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

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Internet shutdown squeezes Iran’s ailing businesses already hurt by crashing currency

Iranians have been struggling for nearly two weeks with the longest, most comprehensive internet shutdown in the history of the Islamic Republic — one that has not only restricted their access to information and the outside world, but is also throttling many businesses that rely on online advertising. Officials have offered no firm timeline for the internet to return, leading to fears by businesses across the country about their future. Read more.

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Profit for the biggest US oil companies declined in the first quarter, but only on paper War-battered Syria now sells itself as a safe corridor amid regional conflict Trump gives his blessing to Iraq’s new pick for prime minister and invites al-Zaidi to Washington Israeli authorities taking 2 activists who led a Gaza-bound flotilla to Israel for questioning

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Trump says he’ll place 25% tariff on autos from the EU, accusing it of not complying with trade deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25%, a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-eu-autos-trade-800e6ed469b73cd4c144edb65e40ba72?

• ✈️ Spirit Airlines is preparing to shut down after a $500 million government rescue plan fell apart, per multiple reports. Trump suggested to reporters today that a deal may yet materialize. Go deeper.

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Power Failure (Majid Saeedi / Getty)

View in browser Most wars take a long time to achieve quagmire status, but Donald Trump’s Iran war is precocious. Just 60 days have passed since the president formally notified Congress about the military action there, on March 2. (The first air strikes had begun two days earlier.) That makes today the deadline, under the War Powers Resolution (WPR), for the president to end the war, Congress to authorize it, or Trump to invoke a 30-day extension for withdrawal. Even though the deadline is written into law, it seems likely that none of these things will happen. Given a chance to rein in a wildly unpopular, unsuccessful, and likely illegal war, Congress might just do nothing—the latest sign of how ineffectual the body has become. The administration and Republican leaders have decided to pretend the war is simply over, freeing themselves of any need to act. In a letter to Congress, obtained by Politico, the White House claims that the war has “terminated” because of the current cease-fire. House Speaker Mike Johnson has adopted a similar line. “We are not at war,” he told NBC News yesterday. “I don’t think we have an active, kinetic military bombing, firing, or anything like that. Right now, we are trying to broker a peace.” This is absurd. Trump’s interpretation would allow a president to engineer cease-fires every two weeks to escape congressional involvement. The war is not over in any sense: Thousands of service members are deployed, thousands of ships are trapped in the Persian Gulf, and negotiations with Iran haven’t just stalled—they barely seem to exist. The president has resorted to threatening Iran with a meme depicting himself wielding an assault rifle in front of explosions and the caption “No More Mr. Nice Guy!” The war’s existence is itself a sign of Congress’s weakness. The Constitution gives the power to declare war to the legislative branch, and Trump neither sought nor received it in this case. Wishing to give presidents leeway to act quickly in an emergency, but also wishing to maintain some control, Congress enacted the WPR in 1973. Throughout the first two months of the Iran war, Democrats forced six votes attempting to trigger the resolution—which, as my colleague Tom Nichols has written, would be a dicey choice—but Republicans defeated all six. The 60-day mark theoretically forces action, but the law is not self-enforcing: It assumes Congress will act, and as is clear by now, this is not a safe bet. Yesterday, the House was finally able to find a way to end a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that had begun on Valentine’s Day, making it the longest in history. (The Senate passed a bill to reopen the department at the end of March, but the House left town rather than pass it.) Ahead of the WPR deadline, some Republican senators said they were open to action. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is drafting an authorization. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has already joined with Democrats on prior votes, and yesterday Susan Collins of Maine did as well. But it’s a long way from these gestures to both chambers actually passing an authorization or forcing Trump to withdraw, especially when the House is absorbed in a series of other self-inflicted crises. Flouting the WPR is not merely a Trump problem. During the 2011 U.S. bombing of Libya, lawmakers in both parties criticized President Obama for acting without authorization. The Obama administration laughably contended that, although the U.S. had spent upwards of $1 billion, the attack didn’t fall under the WPR because “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.” (The Trump administration has borrowed that line to justify its likely illegal strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, saying in essence that it needs no authorization because although the U.S. military is involved, no one is shooting back.) With a runaway president and a dysfunctional Congress, some Democrats are contemplating suing the Trump administration for violating the WPR, Time reported this week. The liberal legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky also recommends the courts as a venue for checking the war. Democrats don’t have many other levers to pull, but the outlook for such a lawsuit is murky. As Chemerinsky ruefully admits, courts have deemed such suits in recent decades to be political questions outside their scope. Whether Democrats would have standing to sue is also in question; some of them tried to sue Trump for violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause during his first term, but judges rejected the case. Even if the legal hurdles can be overcome, it’s humiliating for Congress, a theoretically co-equal branch of government, to be forced to turn to the judiciary, an entirely different branch, to do the work that it is unable or unwilling to do. No wonder the public’s view of Congress has matched its all-time worst in the Gallup poll, reaching 86 percent disapproval in a survey released last week. Opinions within the body are, if possible, even lower. “This is what happens when you have leadership who can’t organize a one-car parade,” a senior House Republican told NOTUS. How Congress decides to handle Iran is important, given that the war has been thus far a strategic, moral, and legal failure. But the underlying questions of legislative power are much deeper than the current acute crisis. Fixing American politics and turning back the tide of authoritarianism will require an empowered and effective legislative branch that can stand as a counterweight to the White House. Right now, Congress doesn’t seem up to the job. Related: Trump’s power grab over the budget is breaking the constitutional design. Trump’s unauthorized war

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Trump’s Approval Rating Plunges So Low It Breaks Pollster’s Graph

The president has hit a new low, low.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the soaring cost of living has fallen so sharply that it has broken the scale of a pollster’s graph.

On Thursday, pollster G. Elliot Morris shared results from a Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll conducted in April, posting a chart on X tracking the president’s approval among voters across multiple issues. The graph covered areas including deportations, immigration, trade, healthcare, civil rights, democracy, and inflation/cost of living.

“Trump literally broke the scale of this graph on my data portal,” Morris wrote.

The line tracking “inflation/cost of living” dropped below every other category on the chart. While all issue areas showed declining approval since Trump began his second term last year, the cost-of-living metric fell the furthest.

The sudden plunge started on March 13, two weeks after the president began his war with Iran.

As of April 30, Trump’s approval rating on inflation and cost of living stood at negative 40.3 points, his lowest figure on the issue during his second term in office, according to the poll.

Sky-high gas prices are having a knock-on effect on Trump’s approval rating, as Americans struggle with the cost of living.

The president is even struggling to keep his own supporters happy, as oil prices continue to rise amid his deeply unpopular war with Iran. This week, U.S. gas prices hit record highs since the start of the conflict on February 28, reaching a nationwide average of $4.30 a gallon on Thursday, according to AAA.

Trump initially presented his military intervention in Iran as a regime-change operation, but it has since morphed into a rapidly expanding war that has led to the blockade of the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route.

A retired U.S. Air Force captain who voted for Trump in the 2024 election slammed the president over soaring costs and the Iran war in an interview with the Associated Press last week.

Kathryn Bright, 60, said she feels “disgusted with myself” for backing Trump, whom she said she was initially drawn to for his pledges to provide better care to veterans, “stop wars,” and reduce the cost of living.

“I feel betrayed, like he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Bright, who has several disabling medical conditions, said. “It’s like high school class president: ‘I’m gonna promise we are going to get pizza every single day,’” Bright said. “Then as soon as they get elected, they are like, ‘Oh, I lied.’”

The conflict is costing U.S. taxpayers almost $900 million a day.

When contacted for comment, White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast the “ultimate poll was November 5th 2024 when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda.”

