin Lee quote-posted Polymarket odds trading for Raman at 71 percent, saying, "Notice how the mail-in ballots that come in last second always end up voting Democrat; Totally a coincidence, nothing to see here." This, too, was flagged on X as a "paid partnership" post.

According to Semafor, Polymarket did not respond to questions about the story; Kalshi's spokesperson said that “we’ve asked these to be taken down, as they violate our affiliate marketing policies.”

Kalshi and Polymarket style themselves as "prediction markets," where users can trade on the probability of real-world events as futures investments. Critics argue that this is essentially just a gambling market that bypasses the rules imposed by states that regulate online betting. The Trump administration sides with the market platforms and advocates for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to preempt all state gambling laws on these companies.

DISCLAIMER: The author of this article works for a gaming company.

An ex-MAGA insider named which top Trump aide is involved in coordinating media campaigns with right-wing influencers through group chats.

Ashley St. Clair said in an interview with California Gov. Gavin Newsom that deputy White House chief of staff James Blair is working with MAGA influencers on "incredibly coordinated and sophisticated" media campaigns.

Newsom explained, "There are folks on group chats consistently trying to help weaponize grievance" through media campaigns, and "they've got the president's right-hand person, potentially, James Blair."

St. Clair corrected the Democratic governor, saying, "No 'potentially.' James Blair is in these group chats. Members of the administration are in these group chats."

She explained that Blair communicates with MAGA influencers on group chats, over phone calls, and via the Signal app. She added that the group chats have given MAGA influencers access not just to the current administration but to Trump's 2024 campaign.

"They operate through group chats and have for many years," St. Clair said. "They coordinate these messaging campaigns on what they're going to respond to, how they're going to respond to it, or not respond to it."

She said the coordinated messaging mostly goes out via X, an app owned by Elon Musk, her ex-boyfriend and the father of her child.

Newsom worried that it gives Musk the power to use algorithms for "dialing up rage, to determining what we see, what we hear, how we think, who we vote for. That seems disproportionate," he said.

"The power of James Blair to connect and coordinate with all these influencers, to have the daily messages, you see it weaponized," Newsom said. "We're not overstating this."

"You're not being hyperbolic," St. Clair agreed. "They have the power to influence what you think, who you think about, but they also have the data on what's going to be the most useful and the best way to exploit it."

Idaho health officials are investigating how nearly 60 people got sick after drinking raw milk in the past two weeks.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare announced in a news release on Wednesday that most of the people reported being sick after drinking raw milk from two different milking operations in North Idaho and southern Idaho. The infections were reported starting May 19.

The state health agency didn’t disclose the names of the dairies, but said they are collaborating with health officials “to identify and fix any potential sources of contamination.”

In a statement, Department of Health and Welfare spokesperson AJ McWhorter said the agency didn’t name the milking operations “because this is a potential risk for any raw milk producer.”

“The milking operations are working with public health officials to figure out which patches of milk might be affected and to take steps to remedy the situation,” McWhorter said.

Raw milk isn’t pasteurized, a process that involves heating the milk to kill bacteria — like Campylobacter, E. coli, Listeria and Salmonella — that can be present in raw milk.

So far, 45 of the people who got sick tested positive for campylobacteriosis, a bacterial infection. But officials say not everyone who got sick has been tested, and that more illnesses could be found.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare says its public health division is working with local health officials across six of Idaho’s seven regional public health districts to investigate the source of the outbreaks, including Central District Health, Southwest District Health, Eastern Idaho Public Health, Southeastern Idaho Public Health, Panhandle District Health, and South Central Public Health. Officials are investigating to find batches that are potentially concerning and test milk samples.

What are the symptoms of infections linked to raw milk?

Symptoms of infections from bacteria that can be in raw milk include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever and dehydration. Complications can be severe, especially in people at higher risk such as young children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.

Health officials encourage people who are feeling symptoms after recently drinking raw milk to seek medical care promptly. To report an illness or get more information, officials encourage people to contact their local public health district.

A new White House webpage starts like a horror movie trailer, according to New York Times columnist M. Gessen — glowing green letters against a dark backdrop, the words "aliens" and "declassified," and the promise of a 60-year government secret about to be revealed.

Then comes the twist, Gessen wrote: the "aliens" aren't extraterrestrial. They're immigrants — "the kind hunted by ICE."

The page announces that "aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods," shopping in the same stores and attending the same classes as American children. "That's the joke," Gessen wrote. "Human beings are described as nonhuman invaders. Fascism, but make it a troll."

Gessen wrote that the page, which invites users to look up immigrants supposedly arrested on criminal charges in American cities and towns, belongs to "a subgenre of Trumpian gestures that are menacing and sophomoric at the same time." Ernesto Verdeja, a genocide-prevention expert at the University of Notre Dame, described it to the columnist as "grotesque and terrifying and juvenile."

With phrases like "They do not belong here" and "Deport them all," Gessen wrote, the page struck the columnist as "an incitement for Americans to commit acts of violence against immigrants."

Benjamin Valentino, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, offered a different read, that the purpose is to get Americans to do nothing.

