Multiple residents of Washington, D.C. told CNN Friday their unfiltered thoughts on President Donald Trump’s $14 million restoration of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool – and the feedback was scathing.

“It looks bad!” one D.C. resident told CNN’s Tom Foreman. “I just see green – green slime.”

Trump’s restoration of the Reflecting Pool has been just one of many of his D.C. beautification projects. It’s proven controversial given that the Trump administration handed the project to a contractor with ties to the president in a no-bid deal, bypassing what critics say should have been a competitive bidding process.

After the completion of the $14 million renovation project, blue paint from the pool’s bottom appears to have peeled off, and the pool’s water has turned a deep green – as experts predicted it would last month.

Federal workers have attempted to combat the growing algae by pouring peroxide into the pool, though as of Friday, it's largely had no effect.

“Pouring all that peroxide into it clearly didn't help,” another D.C. resident told CNN. “I feel for the ducks.”

Foreman told CNN’s John Berman that, after walking around the pool’s rim “over and over again” Friday, there were “very few places where you can see” any blue “at all.”

“Those people behind you, they're just vacuuming full time?” Berman asked Foreman about federal workers seen wading in the pool with suction equipment. “Is this going to be a permanent thing, people standing in the pool vacuuming?”

Foreman said, “There were more than a dozen of them out here all day long yesterday doing just that, working steadily to try to clear it. What is here is kind of what was here before in the eyes of many people passing by and about as bad as it's ever been.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sounded the alarm recently when meeting with Senate Republicans over the Pentagon’s dwindling supply of funding for weapons — and the details were shared Friday by a GOP senator spurned by President Donald Trump.

“[The Pentagon is] running short on funding they need in order to acquire the weapons and missiles and things like that that they need to protect the nation,” Hegseth reportedly told Senate Republicans, as paraphrased by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and relayed to the New York Times.

Cornyn lost his re-election bid after Trump endorsed his GOP primary opponent last month. He joined a growing list of GOP “apostates” who’ve become well-positioned to undercut the president’s agenda. Unlike other Republican lawmakers who’ve been ousted by Trump, Cornyn has yet to directly attack the president, though he may still prove to be a liability for the administration.

Regarding Hegseth’s pleas to Senate Republicans, the Defense secretary has been attempting to tee up support for a $350 billion “special budget bill” for military spending, but has faced “resistance” from both “Republicans and Democrats,” the Times reported.

“Some Republicans have taken exception to the idea, openly saying that they do not think their party will be able to muster the near-unanimous support that would be needed to muscle through the measure,” the Times’s Catie Edmondson wrote. “The reluctance to push through the spending legislation Mr. Trump has insisted upon represents something of a departure from business as usual on Capitol Hill.”

Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.

President Donald Trump has reportedly told associates and at least one foreign leader that he isn't worried about the political cost of his decisions ahead of November's midterms.

The 80-year-old president's comments confirm what many Republicans have feared for months — that Trump is willing to let the party absorb the fallout from his choices, regardless of the consequences, reported the Wall Street Journal.

"Seventeen months into his second term, Trump is increasingly relying on his own gut instincts, dismissing the counsel of aides, conservative lawmakers and longtime associates," the newspaper reported. "The result has been a series of decisions that have confounded and frustrated Republicans — heightening fears that voters will punish the GOP in the November elections and testing Trump’s iron grip on the party."

According to people familiar with the conversations, Trump privately told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he didn't care about the midterms, a remark meant to signal his commitment to the Iran campaign no matter the political cost.

He's made similar comments publicly. Asked last month how much Americans' financial strain factored into his push to end the war, Trump said, "Not even a little bit," adding, "I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing — we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon."

The comments have rattled Republicans already anxious about holding Congress in November. Trump has also downplayed the political damage from inflation, saying at one point, "I love the inflation," and has increasingly brushed off allies offering strategic advice with a blunt response: "I'm the president and you're not."

That posture has frustrated lawmakers who say Trump's recent decisions — including a preliminary Iran deal that drew sharp criticism from Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Roger Wicker (R-MS), and a standoff over FISA reauthorization tied to an unrelated voter-ID bill — are complicating the GOP's path to keeping its majority. Cassidy called the Iran agreement "the worst foreign policy blunder in decades."

Former GOP leadership spokesman Ron Bonjean said Trump's dismissiveness toward midterm concerns has already strained his relationship with congressional Republicans: "The total control that Trump once had over Congress just isn't there anymore."

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales defended the president's record, saying "no President has worked harder or delivered more than President Trump," and pointed to his work on immigration, the economy and national security as evidence.

President Donald Trump's maneuver to install a conspiracist atop the nation's intelligence apparatus may have dire consequences for November's midterm elections, a new report warns.

Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency with no known intelligence experience, takes over this month as acting director of national intelligence.

The new spy chief will inherit a suppressed government report on voting machine vulnerabilities that some in the White House admit could undermine U.S. elections, Reuters reported.

As Pulte comes in, there is a new push to release the controversial report, Reuters reporter Erin Banco revealed on X Friday. Democrats have feared the move is part of an election-interference plot.

Both a White House faction and Democrats have warned the report could damage U.S. elections — for very different reasons.

Some White House officials fear releasing it could shake Republican confidence in the voting machines their own voters use, three sources told Reuters.

Democrats fear something darker: that the administration would use the findings to pressure states into switching to paper ballots — a move critics warn could sow chaos ahead of November.

All sources said they were unaware of any evidence of vote manipulation in U.S. elections.

Pulte's record outside the intelligence world alarmed watchdogs long before Friday. The Government Accountability Office launched an investigation into whether he misused sensitive financial data at the Federal Housing Finance Agency to manufacture mortgage fraud allegations against Trump's political enemies, including a sitting U.S. senator, a state attorney general, and a Federal Reserve governor.

"I think, unfortunately, it appears there may be a coordinated effort to try to interfere in the 2026 midterms," Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters.

"I'm worried about his willingness to take a fabricated piece of intelligence, or a raw piece of intelligence that has not been verified, and use it as an excuse to interfere in the elections," Warner added.

Trump canceled the June 17 confirmation hearing for his own DNI nominee, Jay Clayton, who had drawn rare bipartisan support, blocking the one congressional offramp available to replace Pulte.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Trump "deliberately" kept the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act lapsed to protect Pulte's hold on the post.

"He may find out some things about the rigged elections," Trump said in the Oval Office when asked what qualified Pulte for the role.