“No other President in history has accomplished more for the American people than President Trump, who is working tirelessly to create jobs, cool inflation, increase housing affordability, and more,” he added. “The President has already made historic progress not only in America but around the world, and this is just the beginning as his agenda continues taking effect.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-approval-rating-plunges-so-low-it-breaks-pollsters-graph/?

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Trump Finally Manages to Find His Vietnam

The majority of Americans are against Trump’s war in Iran.

President Donald Trump’s war in Iran is facing overwhelming disapproval that rivals the anti-war sentiment seen during the Vietnam War and the peak of the war in Iraq.

According to the latest Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll, 61 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. using military force against Iran was a mistake. Just 36 percent believe it was the right decision.

The numbers from the poll conducted from April 24 through April 28 are similar to the disapproval seen during the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, after deep unrest over the long-running conflict, and by May 1971, some 61 percent of Americans believed sending military forces was a mistake, while 28 percent said it was not.

It took years for the disapproval of Vietnam to reach that level after massive casualties and millions of boots on the ground, which has not happened to date in Iran.

Trump’s war in Iran has the country divided largely along partisan lines. While the majority of Americans disapprove, including 71 percent of Independents, Republicans continue to back Trump’s actions with 79 percent approving of his military action, while 19 percent called it a mistake.

It’s unclear where the war in Iran will go from here. Trump insisted in the Oval Office on Thursday that Tehran wants to make a deal as the blockades in the Strait of Hormuz continue.

Friday marked the 60-day deadline for the administration to end hostilities with Iran or seek congressional approval for the war under the War Powers Act, a Vietnam-era law passed to ensure Congress gets to weigh in.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed on Thursday that the clock paused on the 60-day countdown because the two countries were in a ceasefire. Democratic lawmakers dispute that argument, but it’s unclear how the administration will proceed after Congress headed out again on recess.

While testifying before Congress over two days this week, Hegseth insisted the U.S. was not in a quagmire in Iran. He also insisted Americans backed the war, but multiple polls, including the one released on Friday, dispute that.

The disapproval does not just rival the polling of Americans who were against the Vietnam War in the 1970s. It’s also similar to the disapproval seen at the height of the war in Iraq, when in May 2006, 59 percent of Americans viewed going in as a mistake.

When asked for a comment on the majority of Americans disapproving of the military action, the White House did not address the polling directly but insisted the president was removing a nuclear threat.

“What matters most to the American people is having a Commander-in-Chief who takes decisive action to eliminate threats and keep them safe, which is exactly what President Trump did with the successful Operation Epic Fury,” said spokesperson Davis Ingle. “President Trump campaigned proudly on his promise to deny the Iranian regime the ability to develop a nuclear weapon, and he’s kept his promise.”

Trump campaigned on a promise to stop wars, not start them.

When it comes to Iran, the Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll found 61 percent of Americans said they believed Trump’s military action increased the risk of terrorism against Americans.

60 percent said they believed it increased the risk of a U.S. recession as gas prices hit their highest level since the strikes began on February 28.

The national average price for a gallon of gas hit $4.42 on Friday, the highest it’s been since summer 2022, according to GasBuddy.com. The national average for a gallon of diesel hit $5.56, just 25 cents below the all-time high.

40 percent of Americans said they were not as well off financially as they were when Trump became president in January 2025, while 42 percent said it was about the same. Only 17 percent said they were better off.

“The country is doing really well, and that’s despite a military operation,” Trump insisted in the Oval Office on Thursday.

The president and his top officials have repeatedly claimed that the price of gas will come down once the war concludes, but peace talks have been stalled. However, Iran delivered its latest proposal for peace talks to mediators in Pakistan on Friday, Reuters reported.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-finally-manages-to-find-his-vietnam/?

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King Charles Scores Major Win as Rubio Backtracks on Trump’s Revenge Plot

The secretary of state dramatically softened the White House’s tone on the disputed Falkland Islands.

Marco Rubio has desperately backtracked on a petty revenge plot reportedly cooked up by the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump, rankled by the United Kingdom’s lack of support for his war in Iran, was reportedly considering re-evaluating the United States’s position on its traditional ally’s claim over the Falkland Islands, a self-governing British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, where King Charles is head of state.

This slight was revealed in a leaked Pentagon memo that dropped on the eve of the Monarch’s visit to the U.S. earlier this week. But Rubio, ever the statesman, now insists it was much ado about nothing.

“It was just an email. People are getting overexcited by an email. It was just an email with some ideas,” the secretary of state and potential 2028 presidential candidate told British broadsheet The Telegraph before the King’s visit.

The paper also reported that British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper collared Rubio on the issue in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

However, his statement marks a walkback from the strong rhetoric from the Pentagon, which, after the note dropped, didn’t rule out a reconsideration of D.C.’s position on the Falklands. Spokesperson Kingsley Wilson said the Department of Defense “will ensure that the president has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part.”

The memo, initially reported on by Reuters, suggested that the Trump administration could side with Argentina on the argument. Buenos Aires takes a dim view of British claims to the archipelago, which it calls Las Malvinas.

Indeed, Argentina’s president, Trump ally Javier Milei, encouraged the largely British-identifying islanders known as Kelpers to “go home” to the U.K. In the last referendum, in 2013, 99.8 percent of the islanders voted to remain a part of the U.K.

The Telegraph reported that the memo was “thought to have been” drafted by a junior staffer at the Defense Department. “Just an email” or not, it caused uproar in the U.K., whose Army went to war with Argentina over the islands in 1982.

Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the U.K.’s Liberal Democrats, even called for King Charles’ state visit to the U.S. to be canceled altogether as a result.

The visit went ahead without any major hitch and appeared to heal, at least temporarily, the rift between U.S. and U.K. leadership.

A U.S. State Department spokesman adopted a more diplomatic tone than the Pentagon did on Thursday, stating that the official U.S. position is “one of neutrality.”

“We acknowledge that there are conflicting claims of sovereignty between Argentina and the U.K. We recognize de facto United Kingdom administration of the islands but take no position regarding sovereignty claims of either party,” the statement added.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/rubio-desperately-backtracks-on-petty-trumps-revenge-plot/?

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‘Betrayed’ MAHA Voters Plot Revenge Against Trump

One MAHA influencer warned that it’s “very important for the GOP to recognize that MAHA voters are not loyal to a certain political party.”

MAHA voters are sharpening their knives ahead of the midterms after feeling let down by the Trump administration.

Make America Healthy Again activists gathered in Washington, D.C. earlier this week to protest the Trump administration’s support for pesticides and the German company Bayer, which faced Supreme Court justices in a bid to end thousands of lawsuits accusing its weedkiller RoundUp of causing cancer.

MAHA loyalists told CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront that they feel betrayed by President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order in February supporting elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides—chemicals they believe cause cancer.

“There were millions of Democratic and independent moms in particular that voted Republican because they believed Trump that he was gonna do something about pesticides in the food,” Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt said.

“MAHA is feeling betrayed and completely dissatisfied with what the administration has done,” Alexandra Muñoz, an independent toxicologist, added. “MAHA is looking for any representatives that are willing to stand up against corporations and put their foot down.”

Though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says there is “no evidence that glyphosate causes cancer in humans,” its use in products like RoundUp has become the subject of intense legal battles.

Bayer argued before the Supreme Court on Monday that a ruling against it “would open the door for crippling liability and undermine the interests of farmers who depend on federally registered pesticides for their livelihood.”

Disappointed MAHA devotees said they have already begun plotting for the midterms—and put out a warning for the Republican Party.

“A lot of these moms held their nose and voted for Trump in 2024, and they’re not sure that they’re willing to vote red in the midterms again,” influencer Alex Clark said. “It’s very important for the GOP to recognize that MAHA voters are not loyal to a certain political party. MAHA voters are a coalition that’s up for grabs.”

