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

May 25

Tulsi Gabbard resigns as director of national intelligence, citing her husband’s health

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tulsi Gabbard resigned as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence on Friday, saying she needed to leave office as her husband battles cancer. She is the fourth Cabinet member to depart during Trump’s second term, all of them women.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-tulsi-gabbard-director-national-intelligence-iran-788f1f14259d72bd7936fa2e83149efa?

May 25

Trump Squeals in Self-Pity at Fury Over $1.8B Grift Fund

The president complained that he gave up “a lot of money” by allowing the revenge fund to be created.

President Donald Trump has defended his $1.8 billion revenge slush fund, complaining that he gave up “a lot of money” for the controversial scheme.

Days after insisting he had nothing to do with setting up the fund, the billionaire president posted on Truth Social, saying he allowed the initiative to be created so he could help others.

“I gave up a lot of money in allowing the just announced Anti-Weaponization Fund to go forward,” he wrote.

“I could have settled my case, including the illegal release of my Tax Returns and the equally illegal BREAK IN of Mar-a-Lago, for an absolute fortune. Instead, I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!”

The comments come as the backlash against the fund continued on Friday, with congressional Republicans in open rebellion, MAGA grifters lining up for a taxpayer-funded cut, and Capitol Hill lawsuits in full swing.

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis called the scheme “stupid on stilts,” and Pennsylvania Republican Brian Fitzpatrick spearheaded a bipartisan House effort to kill the fund in its current form, while former GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took aim at acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who helped broker the deal.

“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?” McConnell asked. “Utterly stupid, morally wrong—Take your pick.”

Trump’s complaint about losing money comes despite the president’s wealth growing as he sits in the Oval Office.

According to Forbes, his net worth is estimated at $6.5-$7.3 billion. This is largely due to significant investments and proceeds from cryptocurrency ventures; a growing family portfolio of office towers, golf resorts, and licensing deals worldwide; and substantial equity in the parent company of Truth Social.

But the fund is becoming a growing headache for the administration, with critics saying it would give Trump and his allies enormous influence over who receives taxpayer money, including January 6 rioters who assaulted police.

Several MAGA acolytes have already said they would be applying for compensation.

Among them is Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader who was sentenced ‌to 22 years for “seditious conspiracy” in relation to the January 6 attack. He estimated his claim could be worth between $2 million and $5 million.

Election denier Mike Lindell is also seeking a payout, arguing that his company, MyPillow, lost $400 million due to perceived government weaponization.

And GOP Congressman Andrew Clyde, who was previously embroiled in a messy legal battle with the Internal Revenue Service, did not rule out using the fund himself during an interview with Politico on Thursday.

The backlash has exposed deepening GOP fractures, with senators now demanding limits on who can cash in, while House Republicans skipped town early and blew off a deadline on an immigration enforcement bill as a result of the divisions.

The issue is also rapidly becoming a defining test for Blanche, who was once regarded as one of New York’s more respected white-collar lawyers but is now viewed in Washington as Trump’s personal fixer inside the Justice Department.

Blanche, who is auditioning to become Trump’s full-time attorney general following Pam Bondi’s sacking earlier this year, signed off on the fund after Trump agreed to drop a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leaking of his tax records.

But in another stunning development, he added a clause to the deal declaring the federal government was ”forever barred and precluded" from examining or prosecuting Trump, his sons, and the Trump organization’s current tax issues.

The acting attorney general was was grilled by Republicans and Democrats alike this week over the opaque backroom deal, including why the DOJ was signing off on an initiative tied to IRS settlements and taxpayer payouts that critics say should fall under the Treasury Department.

But Blanche and Trump have both defended the scheme, with the president describing it as a small price to pay for alleged weaponization by the Obama and Biden administrations.

“What they did in terms of weaponization will never be allowed to happen in this country again,” Trump said earlier this week.

“We think that anybody involved in that process should partake, and you’re talking about peanuts compared to the value. It destroyed the lives of many, many people.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/billionaire-trump-whines-about-lost-cash-in-slush-fund-deal/?

ps:Pathetic

May 25

Jailed Trump Fixer Plots Wild Grift Fund Cash Grab

Michael Cohen, now a fervent Trump critic, claims to have suffered “identical” wrongs to those that prompted the president to sue his own administration for $10 billion.

Donald Trump is wringing $1.8 billion out of his own administration and his disgraced former fixer wants a slice of the action.

Michael Cohen says he plans to ask for money from the Justice Department’s new slush fund for Trump allies who claim they were persecuted under the Joe Biden administration. Cohen is a former Trump lawyer who served jail time for tax evasion, lying to Congress, and making hush money payments to a porn star with whom the president is alleged to have had an extramarital affair.

He’s since reinvented himself as a staunch Trump critic. That effort would not seem to extend as far as snubbing the latest windfall for the president’s allies. “I am working through the process on my own and will submit the letter directly to the DOJ once completed,” he told CBS on Thursday.

“The basis for which Trump instituted the $10 billion action are the same causes of action that have affected me as well,” he went on. “[It] has cost me my law license, my businesses, finances, family happiness, business relationships and opportunities.”

Trump’s $10 billion suit against the IRS, alleging the agency failed to stop a former contractor leaking the president’s tax returns to The New York Times in 2020, landed in January. The IRS was under Trump’s control when the documents were leaked, and has been for the duration of his legal action.

His administration has now come up with a novel solution for the unprecedented puzzle of effectively defending itself from itself by seeing off the action with a pledge to create a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for payouts to Trump allies who claim to have been unfairly prosecuted under Biden.

Cohen’s catalogue of crimes was assembled across two cases in 2018. He pleaded guilty in August of that year to five counts of tax evasion tied to his taxi medallion business, one of making false statements to a bank, and two campaign finance violations covering hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels on the president’s behalf.

