Ivanka Trump's story about how she and Jared Kushner seemed to stumble upon the Albanian island where they want to build their $1.4 billion resort has a glaring hole, according to an ex-GOP operative.

Steve Schmidt couldn't help but laugh during his podcast and sing "Albania! Albania!" while he broke apart Ivanka's story about discovering the island while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea and then walking ashore to explore it.

"She got five words in," before she started lying, as he notes that "She would have stepped on her first landmine."

Schmidt explained with the help of his guest, Canadian podcaster Dean Blundell, that the Albanian island of Sazan is littered with landmines and ordnance.

On top of that, even though Ivanka says the island is in the Mediterranean, Blundell points out that it sits squarely "in the Adriatic" Sea.

Pollsters are finding that swing voters are increasingly worried about a trending issue that's being overlooked.

Sarah Longwell, a Republican pollster and the publisher of The Bulwark, revealed in a podcast that swing voters are sharing a long list of concerns about AI data centers with pollsters.

The issue is "flying under the radar as a big picture issue for folks in D.C., but I hear it coming up all the time in focus groups," Longwell said. "I know some people are paying attention to this, but I mean, the voters talk about it all the time."

She played audio from a focus group interview with a Georgia small-town voter who described the impact of AI data centers as "devastating" and explained why she's bothered.

"I'm in the middle of a huge countywide fight against data centers," one voter said. "People are showing up about their water already, and about 40 people are being pushed out of their homes. It's just very personal."

The voter added that the fight against AI data centers "took the cake for me on whether or not I might vote. The only reason I'm going to is because maybe when I go to heaven, it'll count for something."

Another voter from Pittsburgh said that data centers are replacing "old mill sites," and "people are saying, 'We don't want them! We don't want them! We don't want them!'" Pittsburgh residents are opposed to the water consumption and pollution created by data centers, "but they just keep coming," he went on.

"It doesn't matter who the governor is, who the mayor is," he said. "They're all on board because it's job creation."

Longwell predicted, "Does this become a 2028 issue?" referring to the next presidential election. "I suspect it does."

The release of heavily redacted FBI records showing that a sheriff's deputy exchanged emails with would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks before the July 13, 2024 shooting — as Raw Story reported — sent MAGA world into overdrive this weekend, with commentators across the political spectrum demanding answers about what those emails said and why the documents remain concealed.

MeidasTouch, the liberal political media outlet, reached nearly 500,000 views with a post summarizing the Judicial Watch release, noting that "the records remain heavily redacted, concealing the nature of the communications."

Kaelan Deese, a political reporter, called it "a bombshell in their Thomas Crooks FOIA fight," and flagged the recovery of the gray remote device with an antenna from Crooks' pocket as a detail warranting further scrutiny.

Sara Gonzales, a conservative commentator at The Blaze, kept her focus on the emails: "The public deserves to know why and when Crooks contacted law enforcement."

Not everyone agreed the word "exchange" was warranted. Heather Champion, a conservative social media personality, urged precision: "I don't know if 'exchange' is correct but they did receive emails from Thomas Crooks before the July 13 Trump rally."

Left-wing podcaster Jimmy Dore, who has previously raised questions about the official account of the shooting, used the records to revisit a string of unresolved details. "So you're telling me there's some nefarious stuff surrounding the supposed assassination attempt of Trump?" he wrote. "You mean the one where the cops admitted to seeing him THREE TIMES in a restricted area with a scope and a backpack and yet never did anything? The one where a bunch of people in the crowd saw the shooter on the roof but no cops or secret service officers or sheriff's deputies or State troopers saw him?"

Shane Cashman, a journalist, offered the most pointed response, cataloging the same unanswered questions in a sardonic thread while warning against the leap to conspiracy. "There's literally nothing weird about Thomas Matthew Crooks emailing a deputy from Butler, PA before the assassination attempt," he wrote, before listing item after item: that Crooks practiced at the same range Homeland Security used, that local police and Secret Service spotted him with a rangefinder and texted about him for over an hour before he climbed the roof, that no Secret Service drones were flying that day while Crooks allegedly had one, that his house had no trash or silverware and his body was cremated ten days later before Congress could view it. "This is like when people say the CIA was shadowing Oswald before he, and he alone, shot JFK."

What nobody knows, still, is what those two emails said.

A Republican running for governor suffered a brutal on-stage embarrassment as the moderator tore apart a wild claim about Venezuelan gangs.

Scott Bottoms, a GOP primary candidate for Colorado governor, walked back his claim that upwards of 50,000 Venezuelan gang members are in the state, in a video posted by local journalist Kyle Clark.

"You have claimed without offering evidence that there are 45,000 to 50,000 Tren de Aragua gang members in Colorado," Clark told Bottoms. During the 2024 presidential election, MAGA politicians and influencers insisted that members of the gang Tren de Aragua were taking over parts of Colorado.

"That's 10 to 20 times the worldwide membership of the gang," Clark told Bottoms, calling the claim "odd."

A stuttering and shaky Bottoms explained that he was confused when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier told him that upwards of 50,000 Venezuelans arrived in the Denver metro area seeking asylum.