New details are coming into focus about a longtime Donald Trump donor whose company landed a no-bid federal contract to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in what has turned out to be an over-budget, ongoing debacle.

The National Park Service awarded the $1.7 million contract to what has turned out to be the ironically named Greenwater Services, bypassing the competitive bidding process normally required for federal work. The New York Times reported the company is led by Republican donor and Mar-a-Lago neighbor John J. Cafaro, whom Trump once called a "fantastic man."

The J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust, which owns Greenwater Services, lists Cafaro's Palm Beach mansion and trust contact information appear on the company's corporate filings.

Cafaro has donated more than $300,000 to Trump-connected political committees since 2016 and has known Trump for at least a decade. He pleaded guilty in 2001 to conspiring to bribe then-Rep. James Traficant, an Ohio Democrat, and later testified against him.

The Park Service justified skipping competitive bidding by citing time pressure tied to events marking the country's 250th anniversary, though it didn't specify a deadline. Records show multiple firms had expressed interest in the project before the contract went to Greenwater, which had previously received only one other federal contract.

Algae blooms turned the pool green this week after it was refilled following the renovation, and about half the pool remained green Thursday as crews vacuumed out algae and added hydrogen peroxide in an attempt to control it.

The Interior Department said a permanent purification system was expected to be installed this week, but did not explain why the pool was refilled before that system was in place — a decision that left it vulnerable to exactly the blue-green algae bloom that followed.

A separate no-bid contract, worth $14.7 million, went to a Virginia firm to waterproof the pool's floor with blue coating. That work also appears to be faltering, as a section of the coating was seen detached and floating on the surface this week.

Interior Department spokeswoman Katie Martin said the agency was unaware of Cafaro's political ties when it selected the firm, adding that "this company was selected because they had the expertise, work force and materials" to meet the timeline.

Both the department and the White House said the White House was not involved in choosing the contractor. Neither Greenwater Services nor Cafaro responded to requests for comment from the Times.

The name of the company, as well as Cafaro's flamboyant appearance and checkered background, astonished social media users.

"Wait, the company that renovated the reflecting pool is literally called 'Greenwater Services?'" wrote author Eric Nelson. "That can’t be true."

"Ya can’t make this stuff up," marveled Times editor Jonathan Weisman.

"So wait have I been sleeping on this or are we all just finding out that the company that did the reflecting pool is called Greenwater Services? Because come on," laughed journalist Molly Wood. "The writers are getting way too obvious."

"This your taxpayers dollars which cost $13.1 million for the renovations for a reflecting pool, (I smell corruption)," noted construction company owner Wade Williams. "The project also included a new water purification system, which was to be installed by Ohio-based company Greenwater Services."

Podcaster SLCLunk laughed, "There is no way the guy who got the no-bid contract for using bottom shelf Home Depot sealant on the reflecting pool looks like this. ... Coen brothers 2nd Act comic relief character -ss look."

President Donald Trump fired off a social media attack Friday morning as he was buried under an onslaught of criticism hurled his direction regarding the tentative peace deal he reached with Iran.

According to the 14-point memorandum of understanding reached between Washington and Tehran, the United States would help Iran gain access to a $300 billion redevelopment fund, lift all sanctions, and unfreeze billions of dollars of restricted Iranian funds. The tentative deal has received criticism – particularly from hawkish conservatives – that Iran would be better positioned from the deal than they were prior to the war.

Trump fiercely refuted critics’ assessments.

“The War has diminished Iran! It doesn’t, any longer, have an Air Force, a Navy, Antiaircraft Equipment, Radar, or practically anything else, and yet the Dumocrats say that Iran is better off now than it was four months ago,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “Can you imagine getting away with that??? How stupid can some people be???”

In a subsequent social media post made just minutes later, Trump insisted that his administration did not fold to Iran’s demands, and that, in actuality, the inverse had happened.

“We didn’t meet out of desperation, Iran did. They are FINISHED!” Trump wrote. “We’ll play out the 60 days. They get no money, not ten cents!”

British media personality Piers Morgan and countless others reacted with shock Friday morning over a top Israeli official’s call for all of Lebanon to “burn,” a threat that stands at odds with Iranian demands and risks blowing up the tentative peace deal between Washington and Tehran.

“For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. All of Lebanon must burn!” wrote Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir Friday in a statement published on social media according to an automatic English translation of the Hebrew-language statement.

The first point of the 14-point memorandum of understanding agreed to by Washington and Tehran included a provision that Israel terminate its military operations in Lebanon, with the Israeli military currently occupying around 10% of its northern neighbor’s territory. After four Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon were killed Thursday night, however, Israel pounded its northern neighbor with airstrikes, killing at least 18 and injuring 33.

Israel’s continued occupation and bombardment of Lebanon has already led to a delay in talks between Washington and Tehran, and critics, such as Morgan, flagged comments like Gvir’s as further evidence that Israel posed a threat to solidifying a U.S.-Iran peace deal.

“How can anyone still support this Israeli govt when psychopathic monsters like Ben Gvir are ministers in it, advocating genocide in Lebanon? Disgusting,” Morgan wrote Friday in a social media post on X.

Melissa Witte, a podcaster and political commentator, noted the significance of Gvir’s remarks given his prominent position within the Israeli government.

“This isn’t some random Israeli spouting off. This is the 3rd most powerful person in the Israeli government; the Minister of National Security,” Witte wrote Friday in a social media post on X. “America cannot keep funding these genocidal psychopaths.”

Even Brianna Wu, a former Democratic congressional candidate and fierce supporter of Israel, condemned Gvir’s remarks in harsh terms.

“You're a psychopath. If Free Palestine could create Israeli villains to drive their propaganda they would create you. And yet, you are somehow real,” Wu wrote in a social media post on X. “The best thing Jews could do to fight antisemitism would be banishing you to some third world swamp.”

A diplomatic firestorm erupted Friday after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni accused President Trump of fabricating a story about her — and her government responded by canceling a planned diplomatic visit to Washington.

The dispute traces back to comments Trump made to Italian channel La7, claiming Meloni had "begged" him for a photo together at the G7 summit, reported Reuters.

"She's probably happy I talked to her," Trump said, according to the network's dubbed translation. "I didn't have to talk to her. I felt sorry for her."

Meloni didn't hold back in her response to the 80-year-old Trump's characterization of the encounter.

"Donald Trump's statements are completely made up," Meloni said. "I am frankly astonished. I don't know why ⁠the president of the United States behaves like this towards his allies. It is not the first time, moreover."