"They want a majority of the population to turn their backs," Valentino told Gessen. "That's all that's necessary."

Valentino co-founded the Early Warning Project, which assesses the risk of mass atrocities worldwide. While anti-immigrant violence in the U.S. doesn't approach the scale of what he usually studies, Gessen wrote, Valentino said the kind of dehumanizing language the Trump administration uses is "a pretty standard indicator" of risk — a necessary if insufficient condition of mass violence against a group.

"It's not that it turns normal people into murderers," Valentino said. "It's that it turns them into bystanders."

According to Gessen, the page appeared as resistance to ICE operations was gaining momentum — in the courts and in the streets, from protests over conditions at Newark's Delaney Hall detention facility to a New York coalition that has trained thousands of volunteers to peacefully resist ICE. Valentino believes the webpage is intended to discourage exactly that kind of activity.

Gessen wrote that the gestures are hard to write about because the ugliness is undisguised. "And yet," the columnist wrote, "these statements, step by preposterous step, change the world we live in."

A CNN reporter pointed out that President Donald Trump seemed displeased ahead of his event Friday night in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Jeff Zeleny, CNN's chief national affairs correspondent, was traveling with the president and other reporters and commented that Trump was not too thrilled as he headed to the Midwest battleground state to discuss his economic agenda among struggling farmers and the agriculture community.

Trump was slated to speak at a roundtable at 4 p.m. ET, but was late to take the stage, Zeleny explained.

"There is no doubt the president is a bit delayed here," Zeleny said. "He's been doing an interview, we're told, with NBC News on "Meet the Press." He came out and delivered some familiar criticism of the press. We will see what else he says during this. He does not seem to be in a very good mood, but at this point, we should point out so much criticism is coming from Republicans about the qualifications of Bill Pulte."

Both Republicans and Democrats had expressed concern over Trump's naming of Pulte as the new acting head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Pulte, who does not have any known national security experience, was reportedly planning to execute sweeping personnel cuts across the nation's 18 federal intelligence agencies and units before a permanent successor is confirmed.

Jeremiah Schofield, a 25-year Social Security Administration veteran, disclosed that the Trump administration planned to classify 2.7 million living people — including U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, and teenagers — as dead using the agency's Death Master File.

The database, used by banks and government agencies to verify living status, would effectively erase targets from the financial system, cutting off access to wages, bank accounts, credit, housing, and insurance.

Schofield refused to implement the plan after agency lawyers warned it violated federal law and then filed a 49-page whistleblower disclosure with Senate committees.

After examining a sample of 25 people — all confirmed alive — Schofield learned from Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, official Jon Koval that the goal was forcing self-deportation or arrest when people sought help at Social Security offices.

The administration had already added 6,100 immigrants to the Death Master File.

When officials questioned the terminology, the agency simply renamed it to "ineligible."

Schofield remained silent for months due to retaliation fears before coming forward.

"I don't think that it's right that they do this to us," he said.

"I think that we need to stand up for each other in this time."

Watch the video below.

Right-wing influencer Nick Fuentes mocked his followers after they were interviewed for a CNN segment, the network reported on Friday.

CNN senior correspondent Donie O'Sullivan interviewed two men in Miami named Rich and John, who are Groypers — young, white men who are followers of white supremacist Fuentes.

"These men have come to see themselves in Nick Fuentes," O'Sullivan said. "His cancellation across social media platforms for his spreading of hate they view as part of a broader attack on men like them."

John, a 25-year-old Groyper, described what drew him to Fuentes.

"And you look at his audience, they feel like they can relate to him because they're young men," John told O'Sullivan. "A lot of them can't get girlfriends. A lot of them are struggling financially. They're not going to have the life their parents had. Their grandparents had."

But after the interview, things changed.

"Soon after I left Miami pictures, John posted of our interview on social media, got Fuentes' attention and he wasn't happy. His followers had spoken to CNN," O'Sullivan said.

Fuentes talked about it.

"How about that CNN thing? Oh my gosh, these like two absolute chuds who look at us. 'We're in our Nick Fuentes t-shirt and hat,'" Fuentes said about his followers featured in the interview.

Then Rich and John started getting attacked online.

"In online audio chats, Groypers began to turn on Rich and John," O'Sullivan said.

And John tried to defend his "Groypers honor" in a 30-minute social media interview.

"I consider myself a Groyper, and I know everyone's saying I'm not a Groyper and giving me death threats and telling me to kill myself and that they're going to rape me. And that's fine. I don't really care," John said.

A CNN anchor was shocked by a senator's description of the lewd antics of an embattled candidate.

"Glad my children aren't old enough to watch this show," CNN host Kasie Hunt said as Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) described his understanding of the scandal surrounding Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner.

Platner is in hot water ahead of the Maine primaries as bombshell reporting by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times revealed allegations of him sending sexually explicit texts while married and acting aggressively in previous relationships.

Fetterman didn't censor himself as he accused Platner of sending "d— pics," even though Hunt was quick to clarify that recent reports about Platner's sexting scandal only mention sexually explicit texts, not nude images.