"I misunderstood what the ICE agent was saying," Bottoms said.

He admitted, "I got that wrong," and realized it after returning to check with ICE agents.

Clark accused Bottoms of being "confused about what you saw on the news," and also found that he had lied about sheriffs agreeing to be deputized to combat Venezuelan gangs.

FBI records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reveal that a Butler County Sheriff's deputy exchanged two emails with Thomas Matthew Crooks — the gunman who shot and wounded President Donald Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally on July 13, 2024 — prior to the attack. The content of those emails remains unknown. The records are heavily redacted.

Judicial Watch announced it had forced the release of 48 pages of FBI records through a federal lawsuit. An FBI interview summary from July 17, 2024 shows a deputy telling investigators she had checked her records and found two email communications from Crooks — both "in regard to [redacted]." She told investigators she did not personally interact with Crooks and did not recognize him when news of the shooting broke, only learning of the connection when a New York Times reporter emailed her Sunday night asking questions.

The records also reveal that a Beaver County Emergency Services Unit medic who responded to the AGR building roof — where Crooks had positioned himself — told the FBI she observed a Washington County SWAT officer remove "a gray remote device with numerical push buttons and an antenna and a cell phone" from Crooks' right pocket after he was killed. Explosive ordnance disposal personnel subsequently arrived on the roof to examine the device. A police canine also "hit" on the building beneath the roof while the medic was present, prompting an evacuation — though Crooks' body remained on the roof.

The medic pronounced Crooks dead at 6:25 p.m. She later handed a body bag to someone from either the FBI or Secret Service but could not recall which agency, the report states.

"Our federal lawsuit continues to force the release of new information from the assassination attempt at the Butler rally," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "The American people deserve full transparency about Thomas Crooks, his contacts, and why key details about this case remain hidden nearly two years later."

A California Republican operative went viral this week for doing something unusual in her party: publicly fact-checking a right-wing election conspiracy theory — and refusing to back down when Rasmussen Reports pushed back.

Elizabeth Barcohana, who works with the Los Angeles GOP, stepped in after Rasmussen posted a claim that a single ballot drop in the LA mayor's race had contained zero votes for Republican candidate Spencer Pratt — the reality TV personality from The Hills running for LA mayor — while every other candidate gained thousands. "Virtually every candidate received votes except for Spencer Pratt," Rasmussen wrote. "Impossible."

Barcohana called it false. "No, it did not happen," she posted, sharing a batch composition chart showing Pratt's orange bar appearing consistently across every single ballot drop. "This is fake news." She further noted that Rasmussen was recycling an NBC screenshot taken before the network's graphics team had corrected an error — meaning the "evidence" of fraud was a screenshot of a mistake that had already been fixed.

Rasmussen didn't fold. Instead, the polling firm told Barcohana to "wake up," name-dropped someone it claimed was a federal investigator, and accused her of not understanding "what is going on in national election integrity."

Barcohana's response to an anonymous user cut to the heart of the problem: "THIS is why you don't see Republicans fighting back against all of this. No one believes us no matter what we say when we push back on things that aren't true which demoralize our voters, so they would rather just keep quiet and not hit a hornet's nest of angry voters."

The exchange drew notice across the aisle. "How does one deal with a company that exists to poll elections but then casts doubt on the actual results with loony conspiracy theories?" asked Garrett Archer, a data journalist at ABC15 in Arizona. Damin Toell, a conservative activist, was more pointed, calling Rasmussen "the zombie husk of Rasmussen Reports, which just grifts off garbage conspiracy theories without any concern for how it suppresses Republicans from voting."

Drew Savicki, a political analyst, called it "fascinating watching a California Republican struggling to push back against the online conspiracy theories being promoted by so many in her party."

Republican strategist Mike Madrid kept it simple: "Wait...is this a Republican standing up for math, facts and evidence? What kind of sorcery is this?"

The wife of a Republican candidate for governor issued an emotional apology for donating to Biden's campaign.

Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Gentner Drummond has been the target of 'heartbreaking' attacks, his wife, Wendy, said in her apology. She recorded her apology and posted it on social media via her husband's accounts.

"I can't stand by silently any longer," a choked-up Wendy Drummond said in the opening of her video, which was scored with dramatic music. "I've been wanting to say this for a long time. It's just heartbreaking for me to watch the man I love be attacked for something that was my fault."

She explained that she tried to send a $1,000 donation to the 2020 Biden campaign through her Apple Pay account. She didn't realize that the account was linked to a joint credit card she shared with her husband, however.

"In 2020, I heard something that made me so emotional that I made a mistake," Wendy Drummond said. "I attempted to make a political contribution. I never discussed it with Gentner."

In the video, Wendy asserted that the donation was canceled, and "not one penny ever went to Joe Biden."

According to reporting by Newsweek, the $1,000 donation showed up in public records and campaign finance data and has been used as fodder in the "crowded field" running for Oklahoma governor.

"Now political opponents are using my mistake over and over to attack Gentner," Wendy said in her apology. "And it hurts."

