Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration. Here’s what he’s proposed

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Trump’s Surrender Humiliation Deepens With Brutal Poll

Most Americans do not think the Iran war was worth it.

Donald Trump has been dealt a humiliating blow by a new poll about his Iran peace deal.

Trump announced the long-awaited peace deal during his trip to the G7 conference in France last week.

The 14-point memorandum of understanding, which halts the fighting for 60 days, follows months of negotiations, with Washington and Tehran struggling to reach agreement on such key issues as the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

But his opponents have blasted the arrangement for containing significant concessions to the Iranian regime while deferring U.S. demands to later negotiations.

New polling shows that most Americans do not believe the deal has accomplished its primary objective.

According to a CBS News/YouGov survey conducted June 17-19, 2026, among 2,519 U.S. adults, 69 percent of Americans believe Iran’s nuclear program has not been stopped, undermining one of the central justifications for the military campaign.

Meanwhile, 59 percent say Iran will continue to threaten its neighbors, while just 29 percent of Americans say the war has successfully advanced U.S. strategic interests, and only 28 percent believe it has advanced U.S. economic interests.Despite these doubts, the poll also shows that Americans are keen for the war to end, with 78 percent of Americans saying the conflict should stop now.

That includes a majority (60 percent) of Republicans, as well as 56 percent of MAGA Republicans.

Meanwhile, the more respondents reported struggling with higher gas prices, the more likely they were to favor ending the conflict immediately.

Since the conflict began, energy prices have spiked. In seven states, the average price of gasoline has topped $5 per gallon.

Oil prices have also surged by about 35 percent. Overall, energy prices are up 3.8 percent.

In total, the war in Iran has cost U.S. households $100 billion so far, according to Moody Analytics. That amounts to nearly $750 a household.

And the poll shows that many Americans think Trump, who has repeatedly downplayed concerns about rising prices, underestimated the impact the conflict would have on the economy.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents, 64 percent, said the conflict has had a greater impact on the economy than Trump expected.

Even worse for the president, the poll shows that 69 percent of Americans do not think the war was worthwhile.

Trump’s handling of the Iran conflict is also rated negatively, with just 36 percent approving and 64 percent disapproving.

Meanwhile, 57 percent of Americans say the war has created more problems than it has solved.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-surrender-humiliation-deepens-with-brutal-poll/?

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MAGA Bootlicker’s Jaw-Dropping Luxury Splurge Exposed

He was previously the subject of a House investigation into alleged abuse of campaign funds.

A MAGA congressman has been splurging thousands of donor dollars on ski trips and fine dining like someone who didn’t just spend half a decade under investigation for alleged abuse of campaign funds.

Michigan Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga’s campaign spent more than $3,000 on Montana snowmobile rentals and about $440 at fancy Puerto Rico restaurant Marmalade in February and March of this year alone, according to a new investigation by the Daily Beast’s sister Substack PunchUp. Marmalade serves only a five-course tasting menu at $155 a head, plus a $105 wine pairing.

Federal Election Commission filings also show that in April 2024, the campaign spent more than $2,500 at a high-end hotel and ski resort in Aspen, Colorado, including $1,986.15 in “travel expenses” at the Little Nell, Aspen’s only five-star, ski-in/ski-out hotel, where rooms start at $799 a night.

It also dropped roughly $600 on golf, dining, and cigars in Florida the previous Christmas.

At the time those earlier costs were racked up, Huizenga, 57, was still under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over donor money spent at holiday spots including Disney World, Utah’s Deer Valley ski resort, and Michigan’s Mackinac Island.

That probe ran from 2019 to 2024, when the committee closed it without action, citing a lack of evidence that he had “engaged in clear personal use of campaign funds.”