"I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence," she added. "There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg."

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani scrapped his planned U.S. visit, writing on X that Trump's "serious and offensive words" toward Meloni "offend the whole of Italy."

Journalist Antonello Guerrera characterized it on X as, "All hell breaks loose between Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni."

Giovanbattista Fazzolari, a close Meloni ally and government undersecretary, went further, suggesting Trump was actively damaging the transatlantic alliance. "It is unclear whether out of intent or ineptitude he is wrecking the historic relations between the United States and Europe," he said.

The clash undercuts what had looked like a thaw between the two right-wing leaders, who appeared friendly just days earlier at the G7. Video showed them in close conversation on a shared sofa. That followed earlier tension this year, after Meloni criticized Trump for attacking Pope Leo over his comments on the Iran war — a rebuke that prompted Trump to accuse her of lacking courage.

Meloni had once been among Trump's most prominent European allies, the only EU leader to attend his 2025 inauguration.

President Donald Trump sat down for nearly half an hour with Axios correspondent Marc Caputo after signing a memorandum of understanding to wind down the Iran war — and that reporter flagged one particular statement that stood out to him.

The 80-year-old president acknowledged that he negotiated an end to the war to avoid a global economic recession, but he denied that he had been humbled by the experience and instead had determined "there are no limits" to his power.

Caputo shared his takeaways from the sit-down with MS NOW's "Morning Joe."

"What stood out for me is the guy didn't really sleep," Caputo said. "The president hadn't slept much, I think maybe two hours [since] he had flown back from Europe. But his general attitude was very positive. Despite all of the negative commentary and pushback over the deal, the president seems pretty relieved because he has an exit here, and he's looking at two things. He's looking at the stock market, and he's looking at the price of oil, and the price of oil is down."

Caputo highlighted the quote that stood out the most to him about the president's state of mind.

"At one point in the interview, he said it at a few points in the interview, he said, 'It's a gusher,' as if he literally struck oil through this deal because of the price lowering," Caputo said, "and that really impressed me because it just shows what Trump is really focused on."

The reporter was asked whether Trump would seek to punish Republicans who have already spoken out against the terms of the peace agreement outlined in the memorandum of understanding, and he declined to speculate.

"Woe betide him who predicts what Donald Trump is going to do," Caputo said. "Nevertheless, I would find it difficult to believe that he would change that much. My general view of Trump is that if you criticize something that he has started to put his chips in, he doesn't like the criticism. I asked him during the interview, are you going to punish any of the Republicans who oppose you on this? Because there are elements of the deal with sanctions that are going to need to come back to Congress for final approval, in part to set up or make effective this $300 billion reconstruction fund."

"It took me a little while to get the president to answer, but he said basically no," Caputo added. "Now, I'm wondering if that'll change, that is, if the criticism reaches a fever pitch from his own party, does he start to push back and start to target people? I don't know that."

The war had grown increasingly unpopular, especially as gas prices soared as a result of the Strait of Hormuz closure, and Caputo said Republican chances in the midterms were a consideration in Trump's decision to negotiate an end to the conflict.

"If you scratch a few layers beneath the surface, yeah, you'll hear that," he said. "But there certainly is going to be nothing on the record or even on background. But you can tell that what was just really concerning them is not just the poll numbers, but what was causing the underlying poll number troubles, and that was the price of gas."

Caputo identified a potential opening for Republicans to campaign their way out of the problem Trump created for them.

"My guess here, having talked to them over the past months about the war, is that the argument they're going to make is, is, look, everyone was complaining about gas prices – well, gas prices are coming back down," Caputo said. "Therefore, what the president is proposing is a good idea, and that might be a challenging argument for his opponents and his critics to push back on."

"The American people don't really pay a lot of attention to the finer points of foreign policy, and, you know, these various points of the MOU, they're focused on their lives and they're driving around," Caputo said, "and every day there's been a scoreboard on street corners that people have seen, and that's the price of fuel. Even if you drive a Tesla, you at least can see what the price of fuel is doing, and it's been up and people don't like it, and now it's going to come down. The president's hope is, as a result of that coming down, the fortunes of Republicans increase. That is, if they take yes for an answer, his version of yes and embrace this deal."

- YouTube youtu.be

Democratic lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee are growing frustrated with chair Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) over his leadership — including “barely-veiled personal jabs” and other provocations — and are already "vowing they won't forget" if they reclaim the majority in the midterms, Punchbowl News reported Friday.

During a recent hearing in the committee attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Mast “cut off” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the committee, during his opening statement. Back in March, Mast chastised Meeks over his attendance after the New York Democrat pushed to subpoena Trump administration officials regarding the U.S. war against Iran.

Regarding his opening statement being cut short, Meeks said it was “disrespectful” of Mast, Punchbowl News reported. Meeks also issued a vague warning to the Florida Republican, who once controversially appeared on Capitol Hill wearing an Israel Defense Forces uniform.

“It’s something I won’t forget when I become chair,” Meeks said.

Mast, according to Punchbowl News, dismissed Democratic criticisms directed his way.

“[They] can piss and moan about it all they want,” Mast said. “If they didn’t get to all of the Republican and Democrat members, then I would have had to hear them b------- about the fact that [Rubio] didn’t stay for everybody, so I started immediately on time.”

Mast has a storied history of sparking outrage in the House Foreign Affairs Committee for his leadership, including during a hearing earlier this month in which he refused to allow a Democratic member to reclaim lost time after being interrupted by Rubio.

“He is interrupting me!” Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) told Mast.

“Do something about it," Mast responded, declining to intervene.

In the wake of a fourth death at a U.S. Postal Service megafacility in Georgia, a union leader blasted the government agency for its inadequate emergency response procedures.

Jonathan Smith, president of the American Postal Workers Union, called out a lack of emergency phones at a 1-million-square-foot USPS warehouse in Palmetto, Georgia, where an employee, Demarcus Little, Sr., 45, died earlier this month.

This marks the fourth death at the distribution facility since it opened in 2024.

“The emergency phones were not hooked up,” Smith exclusively told Raw Story.

“I'm not blaming [USPS] for the death, but I'm blaming them for their response because the quicker we can get an individual help, the better their chances are of survival, and what they have in place right now for a facility that's over a million square feet, in my opinion, is unacceptable.”