Hunt repeated the words "d— pics" when making it clear that Fetterman assumed Platner sent those kinds of messages. But the follow-up question triggered a cascade of even more raunchy remarks from Fetterman.

"A guy that he talked about and described, d—, he's already done that in his writings," Fetterman said, trying to explain his assumption. "When he would used to sit in the port-a-potties, you know, he would say that he would want to m— to them."

A tense confrontation outside Newark's Delaney Hall immigration detention facility escalated Friday when a red sedan slowly drove into a line of protesters blocking a facility exit, pushing them backward until someone hurled an object that left two large shatter marks in the vehicle's front windshield.

Video shared on X by @Patrick_Nealis showed the car sitting for several minutes as protesters blocked the exit, then creeping forward, making contact with demonstrators and forcing them back. As the car advanced, protesters could be heard shouting, "That's blood money! You will reap what you sow!" Protesters appeared to presume the driver was a facility employee, though that has not been confirmed.

The confrontation took an uglier turn as the car pressed forward. "You're f—ing Spanish!" demonstrators screamed at the driver. "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Friday's incident is the latest in a weeks-long standoff at Delaney Hall, a privately run facility with 1,000 beds operated by GEO Group under a $1 billion ICE contract. Protests erupted on May 22 after roughly 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike over alleged inhumane conditions — claims federal officials deny.

The demonstrations have grown increasingly volatile. ICE agents have fired pepper balls and tear gas at crowds, and state police moved in after Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill declared the situation "completely unacceptable." The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented at least 42 assaults on journalists covering the protests. Just Wednesday night, two more protesters were arrested after blocking vehicles at the facility entrance.

New Jersey filed suit against GEO Group, demanding that state health inspectors be granted access to the facility, with Newark threatening to expand its own separate lawsuit to push for closure.

President Donald Trump's Justice Department made a claim in court this week that left CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams stupefied.

During a hearing about the validity of the White House ballroom project, DOJ lawyers explained that the work had been done so quickly that there was nothing courts could have done to reverse it — and when the judge asked if, by that logic, it would be legal for the Trump administration to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty if they did it too quickly for there to be a legal challenge, they agreed.

None of that is how the law actually works, said Williams.

"That's ludicrous," Williams told anchor Kasie Hunt. "I don't know what the question was, but I will tell you the answer is that is ludicrous. That is incorrect."

The idea of there being a White House ballroom isn't inherently a bad one, Williams said, and there could be a good case made for it. But, he continued, "the courts have the power to enjoin actions by Congress and the president. That's how our courts have worked from the beginning."

To claim that a president can exercise "unilateral authority" with no oversight from courts if they just do it in a certain way, he said, is "just incorrect."

"I'm not stating an opinion here," added Williams, who has been a frequent critic of the Trump administration's legal strategies. "This is not a feeling or a vibe that is simply how the separation of powers work in the country. That is incorrect."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

One of the most decorated preparatory schools in the nation, which has seen future Hollywood stars, professional athletes, and notable politicians walk through its doors, was rocked this week by new allegations that it allowed a star student to create a climate of intimidation.

And he has not been the only one.

Harvard-Westlake School, a $50,000-per-year private institution in Studio City, California, has become the center of litigation involving star water polo player Lucca van der Woude, who has been accused of sexual assault and racial harassment by teammate Aidan Romain, who is Black.

According to Vanity Fair reporting by Deanna Kizis, the updated lawsuit alleges that between August 2022 and February 2024, Romain was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Van der Woude during practices and on campus. The suit also alleges that Romain and other minority students faced racial harassment and discrimination, including being subjected to racial slurs.

A revised complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court Thursday escalates the allegations significantly. An unnamed witness told Romain's attorney, Daniel Watkins, that Van der Woude "had a history of making antisemitic remarks while interacting with peers online and in person" and that he "referred to a Jewish peer using antisemitic slurs and stated words to the effect of: 'You stupid Jew, die in the oven,'" Vanity Fair reported.

According to the witness, Van der Woude "frequently glorified sexual violence against women, made repeated comments referencing rape, regularly used racial slurs, and made offensive comments concerning slavery and racial domination." The lawsuit characterizes van der Woude as someone who "harbored and expressed racist, antisemitic, and white-nationalist beliefs during the period in which he sexually and physically abused Plaintiff and other students."

Romain's attorney explained the revised complaint's focus on ideology and violence. "White nationalism and sexual violence come from the same belief: that some people exist to be dominated by others. That is what makes these accounts so troubling," Watkins said.

In interviews, Black parents at Harvard-Westlake describe an institutional pattern of avoidance and inaction.

"It appears to me that they're just kind of treading water and hoping this moment will pass," one parent said. Another suggested deliberate evasion: "It's almost like the school is trying to shut down the questions and conversations before they even happen."

One parent described witnessing racism firsthand on school water polo teams. "Not everybody's experience at Harvard-Westlake is the same. The lack of support, the lack of action, of intervention, letting things get so far out of hand until kids are harmed and families are impacted. Well, that was exactly my experience."