A federal appeals court judge nominated by President Donald Trump is facing misdemeanor criminal charges after allegedly swiping a man's glasses off his face, throwing them across a parking lot, and stomping on them during a dispute over a parking space — and two months later, he is still hearing cases, according to weekend news reports.

Judge Ryan D. Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was charged April 22 with misdemeanor battery and malicious injury to property by the Idaho Falls city prosecutor's office, according to court records first reported by the Idaho State Journal and confirmed Saturday by Bloomberg Law. The charges stem from an April 2 confrontation in a parking lot in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Nelson pleaded not guilty on May 13. A pretrial conference is scheduled for June 18. The Idaho State Journal, which broke the story Friday, also published video of the incident showing Nelson behaving aggressively in the lot. According to the paper, Nelson had parked his truck across two spaces before the altercation.

Nelson was born in Idaho Falls, nominated by Trump in 2018, and confirmed to the Ninth Circuit that same year. He sits on one of the country's most prominent federal appeals courts, which handles criminal cases among its heavy docket.

The New York Knicks have to ask fans to show up two hours before the start of Game 3 of the NBA finals, all thanks to Trump.

In a social media post, the basketball team laid out security measures at its home court in Madison Square Garden to accommodate Trump, who plans to attend.

Attendees are "strongly encouraged to arrive at least two hours before tip-off" to get through "TSA-style screening procedures," the Knicks cautioned.

"Madison Square Garden and the United States Secret Service want to help ensure a safe and enjoyable experience," the Knicks wrote. "A strict no-bag policy will be in effect, and fans should make every effort to limit personal items to an absolute minimum."

The team warned, "There will be no storage available for prohibited items brought to the venue."

Former GOP insider and lawyer George Conway joked in a post that fans can still "bring your middle fingers."

The team currently has a two-game lead against the San Antonio Spurs.

A judge threw out a Kennedy Center lawsuit against jazz musician Chuck Redd after he canceled a show in protest of Trump's attempt to rename it after himself, according to reports.

The Trump-led Kennedy Center sued Redd for breaching his contract, but D.C. Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier dismissed the lawsuit on Friday, according to reporting by the Washington Post. Richard Grenell, a Trump ally leading the center's board, threatened him with a $1 million demand last year.

Jones Bosier ruled that Kennedy Center officials failed to prove they had a legally binding agreement with Redd to perform at the venue's Christmas Eve concert last year, according to the Post.

"I could not find a valid breach-of-contract claim here," Jones Bosier said, per the Post. "There's no dispute that he did not sign the 2025 agreement."

Redd told the Kennedy Center he ditched his scheduled performance due to "the defiant and illegal name change happening to the Kennedy Center," according to the Post. A judge's orders are now undoing that renaming.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Georgia congresswoman who built a career railing against government overreach, traveled to Mexico this week to receive a stem cell treatment that the FDA has not approved — and says she thinks Washington should make it legal.

Greene told TMZ that she and her fiancé, right-wing media personality Brian Glenn, underwent stem cell IV treatments Saturday at Dream Body Clinic in Puerto Vallarta. The FDA has not approved most stem cell therapies because they haven't completed the process required to establish that they're safe and effective — which is why the couple crossed the border to get them.

Greene says she's always been proactive about her health, tracing it back to her days owning a CrossFit gym, and believes stem cell therapy is an effective anti-aging tool. She also told TMZ she doesn't carry health insurance, preferring to spend that money on preventative treatments she believes in.

She wants the federal government to get out of the way. Greene told TMZ she believes stem cell therapy should be federally legalized in the U.S. — a position that puts her in the unusual spot of demanding the government deregulate a treatment that many Republicans oppose.

The Mexico trip followed a vacation in Costa Rica with Rep. Thomas Massie, who told TMZ last week that he sees Greene as an important voice in the future of the Republican Party and teased a possible push for GOP leadership, TMZ reported.

Stephen Miller tried crying foul about a proposed check on the United States power to spy on Americans, only to be brutally mocked and fact-checked online.

Congressional lawmakers have been suggesting a requirement for federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to seek approval to spy on Americans from judges from a court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Miller didn't like the idea, writing on X that, "A libertarian demand to make SecWar get approval from liberal DC judges (the ones who targeted Trump) is madness," and called spying on foreign soil "the core of all US security."

He added, "No conservative aim is ever served through subservience to leftist DC judges."

"Completely Mental that 'the core of all US security' is 'surveillance on foreign soil,'" shot back writer Curtis Yarvin. "No wonder all the asylum seekers come here. Other places do have a few small asylums but here it's the whole country."

Josh Gerstein, the senior legal affairs reporter for Politico, pointed out that "FISA judges come across the country," defeating Miller's claims that the Defense Secretary would have to deal with "DC judges."

"Two of the 11 are based in DC," Gerstein wrote, adding a link to the list of judges.

Former congressman Justin Amash wrote that, under FISA, "the government collects massive amounts of data on Americans while 'targeting' foreigners overseas," in a post.

"They then unconstitutionally search that data without a warrant for info on Americans," Amash continued. "The 'libertarian demand' he's whining about is called the Fourth Amendment."