It nevertheless found sloppy bookkeeping had breached conduct rules and that some spending strayed into murky regulatory territory, and told him to take more care to avoid looking like he was living large on donors’ dime. Huizenga has defended Trump’s debunked claims that the 2020 election was rigged and backed his tariff agenda. He first entered politics in the mid-1990s as a protege of former Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, now Trump’s ambassador to Canada, whose old seat Huizenga has held since 2010.

Calvin Moore, a spokesperson for Huizenga’s campaign, told PunchUp that “the House Ethics Committee already reviewed and cleared Congressman Huizenga of any wrongdoing, and we’re not going to waste time rehashing it.”

Moore added that the expenditures unearthed by PunchUp “were part of regular donor events, are thoroughly documented, transparently reported, and fully compliant with all requirements.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-rep-splurges-donor-cash-on-snowmobiles-cigars-and-fine-dining/?

ps:Just the kind of people trump loves!! How pathetic!!!!

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⚛️ Trump pushes quantum

Via White House/X

President Trump signed a pair of executive orders yesterday to accelerate domestic quantum computing research and mitigate the cybersecurity threat the technology could unleash. The first order launches a national effort to build a quantum computer "capable of performing important scientific calculations and to develop quantum-enabled sensors and networks in the next five years," Trump said. The second order pushes federal agencies to adopt algorithms that can withstand quantum-powered cyberattacks. It requires agencies to migrate high-value assets to these standards — known as post-quantum cryptography — by 2031. Tech leaders flanked Trump at the Oval Office signing, including Alphabet president Ruth Porat and IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. Go deeper (Bloomberg gift link) ... White House fact sheet.

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National Guard and US Park Police patrol Reflecting Pool as coating peels The Trump administration faces a self-imposed deadline to fix a botched renovation before the nation's 250th anniversary celebration. Read more.

What to know: The patrols came two days after President Donald Trump said authorities had made “multiple arrests” of people he insisted were responsible for damage to the peeling coating after an algae bloom occurred. He has not backed up those claims, and even if anyone has deliberately peeled or cut the lining, that would not explain the algae bloom that appeared more intensely than what typically occurred before the renovation. The Park Police did not immediately respond Monday to AP’s questions about how many arrests were made.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Trump is the frontman for his own party as rival groups vie to shape America’s 250th anniversary   Authorities arrest 2 more suspects in planned attack on Trump’s UFC show    From peace talks to Pennsylvania: Trump visiting Mack Truck facility   Federal judge halts Trump administration effort to subpoena Walz in immigration enforcement probe    Tucker Carlson says he’ll no longer support the Republican Party

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Covid vaccine study the acting CDC director blocked is published in an outside journal

A study on Covid vaccines that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s acting director blocked from publication came out Tuesday in a different journal.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/study-covid-vaccines-acting-cdc-director-blocked-published-rcna351174?

ps:Who would've guessed? Ha!! What a joke this administration is!! So pathetic!!!

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Trump heads to Capitol to speak with GOP senators who have grown increasingly frustrated with him President Donald Trump on Wednesday will attend a closed-door Senate GOP luncheon for the first time in more than a year. Read more.

Why this matters: The president has pressured senators for months to focus on his proof-of-citizenship voting bill even though it doesn’t have the votes to pass. At the same time, he has blocked them from confirming one of his own nominees, asked them to fund parts of his White House ballroom project despite opposition and forced them to defend his Iran war even as they question the strategy and endgame. Still, senators said ahead of the meeting that they hope to focus on unity, not disagreements.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Senate for first time approves a war powers resolution in a rebuke to Trump over Iran conflict    Trump administration touts Iran deal as a payday for US farmers, but Iran denies it   Top Army general who was last US soldier to leave Afghanistan is suddenly leaving his post   NATO’s Trump whisperer heads to the White House to soothe the president ahead of next month’s summit   Troubled Reflecting Pool faces fresh scrutiny over vandalism claims and duck deaths    Justice Department announces hundreds of charges in multi-billion-dollar healthcare fraud crackdown    How Americans feel about the country’s 250th anniversary, according to new polls   Supreme Court rules Rastafari man can’t sue Louisiana prison officials who cut his dreadlocks

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Judge bars immigration arrests at US courthouses in a setback for Trump

A judge on Tuesday barred the federal government from making arrests at immigration courts, ordering an end to a practice that took hold shortly after President Donald Trump took office last year.

https://apnews.com/article/judge-rules-against-immigration-courthouse-arrests-e99e8e3a27647a716917217cc1c207ab?