Parents also cited the school's response to students wearing Make America Great Again (MAGA) hats following the 2024 presidential election as emblematic of the institution's approach to accountability.

"We called the administration at the school, and they basically said, 'Look, we don't like it. But there's nothing specifically in our rule book about political attire,'" one parent recounted.

His wife described escalating concerns about how the hats were perceived by Black students. "It was kind of a gloating victory lap thing that they were doing. I told the powers-that-be that MAGA hats read as a threat to some Black students. So, the question was, 'Well, are you going to change the rule?'"

While the hats eventually stopped appearing, parents remain unclear how the school accomplished this.

"I don't know how they got them to stop wearing them. There was no follow-up with us," one parent said.

Vanity Fair reported that the school's official response dismissed the allegations.

"Many of these outlandish claims bear little-to-no relation to the reality of life at Harvard-Westlake for our students or their families," a spokesperson said, characterizing the accounts as "a false and sensationalistic narrative" while reaffirming the school's "unyielding commitment to fostering an environment where all can feel safe and welcome."

According to the report, for Black families, the institution's reputation has suffered irreparable damage. One parent who withdrew their child in fall 2024 explained the sentiment bluntly. "The shine is off. I was talking to our education consultant, and she suggested a different school. I said, 'It's not a Harvard-Westlake.' And she was like, 'Listen, Harvard-Westlake isn't a Harvard-Westlake anymore.'"

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson dismissed the need for Ebola vaccines, arguing federal health agencies are orchestrating mass vaccination campaigns targeting Hantavirus and Ebola.

During a LindellTV interview with Cara Castronuova, Johnson claimed Ebola generally snuffs itself out and can be controlled through basic quarantine procedures, contradicting scientific evidence.

The FDA-approved Ebola vaccine Ervebo demonstrated 100% efficacy in clinical trials during the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak, which killed over 11,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.

Ebola case fatality rates range from 25% to 90%, according to the World Health Organization, or WHO.

Johnson warned that FIFA tourists could introduce Ebola to the United States, but simultaneously rejected vaccine preparedness.

The WHO declared an Ebola public health emergency on May 17, tied to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda outbreaks. The current Ebola strain lacks an approved vaccine, contradicting Johnson's dismissal of preparation measures.

The U.S., Mexico, and Canada implemented coordinated travel screening for World Cup visitors.

Watch the video below.

Vice President JD Vance hasn't announced if he plans to run for president in 2028, but Republican insiders have pointed to a recent "ultra sneaky" move that could reveal more about his decision.

Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, have been "cultivating their image as ultra-MAGA-friendly religious family folk," with Vance's upcoming book "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith" and with Usha's new children's story podcast, Radar reported.

By doing so, the vice president has tried to get closer to faith-based voters and "bolster his standing as an early Republican contender among Bible-thumpers ahead of the 2028 presidential election," insiders told Radar.

"Another party insider said the vice president's long-standing relationship with religious communities could be 'seriously strengthened' by the publication, particularly among Catholic voters looking for a candidate whose faith is central to his public identity," Radar reported.

President Donald Trump has received mixed responses among Catholics and Protestants in recent polling. And as a result, Vance has been looking for ways to step out of the president's shadow and prepare to reestablish his independence from the Trump administration, which could be tricky, Christopher Devine, a vice-presidential scholar at the University of Dayton, told Radar.

"A vice president, while angling for leadership in his own right, has to avoid challenging the leadership of the current president that they serve under; that is incredibly difficult," Devine said. "And to the extent we have a track record over the last 70 years from Nixon on, rarely has it gone well."

Senate Republicans backed off their plans to formally block President Donald Trump's "Anti-Weaponization" slush fund in the reconciliation package — and this infuriated former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who laid into them in his latest Substack.

The Trump administration, facing massive backlash from lawmakers and the public alike, agreed to kill the fund unilaterally, but with the Senate not acting, the fund could theoretically be restored at any time.

“I think what, what was talked about, and then ultimately done away with, is, in my view, it’s a settled issue,” Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told the press.

This isn't good enough for Schmidt.

"Then why not kill it? Why not prohibit it? Why not bury it once and for all? Why preserve the possibility that it might live again?" he wrote. The answer could only be because "the modern Republican Party no longer functions as an independent political institution. It functions as an extension of Donald Trump’s will."

The fund itself, wrote Schmidt, is a "masterpiece of Orwellian absurdity" that allows Trump to corruptly reward his allies under the guise of restitution for corrupt government action. Meanwhile, he continued, "The people who spent years insisting that government power had been abused now seek to preserve a mechanism that could one day be used to abuse more of it."

Ultimately, court cases might finish the fund off, Schmidt continued, but that doesn't resolve the issue: "Why were Republicans unwilling to permanently prohibit it? Why were they unwilling to draw a line? Why were they unwilling to say no? The answer is because saying no to Donald Trump has become the one unforgivable sin in American politics."

"The corruption is no longer hidden. The abuse is no longer denied. The mask has come off," he concluded furiously. And the biggest question is no longer how much power Trump will try to grab for himself, but "why so many Republicans remain unwilling to deny it to him."