President Donald Trump enraged onlookers by spending the 82nd anniversary of D-Day flooding Truth Social with AI-generated videos glorifying himself — riding a camel through a desert, skydiving with a red parachute, walking through cheering crowds in New York — while posting nothing about the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

The backlash from analysts was swift.

"It's D-Day. Trump's first post on Truth Social is a bizarre AI video about how much people love Donald Trump," Republicans Against Trump wrote Saturday morning. "Not a word about the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy. That tells you everything you need to know about Trump."

As the hours passed without any acknowledgment from the Commander in Chief, the group posted updates. "Still no mention of D-Day from Trump." Then, near the end of the day: "It's almost 5 p.m. on D-Day. The Commander in Chief still hasn't said a word about it. Disgraceful."

What Trump did post included an AI image mocking the Obama Presidential Center as a garbage can surrounded by a tent city, a transphobic AI collage targeting Rosie O'Donnell, an attack on a federal judge blocking his White House drone port, and multiple videos apparently designed to show the world how beloved he is.

Political commentator Molly Ploofkins put it plainly: "Trump marks the D-Day anniversary by glorifying himself with AI slop."

Spanish journalist Carlos Montero, whose post was translated from Spanish, was more blunt: "This man is not well! Commemorating D-Day, in which the anniversary of the Normandy Landings is celebrated, Trump posts this video."

Others skipped the commentary and went clinical. "Malignant narcissism is a severe, destructive form of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) characterized by grandiosity, a total lack of empathy, antisocial behavior, and sadism," one widely-shared post read, posted beneath a screenshot of Trump's AI skydiving video.

Trump marks the D-Day anniversary by glorifying himself with AI slop pic.twitter.com/GCLVCQI7PE
— Molly Ploofkins (@Mollyploofkins) June 6, 2026

Friends,

Today is the 82nd anniversary of D-Day — the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. It’s referred to as “D-Day” after the military term for a day when a secret combat attack or operation is planned.

It was the largest seaborne invasion in history. It began the Western Allied effort to liberate western Europe from Nazi Germany.

Over 2,500 American soldiers, sailors, and airmen were killed during the initial amphibious assaults and airborne operations. All told, there were 4,414 confirmed Allied deaths on the first day of the invasion, which also included troops from the United Kingdom and Canada.

At the time of the invasion, my father was 30 years old, in a tank battalion readying to go to Europe. My mother was 25, working in a factory producing gas masks for the war. Some of their friends participated in the invasion. A few were paratroopers. Others were pilots. Others were soldiers.

As a small boy, I remember trying to talk with my father and my mother about D-Day. I wanted stories. The little I’d heard about it made it seem romantic and exciting. But they were reluctant to talk about it. They answered my questions in short sentences. Their voices were hurried. It was as if I was trying to open a door they’d rather keep closed. They had lost friends, relatives. D-Day, and the war it helped end, had left deep scars.

Eventually they and their generation were called America’s “greatest generation” for their valor and sacrifice. They had fought fascism and won.

Now, 82 years later, we have home-grown fascism. An entire political party seems to have given up on democracy. They’re supporting an ego-maniacal “strong man” who cares only about enlarging his own (and his family’s) wealth and power.

His regime is marked by a degree of corruption, cruelty, and criminality never before witnessed in America’s national government.

Trump’s and his “war” secretary, Pete Hegseth’s firing of so many top brass can be seen as a way to guarantee the loyalty of other officers to Trump rather than to America. Trump’s proposal to increase the U.S. military budget by nearly 50 percent can be understood as a bribe to officers. He wants them to side with him, if and when he tries to stay in power indefinitely.

He has already tried to turn much of America into a police state.

Public support for him is waning, and the federal courts have fought back. But it is startling and saddening how far Trump and his regime have gotten.

What happened to the bravery and dedication of the greatest generation? What became of the sacrifices my parents and their peers made so that this nation could be free?

How and why did so many Americans succumb to neofascism?

I think it has to do with the anger so many Americans have felt that they and their children haven’t been able to get ahead, no matter how hard they work. Trump and other neofascists have channeled that anger toward immigrants, gays, transgendered people, Muslims, and Black people.

Democrats and progressives should be channeling that anger toward the real culprits — a wealthy elite that’s used their money to gain political power and rig the economy to their benefit and against everyone else.

Another reason so many have succumbed to Trumpian neofascism is the passage of time. Eighty-two years is long enough for a nation to forget, especially a nation whose collective memory is short to begin with. Very few living Americans remember the terror and heroism of our fight against Nazi fascism. The greatest generation has mostly died off.

But we must not forget. Fascism is being born again, in America and in Europe. This time it’s masquerading as white Christian nationalism, but it’s as dangerous as ever.

The best way to remember and honor the men and women who risked everything for us is to fight neofascism — fight for a stronger democracy, fight for the rule of law and social justice, fight against bigotry.

• Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

A foreign leader's excuse for outrage caused by Ivanka Trump is raising eyebrows and doubt, according to reporting by The Daily Beast.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama went to X to attack "all the endless media outlets" covering the hysteria over a luxury resort planned by Ivanka and Jared Kushner.

"Today's protest has drawn roughly 2,000 participants," Rama said. "It is the lowest turnout so far, but even at its peak, participation never exceeded 8,000 people."