Federal appeals court allows the Trump administration to resume expanded use of speedy deportations

A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to resume carrying out speedy deportations of undocumented migrants throughout the United States, not just near the border.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-speedy-deportations-lawsuit-aclu-judge-cd0ffc2dc1df05568952e9149569bbbb?

Trump berates Senate Republicans over Iran war vote after calling off bill signing

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump berated Senate Republicans face to face on Wednesday for allowing a vote to block his war in Iran, further escalating a feud that has diverted GOP efforts to focus on election-year affordability issues and brought much of the chamber’s business to a halt.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-capitol-republican-senators-968c1454ede461d2db413790670c07df?

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Pentagon Pete’s Purge Chaos Spirals With Top General’s Shock Exit

The increasingly paranoid defense secretary just canned one of the top military officials responsible for helping Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forced out another senior military official in his paranoid purge of the Pentagon’s top brass.

Four-star General Chris “C.D.” Donahue, 56, who, as the Army’s chief official in Europe and Africa, has been instrumental in helping Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion, has filed to retire and will leave his post within days.

Donahue, a special forces veteran who was famously the very last service member to depart Afghanistan during the U.S. withdrawal under Joe Biden, had once been tipped to run the entire Army but is now one of the most senior names on a lengthening list of officers shown the door under Hegseth, as The Atlantic first reported.

The general had clashed with the secretary before opting to retire, according to CBS News, which said the Army confirmed July 2 as his final day after just a year and a half leading U.S. forces in Europe and Africa. Armed forces officials thanked him for his service in a clipped statement and tapped his deputy, Major General Christopher Norrie, to fill in.

Brett McGurk, a former special presidential envoy who steered the campaign against Islamic State under Obama and during Trump’s first term, told CBS that “there are few people more responsible for the defeat of ISIS than Chris Donahue,” and that “he is among the most consequential commanders of his generation.”

The exit extends a clear-out that has thinned the Pentagon’s upper echelons since Trump returned to office in January 2025. Hegseth pushed out the Army’s most senior general, Randy George, in the spring—a move The Financial Times reports stirred resentment in the ranks. George’s job had notably been to rebuild air-defense stockpiles that the president’s war with Iran had depleted.

The roll call of canned veteran leaders runs long. It includes Air Force General and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Charles Q. Brown, along with Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who was the first woman to run the Navy, as well as ex-National Security Agency chief General Timothy Haugh and former top NATO liaison Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield.

Officers are clear-eyed about the danger that Hegseth’s purges pose to national security, having cost the Defense Department decades of combined experience and expertise. “It’s interesting that the guy who says he wants to bring back the warrior culture is expunging the biggest warriors in the Army ranks,” one retired service member told The Atlantic.

“This is not a war on woke,” they added. “This is a war on warriors.”

Other former top officers told the FT that an increasingly paranoid Hegseth has fostered an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that has reached the highest ranks at the Pentagon. The dismissals have gathered speed since last year’s Signal leak, when Hegseth unwittingly shared sensitive airstrike details with a journalist who had accidentally been added to a group chat with multiple ranking members of the Trump cabinet.

That snafu has fed what detractors describe as a hardening bunker mentality at the top of Hegseth’s department. But not all officers dismissed by the secretary have gone quietly into the night. Nancy Lacore, a 35-year Navy veteran cut loose last August as Hegseth removed officials whose intelligence assessments had irritated the president, has since secured a Democratic ticket in South Carolina and is now running for Congress, The New York Times reports.