Trump's "triumphal arch" will need to have red lights on top of it after a review of its design alarmed a federal agency, according to reporting by the New York Times.

The 259-foot-tall arch will be less than a mile from the Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., leading the Federal Aviation Administration to recommend red, blinking lights to be added on top, the Times reported.

The FAA identified the arch as an "obstruction," but noted it would have "no significant adverse effect on airspace" in a feasibility study released on Friday, ahead of a formal evaluation, according to the Times.

However, aviation experts are divided over whether the arch would complicate D.C.'s already congested airspace, especially after last year's collision between a commercial jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter that killed 67 people midair, according to the Times.

The Times' own analysis found that the top of the arch would "jut into an area that is supposed to ideally remain clear for flights."

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), one of the House GOP's most recently elected lawmakers, flew into a rage on social media over the fact that the mail ballot for the previous resident of his D.C. apartment was sent to him.

"Yesterday, I received an official mail ballot at my Washington apartment for a woman I’ve never heard of," wrote Fine on X, posting an image of the ballot with identifying information blocked out. "I’ve rented this place since I got elected OVER A YEAR AGO. All anyone would need to do is fill it out, sign it, and send it back."

"Democrats are stealing elections every day," he thundered, demanding that Congress pass President Donald Trump's SAVE America Act, a draconian package of new voting procedure restrictions.

But many observers on social media, including a prominent former elections official, immediately poked holes in Fine's claims, noting that a mistakenly-sent ballot is something routine that the law has built-in measures to address, not evidence of anything being "stolen."

"*Sigh* I realize my tiny account will never match the reach of @RepFine's, but this is straight-up false," wrote Pat Garofalo of the American Economic Liberties Project. "Unless the signature on the ballot matches the signature on record at the Board of Elections, the ballot is thrown out."

"'All anyone would need to do is fill it out and sign it' as if that would be legal," wrote Julian Andreone of Drop Site. "Nope! That would definitely be fraud!"

The most detailed analysis came from Stephen Richer, the former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona.

"Sure. You'd just need to: 1) Forge her signature (commit a felony). 2) Hope your forgery is sufficiently accurate 3) Hope that she (intended voter) doesn't call election office and ask about why she never got a ballot (in which case that mail ballot would be deactivated, and it would be investigated if returned) 4) Hope that she doesn't send back a replacement ballot or show up to vote in person (in which case the same as #3 would happen)," wrote Richer.

He added that if this were really such a widespread problem, "Where are the mass arrests? Trump has been in office for 18 months now. And there have been lots of ambitious Republican prosecutors and sheriffs in office for 6 years since the 2020 election ... What you have is, at best, evidence of a clerical error that yielded no harm."

FBI Director Kash Patel fired at least five intelligence analysts from the bureau's Richmond, Virginia, office Friday over a long-rescinded 2023 memo that became a years-long fixation for MAGA activists, three people familiar with the matter told MS NOW.

The memo, titled "Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities," argued that white supremacists were attempting to recruit a subset of so-called "radical traditionalist Catholics" and suggested Catholic congregations could present intelligence-gathering opportunities.

After it leaked in 2023, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray ordered it withdrawn and apologized for it in multiple congressional hearings. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland called it "appalling."

A 2024 Justice Department Inspector General review found no evidence of anti-Catholic bias or bad intent — but concluded the memo suffered from significant analytical problems and poor tradecraft.

Republicans and MAGA activists seized on it anyway, treating it as proof the FBI was targeting Catholics. Friday's firings are Patel's answer to those grievances.

The terminations fit a well-documented pattern. A lawsuit filed by three senior FBI officials alleges Patel admitted White House and DOJ superiors instructed him to fire anyone who had worked on investigations involving Trump. Court papers also describe a DOJ official telling senior FBI leaders he faced pressure from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to carry out sweeping terminations mirroring the purge of Jan. 6 prosecutors.

The FBI's own jobs site describes intelligence analysts as "critical to our ability to proactively mitigate risks" and "the first line of defense in identifying and understanding threats." The FBI Agents Association, which represents more than 90% of active agents, has previously condemned Patel's firings as "erratic and arbitrary retribution."

President Donald Trump raged against Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) on Friday after the GOP lawmaker gave Trump's former personal lawyer and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche conditions for approving his nomination, The New Republic reported.

Trump was heading to an event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and boarding Air Force One when a reporter at Joint Base Andrews asked him about the ultimatum from Tillis, who plans to retire at the end of his term in January 2027 and has made it clear that Blanche needs to disavow the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists for him to consider approving him as attorney general.

"Senator Tillis is a loser," Trump said. "That’s why he didn’t run. He didn’t run because I wouldn’t support him. And he’s just an angry man because he’s not gonna be a senator any longer. He wasn’t respected in the Senate. He fought a lot of people, he fought Pete Hegseth, Pete Hegseth turned out to be a gem. Senator Tillis is a loser. Stone cold.... He was forced to leave the Senate because I wouldn’t support him, and he quit. So now he’s trying to make trouble."