“This is do or die. This is sink or swim. This is, ‘The Titanic is going down.’ Hundreds of thousands of free votes that fell out of thin air in 2024 have vanished,” she added.

Food Babe blogger Vani Hari, a staunch MAGA activist, said they wouldn’t have come out to protest if Trump hadn’t signed the February executive order.

“I don’t think they understood what they did. They kicked the hornet’s nest. And now I think they’re starting to realize it,” she said. “It makes us actually—women with children, especially—sit at home instead of going to the ballot.”

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the MAHA standard-bearer, spent years as an environmental lawyer crusading against RoundUp. In 2018, he helped secure a landmark win for a client who claimed that the product caused his cancer.

But after Trump signed the executive order on glyphosate, he quickly fell in line.

Kennedy said in a February statement that “chemical manufacturers have paid tens of billions of dollars to settle cancer claims linked to their products,” but acknowledged that, “unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals.”

“I support President Trump’s Executive Order to bring agricultural chemical production back to the United States and end our near-total reliance on adversarial nations,” he said.

When reached for comment, the Health Department referred the Daily Beast to Kennedy’s February statement.

“President Trump remains committed to delivering on his pledge to Make America Healthy Again,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told the Daily Beast. “The administration has already secured key victories for the MAHA Agenda—from overhauling the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to axing artificial ingredients in our food supply—and continues to work around the clock to secure more wins for the American people.”

Democrats, meanwhile, have already begun to seize the opportunity to snatch MAHA votes. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Chellie Pingree of Maine joined MAHA influencers at the Monday protest.

“If anybody is supporting the things that I align with in the health and wellness space, then they’d probably have my vote,” independent voter Rosie Hoffman said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/betrayed-maha-voters-plot-revenge-against-donald-trump/?

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US withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany after Merz says US ‘humiliated’ by Iran

The US is withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany, the Pentagon announced on Friday, as Donald Trump also threatened Italy and Spain for not helping to reopen the strait of Hormuz.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/01/trump-threatens-withdraw-troops-italy-spain-strait-hormuz?

ps:Who does he think he's hurting? Our reputation is what's taking a beating!!!!!

Iran offers new peace proposal to US but Trump ‘not satisfied’

Iran has passed a new proposal to Pakistani mediators in the latest effort to end the war with the US, but Donald Trump said he was not “satisfied” by it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/01/pakistan-backchannel-us-iran-deal-peace?

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‘Humiliated’ Trump Taking Toy Soldiers Home in Epic Tantrum

The president is punishing the German chancellor for mocking his wartime fumble.

A peevish President Donald Trump is yanking 5,000 U.S. soldiers from NATO ally Germany amid growing friction with Europe over the president’s war in Iran.

The Pentagon announced the move Friday after Trump, 79, threatened on Truth Social two days earlier to pull troops when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the Iranians were “humiliating” the U.S. Merz also said he was stumped by Trump’s exit strategy.

A senior Pentagon official told Reuters that Merz’s comments were “inappropriate and unhelpful,” adding: “The president is rightly reacting to these counterproductive remarks.”

A Pentagon review of U.S. troops worldwide did not recommend major reductions in Europe, Politico reported. The Pentagon “was not expecting it and has not been planning any kind of drawdown,” said a congressional aide familiar with the situation.

Trump initially claimed the war he launched two months ago would be over in a few weeks, yet the standoff continues.

Early in the war, Trump called on European allies to help the U.S. and send forces to open the Strait of Hormuz, which is critical to global oil shipments, after it was closed by Iran. But Europe has refused to engage in a war that its countries were never consulted about.

“The president has been very clear about his frustrations about our allies’ rhetoric and failure to provide support for U.S. operations that benefit ⁠them,” the Pentagon official told Reuters.

Yanking troops from Germany also fits Trump’s broader push to avoid involving America in European defense, including threatening to pull out of NATO. Critics have complained that fractures in American alliances would not only hurt Europe but also the U.S., undermining peace and stability.

The Trump administration hit a 60-day deadline on Friday, a requirement for congressional authorization of the war that Trump unilaterally launched without warning, and without lawmakers’ initial approval.

In a letter sent Friday to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Pro Temp President Senator Chuck Grassley, the president claimed the deadline hasn’t yet passed because it has been suspended by the current ceasefire, and the hostilities have effectively been “terminated,” even though U.S. forces remain.

Congress, which left town on a week-long break on Thursday, is not expected to take any immediate action about the time lapse.

Some 35,000 active-duty American troops are stat

oned in Germany, the most in any European country. The drawdown is expected to take six to 12 months.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-taking-toy-soldiers-home-in-epic-tantrum-after-he-was-humiliated/?

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The year that shook the Gulf

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

The United Arab Emirates is leaving OPEC. Saudi Arabia is ending its splashiest foreign sports venture. The two U.S. allies are in the midst of a messy divorce, even as both face fire from Iran. Why it matters: One year after President Trump's grand tour of the Gulf, the region's vision of a geopolitically stable post-oil future — powered by tourism, AI and American capital — has taken a major blow, Axios' Dave Lawler, Barak Ravid and Zachary Basu write. The trillions of dollars in investment pledges that Trump secured on his trip are in limbo. So is the American "golden age" he claimed would be bankrolled in part with Gulf money. The big picture: Trump's trip may prove the high-water mark for the idea that the future of AI, global investment and geopolitics would all flow through the Gulf. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund's exit from LIV Golf, after pouring more than $5 billion into the PGA competitor since 2022, is the first major casualty of the kingdom rationing cash as oil exports sink. No one is rushing to build $20 billion data centers in Saudi Arabia or the UAE after Iran proved it can strike them with cheap drones, as Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez told Axios. Gulf leaders have spent a generation perfecting the Dubai model — selling stability as a luxury good to foreign tourists, expats and investors. Iran's attacks on luxury hotels and airports have undercut that premise. Friction point: The UAE's break from the Saudi-led oil cartel is the latest fracture in a regional rivalry driven by clashing alliances and views on Yemen, Sudan and Palestine, as well as personal animosity between the two leaders. The Iran war has only deepened the rift. Behind the scenes: The Trump administration was slow to grasp how serious that rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia had become — and chose not to get involved as it deepened, U.S. and regional sources told Axios. Senior officials are deeply concerned that Washington's two most important Arab allies will emerge from the war more adversarial than ever. Reality check: The Gulf states still have deep reserves of energy and capital, plus a security relationship with Washington that the war has only strengthened. Some analysts see the Iran crisis as a temporary shock for the Gulf economies, not an existential crisis. The bottom line: A year after his Gulf tour, Trump's promised investment bonanza has collided with the consequences of his Iran war. Fixing the damage may take longer than the time he has left in office.

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🗳️ Trumpworld braces for Mace

President Trump's allies are growing alarmed that GOP Rep. Nancy Mace — who infuriated him by calling for the release of the Epstein files — will defy expectations and win the South Carolina governor's race, reports Axios' Alex Isenstadt.

• Why it matters: Mace, who's running in a fiercely competitive June 9 primary, has been a thorn in Trump's side, most recently with her criticism of the administration's handling of the Iran war. She also threatened to side with Democrats on a war-powers resolution.

👂 What we're hearing: People close to the president don't want Mace as governor — a perch that could help sway the 2028 presidential primary given the state's early spot on the voting calendar.

• One possibility alarming the president's allies: Mace and Rep. Ralph Norman advance to a runoff. Norman crossed Trump during the 2024 primary when he endorsed former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and called for "new leadership" in the party.

The intrigue: South Carolina Republicans are watching closely to see if Trump endorses. His support could swing the race.

• Mace has bewildered White House aides by repeatedly asking for Trump's endorsement despite her stands on the Epstein files and the Iran war.