However, protests have been taking place across Albania all week, the Daily Beast noted, as people decry the potential harm to the Balkan country's natural landscape.

Ivanka wants to develop a $1.4 billion resort on one of the country's uninhabited islands, Sazan, and develop hotels along a wildlife-rich coastline, the Daily Beast reported.

"How is it that what much of the world has seen over the past days appears so enormous, so dramatic, so overwhelming?" Rama asked in his post. "How could a tiny country become global news for reasons so disconnected from the reality on the ground?"

To @CNN International and to all the endless media outlets, big and small, together with all the well-meaning content producers of Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok and every other platform that now shapes the global conversation, I would very much wish to pass the following post:… pic.twitter.com/yFEQepcoH0
— Edi Rama (@ediramaal) June 6, 2026

Anthony Scaramucci, who served as White House Communications Director for 11 days in 2017 before being fired, is back with unsolicited but specific advice for anyone who has to deal with his former boss — and he has a case study.

In a video clip posted to X this week, Scaramucci laid out three rules: never take Trump's call on his terms, don't respond when he comes at you, and tell people you're ready for a fight. "Elbows up," he said. "When you do that with him, he comes towards you. My advice is you gotta push and shove with Trump. If you're overly kowtowing to him and laying down, forget it — never gonna work."

Then he got specific. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Scaramucci said, executed the strategy perfectly after winning his election earlier this year. Carney didn't call Trump to celebrate. He waited. "Trump was like, 'What the hell is going on?'" Scaramucci said. When Trump's team finally reached out, Carney set conditions: address him as Prime Minister, issue a communiqué after the call, and acknowledge Canada as a sovereign nation — not a "51st state." If Trump started "his bulls---," Carney wasn't taking the call, Scaramucci said.

"That's what Carney did, and the meeting went quite well," Scaramucci added. "Because Mark Carney knows how to forecheck in hockey. You have to forecheck Donald Trump."

The advice is consistent with what Scaramucci has been saying publicly since his brief and chaotic stint in the Trump White House, where he was hired by one chief of staff and fired by the next before he had officially started the job. He has since become one of Trump's more colorful Republican critics — and, apparently, an informal coach for anyone else who has to sit across the table from him.

Three quick things for anyone dealing with Trump.

1. Never take the phone call on his terms.
2. Don’t respond when he comes at you.
3. Tell people — elbows up, I’m ready for the fight.

When you do that, he comes toward you.

Push and shove with Trump and he respects it. Lay… pic.twitter.com/EHjbjZC34B
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) June 6, 2026

The Kennedy Center continued its court-ordered purge of Trump's name by removing his name from the online logo.

"The Trump Administration has changed the logo of the Kennedy Center's LinkedIn page," Aaron Parnas, an attorney and legal writer, pointed out the change in a post on X. "The new logo no longer includes the President's name."

An image of the former logo shows "The Trump Kennedy Center" with a black backdrop. The new logo simply reads "The Kennedy Center" and has a white backdrop.

Trump's name is also being removed from the performing arts center's signage as well as its email signatures, letterhead, memos and other corners.

The Trump Department of Justice hasn't seen the worst of the blowback coming in response to one of its more controversial moves, a legal expert predicted.

Adam Klasfeld, a legal journalist, said in an interview that the DOJ's defense of Trump's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund could lead to a Florida judge declaring "fraud upon the court, which could have very serious ramifications for the people behind it."

The anti-weaponization fund is the result of a settlement in Trump's lawsuit against the IRS after a contractor leaked his tax information. The IRS lawsuit was dismissed by a Florida federal judge, Kathleen Williams, who reopened the case to investigate the fund.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche could suffer from those ramifications as well, Klasfeld said.

"One of the people who will be investigated in that Florida process is going to be Todd Blanche," Klasfeld predicted. "There is a lot of reason to have optimism and wariness."

President Donald Trump unleashed a flurry of AI-generated images on Truth Social Saturday, targeting a federal judge blocking his White House construction plans, mocking Rosie O'Donnell with a transphobic jab, and taking a shot at Barack Obama's presidential library.

The most substantive post concerned U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who has blocked Trump's proposed White House rooftop drone base — part of the broader $400 million White House renovation project that also includes a ballroom. Trump posted an AI rendering of military drones parked on the White House roof under the label "Drone Port," writing: "This will someday save Washington. Judge Leon has to get out of the way, and FAST. He is putting our Country in danger!"

Leon ruled in April that Trump lacked the legal authority to build the ballroom without congressional approval. The Justice Department has pressed him to lift the injunction, invoking national security — an argument Trump amplified Saturday with the AI imagery and a separate post showing military helicopters flying in formation, presumably over Washington.

In a separate post, Trump shared an AI-generated collage depicting Rosie O'Donnell daydreaming about him in various domestic settings — doing dishes, reading, driving — with his image appearing in thought bubbles above her head. The caption read: "She (?) is OBSESSED!" The question mark placed after "She" was a transphobic reference to O'Donnell, who has been a Trump antagonist for decades.