"Todd Blanche is a brilliant guy who everybody likes, everybody respects,” Trump added. “[Tillis is] not qualified; he’s not good for the position."

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced Thursday she had left the United States for what she described as a "medical tourism" trip — citing the same broken American health care system she repeatedly hammered during her final months in Congress.

"I'm 52 and enjoying a weekend out on medical tourism for my health," Greene wrote on X. "It's a damn shame that not only do Americans pay absurd amounts for health insurance and healthcare, we also don't have access to incredible treatments at home. More to come on this."

She did not disclose the country, the treatment, or the provider.

Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman had a two-word reply one minute later: "What treatments?"

Greene is hardly alone.

The CDC estimates millions of Americans travel abroad for medical care each year, driven primarily by cost. A November 2025 West Health-Gallup survey found nearly half of U.S. adults — 47% — worried they couldn't afford health care in the coming year, the highest level recorded since tracking began in 2021. A separate West Health-Gallup report found 35% of adults, roughly 91 million people, said they could not access quality care if they needed it at all.

The post landed with particular punch given Greene's record. During the 2025 government shutdown, she broke sharply with Republican leadership and President Donald Trump over the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies, warning that her own adult children's premiums were set to double. "Everyone's just getting destroyed," she told CNN.

Trump responded by publicly labeling her "Marjorie Traitor Greene," a moniker Greene said prompted threats against her. She pushed back hard. "I haven't lost my way — I'm for the American people only," she told CBS Mornings.

The feud, compounded by her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files over Trump's objections, culminated in her November 2025 announcement that she would resign from Congress, which she did in January 2026.

President Donald Trump appeared to cave on one of his key campaign promises, according to several insiders who spoke with The Washington Post for its report Friday, ditching a plan to deport countless migrants at the behest of an “extensive lobbying effort” that had not been previously reported.

Ahead of the 2024 election, Trump vowed to carry out the “largest deportation effort in American history,” Reuters previously reported, and appeared to be making good on that promise last month after his administration announced a rule change that would require the hundreds of thousands of green card applicants to leave the United States and apply overseas.

The rule change didn’t sit well with leaders in the “big business” community, however, which quickly launched a fierce lobbying campaign against the White House, warning the administration that the rule change could harm their workforce – and, per the Post’s report, appears to have won out.

“Late last week, the administration veered sharply in its messaging. [Trump administration] officials privately reassured business leaders in a meeting that most work visas would not be impacted, according to one of the people [familiar with the discussions],” the Post’s report reads.

“The agency also clarified to reporters that most immigrants seeking permanent residency would not have to leave the country, although officials have yet to issue any formal guidance saying so.”

Trump’s “softened stance on green cards,” as the Post described it, represented the latest rift between the business community that often relies on cheap foreign labor – which some critics have labeled as exploitative and “close to slavery” – and the president’s supporters, many of whom are hawkish on immigration.

While the Trump administration appears to have backed off its immediate efforts to force the hundreds of thousands of green card applicants out of the country, the recent lobbying effort that may have forced Trump’s hand was not an outlier, the Post noted.

“The recent lobbying effort builds upon a broader one that has been underway for months. Business leaders have been raising concerns about restrictive immigration policy in conversations with Trump confidantes who they perceive as more friendly with the business community, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of the Kushner family, according to two of the people who spoke to The Post,” the report reads.

“Business leaders have also been in direct communication with the White House, specifically the Domestic Policy Council, through private channels to voice opposition to immigration policies that restrict access to workers.”

A red state official ripped the Trump administration for how it mishandled a dangerous parasite now spreading fear.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said on CNN that he started talking to the White House and Agriculture Sec. Brooke Rollins "for the first time" recently about New World Screwworm, despite giving them information about how to mitigate it much sooner.

Miller was talking about killing the screwworm using fly bait and then sterile flies, and said that the Agriculture Department ignored his calls to deploy it sooner.

"At the USDA, they knew about it. It's not some trial. It's not some pilot program," Miller said. "They launched it, used it, I think six to eight different times. And it worked perfectly every time they used it in the '70s and '80s."

Screwworm can spread "pretty fast," Miller warned. The flesh-eating parasite is mostly a threat to cattle and the price of beef, CNN previously noted. The first U.S. livestock case in decades was detected on Wednesday, according to CNN reporting.

President Donald Trump's Iran envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner made an unannounced trip to visit the nation's top nuclear experts at the national lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, according to an Axios report on Friday.

A deal to end the Iran war has not yet been reached, and many of the conditions were still under consideration, but the ongoing negotiations and secret meeting at the energy department facilities on Thursday signaled the experts "could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran," Axios reported.

"This meeting in Oak Ridge doesn't mean that a deal is going to happen, but it is a sign that the negotiations are in a very serious phase and that there is a good chance to get it done and we want to be prepared," a U.S. official told the outlet.

"Some of the country's foremost experts in uranium processing and centrifuge technology are based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex. In the past, nuclear materials and equipment — including from Kazakhstan and Libya — were routed through Tennessee," according to Axios.