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Trump officials show extraordinary defiance of court rulings

The Trump administration has been found in violation of court rulings in an extraordinary number of lawsuits on a broad set of issues. The Associated Press found at least 31 suits since last February in which a judge determined the administration was not complying with an order. These cases are in addition to more than 250 violations judges have recently highlighted in individual immigration petitions. The AP's review also shows higher courts have frequently overruled district courts and sided with the White House. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

After major enforcement operations, the Trump administration recalibrates its immigration crackdown  Iran presses for an end to war within 30 days as Trump expresses doubts Trump says US will reduce number of troops in Germany ‘a lot further’ than withdrawal of 5,000 Trump hints at new revelations in UFO files around questions of alien life The Supreme Court is being asked to restore access to an abortion pill by mail. Here's what to know Black Americans face a new fight for racial representation after justices' Voting Rights Act ruling

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Manic Trump’s Scramble to Fix Catastrophe Immediately Backfires

The president’s “Project Freedom” could cause more problems than it solves.

Donald Trump’s fresh attempt to fix his Strait of Hormuz quagmire has immediately suffered a blow.

The 79-year-old president on Sunday painted himself as a peacemaker as he announced a “humanitarian gesture” to guide stranded ships out of the narrow waterway that the U.S. has blockaded as leverage over Iran.

He said the plan, dubbed “Project Freedom,” would begin on Monday morning Middle East time. Tehran, however, responded resoundingly with a strongly worded statement warning that it would strike any U.S. ship that attempted to approach.

That warning landed before reports of a skirmish. Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported on Monday morning that a U.S. vessel was hit by two missiles near the port of Jask, at the southern entrance to the channel.

The “American-Zionist” vessels were blocked with a “swift and decisive warning,” according to Iran’s navy, via Reuters. However, a U.S. official denied the report, according to Barak Ravid of Axios.

“We warn that any foreign armed force, especially the aggressive U.S. army, will be attacked if they attempt to approach and enter the Strait of Hormuz,” the Iranian military said in a statement released earlier on Monday morning.

It said the security of the waterway “is in the hands of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran” and warned that “any safe passage and navigation in any situation” should be “carried out in coordination with the armed forces.”

“We will maintain and manage the security of the Strait of Hormuz with all our might and we announce to all commercial ships and tankers to refrain from any action to transit without the coordination of the armed forces stationed in the Strait of Hormuz so that their security is not jeopardized,” the military said.

U.S. Central Command said it would back the effort with 15,000 troops, more than 100 aircraft operating on land and at sea, and warships and drones.

However, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Axios have emphasized Trump’s choice of the word “guide” rather than “escort” in explaining how the operation would be carried out.

U.S. officials contradicted the president in statements given to the WSJ. They said the plan “doesn’t currently involve U.S. Navy warships escorting vessels through the strait.” It is “not an escort mission,” one official told CNN.

U.S. ships will merely be located “in the vicinity” to oversee tankers moving through the strait, Axios was told.

Not long before Iran’s statement, Harlan Ullman, the chairman of the Killowen Group and a former senior U.S. naval officer, warned about what might happen if the regime didn’t play ball.

“If you think six months forward and we have denied the world 20 percent of its energy exports, huge amounts of its phosphorus essential for fertilizer, we could have a global economic catastrophe.”

Using AI modeling, he said the world could lose up to $6 trillion in trade, with the price of gasoline potentially reaching “$7 or $8 a gallon in the United States.”

“It would be chaos,” he added.

The Department of Defense and the White House were contacted for a response to Iran’s statement. The Pentagon referred the Beast to a statement from Sunday, where CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper announced the force would back Trump’s plans.

“Our support for this defensive mission is essential to regional security and the global economy as we also maintain the naval blockade,” he said.

The White House also referred the Beast to a statement from CENTCOM, which claimed that news of the strike on a U.S. vessel was fake.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/manic-trumps-scramble-to-fix-catastrophe-immediately-backfires/?

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MAGA Wildcard Coins Brutal New Insult for Trump

Former ally throws Donald Trump’s favorite jibe back at him—with a damning new twist.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has flipped Donald Trump’s favorite insult on its head, declaring she does not have “Trump Derangement Syndrome” but “Trump Disappointment Syndrome.”

The former Georgia congresswoman, 51, who walked out of her House seat in January after a blistering bust-up with the president over the Jeffrey Epstein files, dropped the brutal rebrand on X on Sunday, attaching footage from her April 25 speech at a Ron Paul Institute conference in Lake Jackson, Texas.

“MAGA should never be told that a convicted pedophile and his circle of elite friends raping girls when they are 14 or 16 years old is a Democrat hoax,” Greene wrote in the post, which had clocked more than 700,000 views by Monday morning. “I don’t have Trump Derangement Syndrome, I have Trump Disappointment Syndrome.”

“Trump Derangement Syndrome”—or “TDS”—is the catch-all jibe the president and his MAGA allies routinely lob at critics to brand any dissent as unhinged or out of touch, as the Daily Beast has widely reported in the past.

In the near-five-minute clip, Greene—who once described herself as “a general in the MAGA army”—gave her most vivid account yet of the phone call from Trump, 79, that she says ended their alliance for good.

She told the audience that the president called her after she crossed the aisle to sign a Democrat-led discharge petition to force the release of the Epstein files. By her account, Trump barked down the line: “Marjorie, you’re gonna have to take your name off that discharge petition... It’s a Democrat hoax... My friends are going to get hurt.”Greene also claimed Trump leaned on Speaker Mike Johnson to bury any Epstein bill in the House Rules Committee, and ordered then-Attorney General Pam Bondi not to release the files at all. The president then warned her, she said, that “people in Palm Beach” and “people you know at Mar-a-Lago” would be hurt by their publication—a stunning claim, in her telling, from a leader who has long branded the files a Democrat “hoax.”She refused to back down. “That’s when MAGA died,” Greene said. “That’s when the entire thing shattered for me.”

The ex-congresswoman has since become one of the most relentless tormentors of her former patron over the Epstein saga.

Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November only after a revolt by four House Republicans—Greene, Thomas Massie, Lauren Boebert, and Nancy Mace—left him with no escape route. He has since branded her “Marjorie Traitor Greene” and a “ranting lunatic.”

Greene’s exit followed Trump revoking his endorsement and vowing to back a primary challenger.

Since walking away from the Hill, she has insisted to CBS’s 60 Minutes that she has “zero plans, zero desire” to run for president, ruled out a Senate or gubernatorial bid, and told host Lesley Stahl that she is “not your politician with a whole itinerary of plans or political ambitions.”

Instead, she has spent her post-Capitol life torching her former patron on the right-wing speaking circuit and her X feed—while revealing she has logged hundreds of death threats with Capitol Police since 2021, including a pipe-bomb scare at her home and direct threats against her son in the wake of Trump’s “Traitor” jibe.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast: “Marjorie Taylor Greene is a quitter who is pathetically trying to stay relevant by going on liberal media shows to bash President Trump. Unfortunately, Trump Derangement Syndrome has rotted former congresswoman Greene’s peanut-sized brain.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-wildcard-mtg-coins-brutal-new-tds-catchphrase-for-donald-trump/?

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MAGA Wildcard Coins Brutal New Insult for Trump

Former ally throws Donald Trump’s favorite jibe back at him—with a damning new twist.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has flipped Donald Trump’s favorite insult on its head, declaring she does not have “Trump Derangement Syndrome” but “Trump Disappointment Syndrome.”

The former Georgia congresswoman, 51, who walked out of her House seat in January after a blistering bust-up with the president over the Jeffrey Epstein files, dropped the brutal rebrand on X on Sunday, attaching footage from her April 25 speech at a Ron Paul Institute conference in Lake Jackson, Texas.