Jonathan Smith (Photo provided by American Postal Workers Union)

USPS has not confirmed the cause of death, but 911 calls indicate that Little suffered a medical emergency, with CPR engaged 18 minutes after the call.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of a postal family member on June 3. Our thoughts are with their family, friends, and colleagues during this difficult time,” said Albert Ruiz, a USPS spokesperson in an emailed statement.

“Due to privacy concerns, the Postal Service does not publicly comment on matters involving its personnel. We are providing counseling services to our employees at the Palmetto Regional Distribution Center.”

Current procedure requires security personnel to respond before emergency services are contacted, which can take a long time to travel across the building that has no cell phone service, Smith said.

“The total response time is a major concern for me because of the procedures that they have in place,” Smith said.

“That's why I asked for them to put emergency phones all over the building, so if something happens, you can get a more immediate response to get people help when they need it. That has not been put into place, so I am really p----- off at the Postal Service because this is not a major ask.”

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) sent a letter expressing “grave concern” to Postmaster General David Steiner on Friday to launch an inquiry into the deaths at the Palmetto facility.

A report from the USPS Office of Inspector General last year cited “insufficient supervision and a poor employee work culture” at the Palmetto facility.

Smith said he asked the Postal Service to install emergency phones in November 2025 and was told they would be installed in January. Nearly six months later, they weren’t, and Smith said he was told the IT team received approval to install the phones after Little’s death.

”They promised that they were going to put emergency phones out there because that facility — and this is supposed to be their starship facility. This was supposed to be their shining beacon for America, how great a post office could be — yet they have no cell phone service, so what's important is that we put emergency phones out there,” Smith said.

'Unconscionable and unacceptable'

The Palmetto regional distribution facility is part of Delivering for America, a 10-year plan for financial sustainability from former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy as USPS has registered billions of dollars of losses annually in recent years and has now run out of money.

“This facility was supposed to be the shining star of the Delivering for America plan. This was supposed to be the facility of all facilities to show you the greatness of the Postal Service, and if this is showing what the greatness of the Postal Service is, then we have a long way to go,” Smith said.

“People have a right to come to work, and go home the same way they came. Alive. The people have a right to have a fighting chance at survival if an incident happens in an industrial environment where we know these things can happen. The Postal Service has an obligation — not just a responsibility, an obligation — to give the workers that work for them every protection that they can to give them every chance they can to survive any incident that may happen.”

Previous deaths at the facility involved Russell Scruggs, Jr., a mail handler assistant who died in November, Eric Smith, a 59-year-old electric technician who died in June 2025 and Sharon Barnes, 48, who died in August 2024.

A postal worker transports boxes at a USPS Processing & Distribution Center in Los Angeles on December 2. (REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo)

Smith said during one of the previous deaths “they put cardboard around the individual and had his coworkers walk around them.”

“Do you know what kind of traumatic incident that is?” Smith said.

“Then you’ve got to go back to work and work that same facility where you feel unprotected.”

In another instance, a woman working an afternoon shift did not find out her house burned down until after she was done with work because she couldn’t be reached in the facility, Smith said.

“That is unconscionable and unacceptable in any form, whether it be a post office or any place else,” Smith said.

While Little was not a member of the American Postal Workers Union, rather represented by the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, Smith said it was important to speak out because “the safety issue for me is to protect all postal workers.”

The National Postal Mail Handlers Union did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

For months, Smith said he’s been advocating for other safety measures such as CPR training and defibrillators on the workroom floor but said there was pushback about the cost.

“I'm very disgusted at what's going out there at the post office response,” Smith said.

“Nobody says that they are to blame for these tragedies, but they can be held responsible for their response because what happens is when someone gets hurt, our response needs to be we need to put things in place, so this never happens to somebody again. Four deaths later, I'm still waiting for the position of the post office to protect everybody else from this happening to them.”

Donald Trump built his political brand on the power of national pride — and it could have been the "fatal mistake" of his second administration, according to an analysis Friday.

The American leader can't seem to understand that other countries are patriotic too, Alexander Burns wrote for Politico.

That blind spot is unraveling Trump's second term — fracturing alliances with the global right, prolonging a costly war with Iran, and leaving his own Republican Party to absorb the political damage, Burns wrote.

The warning signs were hiding in plain sight.

When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — a populist with deep ties to the American right who once hosted Tucker Carlson in Western Canada — visited Mar-a-Lago after Trump's second election win, she looked every bit a MAGA diehard. But when pressed last fall at a Toronto policy summit about Trump potentially meddling in Alberta's volatile politics, the admiration stopped.

"I don't want any foreign influence in our politics here," Smith said flatly.

Sovereignty, it turns out, cuts both ways, Burns wrote.

Trump launched his political career as a hard-edged nationalist, demanding tougher borders and American sovereignty above all else. He cheered Britain's 2016 Brexit vote and crowned himself "Mr. Brexit." He understood, viscerally, what it meant for a people to refuse outside domination.

But that instinct has deserted him, Burns wrote.

"In his second term, Trump’s grasp of nationalist politics has slipped. He has underestimated the power of patriotism and national pride in countries other than his own," he wrote.

"This serial miscalculation has undermined Trump’s trade wars and military adventures, aggravated the cost-of-living crisis, weakened the Republican Party and battered Trump’s bonds with the global right."

His tariff threats and belittling taunts against Canada didn't break Ottawa's will, but instead triggered patriotism that swept a new prime minister, Mark Carney, into power on a platform of resisting American economic domination. His attempted humiliation of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office — dressing him down while grabbing for Ukraine's mineral wealth — was such a naked affront to Ukrainian sovereignty that Zelenskyy faced zero political consequences for telling Trump to get lost.

Dispatching Vice President JD Vance to campaign in Hungary's election didn't save Viktor Orbán from a landslide defeat. Attempts to meddle in judicial decisions in Brazil, commandeer British and Spanish airfields, and dictate military strategy to Israel all went similarly nowhere.

And then there was Iran.

Trump's expectation that he could decapitate the Islamic Republic's leadership, bomb the country into submission, and install a compliant proxy government — all without ground troops — produced a monthslong stalemate that sent energy prices soaring and ground down the global economy.

It shouldn't have surprised anyone, Burns wrote.

Even Trump's ideological admirers abroad have noticed the drift.

Jordan Bardella, the likely presidential nominee for France's far-right National Rally and once a Trump enthusiast, told Politico that second-term Trump was barely recognizable. The United States, he said, was now behaving more like an "empire." Trump himself had become "extremely unsteady and constantly shifting."

And like Smith, Bardella wanted nothing to do with a Trump endorsement. "We don't need to accept or open the door to any form of interference," he said.