The Trump administration and the National Nuclear Security Administration have not commented on the meeting.

The White House has indicated 'positive indications' of a potential finalized deal; however, internal divides among Iranian leaders have continued.

"If the negotiations advance to the second phase, the team of experts that met with Witkoff and Kushner would have to develop a plan for the disposal of Iran's nuclear material, how to limit the enrichment program further, and how to verify compliance," Axios reported.

An internal government document obtained by 404 Media reveals that Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to arm more than 1,200 local police departments with a "flawed" facial recognition app capable of scanning anyone's face — no warrant, no consent, no notice required.

The app, called the ICE Task Force Module, would run face photos against a database of more than 250 million DHS and State Department records to determine whether someone is subject to deportation. The document — a Privacy Threshold Analysis filed by ICE's own privacy unit — acknowledges that U.S. citizens will inevitably be swept up in the scans. Every photo taken, whether it matches a target or not, gets stored for 15 years.

The technology would be distributed to agencies enrolled in the 287(g) program, which currently includes 1,220 departments across 32 states and two U.S. territories. Those local officers, the New York Civil Liberties Union has argued, are essentially turned into ICE agents.

Civil liberties groups say the plan is a disaster waiting to happen — and point to a track record that backs them up. In April 2025, Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S. citizen with his Social Security card in hand, was arrested and held for 30 hours after ICE's facial recognition system wrongly flagged him as an unauthorized alien.

Nate Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told 404 Media the plan is built on a broken foundation.

"This embarrassingly cursory document utterly fails to acknowledge the harms that will flow from putting a flawed face recognition app in the hands of many thousands of local police," Wessler said. "Sending local cops out to indiscriminately scan our faces, with a system that is known to generate false matches, that saves our data for 15 years, and that ensnares police into making immigration decisions that they are untrained for and that will undermine community safety efforts, is a recipe for disaster and for terrorizing members of communities across the country. DHS's privacy regulators fell down on the job. Now it's up to lawmakers to ensure this dangerous technology stays off our streets."

Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, warned when an earlier version of the app briefly surfaced on the Google Play Store that handing "this powerful tech to police is like asking a 16-year old who just failed their drivers exams to pick a dozen classmates to hand car keys to."

Cooper Quintin, a security researcher and senior public interest technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told 404 Media the new document confirms the worst.

"Face surveillance was already a dangerous infringement of civil liberties in the hands of ICE agents," Quintin said. "Putting it in the hands of ICE's local partners will subject even more Americans to omnipresent surveillance and unjust detainment."

Former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's child support case took another dramatic turn this week, as a judge refused to grant him relief from his 60-day jail sentence for civil contempt of court.

According to the Courier Journal, Judge Angela Johnson, who issued the 60-day sentence in March if Bevin did not comply with all document requests, was unimpressed when Bevin turned over only some of the documents and requested an extension on others.

"Matt, as the perpetrator of civil contempt, holds the keys to his own jail cell," wrote Johnson. "By consistently refusing to comply with Orders that he produce documents after having multiple chances to comply, he has locked the door behind himself."

Jonah, Bevin's Ethiopian-born adopted son, initiated this legal battle as one of the outstanding aspects of Bevin's divorce from his wife, which was finalized last year, claiming that the Bevins abandoned him, left him to wander Utah homeless, before attempting to lure him into a one-way international trip back to Africa. He has also alleged Bevin exhibited a pattern of abusive behavior, including threats that he could "take your life."

As a result, Jonah is seeking years of retroactive child support.

Bevin, a far-right Republican who was defeated for re-election after a single term, has publicly slammed the judge in the case, alleging "that she is biased and cannot afford him a fair trial," the report noted.

A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump referred Justice Department attorneys to a disciplinary committee Friday after condemning them for misconduct so severe she said it had shaken her faith in the DOJ entirely.

U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy of Rhode Island issued the referral under the court's Local Rule 210(b), citing both representations made by the respondents' attorneys and the findings of her May 14 order — a 24-page takedown of DOJ conduct in a case involving a subpoena seeking the medical records of minor patients who received gender-affirming care at Rhode Island Hospital.

In that order, McElroy found that DOJ had "misrepresented and withheld information" from both her court and a federal court in Texas, where she said the department had engaged in blatant forum shopping to find a friendlier venue for its demands.

The judge saved some of her sharpest language for DOJ's courtroom behavior, writing that a senior attorney "sat silently by" during a hearing while a junior colleague — someone who had been practicing law for approximately six months — "was forced to answer questions about DOJ's blatant disregard for the proper course of negotiations."

A declaration filed by a senior DOJ official in the Texas proceeding, McElroy found, was "clearly misleading, if not utterly false." She called DOJ's "reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed" to a federal court "appalling," and a serious breach of professional ethics.

"DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case," McElroy wrote.

She also quashed the subpoena entirely and enjoined DOJ from seeking, receiving, or using any patient-identifying records from Rhode Island Hospital, finding the subpoena lacked a congressionally authorized purpose, was issued in bad faith, and violated children's constitutional right to informational privacy.