Trump’s former attorney also pleaded guilty separately that November to lying to Congress, in a case brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, about the timeline of negotiations for the president’s abortive Trump Tower Moscow project during the 2016 election.

Cohen made no mention of persecution at his sentencing in December 2018. Instead, he accepted responsibility for his actions, while also heaping a large portion of the blame on the president himself.

“My weakness can be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump, and I was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands,” he told a judge then.

It’s a line he’s cleaved to since, variously describing the president as a “cult leader,” an “organized crime don,” “poster boy for facism,” and a “master manipulator” since his release from federal prison in 2020.

The Daily Beast has contacted the Justice Department for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jailed-trump-fixer-michael-cohen-plots-cash-grab-from-justice-departments-new-anti-weaponization-fund/?

ps:How pathetic is that?????

May 25

Top Republican Leads Mutiny Against Trump’s $1.8B Grift Fund

Some GOP senators are taking their private outrage public.

A top Republican senator blasted President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion vengeance fund as “stupid on stilts”—and called on his GOP Senate colleagues to publicly condemn it. The Department of Justice this week announced a $1.776 billion fund that will make secret payments to Jan. 6 rioters and other Trump allies who say they were wrongly prosecuted by the Biden administration, without any legal or congressional oversight.The fund has sparked fury on both sides of the aisle, with Republican senators refusing to vote on an immigration funding bill in protest, and “erupting” at acting attorney general Todd Blanche during a closed-door meeting on Thursday.

Some Republican senators, including Thom Tillis of North Carolina, are also publicly sharing their unfiltered thoughts on the taxpayer-funded plan.

“These people don’t deserve restitution,” he told reporters on Thursday. “Many of them deserve to be in prison. This is just stupid on stilts.”

Tillis, who serves on five Senate committees but announced last year that he wasn’t seeking re-election this fall, also said he had colleagues who shared his concerns—and that they “needed to speak up.”

“This is beyond the pale,” he added. “This is not good for my colleagues. There’s not one positive thing that could be spun out of this between now and November. This is bad policy. It’s bad timing, and it’s bad politics.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who is also retiring this fall, had a similarly scathing assessment of the fund, which would be overseen by five commissioners handpicked by Blanche—who was previously Trump’s personal attorney—and could be removed by the president at will.

The recipients will remain anonymous, along with the amounts they receive, and Blanche has refused to rule out the possibility that Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump after being convicted of violent crimes could apply for payouts from the fund.

“So, the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong—Take your pick,” McConnell told reporters Thursday.

Republican Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana have also spoken out against the fund.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

Trump and the DOJ have tried to claim the fund was created as part of a “settlement agreement” in exchange for the president dropping a lawsuit against his own Internal Revenue Service over tax returns that were leaked by an independent contractor during his first term in office.

The judge in the case, however, had expressed doubts that the suit addressed a genuine case or controversy involving actual adversaries, since Trump himself oversees the IRS.

Rather than respond to the judge’s inquiries and face the very real prospect of the case being thrown out, Trump withdrew the suit without referencing or submitting a settlement to the court, Judge Kathleen Williams wrote in her order dismissing the case.

During Thursday’s closed-door meeting with Blanche, which lasted nearly two hours, up to 25 Republican senators spoke out against the fund.

Their reactions were “incredibly hostile,” multiple senators told Punchbowl’s Andrew Desiderio, as they demanded certain guardrails be put in place.

Thanks to the controversy, Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota sent lawmakers home for the Memorial Day recess without voting on a reconciliation package that would allocate an additional $70 million to immigration enforcement through 2029.

The move reportedly infuriated Trump, who has demanded that Congress pass the reconciliation bill by June 1.

The funding bill was already facing some Republican opposition in the Senate after Trump’s allies attempted to include $1 billion in funding for the president’s White House ballroom.

Trump originally said the project would cost $100 million and be paid for entirely with private donations.

Now, the White House is demanding ten times that amount in public funds to build a six-story underground military bunker beneath the event space, would serve as a “shield” for the complex below, Trump told reporters this week.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-republican-thom-tillis-leads-mutiny-against-donald-trumps-18b-grift-fund/?

May 25

Trump Hits Devastating Three-Year Low in Damning Poll

Voters are calling BS on the president’s pledges of an economic golden age under his watch.

Donald Trump’s second administration has seen voter confidence in U.S. economic performance plummet to its lowest point in three years.

The president sailed back into office last year on a pledge to increase affordability and fatten paychecks across the country. A meager 16 percent of voters now say the economy is doing well, with three quarters saying that conditions are only getting worse—the highest share since May 2023—according to the result of a new Gallup poll released Friday.

The survey also shows the highest numbers of Americans assuming a dim view of their future economic prospects than at almost any other point since January 2022, when inflation rocketed to 9 percent in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Washington Post, which reported the results of the Gallup poll Friday, added that Trump’s average approval ratings currently stand at just 36 percent, down four points since January and the lowest of either term since the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 riots in 2021.

Oil prices continue to dominate voter concerns. Trump’s war with Iran, launched on Feb. 28, and Tehran’s resulting shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, have sent gas rocketing up above $4.50 per gallon. The national average stood at just $2.90 prior to the conflict.

Experts say Trump’s flagship tariffs policy has only served to worsen the situation. D.C. think tank the Tax Foundation estimates the president’s levies against ally and enemy alike over the past year amount to a $1,500 hit for the average American household this year, up from $1,000 in 2025.

The damage has been increasingly reflected in polling numbers, and not just on voter approval of the president’s performance now more than 15 months into his second term.

Poll-tracking site Silver Bulletin shows Democrats with an almost seven point lead on the generic congressional ballot ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The Daily Beast contacted the White House for comment on this story. “The American economy has been resilient under President Trump because his economic agenda has a proven track record,” spokesperson Kush Desai said. “Americans can rest assured that as this agenda continues taking effect, and as Congress passes more of the President’s healthcare and housing affordability agenda, the best is yet to come in the second Trump term.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/president-trump-hits-devastating-three-year-low-in-damning-poll-on-the-us-economy/?