“MAGA should never be told that a convicted pedophile and his circle of elite friends raping girls when they are 14 or 16 years old is a Democrat hoax,” Greene wrote in the post, which had clocked more than 700,000 views by Monday morning. “I don’t have Trump Derangement Syndrome, I have Trump Disappointment Syndrome.”

“Trump Derangement Syndrome”—or “TDS”—is the catch-all jibe the president and his MAGA allies routinely lob at critics to brand any dissent as unhinged or out of touch, as the Daily Beast has widely reported in the past.

In the near-five-minute clip, Greene—who once described herself as “a general in the MAGA army”—gave her most vivid account yet of the phone call from Trump, 79, that she says ended their alliance for good.

She told the audience that the president called her after she crossed the aisle to sign a Democrat-led discharge petition to force the release of the Epstein files. By her account, Trump barked down the line: “Marjorie, you’re gonna have to take your name off that discharge petition... It’s a Democrat hoax... My friends are going to get hurt.”Greene also claimed Trump leaned on Speaker Mike Johnson to bury any Epstein bill in the House Rules Committee, and ordered then-Attorney General Pam Bondi not to release the files at all. The president then warned her, she said, that “people in Palm Beach” and “people you know at Mar-a-Lago” would be hurt by their publication—a stunning claim, in her telling, from a leader who has long branded the files a Democrat “hoax.”She refused to back down. “That’s when MAGA died,” Greene said. “That’s when the entire thing shattered for me.”

The ex-congresswoman has since become one of the most relentless tormentors of her former patron over the Epstein saga.

Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November only after a revolt by four House Republicans—Greene, Thomas Massie, Lauren Boebert, and Nancy Mace—left him with no escape route. He has since branded her “Marjorie Traitor Greene” and a “ranting lunatic.”

Greene’s exit followed Trump revoking his endorsement and vowing to back a primary challenger.

Since walking away from the Hill, she has insisted to CBS’s 60 Minutes that she has “zero plans, zero desire” to run for president, ruled out a Senate or gubernatorial bid, and told host Lesley Stahl that she is “not your politician with a whole itinerary of plans or political ambitions.”

Instead, she has spent her post-Capitol life torching her former patron on the right-wing speaking circuit and her X feed—while revealing she has logged hundreds of death threats with Capitol Police since 2021, including a pipe-bomb scare at her home and direct threats against her son in the wake of Trump’s “Traitor” jibe.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast: “Marjorie Taylor Greene is a quitter who is pathetically trying to stay relevant by going on liberal media shows to bash President Trump. Unfortunately, Trump Derangement Syndrome has rotted former congresswoman Greene’s peanut-sized brain.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-wildcard-mtg-coins-brutal-new-tds-catchphrase-for-donald-trump/?

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Leaders in Key Movement Turn on ‘Problem’ Trump

An anti-abortion movement leader says the president is an obstacle to the cause.

America’s biggest anti-abortion lobby has dramatically turned on Donald Trump—with its powerful leader describing the president as “the problem” facing her movement.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, 60, president of the influential Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, was once one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants on abortion, even chairing his Pro-Life Coalition during his 2016 White House run. But three years after a conservative Supreme Court tore up Roe v. Wade, the number of abortions has risen, mifepristone pills are sent freely through the U.S. mail, and her movement is livid.

“Trump is the problem. The president is the problem,” Dannenfelser told the Wall Street Journal in a striking intervention from a woman who once led Trump’s pro-life ground game.

In an address to donors at her group’s gala in D.C. on Wednesday, the Journal reported, Dannenfelser warned that if Republicans keep allowing individual states to decide abortion policy, “then the movement as we know it is finished.”

Her organization is now plotting a $160 million war chest for the this year’s midterm elections and the 2028 presidential primaries—but will only back candidates who commit to “pro-life action at the national level.”

Anger is rippling through the movement. Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Family Research Council, branded it “unprecedented” that Republican states are now hauling a Republican administration into court over their own abortion bans. Marc Wheat, general counsel for Mike Pence’s Advancing American Freedom, told the Journal the situation was “just insulting” and “not what we voted for.”

The fury is largely aimed at Trump’s own appointees—FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who have left untouched Biden-era policies that allow clinicians to prescribe mifepristone via telehealth and post the pills to women across state lines. Makary’s FDA also waved through a generic mifepristone tablet last fall.

Dannenfelser publicly called for Makary’s head in December, and Pence demanded the same for Kennedy, branding the HHS secretary “a progressive wolf in pro-life sheep’s clothing,” the Journal reported.

A federal appeals court handed the movement a rare win on Friday, barring Louisiana doctors from posting Mifepristone without an in-person consultation. Dannenfelser fired back that it was “shameful” that the administration’s inaction had pushed pro-life states into the federal courts.

White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster defended Trump, 79, to the Journal as “the most pro-life and pro-family president in history” and said the agency was reviewing Mifepristone amid “widespread concerns” over its safety.

But the once-loyal Dannenfelser told the Journal she rang Trump earlier this year to push back on his call for “flexibility” on the Hyde Amendment—and was sent straight to voicemail.

White House spokesperson Allison Schuster told the Daily Beast: “President Trump is proud to be the most pro-life and pro-family President in history. The Trump Administration just recently announced a series of bold actions to safeguard life and uphold Americans’ fundamental freedoms, including policies long-sought by the pro-life movement to end the federal funding of abortion abroad. Under the President’s leadership, the FDA is responding to widespread concerns about mifepristone with a Gold Standard Science-based safety review. Since his first term, the President has been a proven leader in the pro-life movement, and he will continue to champion these policies to protect the sanctity of life.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/leaders-in-anti-abortion-movement-turn-on-problem-donald-trump/?

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How I Will Make Trump Fire His Ultimate Goon: Rep

Congressman Jason Crow delves into what he describes as a dangerous web of corruption surrounding Pete Hegseth.

One Democratic lawmaker is committed to making Pete Hegseth’s tenure as defense secretary untenable by exposing his “corruption” and “incompetence” to the point where President Donald Trump has to fire him.

Rep. Jason Crow, a five-term legislator from Colorado, said on The Daily Beast Podcast that Hegseth exhibits more than just incompetence. According to Crow, Hegseth should resign and deserves to be impeached. But since neither is likely to happen, he instead believes a flood of bad press will ultimately make the president show Hegseth the door.

Crow, a lawyer and former Army Ranger who fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan, told host Joanna Coles that Hegseth is “worse than incompetent.”

“I think he is a vengeful individual who not just lacks the qualification, but has a meanness to him and a corruption of his heart and soul… that allows him to do things to people and organizations that most normal people would not do,” Crow continued.

On Thursday, Hegseth asserted that the “biggest adversary” to the Iran war is the “reckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.”

“I think he is an extreme danger, which is why my focus has been getting him fired, basically,” Crow said.

“This man’s not going to resign. He’s just not. I know some people have called for him to be impeached; I would love to have him impeached, and of course, I would pursue that. But we don’t have the votes for that, either. Republicans are simply not going to do that right now, so long as they hold the majority,” he acknowledged. “So what can we do? We can make it so untenable for him and highlight the level of corruption and the incompetence.”

One of the areas in which Crow, who serves on the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees, questioned Hegseth this week was the role of Timothy Parlatore, Hegseth’s former personal attorney. Crow claims that Parlatore poses a conflict of interest because he’s a lawyer who is also a Pentagon adviser.

During the at-times contentious hearing, Crow repeatedly asked whether Parlatore had international clients while advising the Pentagon and Hegseth. Hegseth did not answer.

“The significance of this is you have a man in Tim Parlatore—who used to be Pete Hegseth’s private attorney—who has basically been given a key role in the Department of Defense, and the ability to maintain a private law practice at the same time,” Crow said.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast: “Nobody knows who Jason Croak is.”