Politico's Josh Gerstein was first to report the disciplinary referral Friday.

Vice President JD Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have zeroed in on fraud, but an analyst on Friday revealed what has motivated the move.

Salon's Amanda Marcotte pointed out how, as President Donald Trump has become more "impatient" with Vance, the vice president has pivoted to the "tough guy act" with Miller, looking to capture MAGA's attention using accusations that immigrants are scamming the United States "on a scale that, if true, would rate as one of the worst corruption scandals in history."

"Vance, along with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, are similarly embracing the view that law, morality and ethics should not get in the way of their radical political agenda," Marcotte wrote.

The two men have created a "task force" to look into the alleged fraud and "false claims," but it was mostly a "press stunt," Marcotte explained.

And although there is a real problem around fraud in health and welfare spending, Marcotte described how it's unlikely the White House has deep concern for the issue. But for Vance and Miller, that's not exactly the point — it's a way to reach right-wing circles and MAGA voters.

"And while Vance and Miller speak in vague terms, they’re relying on popular MAGA propagandist Nick Shirley to fill the [SIC] in the immigrant-baiting gaps for their audience," Marcotte wrote.

"It’s all to spin a larger, false narrative of evil immigrants overrunning blue states, aided by daft Democratic leaders too dazzled by wokeness to recognize the alleged truth that only racists will admit: Immigrants are out to prey on white Americans," Marcotte wrote. "But as anyone familiar with MAGA social media knows, the truth doesn’t really matter. Any content alleging 'fraud,' especially if a non-white face can be forefronted in the images, quickly goes viral in right-wing circles."

"The right’s war on immigrants is about racism and bigotry. But it’s also a pathetic bid for power from Vance and Miller, who both seem to see the immigration issue as a way to keep the MAGA gravy train going after Trump," Marcotte wrote. "But they are likely to be mistaken."

For the two men eyeing political life after Trump, it's the next step.

"The right’s fixation on immigrant fraud is a real Russian nesting doll of lies," Marcotte wrote. "If Vance and Miller were actual stewards of the public trust, they wouldn’t work for Trump."

One of President Donald Trump's foes, New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, poked fun at the president, who was seen falling asleep in the Oval Office this week — using the moment to suggest a potential design for his $250 bill with his face on it.

Hochul's press office shared an image on X of Trump with his eyes closed on a mockup, following reports that Trump supporters have been pushing to put his face on a banknote ahead of the nation's 250th birthday.

Trump told reporters on Thursday that he was "honored by it."

People had a hilarious response to the sketch online.

"The President wants to put his face on the $250 bill. That requires a vote of Congress. I would vote YES to authorize the below design," Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) wrote on X.

"I paid for my ticket to Weekend at Bernie's with this bill," longtime boxing publicist Fred Sternburg, who has more than 10,000 followers, wrote on X.

"Most large bills like that are used by con artists, drug dealers, tax evaders or money smugglers. So go forth with his face on it," Ezra Mannix Communications & Outreach Manager for the Middle East Institute, wrote on X.

"Put him behind bars and people will be lining up for that little token of American history," user Cherylkartist, a frequent progressive commentator who has more than 10,000 followers, wrote on X.

CBS's cancellation of Stephen Colbert's "The Late Show" has devastated the network's late-night ratings.

Its replacement, "Comics Unleashed," lost 65% of its audience compared to the same time slot last year, reports The Daily Beast.

According to Nielsen data, Byron Allen's show drew only 628,000 total viewers and just 82,000 in the crucial 18-49 demographic. Meanwhile, competitors capitalized on the exodus: Jimmy Kimmel's show surged to 2.185 million viewers — a 53% year-over-year increase — with the 18-49 demographic jumping 178%.

Jimmy Fallon's "Tonight Show" drew 1.301 million viewers, a 10% increase.

Despite the drop in viewership, CBS's financial exposure is limited. Under a "time buy" deal, Allen purchased the time slot directly and covers production costs, with Allen absorbing the ratings consequences rather than CBS, reports The Daily Beast. A source explained, this model benefits CBS by protecting the network from exposure to audience and advertiser volatility, even as the show collapses into irrelevancy.

Watch the video below.

A MAGA congresswoman told a New York Times writer that she believes she was given the reins of a task force because it would make her look "a little crazy."

In an interview with Times columnist Ross Douthat, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) agreed with a suggestion about why congressional leadership assigned her to chair the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets.

Luna explained that Trump had been talking "about releasing the M.L.K., R.F.K. and J.F.K. files. We had this stuff outstanding with U.A.P. activity," referring to classified information about historical figures, UFOs, and assassinations.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) set up a task force to follow through on Trump's promises, but "people were a little spooked about taking the position because of everything that it involved."

Luna said she knew "there was a stigma" with the task force before being assigned to chair it. "If you do this, people are going to think you're crazy," she said.

Douthat asked her, "Do you think that this was something that you were given in part because it was like, let's keep her busy, and also it might make her look a little crazy?"

Luna admitted, "I think so. I think maybe they anticipated that, but I also knew."