President Donald Trump is exhibiting a clear pattern that shows just how badly his cognitive abilities have slipped from what they used to be, MS NOW political analyst John Heilemann said on Thursday's edition of "Deadline: White House."

Heilemann's observation came after a general discussion in which he and Nicolle Wallace outlined what they saw as the president's incompetence and lack of concern for the American people.

"Forget about your politics. Forget about which which party you prefer," said Wallace. "In normal times, he doesn't care about your pain. He doesn't care about your problems. He doesn't care about your anxiety. He doesn't care about your future. He doesn't care about your kids."

Heilemann agreed — and for starters, he pointed to his failure to pull off a simple beautification of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

"I was in Washington this week ... I went down to the Reflecting Pool," he said, and added that he'd need "malaria pills" and "mosquito netting" to be safe there, given "that swamp situation is so bad, and it's such a great metaphor for the whole Trump administration ... he was told that, you know, people were like, this is gonna be a problem. He didn't listen to them."

Between that and the Iran war, he continued, America is facing "amateur hour incompetence of everything."

As for the proof of Trump's decline, Heilemann said, "just hover on the nicknames for a moment" — specifically, the creativity of the nicknames that Trump gives to his political opponents.

"Little Marco, Low-Energy Jeb, Lyin' Ted, those were good nicknames," said Heilemann. "I think these new nicknames, Marjorie Taylor Brown, that you had that kind of explain it. Dumocrats. And now the third strike, Jon OssJerkoff. There is no clearer sign of Trump's cognitive decline than the decline in the quality of his nicknames."

"These are just bad nicknames, man," he added. "It's time to hang it up."

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Donald Trump is hyper aware that his Iran deal is tearing his party apart — but he's especially concerned that he's left his MAGA base "seething," a columnist wrote Friday.

Even the president's most loyal supporters didn't mince words when they blasted the deal Trump is expected to sign in an effort to end the Iran war.

Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who has spent years carrying water for the MAGA was clearly reeling from Trump's freshly inked Memorandum of Understanding with Tehran.

"Giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea," Cruz said. "I think the President unfortunately is receiving bad advice on this deal."

It was a remarkable moment, wrote the I Paper's Simon Marks. One of Trump's most reliable foot soldiers openly breaking ranks over a deal signed just hours earlier in Versailles.

Cruz wasn't alone. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana declared that "Ronald Reagan is rolling over in his grave" over what he called Trump's capitulation.

"Iran's nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works," Cassidy warned, "and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future."

The fury didn't start Wednesday. When Trump launched his military campaign — entirely sidestepping the War Powers Act and the congressional approval it requires — prominent MAGA voices were already uneasy. Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens accused Trump of outsourcing American foreign policy to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now, with a preliminary deal on the table, those same voices smell betrayal on a grander scale, Marks wrote.

Vice President JD Vance has insisted no American taxpayer money would be involved — that regional allies would foot the bill. But the optics are brutal: the United States went to war to topple a regime it is now proposing to bankroll.

But it's Trump's base he's most worried about, wrote Marks.

"Politician fury is one thing, but the reaction of his base is another thing entirely for the President. Trump will be watching very carefully the reaction of MAGA, and will be out to convince them that his deal is good for American consumers," he wrote.

"He already got a small bit of good news this week, with US petrol prices dropping to under $4 a gallon for the first time since mid-April.

"However, Trump’s virulent base has a long memory and his damaging war with Iran could be the last straw for some.

"The deal with Iran, and the negotiations that follow, is also only going to intensify the battering the President’s Republican colleagues will likely face on American doorsteps ahead of the crucial midterm elections in November."

Scott Thomsen has voted for Donald Trump three times. Now, the fourth-generation Nebraska farmer says he's done with the Republican Party.

"I'm pretty disenfranchised as a voter right now, and I think I'm not the only one," Thomsen told the Washington Post. "Either I'm going to completely sit these elections out, or I'm going to vote down the line, incumbents out."

Thomsen's frustration reflects a broader shift among farmers, long one of the GOP's most reliable voting blocs, as they head into this year's midterms facing fuel and fertilizer price spikes tied to the war in Iran, market volatility from Trump's trade wars, and a new parasite threat to cattle.

Rural approval of the president dropped to 50 percent this month — a new low, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll, down from 60 percent shortly after his second inauguration.

The financial toll has been steep. More than 300 farms filed for bankruptcy last year, up 46 percent from the year before, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the USDA forecasts total farm sector debt will hit $624.7 billion this year, the highest on record.

"A lot of farmers today have lost and are losing faith and are feeling betrayed," said Joe Maxwell, president of Farm Action Fund. "They're not seeing an 'America First' agenda."

The discontent has created openings for Democrats in red states like Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin, though it hasn't yet produced a wholesale party shift. Candidates including Iowa's Josh Turek and Nebraska independent Dan Osborn are leaning into farmers' economic squeeze on the campaign trail.

Adding to the strain, the New World screwworm, a cattle parasite eradicated from the U.S. in 1966 that resurfaced in Texas last month. Even Sid Miller, the Republican Texas Agriculture Commissioner and a Trump loyalist, has publicly criticized Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins over the administration's response. Rollins has said USDA has tracked the threat for years and denies that budget cuts hampered its handling.

Not all farmers are abandoning the president. Many credit the administration for closing the Mexican border to cattle to slow the parasite's spread and for securing a Chinese commitment to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually.

Still, Thomsen said short-term bailout payments don't fix deeper inflation problems. With his own equipment breaking down and costs climbing, he's bracing for more uncertainty ahead.

"There's just a lot of uncertainty right now," he said. "So you've just got to try to keep yourself protected as well as you can."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) issued an “extraordinary rebuke” of members of his own party this week amid a wave of recent inner-party “chaos” sparked by President Donald Trump, Punchbowl News reported on Friday.

Thune, according to Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio, Laura Weiss and John Bresnahan, has had “just about the worst luck over the past couple months” as Trump’s agenda has increasingly placed the Senate GOP leader in difficult positions – from derailing the entire GOP agenda this week by “canceling” a Senate confirmation hearing, to pushing the SAVE Act, his controversial voting ID bill that analysts say has no path forward in Congress.

“Every time during 2026 that Thune seems to be turning a corner, Trump comes in red-hot,” Punchbowl News’ report reads.

Trump has also demanded that Republicans eliminate the filibuster — a Senate rule that allows members to block a bill that receives less than 60 votes — creating what Punchbowl News described as “unnecessary rifts among Republicans.”