When reached for comment, Parlatore referred the Daily Beast to a five-page letter he sent to Crow on Thursday night, disputing what he said were “multiple inaccurate claims” by the congressman. Parlatore posted the letter to X at 7:25 p.m. EST Thursday; Crow’s podcast appearance occurred at around 11:40 a.m. that day, so did not include mention of the letter.

“Representative Crow taped this podcast the morning after the hearing—not to seek answers, but to escalate from questions to outright accusations of corruption and threats to national security,” Parlatore told the Daily Beast in a statement.

“Every claim he makes here was addressed in my public letter of April 30, which cited the specific federal statutes and public records that disprove them,” he continued. “He has not responded to that letter. He has not accepted my offer to meet. By his own admission, his goal is to ‘make it so untenable’ for the Secretary that he is forced out—a political campaign to deprive the president of the Cabinet of his choosing because the ordinary constitutional processes won’t deliver the result Representative Crow wants. This is irresponsible.“

“The information that disproved his claims was publicly available before he ever opened his mouth. He either knew his statements were false or made them with reckless disregard for whether they were true,” Parlatore wrote. “That is actual malice. The Speech or Debate Clause may protect what he says in a hearing room. It does not protect what he says on a podcast. Representative Crow should do the responsible thing and retract these false claims.”

In response to Parlatore’s statement to the Daily Beast, a spokesperson for the office of Congressman Crow replied: “Secretary Hegseth testified, under oath, that he didn’t know whether one of his top Pentagon advisers also worked for foreign nations or foreign persons. The conflicts of interest of Mr. Parlatore have been previously publicly reported and well-documented. The American people are fed up with the rampant corruption under the Trump Administration that’s making their lives worse off.”

If fired, Hegseth would be the third Cabinet member to leave the administration involuntarily. Trump fired former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March, and last month did the same with then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-i-will-make-donald-trump-fire-his-ultimate-goon-pete-hegseth-rep-jason-crow/?

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Dems Predict Blue Wave Boost for Midterms as Trump Panics

The Democrats are expanding their fight to flip seats from red to blue.

Democrats are seizing on momentum heading into the midterms as President Donald Trump’s approval remains deep underwater with exactly six months to go.

The Democratic Party’s campaign arm has grown increasingly confident in its ability to reclaim the House majority from Republicans as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) announced on Monday it was expanding its “Red to Blue” program to a new round of candidates looking to unseat Republicans.

Democrats only need to flip a net three to four seats to retake the House majority in November, giving Democrats the power to slam the brakes on Trump’s agenda while supercharging their ability to investigate the president and top members of his administration.

Eight new candidates have been added to the Democrats’ list of competitive districts with surging resources, including staff, fundraising, training and other support. It comes after the DCCC announced its first top 12 candidates in February.

The latest polling shows Democrats have a five-point advantage in the generic congressional matchup. The Washington Post/ABC News poll shows Democrats up 49 percent to Republicans’ 44 percent.

“As the American people reject House Republicans’ disastrous, cost-spiking agenda, House Democrats have the momentum to take back the majority,” said DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene.

“These candidates will win because they are authentic, independent-minded leaders who are rooted in their communities, demonstrating they have what it takes to win and fight to make life more affordable for hardworking families,” she added.

The latest top-tier candidates the DCCC is going all in for include Marlene Galán-Woods in Arizona, Jasmeet Bains in California, Jessica Killin in Colorado, Joe Baldacci in Maine, Bob Harvie and Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania, and Bobby Pulido and Johnny Garcia in Texas. The group is running in districts currently represented by Republicans or for open seats.

The president’s party tends to lose seats in midterms, and House Republicans are already working with a razor-thin majority. The GOP has 217 seats to the Democrats’ 212. Five seats are vacant after two House members, one Republican and one Democrat, died in office, and three resigned, including two Democrats and a Republican.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll giving Democrats an advantage was the latest in a series of surveys showing Democrats leading in a hypothetical matchup.

It found Democrats have a nine-point advantage among those certain they will vote in November, and Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say voting this November is more important than in past midterms, by 73 percent to 52 percent.

Trump has been freaking out about the looming midterms for months, repeatedly noting that the party in power typically loses seats.

Since last summer, he’s been pushing Republicans to gerrymander districts to their advantage in a move that has launched a fierce redistricting war.

On Sunday, he issued a panicked post on Truth Social in which he urged Republicans to further redraw districts to their advantage after the Supreme Court last week struck another blow to the Voting Rights Act, paving the way for states to eliminate majority minority districts.

“We cannot allow there to be an Election that is conducted unconstitutionally simply for the ‘convenience’ of State Legislatures. If they have to vote twice, so be it,” Trump wrote.

“We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done. That is more important than administrative convenience. The byproduct is that the Republicans will receive more than 20 House Seats in the upcoming Midterms!”

Several Republican-led states have already indicated they would redraw congressional maps to cut out districts held by Democrats in the South in response to the court ruling on the Louisiana districts.

It remains to be seen how much of an impact redrawing maps will have on the midterms as some filing deadlines have already passed.

Trump has also tried to argue that Democrats have seen a series of victories since he returned to office because he personally is not on the ballot, even though the midterms are largely seen as a referendum on the president.

However, Democrats could still face challenges depending on who primary voters pick as their nominees across the country as the party mounts its push over the next six months to reclaim control of Congress.

The latest polling found that 53 percent of Americans viewed the Democratic Party as “too liberal.” That was more than the 49 percent of Republicans who viewed the current GOP as “too conservative.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dems-predict-blue-wave-boost-for-midterms-as-trump-panics/?

ps:The Dems shouldn't get to giddy!!

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Allies Threaten Revenge After Trump’s Truth Social Explosion

The president is threatening tariffs again as punishment for European partners not pitching in on his war with Iran.

The European Union is calling President Donald Trump’s bluff on his threats of further tariffs amid his continuing—and growing—meltdown over allies refusing to back his war in the Middle East.

“The number one choice is always dialogue,” Kyriakos Pierrakakis, president of Eurogroup, an informal body made up of the EU’s various finance ministers, told Bloomberg Television on Monday. “We want to be a predictable partner in the international economy; we believe in the transatlantic relationship.”

“But having said this, if there is a deviation from what we have agreed upon, obviously all options are on the table and all choices will be on the table,” he added.

Trump fumed in a Truth Social post on Friday that he’d be hiking tariffs on EU-made cars and trucks to 25 percent because the bloc “is not complying with our fully agreed trade deal.”

The Trump administration struck that deal last July as a solution to the president’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs earlier that April. European lawmakers have since been slowly ratifying the arrangement as they seek amendments to the final version.

Pierrakakis, who also serves as Greece’s Minister of Economy and Finance, conceded that things have not progressed at the pace Trump might have liked, but denied the president’s claims that the bloc is somehow in violation of terms.

“Our side of the bargain has been fully met, has been fully kept with regards to the joint statement commitment and the legislative timetable which we had in order to pass them,” he told Bloomberg.

“We need to speed up, we know that. But there is predictability on our end,” he added in a pointed barb to Trump’s proven lack of that particular quality.

Trump’s threat of resumed tariffs against the EU comes as the president seeks retribution against European allies who refused to back his war with Iran.

The centerpiece of that campaign so far has been his abrupt order last Friday to yank 5,000 U.S. troops out of Germany following a spat with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Merz, once seen as one of Trump’s steadier counterparts on the continent, drew the president’s wrath after saying Iran was “humiliating” the U.S., and that Washington had blundered into the conflict with an ill-advised strategy.

Trump responded within days with a vitriolic Truth Social post announcing the Pentagon was “studying” a drawdown of troops in the country, and the order followed shortly after.