Trump also posted a black-and-white photo of himself leaning over a desk with the quote: "Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end — It always does!" — an apparent attempt at reassurance directed at his base amid ongoing legal battles and the Iran war.

Finally, Trump posted an AI image of what appeared to be a massive garbage can topped with a black trash bag, surrounded by a tent encampment, with a Chicago skyline in the background. The caption: "The Barack Hussein Obama Library, in 10 years, when fully matured!" — using Obama's middle name in the manner Trump has long deployed as a dog whistle.

A pair of GOP senators is warning the Trump administration about a "significant" gap in "critical" foreign intelligence collection.

"We write with regret to ask that you plan for a potential significant gap in foreign intelligence collection," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Cotton and Grassley blamed the "lapse" on Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate minority leader, for walking away from an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, according to the letter.

Andrew Desiderio, the senior congressional reporter for Punchbowl News, noted in a post on X that Senate Democrats blocked the FISA extension in response to the appointment of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.

Cotton, the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, added that "given the gravity of the situation, our two committees remain ready to assist."

The deadline for a FISA extension is next Friday, Desiderio noted.

Pete Hegseth's decision to strip the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of its Christian designation in the Pentagon's new religion classification system has ignited a rare cross-aisle pile-on, with Republican lawmakers, conservative commentators and Democratic senators lining up to call it a mistake.

As Raw Story reported, Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) moved quickly Saturday to condemn the change as "unacceptable," saying he was working to reverse it. He wasn't alone.

Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT) — a Utah Republican congresswoman — stopped short of criticizing Hegseth directly but made clear where she stood on the underlying question. "Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are Christians," she wrote on X. "We worship Jesus Christ, strive to follow His teachings, and His name is even in the name of our Church. Just last year, President Trump himself recognized Latter-day Saints as Christians." She said she looked forward to "conversations that will ensure all service members receive the religious support and First Amendment protections they deserve."

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), whose handle is @BasedMikeLee, kept it simple: "Can anyone tell me why The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was left out of the list of Christian churches?"

The answer, based on the list published by Hegseth's office, is that the Pentagon placed LDS in its own standalone category — "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (CJ)" — separate from the two dozen denominations listed under the "Christian" umbrella.

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a prominent conservative commentator, said Hegseth shot himself in the foot: "Failing to characterize Mormons as Christians is a huge own goal by Hegseth."

The backlash wasn't limited to the right. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) — an Arizona Democrat whose state has a significant LDS population — replied directly to Lee: "I don't know why but I am with you. This needs to be fixed ASAP."

Not everyone was displeased. Milo Yiannopoulos, the far-right provocateur who goes by @Nero on X, used the moment to attack the LDS church itself. "It's not a religion. It's certainly not Christian," he wrote. "LDS is referred to by academics as a 'new religious movement,' polite sociological jargon for cult." RedState writer Bonchie offered a more succinct assessment of the situation: "Hoo boy."

The classification overhaul was announced by Sean Parnell, Hegseth's assistant for public affairs, who framed the reduction from more than 200 categories to 31 as a streamlining effort to help "religious support personnel" provide "spiritual care to our warfighters." Whether it accomplishes that — or simply hands Hegseth's critics a gift — is now a matter of bipartisan consensus.

I don’t know why but I am with you. This needs be fixed ASAP. https://t.co/LhVKH6ZgtX
— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) June 6, 2026

A top White House advisor on AI is looking for the exit after insiders say that Trump admitted people don't recognize him, according to reporting by the Washington Post.

Tech investor Sriram Krishnan told Trump administration officials that he plans to quit his role as the White House senior policy advisor for AI by the end of the month, insiders told the Post.

He's considered the architect of the Trump administration's AI Action Plan, which suggested rolling back regulations and building more data centers, according to the Post.

Despite Krishnan's role, Trump said during a December 2025 holiday party that people "ask me who the hell he is," the Post reported based on videos shared on social media.

According to anonymous insiders who spoke with the Post, Krishnan told Trump officials he's leaving to start an institution that will influence technology policy.

The New York Times on Saturday added significant new detail to a bombshell report first published by NBC News — and covered by Raw Story — revealing that the Pentagon has raised its counterintelligence threat assessment for Israel to "critical," its highest level.

The most striking addition: a senior U.S. official's characterization of what Israel has been doing. The aggressiveness of Israeli intelligence collection on top Trump administration officials, the official told the Times, has been "unhinged."

The Times also identified the specific American officials Israel is believed to have targeted: Steve Witkoff, Trump's chief Iran negotiator; Elbridge A. Colby, the Pentagon's top policy official; and Colby's deputy for Middle East policy, Michael P. DiMino IV.

The paper also reports American personnel in Israel found that software to intercept their communications had been installed on their phones.

That last detail underscores what officials described as a self-inflicted vulnerability. Senior Trump officials have routinely conducted national security business on personal cellphones, flown on private aircraft, and declined embassy staffing support abroad — habits that make them easy targets, according to the new report.

"The tendency of some senior Trump administration officials to fly on private aircraft, to conduct national security business on their personal phones and to reject staffing from U.S. embassies abroad made them especially vulnerable targets," a former senior official told the Times.