May 25

This Is What Makes Trump’s Slush Fund Worse Than Nixon’s

Republicans told Richard Nixon they could no longer support him two years after he won the presidency in a landslide. Could Trump’s $1.8 billion “weaponization fund” be his tipping point?

It seemed inconceivable when Richard Nixon won a historic presidential election victory in 1972 that his own Republican Party would turn on him two years later and drive him from office.

There was the subsequent Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters, of course, and the discovery that the president bugged the Oval Office. But it was Nixon’s secret $700,000 slush fund that was the final nail in the coffin.

He used this money from rich friends—including $100,000 from reclusive millionaire Howard Hughes—to pay for the dirty tricks exposed by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Nixon famously declared, “I am not a crook.”

But he was, and that quickly became apparent as his White House scheming unraveled and his clandestine slush fund was exposed.

On Aug. 7, 1974, a Republican delegation composed of Senator Barry Goldwater, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, and House Minority Leader John Rhodes met with Nixon at the White House to deliver an ultimatum.

“There’s not more than 15 senators for you,” Goldwater told Nixon. His impeachment was almost certain.

Nixon announced his resignation the following evening.

When Donald Trump swept into the White House for a second time on the back of a decisive 2024 victory and proceeded to bully his own party into submission in Congress, he also appeared untouchable.

As recently as this week, the president was able to force out two old-school Republicans, Bill Cassidy and Thomas Massie, by corralling his base to successfully primary them, and to humiliate another, John Cornyn, because he wasn’t sufficiently MAGA.

But a week is a long time in politics.

There were the usual moans from Congress and around the country on Monday when Trump’s acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, announced an unprecedented settlement accompanying the president’s decision to withdraw his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the disclosure of his tax records (which most presidents make public willingly).

A $1.776 billion fund would be established to compensate people who claim they have been politically targeted by the government.

By government, he meant the Obama and Biden administrations. Blanche sent a clear message of defiance by refusing to rule out rioters pardoned of Jan. 6 offenses as potential beneficiaries.

In effect, Trump was the plaintiff in the suit, and his own government was the defendant. Although he claimed to know nothing about it, the president was also party to the final outcome. The scheme was seen as a method of funneling cash to his political allies.

Perhaps we have become immune to the excesses of the Trump administration and its grifting, but there was a general sense of helplessness in the country. Even apathy. This is what he does, seemed to be the takeaway from most jaded observers.

On his podcast on Wednesday, Jon Stewart pointed out the obvious distinction between the Nixon slush fund and the Trump one.

Talking about Watergate, Stewart remarked: “Think about that in comparison to $1.8 billion of taxpayer money, at least I think Nixon’s slush fund was donors! At least it was stand-up bribery.

“This is f---ing OUR money. I mean, it’s—do we even have a Congress or a court?”

Outraged, he continued, “It’s all Orwell. It’s all a ‘f--- you’ troll. Everything they’re doing is a ‘f--- you’ troll to us. ‘This is against the weaponization of it and it’s patriotic.’ They’re trolling us. His entire career is a troll.

“They’re going to give it to people that sprayed MACE at police officers and pretend that they’re rewarding patriotism.”

Democrats echoed Stewart’s outrage, as did a few Republicans already on the outs with Trump or planning to stand down before November’s midterms.

But then on Thursday, something seismic happened in Congress. Republican senators found a spine.

According to numerous reports, more than 25 outraged GOP lawmakers met with Blanche to express their anger and dismay at the “weaponization fund” that would come from the public purse.

They went on to hold Trump’s treasured $72 billion immigration enforcement bill hostage. It is meant to pay for ICE, border patrol, and other immigration operations, but the senators left for the Memorial Day recess without voting it through.

The senators were also grumbling about a previously undisclosed $1 billion that Trump wanted to pay for a six-story bunker beneath his White House ballroom, which he had promised would be financed by donors.

Even Trump had to concede he wasn’t sure if he still had control of the Senate.

There are 53 Republicans in a 100-member Senate. The margins of control are slim.

“Is it possible on May 21, 2026, Republicans finally found an ethical bridge too far?” asked Democrat Sen. Richard Durbin.

In 1972, Nixon amassed one of the biggest landslides in American history. He won more than 60 percent of the vote and captured 49 of the 50 states.

With a record victory margin of nearly 18 million votes, Nixon’s total of 520 electoral votes was close behind Franklin Roosevelt’s record-breaking 1936 re-election and Ronald Reagan’s re-election in 1984.

His victory stance ended up being a middle finger to those who voted for him.

Have the Republicans in the Senate reached a tipping point with Trump?

We may have to wait until the midterms to find out. But if Trump’s Republican Party has the disastrous election some are predicting, expect them to come back snarling.

And then Trump could have something else in common with Nixon. His own party could turn and tell him it’s time to go.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nixons-watergate-slush-fund-was-from-donors-trump-is-using-our-money/?

May 25

Trump’s Too Busy for Don Jr.’s Wedding—But Not Too Busy for Golf

An analysis of the president’s golfing and travel shows that he has spent the majority of his weekends outside Washington, but he could not leave the capital to attend his son’s wedding.

President Donald Trump says he is too busy to attend his eldest son’s wedding—but the demands of the presidency have not kept him off the golf course.

Despite hitting the links at least 14 times since going to war with Iran, according to online trackers and a Daily Beast analysis, Trump said his son’s Memorial Day weekend wedding was “not good timing” for him and that he needs to be in Washington.

That claim did not align with the president’s initial public schedule for the weekend, which said he planned to travel to his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. However, Axios reported later on Friday that Trump will now stay in Washington after scrambling to fix the schedule.