The withdrawal, which blindsided NATO, will leave roughly 31,000 American service members in Germany, down from a Cold War peak of about 250,000.

Trump has since indicated that’s only the start, telling reporters on Saturday, “we’re going to cut way down” and dismissing the alliance, again, as a “paper tiger.”

Germany is not alone in Trump’s line of fire. The president has openly mused about also pulling forces from Italy and Spain. He said he’ll “probably” extend cuts to both because Italy has “not been of any help” and Spain has been “absolutely horrible.”

Spain has denied U.S. forces access to its bases and closed its airspace to American aircraft involved in the Iran campaign, while Italy refused a U.S. request to land military aircraft at a base in Sicily.

In March, Trump further threatened to “cut off all trade with Spain.” A leaked Pentagon email reportedly floated the idea of suspending the country from NATO outright as a way to punish so-called “difficult” allies.

It remains unclear exactly how Trump would achieve that, given that no mechanism currently exists.

The president has also lashed out at the United Kingdom and France, telling the British government in a Truth Social post to “build up some delayed courage” and accusing France of refusing overflight rights for U.S. military supply planes bound for Israel.

The Daily Beast contacted the White House for comment on this story. “The EU should focus on implementing the landmark trade deal it signed with the Trump administration last year,” spokesman Kush Desai said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/eu-threatens-revenge-after-donald-trumps-truth-social-explosion-on-tariffs-over-iran-response/?

ps:And he wonders why no one wants to play his games??

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Trump Trolled After Brag Shows He Can’t Grasp the Rules of Popular Kids’ Game

The president failed in his attempt to suggest he is winning the negotiations during the Iran war.

Donald Trump has been widely mocked for a social media boast that shows he doesn’t understand the rules of a card game.

During a Truth Social posting spree on Sunday, the 79-year-old president shared an edited image of himself holding several Uno cards, along with the caption “I have all the cards.”

The image was shared soon after Trump announced the U.S. will help ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz shipping route—the vital passageway largely closed off due to the war in Iran—so that vessels can “freely and ably get on with their business.” The president did not disclose exactly how these plans will be carried out.

The White House also reshared the image of Trump holding several cards on X to suggest he is winning the negotiations in the Middle East. However, as several social media users noted, the aim of Uno is to get rid of all the cards in your hand, meaning Trump is not doing well at all.

“In Uno that means you are losing,” wrote Ron Filipkowski, a former Republican attorney turned editor-in-chief of the liberal MeidasTouch news site.

“Dear White House: If Trump has all the cards, then why are gas prices at record levels? Oh wait, in Uno you win by not having any cards,” California Rep. Ted Lieu posted on X. “Your social media person really should get fired.”

A parody account of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office, which frequently trolls Trump online, used the opportunity to mock the 79-year-old and his repeated boasts that he passed three cognitive tests involving the simple task of identifying certain animals.“‘Fish, fish, lobster, yellow star thing, turtle! Who’s the king of the cognitive test?!! — Donald J. Trump,’” the account posted while sharing an image of Trump “Go Fish” playing cards aimed at children.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz—through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply normally passes—is severely hindering Trump’s hopes of ending the deeply unpopular war with Iran.

The two countries are currently observing a ceasefire as Washington and Tehran attempt to agree to a deal that would bring an end to the war and reopen the vital shipping route.

Iran has rejected Trump’s idea for the U.S. to help stranded ships pass through the Strait and warned that it will target any vessels that enter the waterway.

“We warn that any foreign armed forces, especially the aggressive U.S. army, will be attacked if they intend to approach and enter the Strait of Hormuz,” Major General Ali Abdollahi said in a Monday statement.

Trump also appeared willing to violate the ceasefire with Iran if his plans are thwarted.

“If, in any way, this humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-trolled-after-brag-shows-he-cant-grasp-the-rules-of-popular-kids-game-uno/?

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GOP Operative Admits Disaster Looms for Trump

“The warning signs are flashing,” a source close to the White House conceded.

A desperate GOP operative is sounding the alarm as Americans lose confidence in Donald Trump.

The president remains preoccupied with his war on Iran, which the Pentagon says has already cost $25 billion but which economists warn might end up costing the U.S. economy up to a trillion dollars. Fuel prices have been pushed higher by Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit through which Gulf energy reaches world markets. The AAA reports that the price per gallon has jumped to $4.457.

“The warning signs are flashing,” an operative close to the White House told Politico on Sunday as Trump announced a desperate plan to pry the Strait open. But the operative suggested that the damage may have been done, and voters will remember this when they head to the polls for the midterm elections in November.

“For the first time ever, a majority of Americans do not have confidence in President Trump’s ability to handle the economy. Unless he and his team can reverse this reality, Republicans will pay dearly in November.”

The national average gas price has jumped, according to AAA. The current price is $1.28 higher than this time a year ago, a rise of 50 percent since the war began on February 28.

Polling reflects the dismay this has created with voters. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll published over the weekend found that Trump’s disapproval rating is at an all-time high of 62 percent.

And with six months exactly until the midterm elections, it is the economy on which he polls most poorly. A staggering 76 percent disapprove of his handling of the cost-of-living crisis, which was already biting before he launched Operation Epic Fury.

The disapproval rating of the economy generally sits at 66 percent, the same number as those who disapprove of the situation in Iran. His overall approval now stands at just 37 percent.

The poll was conducted online between April 24 and 28 among 2,560 U.S. adults nationwide.

Messaging is now clearly an issue Trump’s team must fix before the election. He won the 2024 presidential election pledging to rein in prices after a burst of pandemic-related inflation under his predecessor, Joe Biden.

The latest dire poll comes as multiple polls have shown that Americans are feeling severe financial strain. To compound this issue for the GOP, the ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll showed that Democrats hold a 5-point lead over Republicans ahead of the midterms, up from the two-point lead the party held in February.

“The vibe right now is we know we are already cooked in the midterms,” a White House official told MS NOW over the weekend.

“As of this moment, of course, you have to be very concerned,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew, Republican of New Jersey, added. “If you aren’t concerned, you’d be kind of foolish. … We are either going to win the majority by a little, lose the majority by a little, or lose it by a lot.”

White House spokesperson Kush Desai told the Daily Beast: “President Trump was resoundingly re-elected to the White House precisely because he understood how Americans were left behind by Joe Biden’s economic disaster, and restoring prosperity for everyday Americans has accordingly been a Day One priority for this Administration.”

“While the president has been clear about short term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, the administration is focused on the proven Trump agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and energy abundance to keep America on a solid economic trajectory,” Desai added. “Once the Iranian terror threat is neutralized, Americans will again see gas prices plummet, real wages grow, inflation cool, and trillions in investments pour in.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-operative-admits-disaster-looms-for-trump/?

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Judge Demands Trump Explain Tacky New D.C. Makeover

A judge is demanding answers from the White House over only Trump’s latest efforts to immortalize himself.

A D.C. judge has demanded Donald Trump immediately explain himself over plans to renovate one of the capital’s busiest golf courses in honor of his favorite president.

District Judge Ana Reyes granted an emergency motion late Sunday night requiring the Justice Department to respond to a legal complaint over the plans before 7.30 a.m. Monday, with a hearing to be held just half an hour after that, according to an X post from Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney.

D.C. Preservation League, a nonprofit set up to preserve the capital’s historic sites, filed the motion Sunday afternoon after NOTUS reported Friday that the National Park Service was planning to close the East Potomac Golf Course so that work could begin on the site.

The White House had prior to that point insisted no plans had been finalized “regarding the nature and scope of the renovations,” the New York Times reports.

Skye Perryman, CEO and President of Democracy Forward, which is representing the D.C. Preservation League in court, told the newspaper her organization had filed the emergency motion “to save this important part of our national park system from being another casualty of a reckless administration.”