Rep. Mike Lee (R-UT) has been among the most vocal proponents of fulfilling Trump’s wishes — even when they have no realistic path forward — prompting Thune to issue an 'extraordinary rebuke' of Lee and other Republican senators who are complicating the GOP's legislative agenda.

“Everybody knows we’re not nuking the filibuster,” Thune told Punchbowl News. “It was on the floor for two weeks. We’ve had now five votes on it, none of which have gotten 60, and SAVE America hasn’t even gotten 50. So at some point, it seems like we ought to start making this an issue with the Democrats rather than with each other.”

Speculating on the basis for President Donald Trump's political and personnel moves is done only at one's peril. The man's mind, always a complex mix of paranoia, confidence, and confusion, is never linear, always leveraged, all in his personal favor.

Despite that reality, it is gravely important to speculate on the reasons that Trump would take on virtually the entirety of the GOP Senate Caucus to install Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI), doing so after pulling Pulte's original nomination to quell GOP outcry — in favor of the more experienced Jay Clayton.

Clayton was set to face a Senate hearing Wednesday, but Trump effectively cancelled that in favor of keeping Pulte in place as "acting DNI" — and did it in the middle of the night before the hearing.

The move may sound to some more like mundane Washington political play, but it is actually earth-shakingly unprecedented and done with such rushed recklessness as to represent something deeply nefarious — a Trump move of the type he's made before, but this one on a level that threatens nearly every move made against everything threatening Trump.

It belies Trump's fear of a possible future, while indicating a fierce willingness to fabricate facts needed to avoid the failure of collapse.

Now we're back to speculating as to what Pulte's real responsibility will entail, and doing so knowing the danger of getting lost in unnecessary specifics. The logical start is a focus on Trump's greatest fear looming on the horizon. The biggest — by far — is a wave election in which Democrats suddenly control Congress and all the inherent investigative power, picking apart the administration, act by act, deals for value-added deals, dollar for dollar, favor for favor.

And everyone already knows Trump's response to such an election: "Rigged!"

Right. Except it's tough to effectively scream rigged when states control the election process in a manner unique to each jurisdiction. If one is going to fight results added up nationally, one needs a national issue, perhaps international, and remember, Trump is the same guy who came up with a theory that Venezuela altered voting machines, and some say used Elon Musk's Starlink to "play" with the returns from precincts to state officials. Both the Venezuela and Starlink theories are untrue, but the truth never mattered less when Trump claims "rigged!"

What better way to concoct a national basis for doubting the results of a blue wave than a Director of National Intelligence, able to pick apart international attempts to alter our elections (Which do occur, largely with no success), and offer up a "basis" for the result, one that couldm— at the very least — hold up suits in court challenging the elections, or — even worse — give Trump the reason to declare the election null and void, refusing to recognize the results, even as the new members are seated and fully in control of Congress.

That the Constitution doesn't allow Trump to make such a move is a cute counterargument, worth less than a value meal at McDonald's.

Anyone thinking that such speculation is too "out there" is likely the type who doubted Trump would do anything to stop a loss in 2020. Shocking even the experts who DID predict something, Trump organized a brutal attack on the Capitol, an attempted coup that, had it happened in some poor Latin American country or former Soviet Republic, would be seen as an act of civil war within the nation — that it was so "bizarre" and foreign here in the U.S., it played more as an "inconvenience" as it failed.

One of this nation's most shameful days is now seen as a sign of strength on the hardened right — and they're ready again, awaiting only instruction.

Pulte has proven he'll play ball in whatever way Trump directs. The sum total of Pulte's work in this administration has been his aggressiveness at the FHFA, attacking Trump enemies like Letitia James, proving to Trump that Pulte is a guy “who will do what I need, no questions asked.”

To be sure, there'd be a tidal wave of "questions asked" when and if Pulte comes up with some "intelligence," throwing the entirety of 2026 results into chaos, which favors Trump and only Trump — the only "True North" in the Trump administration. The fact that such accusations would be all but laughably false couldn't matter less. Nothing about "Rigged" ever came with facts, only a need.

Of course, there is also the "smaller stuff," like the Epstein investigation, or serious reviews of Trump's financial moves. What better counter than to assert that "America's enemies" are planting information to weaken "the American president"?

But now we're back to speculating as to specifics, and that's not only nearly impossible but also nearly entirely irrelevant. Trump wants the wholly unqualified but unquestionably loyal MAGA man in charge of the nation's intelligence, and he's willing to do it over and above a near revolt by the Republican Senate Caucus.

That some reason compels this decision is as obvious as the risk. For some reason, Trump has determined that the benefit of having his man in that position outweighs the risk of a Senate revolt. Perhaps already portending a willingness to ignore Congressional chaos as little more than a nuisance, as he aggregates all power in the White House.

Watch this move — call Senators, create our own revolt. Something bad is brewing, and Trump keeps elevating the bad by the month. This one stands out, as innocuous as it may seem at first glance, with nation-shaking ramifications when examined.

It is that bad and worth your every effort.

Jason Miciak is a Rawstory Columnist, past Editor at Occupy Democrats, political consultant, attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow on Bluesky, and he can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com

A high-profile ex-CNN anchor singled out the insider said to be the "biggest leaker" in the Trump White House.

Don Lemon said during an interview with Legal AF host Michael Popok that Vice President "J.D. Vance is like the biggest leaker of them all" in the White House based on what "many people have said and according to some of the reporting."

Lemon and Popok were talking about Trump's efforts to hunt down the insider who leaked details of a "freakout" in the Situation Room over the Epstein files. The freakout is detailed in the forthcoming book Regime Change by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

"Donald Trump could very well be one of the people who leaked to" Haberman, Lemon admitted, adding that it's possible Trump "doesn't even realize it."

However, he and Popok made the case for suspecting Vance is at least "the biggest source for people," as Lemon put it.

"He looks good in the story, relatively," Popok said, referring to the NY Times reporting on the Epstein freakout in the Situation Room. "Among the liars in the room, he looks like he's the one that says, 'let's get the story out about Donald Trump'...I'm like, among those people in the room, that was like the best thing to say."

Lemon pointed to reporting on the Iran war that also seemed to favor Vance.

"Remember, the reporting was that J.D. Vance was the only one in the room who was against it," Lemon explained. "It's like, well, how does J.D. Vance always come out looking better than anyone?"