Staying in Washington is inconsistent with how Trump has spent many of his weekends this spring, during which he has frequently jetted out of town despite the war.

That includes the weekends beginning March 7, March 13, March 21, March 28, April 24, and May 2. He was in China for a state visit in mid-May, but he headed for his Virginia golf club upon returning to Washington. He even skipped a “Rededicate 250” faith event on the National Mall that same weekend for a day at the golf club—though he appeared at the event virtually.

In total, Trump has golfed on at least 111 days, or 22.7 percent, of his second stint in office, according to an analysis by the Donald Trump Golf Tracker, which was confirmed by the Beast.

While Trump has time to spend hours on the links, a wedding is just too much.

“He’d like me to go, but it’s going to be just a small little private affair, and I’m going to try and make it, I’m in the midst—,” Trump said of Don Jr.’s wedding. “I said, ‘You know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.’”

He continued, “That’s one I can’t win on. If I do attend, I get killed. If I don’t attend, I get killed—by the fake news, of course, I’m talking about. But he’s uh, [with] a person I’ve known for a long time and hopefully they’re gonna have a great marriage.”

The president confirmed in a Truth Social post on Friday afternoon that he would not be attending.

“While I very much wanted to be with my son, Don Jr., and the newest member of the Trump Family, his soon to be wife, Bettina, circumstances pertaining to Government, and my love for the United States of America, do not allow me to do so,” he claimed. “I feel it is important for me to remain in Washington, D.C., at the White House during this important period of time.”

Trump has found time to hit the links this spring—both to play, as he first did on March 8, just eight days after engulfing the United States in an unpopular war with Iran, and to attend tournaments at his courses in Miami and Virginia as a spectator, as he did on May 3 and May 9.

The president has hit the links so much, and with so much security, a HuffPost investigation published on March 28 found that taxpayers have spent more than $100 million to fund Trump’s favorite hobby. Since then, Trump has golfed an additional nine times, including at his courses in Palm Beach and Doral, Florida, and Sterling, Virginia.

The White House did not return a request for comment about Trump’s golfing.

Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Anderson, who began dating after Don Jr. dumped Kimberly Guilfoyle in late 2024, will tie the knot on a private island in the Bahamas on Saturday in front of fewer than 50 guests.

CNN reports that all of Don Jr.’s siblings—Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, and Barron—will attend. It is unclear whether first lady Melania Trump will make the trip.

While reports have described the wedding venue as a small Bahamian island, none pinpoint exactly where the younger Trump, 48, and Anderson, 39, will say “I do.” Some Bahamian islands, including Bimini, are less than 100 miles from Mar-a-Lago, where Trump spent time as recently as the first weekend of May.

On May 1, he spoke to seniors in The Villages, Florida, and then delivered remarks at the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches that same night. He remained in South Florida the remainder of the weekend, and attended the PGA Cadillac Championship at his Doral golf club on May 3.

In an earlier trip, Trump attended a UFC fight in Miami on April 11—at the same time Vice President JD Vance was in Islamabad, Pakistan, leading peace talks with Iran that ultimately crumbled.

Trump even flew south on April 25 to celebrate with winners of his second annual $TRUMP meme coin contest at Mar-a-Lago, where the top 297 token holders attended a conference and gala luncheon.

The top 29 $TRUMP coin holders even received a VIP champagne toast with the president, something his own son will not get to experience on his second wedding day.

The thrice-married Trump was present for his eldest’s first marriage in 2005, when he tied the knot with Vanessa Kay Haydon at Mar-a-Lago. That ceremony was attended by around 370 guests, mere months after Trump and Melania got hitched and held their reception at the same venue.

Don Jr. and Vanessa were married for over a decade and share five children: Kai Trump, 19; Donald J. Trump III (Donny), 17; Tristan Trump, 14; Spencer Trump, 13; and Chloe Sophia Trump, 11.

While Don Jr.’s official ceremony is in the Bahamas, The Daily Mail revealed Friday that he and Bettina have already legally tied the knot in Florida this week.

A marriage certificate obtained by the Daily Beast shows that the two were officially wedded at the West Palm Beach home of Anderson’s sister, Kristina McPherson, on Thursday. The Trump family has not publicly acknowledged the ceremony.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-too-busy-for-don-jrs-weddingbut-not-too-busy-for-golf/?

May 25

Republicans sour on Trump economy

mail?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.axios.com%

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

President Trump promised an economic golden age when he returned to office last year.

Instead, voters are in their crankiest mood in years about their financial outlook — and the pessimism is spreading even to Republicans, Axios' Mike Zapler writes.

Why it matters: The growing GOP gloom could hardly come at a worse time for Trump and the party — less than six months out from a midterm that's likely to turn on the economy.

📉 Trump's approval rating has been dropping for months. But the University of Michigan's May consumer sentiment survey released yesterday revealed something more striking: Republicans are beginning to lose confidence in the economy, too.

Republican and independent voters' attitudes about the economy hit a low point in Trump's second term, per the survey. Overall sentiment hit an all-time low, period.
Expectations that inflation will remain high shot up among everyone surveyed, but especially Republicans. The long-run inflation expectations for Republicans "are currently more than double their February 2025 reading on a monthly basis," the Michigan survey found.

A line chart that tracks the consumer sentiment index monthly from January 1978 to May 2026. The index ranges from 44.8 to 112. In the listed data points, it ranges from 83.7 in January 1978 to 95.7 in March 2002, then hits 44.8 in May 2026, an all-time low.

Data: University of Michigan. Chart: Axios Visuals

🧮 By the numbers: An AP/NORC poll out this week found that around 6 in 10 Republicans approve of Trump's handling of the economy. That's down from about 8 in 10 in February.

Gallup's gauge of consumer economic confidence released yesterday found that Republicans' economic outlook has dipped for the past four months, to the lowest level of Trump's second term.
A CBS News/YouGov poll this month told much the same story: Just 36% of Republicans said Trump's policies were making them financially better off.