“Despite attestations to the court, the Trump-Vance administration appears to be moving forward aggressively to shut down D.C.’s largest public golf course to explore another of the president’s pet projects to benefit himself,” she said.

It remains unclear at this stage what exactly the work at the East Potomac Golf Course may entail. NOTUS reported the National Park Service was scheduled to begin landscaping and clearing trees as the president develops his redesign of the site.

Trump’s push to begin work on the course also comes as Meredith O’Rourke, one of his leading fundraisers, solicits contributions for an ambitious transformation of sections of the D.C. waterfront.

Those plans are understood to include a newly designed “championship” golf course and a National Garden of American Heroes, according to the Washington Post.

The proposed redevelopment would extend beyond the golf course to include West Potomac Park, a federally owned stretch along the National Mall currently used for sports, leisure, and public gatherings.

The newly formed National Garden of American Heroes Foundation says the planned garden aims to celebrate “hundreds of historically significant Americans,” prompting concerns about how much of the area would actually remain open for general use.

Roughly 250 individuals have been proposed for inclusion as life-size statues, among them controversial picks like Christopher Columbus—who was not, in fact, an American. The cost of the statues alone could exceed the $40 million already allocated.

It comes as Trump seeks to remodel a number of prominent public sites across the nation’s capital in his own image—most controversially, with his demolition of the White House East Wing to make way for an immense ballroom set to dwarf the existing structure.

The D.C. Preservation League is understood to have first filed proceedings against the golf course plans after waste materials from the East Wing construction site were dumped on the East Potomac grounds.

Trump is not understood to have offered an explanation for why the debris was moved to the site. Lawyers behind the suit claim the materials included lead, arsenic and substances known to cause cancer.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-demands-trump-explain-tacky-new-dc-makeover-of-the-east-potomac-golf-course/?

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AI forces Trump's heavy hand

Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios President Trump set out on his first day in office to free AI from government constraints. 15 months later, his own White House is preparing to become a gatekeeper for the most powerful new models on Earth, Axios' Zachary Basu, Sam Sabin and Ashley Gold write. Why it matters: AI has crossed a threshold that no administration — not even one ideologically committed to staying out of its way — can afford to ignore. It's a sea change in both Silicon Valley and Washington, accelerated by a new class of models that can hunt down cybersecurity flaws with extraordinary speed and precision. Anthropic's Mythos, withheld from public use due to safety concerns, was the first model to trigger panic. But with OpenAI's GPT-5.5 now matching its capabilities and Chinese labs racing to catch up, it won't be the last. ✒️ Driving the news: The White House is weighing an executive order that would give the federal government a formal role in vetting all new AI models before they hit the market, the N.Y. Times reports (gift link). Behind the scenes: Sources at top AI companies tell Axios they're cooperating with the White House's new effort. The Trump administration recognizes the fast-growing capabilities of the models, and the labs recognize the need to partner with the government to avoid more draconian steps. The White House push could result in an agreement within weeks, according to sources involved in the conversations. The leading labs say they want to work with the government to help get the cyber defensive tools into the hands of cyber defenders more quickly. The bottom line: The White House still sees beating China in the AI race as an existential priority and views regulation with deep skepticism. But breakneck advances in the AI landscape have forced even the administration's most committed deregulators to concede there are exceptions.

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Secret Service says suspect opened fire on them and was shot in exchange near Washington Monument Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn said agents spotted a man carrying a gun near the White House complex. The unidentified man attempted to flee when uniformed officers with the Secret Service approached him. Quinn said the man fired at the officers, who returned fire. Read more.

Why this matters: The White House was briefly locked down as authorities investigated the incident. The Secret Service ushered journalists who were outside into the briefing room, and President Donald Trump continued a small business event without interruption.   The incident drew a large police presence, coming just over a week after a gunman tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with guns and knives. Quinn said it was not known yet whether the Monday incident was related to Trump.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ WATCH: Secret Service briefing on the incident   Judge asks why jail placed suspect in White House correspondents’ dinner attack on suicide watch   What to watch in Tuesday’s elections in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan   Abortion pill rulings bring the issue back to the forefront in a midterm election year   Education Department opens probe into Smith College for admitting trans women   Appellate judges seem skeptical of Trump administration’s appointments of some top prosecutors   Rudy Giuliani is breathing on his own while hospitalized with pneumonia, spokesperson says   Louisiana exoneree’s first day as elected clerk gets messy after court intervenes   Rubio plans to visit the Vatican this week as tensions between Trump and the pope rise

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Trump Reignites Pope Battle With Bonkers New Comments

The president isn’t done raging at the Catholic leader.

President Donald Trump kicked off his clash with Pope Leo XIV just days before a meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S.-born Catholic leader.

Trump, 79, has repeatedly taken aim at the 70-year-old since launching strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, infuriated at Leo’s calls for peace and an end to the conflict.

Pope Leo has not shied away from hitting back in his own way, bemoaning the fact that the world is “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” without naming any particular figure.

Incensed by the Catholic leader’s repeated calls for peace, Trump lashed out during a Monday interview with Hugh Hewitt on the Salem News Channel.

Hewitt, discussing jailed Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai ahead of Trump’s visit to China later this month, criticized the pope for not highlighting Lai’s plight. Lai was jailed for 20 years over claims that he colluded with foreign forces and conspired to commit sedition.

“I wish Pope Leo would talk about Jimmy Lai,” Hewitt said, adding, “You’ve talked about Jimmy Lai with the chairman [Chinese President Xi Jinping], will you be bringing him up again?”

After Trump said he would bring up Lai in discussions with Xi, Hewitt exclaimed once more that he wished the pope would talk about him.

“Well, the pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good,” Trump replied.

“I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics, and a lot of people, but I guess if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

The pope has previously declined to comment on Lai’s case, instead saying, “We must pray for peace, work for peace and reduce hatred. Hatred is constantly increasing in the world. We must seek to promote dialogue and find solutions.”

The pope’s comments on Lai’s case are similar to his repeated calls for peace in the Middle East; a reminder to simultaneously pray for peace while also working to achieve it.

“Dear brothers and sisters, there are certainly binding responsibilities that fall to the leaders of nations. To them we cry out: Stop! It is time for peace! Sit at the table of dialogue and mediation, not at the table where rearmament is planned, and deadly actions are decided,” the pope told some 10,000 Catholics gathered at St. Peter’s Basilica last month.

Despite Trump’s assertion that Pope Leo supports Iran’s nuclear program, the pope has in fact specifically called for a world “free from the nuclear threat.”

In a video message posted on March 5, Leo said, “Today we lift up our prayer for peace in the world, asking that nations renounce weapons and choose the path of dialogue and diplomacy.”

“Lord, enlighten the leaders of the nations, so they may have the courage to abandon projects of death, halt the arms race, and place the lives of the most vulnerable at the center,” he continued. “May the nuclear threat never again dictate the future of humanity.”

Trump’s comments come just days before Rubio is set to meet with the pontiff in Rome in an attempt to improve relations between the Trump administration and the Vatican.

In one of his most notorious pope-related meltdowns, the president branded Leo as being “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy” before taking credit for his success.

“Leo should be thankful,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, arguing that “he wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”

Trump quickly followed his 334-word rant with an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ, a move that offended many Christians in his party.

In June 2025, one week before Trump bombed three nuclear sites in Iran, the pope made an appeal to “responsibility and reason” amid growing tensions in the Middle East.

“The commitment to creating a safer world, free from the nuclear threat, should be pursued through respectful encounter and sincere dialogue, to build a lasting peace, based on justice, fraternity and the common good,” he said in an address. “No-one should ever threaten the existence of another.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-reignites-battle-with-pope-with-bonkers-new-comments/?

ps:How pathetic!!