Hegseth’s stewardship has supplied no shortage of oddities to accompany the purges. He has repeatedly joined rank-and-file troops for fitness drills in front of the cameras, ordered a makeup space installed at the Pentagon for touch-ups ahead of press appearances, put up photographs of his wife in official areas, and curbed access for reporters and photographers whose work he finds unflattering.

The Daily Beast contacted the Defense Department for comment on this story. The Pentagon deferred questions to the Army.

“The Army thanks Gen. Donahue for his leadership of U.S. Army Europe and Africa,” spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/defense-secretary-pentagon-pete-hegseths-purge-chaos-spirals-with-top-general-cd-donohues-shock-exit/?

ps:What a complete jerk this man is!!

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Pentagon Pete Humiliated by Major U-Turn as Air Force Flu Outbreak Explodes

The military has quietly reinstated mandatory flu jabs for recruits just two months after Hegseth scrapped the 80-year-old rule.

The U.S. military has been forced into a humiliating climbdown over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s flu vaccine rules after an outbreak at a U.S. Air Force base spread to affect at least 222 recruits.Hegseth, 45, made the annual flu shot optional for troops in April, tearing up a requirement that had stood since 1945 in a move that broke with decades of public health guidance. Only about 40 percent of new trainees at Joint Base San Antonio in Texas had been jabbed when the outbreak took hold in early June, down from a previous rate of nearly 100 percent.Now the Army, Navy, and Air Force have all quietly performed a U-turn, once again requiring flu shots for basic trainees, officials told ABC News, which first reported the worsening crisis. The Pentagon has granted the services formal exceptions to Hegseth’s own policy.

The numbers are getting worse by the day. As of Tuesday, at least 222 recruits at Lackland Air Force Base had been diagnosed with flu, and four had been hospitalized, two sources familiar with the matter told the network. That is up from 159 cases and two hospitalizations a week earlier.

One recruit has died. Keon McDaniel was in his sixth week of basic training when he suffered a medical emergency on June 12 and was rushed to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he died on June 16, according to the Air Force. The cause remains under investigation. It is not yet clear whether the death is linked to the outbreak.

Recruits are at particular risk. They live in tightly packed bays, shower communally and spend their days within arm’s reach of one another through drills and inspections—exhausted, stressed and crammed together in exactly the conditions where a respiratory virus can thrive.

Hegseth showed no such caution in April. “Our new policy is simple: If you, an American warrior entrusted to defend this nation, believe that the flu vaccine is in your best interest, then you are free to take it; you should. But we will not force you,” he said, branding the old mandate “overly broad and not rational.”

Rep. Joaquin Castro, 51, whose Texas district covers about half of San Antonio, including Lackland, was scathing. “After Secretary Hegseth scrapped the military’s flu vaccine mandate, it was only a matter of time before an outbreak occurred,” he wrote on X. “It was a reckless decision that put troops in harm’s way and undermined our military readiness.”

The Army is now preparing to further broaden the requirement in the coming weeks—to include troops deploying overseas, first responders, child care workers, healthcare staff, prison workers, and soldiers on large-scale exercises, a spokesperson said.

The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Defense for comment.

In a statement, spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed that the undersecretary for personnel and readiness had signed off on exceptions for the Army, Navy, Air Force, National Security Agency and Defense Health Agency, following what he called “thorough risk assessments” designed to “maximize operational readiness, lethality, and force generation, while safeguarding at-risk populations.” He insisted the Pentagon “remains committed to the health and readiness of our warfighters.”

An Air Force spokesperson said the 37th Training Wing had spent three weeks battling the “localized influenza outbreak” alongside the 59th Medical Wing, isolating and treating sick trainees with antivirals such as Tamiflu and monitoring those who had been in close contact. Recruits return to training once medics clear them.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pete-hegseth-humiliated-by-major-u-turn-as-air-force-flu-outbreak-explodes/?

ps:ibid!!!!!