May 25

🐘 Trump's revenge campaign backfires

President Trump. Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Bloomberg via Getty Images

President Trump's week started in triumph when he took out a pair of Republican adversaries up for reelection — but ended in a rare moment of Republican resistance, largely of his own making, Zapler writes.

Why it matters: Trump has spent the better part of a decade steamrolling congressional Republicans. But the costs of his revenge tour — and some politically toxic priorities — have caught up with him.

👋 Just as the Senate was getting ready to take up a reconciliation bill Thursday to fund immigration enforcement, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) suddenly sent the chamber home until June.

The move spared Republicans from having to vote on Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" to compensate people his administration says were targeted by the Biden Justice Department.
The fund was turning into a political debacle on the Hill — a "slush fund" to critics in both parties.
Republicans also might've been forced to vote on security funding for Trump's White House ballroom.

May 26

Suspect dead after opening fire near White House security checkpoint, Secret Service says

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man who opened fire Saturday near a White House security checkpoint is dead after being shot by officers who returned fire, the U.S. Secret Service said. It was the third incidence of gunfire in the vicinity of President Donald Trump in the past month.

https://apnews.com/article/white-house-gunshots-lockdown-secret-service-trump-204c429ab3888b3d0921cf724e0c0474?

May 26

Trump’s White House UFC Event to Honor America Botches U.S. Flag

The America-first branding behind Trump’s UFC dream event hit an awkward snag.

President Donald Trump’s vision for an all-American UFC extravaganza is drawing attention for all the wrong reasons.

The president’s plan to host a night of cage matches on the South Lawn of the White House to celebrate his 80th and the nation’s 250th birthdays has taken an awkward turn.

The American flag featured in the UFC mock-up for the event has a major glitch: It only has 48 stars to represent the nation’s 50 states.

The UFC posted a rendering on X of the big event, which is being held adjacent to Trump’s paved-over Rose Garden, featuring the faulty flag, a giant platform for the contest, and a crowd of seemingly excited spectators.

An eagle-eyed observer on X spotted the goof-up.

The flag isn’t the only potential problem for the fight-off. UFC CEO and president Dana White toured the proposed event site last week and was stunned by the overwhelming number of gnats and other bugs. They’re bound to be annoying and could even present a danger to distracted performers, he fears.

“President Trump just opened the Rose Garden two nights ago, and he invited me to dinner there. The amount of gnats that were flying around. I’m like, ‘Holy s--t,’” White said on the Boardroom podcast.

“As soon as I got on the plane, I called my head of production and said, ‘Yeah, let me tell you about the gnat situation,’” recalled White. “So when you’re a fighter, think about that lighting grid, the amount of power in the lights… moths, gnats, and God knows what else.”

He added: “These are all the little details that we have to think about. That’s why I don’t like fighting outside—ever.”

He’s considering installing fans to blow the bugs away.

Trump is expecting some 5,000 spectators to watch the UFC fight, an unusually violent display for the site.

“I think it’s gonna be the biggest event we’ve ever had at the White House,” he said earlier this month.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-white-house-ufc-event-to-honor-america-botches-us-flag/?

May 26

White House Mandates App With Built-in Trump Worship

The president’s preferred words of praise are prewritten and ready to send to him.

The White House is requiring all government-issued phones to have an app installed featuring a constant drip of praise for the president and prewritten messages of adoration.

After launching the White House app publicly in March, the Trump administration has now moved to ensure the app is on every government phone, according to a report in Government Executive.

The move has raised concerns that the app could be a back door to the government, allowing hackers access behind the government firewall.

“Any app that is installed on government issued devices can potentially create backdoor access to government networks behind the firewall,” a former government IT expert, Sonny Hashmi, told Government Executive.

In April, NOTUS reported that cyber security experts were concerned about vulnerabilities in the app.

The app shared users’ IP addresses, time zones and other data to third-party services, the security experts found. But on top of this, the app isn’t honest about its data sharing practices, meaning users are none-the-wiser.

“The U.S. government’s infrastructure is being attacked from all sides right now, and having an amateur WordPress developer running the White House’s public presence puts everybody who visits it at risk,” Philip Fields, a cybersecurity researcher and former FBI intelligence analyst, told NOTUS.

Asked if the demand to install the app across millions of government-issued devices was true, the White House did not respond directly.

“The White House App gives all Americans direct access to White House live streams, breaking news alerts, new policy initiatives, social media posts, and more. Government devices typically include pre-installed apps that provide value to government employees’ day-to-day work,“ spokeswoman Olivia Wales said in a statement.

The app describes itself as “everything you need to stay connected” to the White House, and has favorable news articles, media statements and ways to interact with the administration built in.

It also provides Donald Trump with a constant stream of praise if users click on a button to “text” the 79-year-old president. A preloaded draft message reportedly pops up to be sent to a pre-selected phone number, featuring the phrase, “Greatest President Ever!”

Despite the White House’s claim that the app is typical of what you might find pre-installed to “provide value to government employees’ day-to-day work,” one former government tech official said it’s not a work tool.

“It’s just making sure all federal employees are forced to see the same propaganda they push out to the public,” David Nesting, a career civil servant who has previously worked for the Office of the Chief Information Officer, told Government Executive.

In fact, the content of the app—largely laudatory of Trump —is in direct conflict with the neutrality expected of federal public servants.

Trump announced the app in March, claiming it gave “front row access” to “your favorite president, Donald J. Trump, that’s me.”

The Hatch Act of 1939 requires all federal employees to maintain political neutrality, specifically, “to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace,” the U.S. Special Counsel’s overview of the law says.

Much of the app’s content is aimed at presenting Trump’s second term in a glowing light and laying blame for issues at the feet of Democrats.