CNN pundits couldn't hold it together as they heard about a new detail in an upcoming tell-all about the Trump White House.

The upcoming book Regime Change, written by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, detailed how Trump showed them a document that argued he was more powerful than historical strongmen like Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler.

After a little digging, it turned out that the document wasn't written by a presidential historian like Trump claimed, but by Hall of Fame golfer Gary Player's long-time caddy, according to reports.

CNN anchor Abby Phillip explained as much to her pundits on Thursday, but she cracked up and couldn't get through the whole recap.

"It's not a joke," Phillip said as she laughed. "This actually happened."

Political commentator Xochitl Hinojosa and Democratic former congressional candidate Isaiah Martin couldn't contain themselves either and laughed out loud alongside Phillip.

"This is the president of the United States," Hinojosa said, covering her face.

Hinojosa admitted, "It is scary that he is comparing himself [to those figures]. He has unlimited power. He is essentially saying that he is a lot like a dictator." She did find consolation in describing Trump as a historically unpopular president, though.

"He can try to say in his head that he is the most powerful, that he is like a dictator, that he has all the power in the world," Hinojosa said. "But the reality is that this man is going to go down as probably one of the least popular presidents."

Department of Justice lawyers ditching the Trump administration to work in a blue state took parting shots, according to a Democratic Attorney General.

During an appearance on the Legal AF podcast, Colorado AG Phil Weiser, who's running for governor in his state, detailed the "brain drain" at the DOJ as lawyers flee, with one prosecutor named Hagan Scotten telling his superiors that only "a fool or a coward" would work for Trump.

"Trump might find someone to do his bidding, but it was either going to be a fool or a coward, and it was never going to be me," Weiser said, quoting Scotten. "The people, like Mr. Scotten, who had integrity, they're leaving. They're often not being replaced."

Weiser said that the Colorado AG's office has already hired "over 22 people and counting from the federal government who want to stay in public service but can't be a part of an administration that is so lawless."

Weiser said, "We're hiring people from Main Justice, and we're hiring from Washington agencies, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who basically have concluded, 'I can't do this anymore. I'm leaving.' And they look to Colorado."

Legal AF host Michael Popok brought up DOJ prosecutor Danielle Sassoon, a "shining star" from the Southern District of New York. Sassoon quit with an eight-page letter rather than follow orders to drop an indictment against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, gave the orders, Popok noted.

"She was, by the way, Republican, an Orthodox Jewish woman that was destined to be the U.S. attorney in that office," Popok explained. "She left. She said, 'Dismiss the indictment?' as she was ordered to do by Emil Bove. 'Dismiss the indictment?' I'm ready to come get permission to bring a superseding indictment for more charges,' and then quit with an eight-page letter, which detailed everything."

A CNN pundit couldn't believe the description of President Donald Trump's super glue fiasco revealed in an upcoming book.

The upcoming book Regime Change by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan detailed how White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt walked into the Oval Office to find Trump "clutching a tube of super glue and attempting to affix gold decorations to the marble fireplace mantle."

SE Cupp, a conservative political commentator, described the episode as "unfathomable" during an appearance on CNN on Thursday.

"It is unfathomable to imagine a U.S. president super-gluing anything in the Oval Office," Cupp said. "That's wacko, but it's easier to imagine this president doing it."

She added that, "It's the perfect metaphor" for the Trump presidency, "as so many things are, from the Reflecting Pool to the ballroom," referring to two embattled and lavish Trump projects.

"Trump came up in business by putting his name on buildings," Cupp said. "He didn't have to own them superficially. He was looking to look powerful and important."

She admitted that the image of Trump gluing gold decorations onto the Oval Office actually "makes perfect sense."

The Alaska Division of Elections took action to disqualify a man named Dan Sullivan from running on the ballot against the incumbent Republican senator of the same name — but a lawyer advising the state legislature is now warning this was probably illegal.

According to Alaska Public Media, "Andrew Dunmire, an attorney with the nonpartisan Legislative Affairs Agency, wrote a nearly five-page memo on the controversy." According to the report, the other Sullivan, who lives in Petersburg, "appears to meet the three qualifications the U.S. Constitution requires of senators, Dunmire said: He’s over 30, a U.S. citizen for nine years or more, and a state resident."

The Division of Elections ruled Sullivan ineligible because he had not filed in "good faith," and there was strong evidence he was deliberately trying to confuse voters into splitting the vote to boost Democrats.

But that isn't a valid disqualification reason, Dunmire argued: “To impose additional requirements on Mr. Sullivan — such as a requirement that he filed to run ‘in good faith’ — would improperly add to the exclusive list of Constitutional qualifications.”

Additionally, Dunmire argued, the Division of Elections made the opposite argument in 2024, "when the Division argued in court that it had to let Eric Hafner, a federal inmate in New York, appear on the Alaska ballot as a Democrat," potentially taking votes away from other Democratic candidates, despite the state Democratic Party complaining he wouldn't meet the residency requirement because of the length of his sentence.

The other Sullivan, who is also running as a Republican denies that he is a Democratic plant or that his candidacy is meant to deceive anyone, and Dunmire argued that there are sensible compromises where Sullivan could be allowed onto the ballot but displayed in a way that voters would not confuse him for the sitting senator.

Former President Barack Obama delivered pointed critiques of President Donald Trump during the opening ceremony of his presidential center in Chicago Thursday.

Obama gave a history lesson on America's founding ideals, saying, "In over more than two centuries, through petitions and protests ... men and women of all walks of life, from every color and every faith, every region, took up the cause of democracy until we, the people, came to include not just some of us, but all of us."

"And that's why the story we tell in this building begins not with Michelle's origins or my origins, but with our nation's."

In the wake of Trump ordering the Smithsonian and National Park Service to remove exhibits portraying America negatively, Obama reminded the audience of America's founding values.

"A declaration that we are all created equal, that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, that in the new independent United States, there will be no kings or lords, no serfs or subjects, but only citizens," Obama said.

"No one is above the law, or beneath its protection."

Watch the video below.

President Donald Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement has quietly started to "abandon" one of its big projects, The New York Times reported on Thursday — and one legal expert is gobsmacked at the reversal.

Specifically, after ICE spent around $1 billion to buy up nearly a dozen mega-warehouses that it planned to convert into detention centers, they are now trying to offload seven of them, either to other federal agencies or to private buyers.