"Other current officials also acknowledged the use of personal cellphones by top American officials have made them easy targets for eavesdropping," the Times states.

Israel's threat designation now stands higher than any other U.S. ally and higher than some adversaries, the report notes. The Pentagon declined to comment. The White House called the account false. Israel's embassy said Israel "does not gather intelligence on American entities, let alone U.S. government officials."

Trump sees his slate of D.C. vanity projects a "welcome distraction" from an ongoing affordability crisis, but MS NOW slammed the idea.

"Newsflash, it's not working," MS NOW reporter Jake Traylor said.

Traylor quoted a former White House official who said that Trump saw his reflecting pool, various fountains, and other projects as "a welcome distraction" from the ongoing war in Iran and an affordability crisis in the United States.

However, Traylor pointed to new polling that shows a meager 28 percent approval rating for the White House ballroom, a 21 percent approval rating for the triumphal arch, and 12 percent approval for putting his name on a $250 bill.

"Americans are not getting on board with this distraction," Traylor said. "Even if it is something that's working in the president's mind right now."

President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday to announce the completion of work on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — and used the occasion to both thank himself by name and note that a stretch of the historic monument's grounds would henceforth bear his name.

"Thank you President Trump, thank you Department of the Interior," Trump wrote, crediting his own administration in the third person before pivoting to the news buried in the post: the forthcoming "Trump Promenade at The Lincoln Memorial."

The pool, Trump claimed, was originally opened in 1922 but had "never functioned properly" — a claim that may surprise the tens of millions of visitors who have gazed into its waters over the past century, including the hundreds of thousands who gathered there for Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963.

Trump described the pool's surface as "very complex, but powerful, Dark Blue" before workers submerged it in what he called "CLEAN, BEAUTIFUL WATER" — a standard feature of reflecting pools.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum was on hand for the inspection, riding alongside workers in what appeared to be an off-road utility vehicle flying an American flag, with the Washington Monument visible in the background.

The announcement did not stop at the promenade. Trump also teased the "Triumphal Arch" and his "White House Ballroom," claiming that when completed, these projects would constitute "the Greatest Structure in Washington" — a city that already contains, among other things, the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial itself.

The renaming of public lands and federal monuments after Trump has accelerated in his second term. The administration has already moved to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America," among many other proposals.

The Lincoln Memorial, completed in 1922, is administered by the National Park Service and was dedicated to the 16th president. It is unclear what congressional or regulatory process, if any, was used to authorize naming a portion of it after the 47th.

An amused Democratic strategist and an appalled Republican Party strategist agreed on MS NOW that Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, hurt both her own image and damaged the Trump administration with a decision to boast about the purchase of an island when Americans can’t fill their gas tanks.

In a clip from the David Senora podcast earlier in the week, the woman known as the first daughter expressed her joy at discovering the 1,400-acre luxury Mediterranean island off the coast of Albania where she and her husband Jared Kushner hope to build a resort.

“For me, it feels more like a challenge than anything else. The culmination of all of my experience in real estate, all of my travel, a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I think people increasingly are wanting to live, and trying to really build something that’s a tangible manifestation of that,” she joyously recalled.

After watching the clip with MS NOW’s Alex Witt, former House Speaker John Boehner adviser Maura Gillespie has a few critical things to say. “I just don't, I don't understand why she would go out and do an interview about this,” she began. “I mean, it comes across so tone deaf. She's not a, you know, leader or an elected official, but she obviously is the president's daughter.”

“And by doing these interviews — I wonder, who's their PR person? Who is their press person?” she asked. “Meghan [Hayes] and I both did columns for officials and people who are in government positions or positions of power, and I just don't understand who advised her to do this or why she thought this was a good idea.”

“I don't think she's striking the right balance,” she continued with a laugh. “I think that when people are struggling to pay for their groceries and gas, talking about taking a boat, which I'm assuming is a yacht, to do a nice swim in the Mediterranean Sea, I mean, it's just really tone deaf.”

Democratic communications expert Hayes then piled on.

“She used words that ‘the opportunity became available for us to do this,’ which I think says to the American people, this is corruption,” she observed. “They worked with the government, they made deals, and it just spells more corruption by the Trump family. I mean, I've been to Albania, it's gorgeous, I understand why you would want to do something, a development there, but not in this way, not in this time. It's just completely tone deaf and it just feels [like] more corruption from the Trump family.”

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Rep. Nancy Mace’s attempt to leap from the House of Representatives to the governor’s mansion in South Carolina has more difficulties than Donald Trump ignoring her and endorsing opponent Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette.

As part of a Politico interview with the controversial lawmaker, who still considers herself “MAGA” despite the president turning his back on her, one South Carolina GOP insider claimed she has enough personal baggage to give conservative voters pause.

Trump's endorsement of Evette carries decisive weight in South Carolina's reliably Republican environment. Historical voting patterns suggest Evette has effectively secured her place in a runoff, leaving Mace and three other Republicans scrambling for the second ballot spot.

According to the report, the turning point for the GOP lawmaker came in November, when Mace's public meltdown at Charleston Airport generated national headlines. According to an airport authority report, Mace unleashed a profanity-laced tirade at law enforcement officers and TSA agents for failing to meet her at a prearranged pickup location—even as they walked her to her flight.