“Stuck in line at La Guardia? Blame a Democrat,” one title featured on the app reads.

The rollout of the app to government phones is expected to start in at least one agency, the FAA, next week, Government Executive said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-mandates-app-with-built-in-president-donald-trump-worship/?

May 28

Marco Rubio Brutally Undercuts Nonsensical Trump Boast

It remains unclear what is actually going on after the president’s puzzling pronouncements.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has started to do President Donald Trump’s flip-flopping for him.

Trump, perhaps bogged down by a lack of progress in negotiations with Iran, has taken to double-speak. In a Sunday afternoon Truth Social brag, the 79-year-old talked up his “deal,” saying that it far surpasses former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran, even though, by his own admission, “It isn’t even fully negotiated yet.”

Tasked with spinning Trump’s latest whim, the United States’ top diplomat, who was in India for unrelated reasons, fielded questions from a baying press gaggle. The secretary of state took a much more cautious approach than Trump, telling reporters, “I wouldn’t read too much into it.”

“We thought we might have some news last night,” he said, although he made it clear that there was still lots left to negotiate. “We have what I think is a pretty solid thing on the table in terms of their ability to open up the strait and enter into a very real, significant, time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matter, and hopefully we can pull it off,” he said.

Asked what was delaying a deal, he appeared to blame Tehran, according to Wall Street Journal reporter Vera Bergengruen on X. “It’s just a response… you got to hear back, and it takes the Iranian system a little while longer to get back. Look, the president’s not going to make a bad deal… he’s not in a hurry,” Rubio said.

Trump said the conflict would have ended within “four to six weeks.” It is now entering its 12th week.

“It has a lot of support in the Gulf. There’s a lot of support globally, every country that we’ve walked through it. [They] understand it’s not just very reasonable, but it’s the right thing for the world to get done,” Rubio added of the package he hopes will become a ratified deal.

Reuters reported that Rubio said the U.S. could soon be ready to abandon diplomacy altogether. The secretary rather ominously said that “alternatives” would be explored if negotiations fail.

Trump created hope for an imminent deal on Sunday afternoon. In a Truth Social post, he said: “If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one, not like the one made by Obama, which gave Iran massive amounts of CASH, and a clear and open path to a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump wrote. “Our deal is the exact opposite, but nobody has seen it, or knows what it is. It isn’t even fully negotiated yet.”

“So don’t listen to the losers, who are critical about something they know nothing about,” he continued. “Unlike those before me who should have solved this problem many years ago, I don’t make bad deals!”

The two sides remain divided over several contentious issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, Israel’s war in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia, and Tehran’s demands for sanctions relief and access to tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues frozen abroad.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Trump administration official told Reuters that Iran had agreed “in principle” to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in return for the U.S. lifting its naval blockade, as well as to eliminate Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

They added that the U.S. believed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, had signed off on the deal’s basic framework.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/marco-rubio-brutally-undercuts-trumps-nonsensical-boast-on-an-iran-deal/?

ps:It's not unclear and not puzzling at all! He hasn't a clue ever of what he's actually talking about!!!!!

May 28

Nonnegotiable

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Donald Trump’s reputation and political career were built on his dealmaking prowess, yet the president keeps demonstrating that he is a terrible negotiator.

Repeatedly over the past nine years, Trump has gotten rolled by counterparts during high-stakes exchanges. North Korea, Russia, Russia again, China, and China again have gotten the better of the United States. Trump has had to slink back to Washington without much to show except empty talk about friendship with whatever dictator has just run circles around him. He’s had some success in brokering agreements when acting as a third party (though not nearly as much as he pretends) but much less luck when his own government is a participant. The one glaring exception came when he was effectively negotiating with himself, getting his own administration to set up a $1.8 billion slush fund for his political allies.

The newest example of Trump’s artlessness is Iran. Let’s review the past few days: Trump posted on Saturday that he was close to striking a deal with Tehran that would end the war he started earlier this year and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. As the outlines of the agreement began to emerge, it looked both incomplete and bad: Trump had postponed discussing the hardest issues—matters, such as nuclear weapons, that led him to go to war—in exchange for opening the strait, which was open before Trump started the war. Hawkish Trump allies promptly criticized the deal, and despite histrionic pushback from Trump aides, the president had begun backing off claims of an imminent agreement by Sunday. “If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one, not like the one made by Obama,” he posted. “Our deal is the exact opposite, but nobody has seen it, or knows what it is. It isn’t even fully negotiated yet.” Yesterday, in a sign that a deal might not be near at all, the U.S. military conducted what it called “self-defense strikes” against Iranian targets—directly contradicting the administration’s previous claims about having wiped out any threats to the United States in Iran.

The situation demonstrates a few reasons that Trump is such a bad negotiator. My colleagues Tom Nichols and Robert Kagan have all written illuminating articles on the specific failures inherent or likely in any deal with Iran. But the incident also shows the structural problems with the president’s approach.

First, Trump is unprepared. Some effective presidents (Dwight Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush) came to the White House with a history of deep engagement in public affairs and foreign relations, which made them ready to handle sensitive foreign negotiations. Others brought a formidable work ethic and a ruthless intellect (Barack Obama, Bill Clinton). Both types surround themselves with smart advisers whose input they take seriously. Trump is 0 for 3 on these conditions, which is one reason he wrote off the risk of Iran closing the strait in the first place: He both surrounds himself with less qualified aides than past presidents did and refuses to heed their counsel. The same failure of preparation extends to the frontline negotiators. Even after many of its top officials were killed in the war, Iran has maintained a hard-nosed corps of diplomats who have long been involved in foreign policy. Trump, by contrast, has dispatched a real-estate pal and his nepo-baby son-in-law. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, perhaps the best informed of Trump’s aides, has been largely invisible.