This move, noted the report, "is a rejection of a signature initiative under the previous homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, who pushed the boundaries of what the government can do to aggressively round up potential deportees," as newly appointed Secretary Markwayne Mullin "has said publicly that he wants the agency to be quieter about how it carries out immigration enforcement."

American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick posted on X that the turnabout is a massive deal.

"This is HUGE," said Reichlin-Melnick. "After spending over $1 BILLION on the purchase of multiple commercial warehouses that ICE planned to convert into the largest jails/prisons in the nation, ICE is now largely abandoning the idea and will aim to sell off multiple warehouses at a loss."

Even before now, there were signs the federal government was abandoning the idea of converting warehouses to immigrant jails, and it ran into massive problems.

For one, in some cases ICE was prevented from buying warehouses in the first place because local owners opposed selling, or in one case in Oklahoma, a tribal nation bought it first to stop them. They also had to contend with lawsuits, including one brought by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.

Vice President JD Vance will have to stay home instead of traveling to Switzerland to finalize the memorandum of understanding the Trump administration struck with the Iranian regime last weekend, according to a White House spokesperson.

On Sunday, Trump announced his administration had struck a deal with the regime that would immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz and provide a pathway to ending the conflict. The final agreement was initially scheduled to be signed on Friday in Switzerland.

CNN journalist Kristen Holmes reported on Thursday that a White House spokesperson told her, "The Vice President is not departing tonight." The spokesperson added that "as the Vice President said at his press conference, the plans for the upcoming technical talks have not been finalized," referring to the deal to end the Iran war.

"The U.S. delegation has been prepared to depart at the first available opportunity," the White House spokesperson told Holmes. "But the logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable."

January 6ers who attacked cops won't have much luck with a new workaround to Trump's frozen slush fund, according to a legal expert.

Former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman wrote in his Substack about a loophole meant to compensate January 6ers despite the freeze of Trump's $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund. Litman noted that the slush fund "collapsed under bipartisan political pressure last month."

Litman was responding to an article by The Guardian that reported that January 6ers are trying to get paid anyway by filing a claim through the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows compensation for people wronged by the government.

According to The Guardian, a Florida attorney and longtime friend of Trump named Peter Ticktin has helped January 6ers file about 400 FTCA claims, but Litman warned that their claims won't work.

"The FTCA route is not a workaround," Litman wrote. "It is a recapitulation of precisely the same legal problems that doomed the slush fund."

According to Litman, the Trump administration "has already tried to use the FTCA as a vehicle for self-dealing, and that attempt has been declared constitutionally suspect by a federal judge."

He added that the FTCA "is not a general compensation scheme for grievances against the government." It's narrower than that and is meant to compensate "claims arising from the negligent acts of government employees," Litman wrote.

The FTCA claims are also bound to fail because the Trump administration controls both sides of the settlement that created the fund, and the FTCA only pays bona fide settlements of legitimate "actual or imminent litigation," he added.

"The unsettling part of the Guardian report is that the political mechanism that stopped the slush fund—Republican senators confronted with a floor vote, forced to answer on the record whether they supported paying people who beat police officers—may not exist here," Litman wrote. "These are individual cases, filed quietly across multiple dockets, without a single vote to cast or press conference to hold."

"Courts need to be prepared to jump in and call out this latest maneuver for the bogus self-dealing that it is," Litman added. "Whether the president settles with himself through a $10 billion IRS lawsuit, a $1.776 billion slush fund, or 400 individual FTCA claims filed by a friend of his in Florida, the answer is the same: the government cannot be its own adverse party."

The actions of President Donald Trump's prosecutors in a high-profile case have opened a "Pandora's box" that could unravel the Trump Department of Justice's ambitions, according to one legal analyst.

Liz Dye, host of the "LegalEagle" podcast, said during a new episode on Thursday that the damage Trump DOJ's actions have caused in the so-called Broadview Six case could be "hard to contain." Trump prosecutors were caught lying to grand jury members and attempting to withhold evidence of their misdoings captured in the grand jury transcripts. The prosecutors later dropped the case to prevent the transcripts from being released to the judge.

"It's clear they're not going to be able to limit the damage to just this case," Dye said.

The Broadview Six case arose from a protest outside the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago. The DOJ prosecuted six of the protesters with conspiracy and obstruction, but the case fell apart in a stunning fashion in May 2026. The six former defendants have since asked the government to appoint a Special Counsel to look into the case, All Rise News reported.

Dye noted that judges have started to notice this conduct as well. When the Broadview Six transcripts were finally released, Dye said the judge overseeing the case described them as a "Pandora's box" that raised further questions about the department's credibility.

"I'm guessing this grand jury mess isn't going back in the box anytime soon," Dye said.

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) will return to Congress on June 30 after months of unexplained absences, according to his spokesperson Harrison Neely.

Neely revealed, "the 57-year-old lawmaker plans to attend the June 30 House session," according to Politico.

Kean's office attributed his extended disappearance to an undisclosed health issue but provided no details despite repeated promises of an imminent return.

GOP leaders on Capitol Hill remained in the dark about his absence, and reporters visiting his home found neighbors equally mystified.

Neely pledged Kean "plans to be fully transparent regarding the nature of his health issue" during his in-person appearance. The Congressman's prolonged unexplained absence and vague health claims have raised questions among constituents and colleagues about his fitness to serve.

The 57-year-old congressman faces a competitive re-election battle against Democrat Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot and Air National Guard officer.

Watch the video below.

President Donald Trump got yet another piece of humiliation about the conclusion of the Iran war — and it came in its entry on Wikipedia.

As of press time, the Wikipedia page for "2026 Iran War" states that the outcome of the war was "Iranian victory."

As evidence, the article provides a number of citations from political analysts, including a piece in The Atlantic by Graeme Wood titled "Iran Has Humiliated Trump," and a piece in The Independent by Sam Kiley, titled, "Trump has achieved none of his aims in Iran. His ‘ceasefire’ can’t work and won’t work."

Trump, for his part, continues to tout the memorandum of understanding that suspended hostilities in Iran as a victory, claiming those who don't like the deal are "fools."

However, Trump is facing opposition not just from Democrats, but a number of conservative Republicans who are generally on his side, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Wikipedia outsources its content to a collective of online volunteer editors and, by its own rules, avoids partisan and opinionated entries.

Despite this, Republicans have sometimes come after Wikipedia for what they perceive to be unfair bias. Last year, when Trump loyalist Ed Martin was running the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, D.C., he sent a threatening letter to the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia's parent organization, accusing them of violating their nonprofit status to push "propaganda."