The incident proved more damaging than expected. "I think the airport thing hurt her more than the [Epstein] thing," said Terry Sullivan, a longtime South Carolina Republican operative unaffiliated in the race. "She's had really strong debate performances, she's articulate, she's right on the issues for these folks, but then she just goes a little haywire."

Mace's response only amplified the damage. Days after the incident, she held a Charleston press conference defending her actions and dismissing the airport authority's report as a "political hit job."

"Did I drop an f-bomb? I hope I did," she said at the time, a statement that drew swift rebukes from fellow South Carolina Republicans. Sen. Tim Scott issued a blistering statement condemning her language and treatment of airport officials. Sen. Lindsey Graham piled on with criticism of his own.

Months later, Mace remains defiant. She attributed her airport confrontations to threats against her safety and the alleged partisan harassment she endures. "I get over a thousand death threats a year, and I'm the only one that doesn't get security when traveling. In fact, the last three times I've had an altercation or been accosted has been at an airport, particularly the Charleston airport, because the left has lost their mind," she told Politico.

A heckler was removed from a Turning Point USA event on Friday after shouting insults at Erika Kirk during an address, insults that some suggested were a reference to Kirk’s support of President Donald Trump, whose administration has been accused of “covering up” portions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

“Erika Kirk protects pedophiles! Erika Kirk protects pedophiles!” the woman could be heard shouting in a clip of the incident.

The heckler, who was not identified, was eventually removed from the venue, The New York Post reported. After a brief moment, Kirk responded to the heckler.

“It’s important to remember that happiness comes and goes, and I pray that you find it,” Kirk said, eliciting applause from the conservative crowd.

Kirk has been a strong vocal supporter of Trump and his administration, which, like Kirk, has also faced allegations of “protecting pedophiles,” largely surrounding its botched handling of its release of files related to Epstein. Trump himself was labeled a “pedophile protector” in person during a visit earlier this year to a factory in Detroit, Michigan, an insult that the president responded to by giving the worker the middle finger.

Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) lashed out Saturday at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office over a “significant change” it instituted regarding the classifications of religions, one he argued was “unacceptable” and that he was actively working to correct.

This week, the Department of Defense announced that it had significantly reduced the number of recognized religions within the agency, down from more than 200 to 31. The change, according to Sean Parnell, Hegseth’s assistant for public affairs, was to allow “religious support personnel" to better provide "spiritual care to our warfighters.”

The issue, Curtis claimed, was that in whittling down the number of recognized religions, Hegseth’s office had declared the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – commonly referred to as the Mormon Church – to not be a Christian religion.

“Latter-day Saints are among the most patriotic, service-oriented individuals in our country. They are also unequivocally Christian – just look at who is in the name of the Church,” Curtis said in a statement published on social media Saturday. “It is unacceptable for a government entity to characterize a faith in a manner that contradicts the religion’s own foundational tenets. I am working now to ensure a correction is made.”

LDS Dems, a prominent Democratic Party caucus for “left-of-center members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” urged more conservative members of the church to potentially reconsider support for the Trump administration.

“Under new military guidance from Pete Hegseth, the LDS Church is officially classified as a non-Christian religion,” reads a social media post from the LDS Dems account on X. “My fellow Saints, you can love these Christian nationalists all you want, but they will not love you back.”

Lawyers representing immigrants being swept up by the Department of Homeland Security are raising the alarm that federal authorities are deploying new tactics to fast-track deportations.

According to New York Times reporting, federal officials have begun pushing dozens of additional cases onto court dockets on specific days to rapidly process asylum and other immigration claims. The secret acceleration started without any public notification from the administration.

The impact has been dramatic, observers told the Times. Some immigration judges have seen their caseloads double and triple, raising concerns that cases are being processed too quickly for proper legal review.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Justice Department agency overseeing the immigration court system, defended the larger caseloads as a result of hiring new judges and described them as necessary to address a backlog of more than 3 million cases this year.

But immigration lawyers and rights groups argue the acceleration creates a fundamentally unfair process.

"Everything related to these large dockets or mass dockets is shrouded in such a strange secrecy," Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project, told the Times. "Our confirmation that they were even happening really came from going to the court on Monday and seeing the large lines of people standing outside," she claimed, referring to proceedings she observed in New Orleans.

Lawyers reported witnessing judges processing groups of people simultaneously despite their different cases and legal claims. In one instance, a judge heard 15 people at once, cycling through Arabic, Spanish, and Creole interpretations.

On a single Monday and Tuesday, the Times is reporting, 89 people in one court were declared absent and therefore deportable. "And that is not because they were 'the worst of the worst.' It is because they had a hearing scheduled that they were not able to attend for a variety of reasons," Willis stated.

The administration's push comes amid broader upheaval in Trump's immigration strategy. The report notes that on Friday, a federal judge rejected the government's indefinite hold on asylum applications filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and on immigration applications from 39 countries where people had been unable to obtain green cards and citizenship. That ruling is not expected to significantly impact immigration court proceedings.