Second, as the roller-coaster weekend demonstrates, Trump is mercurial. Keeping one’s bottom line ambiguous in a negotiation is canny, but Trump doesn’t appear to have any bottom line in his own mind. He has cycled through different rationales for the war, including regime change and stopping Iran’s nuclear program, but hasn’t landed on one. Lacking a goal in the war means he also lacks a goal in the peace talks. Iran may be able to use that to its advantage, but even if its leaders are eager to make a deal, they will be understandably reluctant to agree to anything that requires a leap of faith, because Trump may change his mind at any moment, as appeared to happen amid Republican backlash in recent days.

Third, Trump is desperate for a deal, and everyone knows it. His misjudgments have led him to corporate bankruptcies and cheap sales in business, and he’s in a similar situation now. Every conflict between an autocracy and a democracy (however fragile this one may be) is asymmetric: Trump has to be concerned about public opinion, whereas Iran’s leaders have shown not only that they are indifferent to the suffering of their people; they are willing to massacre them by the thousands. But as the war drags on with no positive resolution in sight, and the U.S. economy looks shakier, Trump has become visibly more frantic to reach a peace agreement. (The president also seemed eager to have something to show for his weekend, because he skipped his eldest son’s wedding, ostensibly to work.) Iran, sensing Trump’s need for a deal, has maintained a hard line.

All of these factors combine to mean that Trump is ill-equipped to win any negotiation, much less one that is the result of his own blundering into war. Trump is likely to muddle through, as he has so many times in his career, and reach some sort of agreement with Iran. He will surely say that it’s a great triumph, but reality will be harder to ignore than it was when Trump’s failures merely hurt his own bank accounts.

One of the ironies of The Art of the Deal, the book that made Trump’s reputation as a clever businessman, is that Trump himself didn’t write it. His ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, has said that he cobbled the volume together after sitting at Trump’s elbow while he conducted his daily business. Unfortunately, it’s probably too late for Trump to hire a real professional to handle negotiations with Iran.

Related:

May 28

Trump’s Brain Flips Back to the 1970s in a Ludicrous Ultimatum Misfire

The president was fully 50 years out of date in his latest demand.

President Donald Trump has demanded action on Iran’s “nuclear dust” from an agency that ceased to exist more than 50 years ago, raising concerns that he is increasingly living in the past.

The two-term president, who turns 80 in June, all but confirmed that he doesn’t know which U.S. body deals with atomic science and technology when he posted on Truth Social about Iran’s enriched uranium, which he calls “nuclear dust.”

He said that if a peace deal is struck with Tehran, the material will “either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed or, preferably, in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed in place or, at another acceptable location, with the Atomic Energy Commission, or its equivalent, being witness to this process and event.”

There were two main issues with Trump’s statement. The Atomic Energy Commission developed and regulated U.S. nuclear technology, oversaw weapons development during the Cold War, and managed domestic atomic policy. It was not, in the modern sense, an international inspection body for foreign nuclear disarmament agreements.

Secondly, it was dissolved in 1974.

Trump did say “or its equivalent,” but it remains a bizarre choice for a president to all but admit publicly that he doesn’t know what body deals with such important matters, especially since bombing in Iran has resumed.

U.S. forces targeted Iranian missile sites and mine-laying ships during an operation on Monday, throwing already strained peace talks into disarray.

CENTCOM said the strikes were in “self-defense,” and designed to protect “our troops” from unspecified “threats” from Iranian forces in an area near Bandar Abbas, a southern port city. On Tuesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had responded, downing an American drone and also shooting at a fighter jet.

There was optimism for a breakthrough in talks over the weekend, emboldened by Trump’s insistence on Monday that progress was being made. “Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran are proceeding nicely!” he crowed in a Truth Social post.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a hopeful outlook, saying the president was keen to make a deal. But later on Monday, his tone had changed. “The straits have to be open. They’re going to be open one way or the other, so they need to be open,” he said after the strikes.

“What’s happening there is unlawful, it’s illegal, it’s unsustainable for the world, it’s unacceptable.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei stoked division, declaring that the Middle East “will no longer serve as shields for U.S. bases.”

The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took a beating, too, as the former intensified strikes in southern Lebanon, spurred on by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s fighting talk. He said he had ordered the military to escalate its offensive in an effort to “crush” the Iran-backed militant group, Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the AEC’s modern equivalent is actually split between two agencies. The United States Department of Energy handles nuclear weapons infrastructure, nuclear research, uranium programs, national labs, and energy policy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulates civilian nuclear reactors, safety, licensing, and nuclear materials.

Even so, these bodies wouldn’t typically be involved in a situation like the one Trump described in his Truth Social post. That falls under the remit of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in conjunction with multinational actors.

Additionally, the IAEA already oversees monitoring and verification related to Iran’s nuclear program under international agreements and safeguards. However, its monitoring has been stymied by Trump’s bombing campaign, and it has been unable to inspect nuclear sites struck during “Operation Midnight Hammer,” the U.S.-Israel mission that decimated Tehran’s nuclear program last June.

The AEC existed from 1946 until it was dissolved in 1974 and ceased operations in January 1975, when Gerald Ford had taken over following Richard Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal. The agency’s final day of operations predates the Iranian Revolution by a full three years, showing just how stuck in the past Trump is.

It existed at the heart of the eras of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Nixon. It was created right after World War II at a time when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were locked in a nuclear arms race.

Trump often refers to cultural touchstones from a bygone era. He has an ongoing obsession with “TV ratings,” “real estate,” and specific publications and channels, such as Time magazine and 60 Minutes, that evoke the priorities of yesteryear.

He has hauled old faces such as Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan back into the modern day, and his political style resembles the old leader-to-leader bargaining style. Even his slogan (which Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton all previously used) looks specifically backward: “Make America Great Again.”

The Daily Beast has approached the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/president-trumps-brain-flips-back-to-the-1970s-with-sensational-war-demand-flop/?

ps:Just pathetic!!!!!

May 28

Megyn Kelly Eviscerates Trump for Cheating on ‘Every Wife’

The former Trump supporter tore into the president for his long history of alleged infidelity.

Former Trump stalwart Megyn Kelly launched a fresh attack on the president, accusing him of having a long history of sexual misconduct.

In an appearance on the Hodgetwins podcast, Kelly eviscerated Donald Trump for cheating “on every wife he’s had.” The 79-year-old president has been married three times.

Kelly’s remarks came in a broader conversation about Trump’s digs at his former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent. Kent resigned from the Trump administration over the Iran war, resulting in Trump throwing a characteristic tantrum and suggesting that Kent remarried “quite quickly” after his first wife, Shannon, died in 2019. She was a technician for the U.S. Navy, and was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria. Kent met artist Heather Kaiser a year later, and the two married in 2023.

“Kent, horribly, lost his wife,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in April, shortly after Kent resigned

“Her casket was being brought to Dover, along with the rest, although he married again, quite quickly, in my opinion,” wrote the president in the wake of Kent’s resignation—an act the former Trump official attributed to the memory of his “beloved” first wife.

Kelly, a one-time Trump loyalist, tore into the president for his dig at Kent.

“Talk about a glass house!” she declared to the Hodgetwins hosts. “I mean, Trump has cheated on every wife he’s had. He met Marla Maples while he was still married to the mother of his children, Ivana.”

The 55-year-old conservative firebrand claimed that Trump was “proud of the affair” and that it was “all over the papers.”

“If you think Trump’s been faithful to Melania, that’s great,” she continued. “You’ve got bigger issues than I can solve here.”

Kelly also revived long-standing accusations made by Trump’s first wife, Ivana, of rape. “His first wife accused him of raping her. She alleged in her first book that he was so angry over the hair transplant he got, that she made him get, it was so painful that he raped her. And she later retracted that when he ran for president,” Kelly said.

Ivana, the president’s late ex-wife, once used the word “rape” to describe an incident between herself and her ex-husband in 1989. The harrowing incident was later detailed in 1993’s biography Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, written by reporter Harry Hurt III. Hurt said it was “a violent assault,” and alleged that Ivana told some of her closest confidantes, “He raped me.”

Trump has denied the allegation. In 1993, he told Newsday, “It’s obviously false. It’s incorrect and done by a guy without much talent… He is a guy that is an unattractive guy who is a vindictive and jealous person.” Ivana herself retracted some of the language around the incident, saying she felt “violated” at the time, but she did not mean rape “in a literal or criminal sense.” During Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign, Ivana said the story is “totally without merit.”

Kelly’s latest takedown of the president comes after months of distancing herself from both Trump and the MAGA movement. Her latest split from the president began with the war in Iran; alongside Tucker Carlson and several prominent, anti-interventionist MAGA figures, Kelly has helped create a rift in Trump’s orbit of support.

In the months since, Kelly has supported Kent’s resignation (also featuring the former official on her podcast), ripped into the president for threatening late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, and publicly called Trump “weak” and “gullible” amid the war.

The commentator has also remarked on Trump’s marriage to Melania, 55. “He’s obviously not the greatest husband in the world,” Kelly said in April. “And he’s extremely petty and thin-skinned. Extremely petty and thin-skinned.”

On her podcast in early April, Kelly fiercely condemned Trump’s vile rants about the war in Iran, including one lengthy social media post in which the president threatened to wipe out “a whole civilization.” Kelly responded, “I’m sick of it. Can’t he just behave like a normal human?” She said she was once “the first to try to understand Trump and his strategy.”

Trump has fired back at Kelly’s criticisms over the last few months, criticizing her and other MAGA rebels for their insurrection.

The former Fox personality endorsed Trump in 2024, calling the media tycoon a “protector of women” and saying he will look out for “our forgotten boys and our forgotten men.”

On her Friday appearance on the Hodgetwins podcast, Kelly said MAGA is shrinking, calling it “an increasingly tiny group.”

Obsessed with pop culture and entertainment? Follow us on Substack and YouTube for even more coverage.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/megyn-kelly-eviscerates-trump-for-cheating-on-every-wife/?

May 28

Murdoch Paper Sounds Alarm on Who Really Holds ‘Trump Card’

The Wall Street Journal pulled no punches in its assessment of the president’s dealmaking.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal blasted President Donald Trump for losing the upper hand over the Strait of Hormuz in an editorial published on Sunday evening.

The conservative newspaper lambasted the 79-year-old president’s strategy for putting an end to his war in the Middle East as details of a proposed deal between the United States and Iran began to surface over the weekend.

“Reopening the Strait will reduce oil prices, but in the President’s reluctance to do so by force, he has signaled that Iran holds the trump card,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote. “Even if successful, the deal would leave that card intact and looming.”

The editorial board highlighted that the “preliminary deal” reached by the two warring nations includes both sides immediately halting their blockades of the Strait of Hormuz, but allows talks on nuclear development and sanctions to continue for 60 days or more.

“The basic problem lies with ending U.S. pressure before dismantling the nuclear program,” the board wrote. “If the blockade ends and Iran can sell its oil, all that’s left to coerce it into nuclear concessions is the threat of renewed war.”

“But Mr. Trump wasn’t willing to do that after Iran reneged on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and attacked U.S. forces and Gulf allies,” it continued. “How credible will the threat be 60 days closer to midterms, when it would trigger a new Iranian blockade of Hormuz? A pledge not to build a nuclear weapon means nothing because the regime has always said that while doing the opposite.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on the editorial.Earlier on Sunday, Trump, 79, posted on Truth Social about how good his peace deal with Iran is, despite admitting that it “isn’t fully negotiated yet.”

“If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one, not like the one made by Obama, which gave Iran massive amounts of CASH, and a clear and open path to a Nuclear Weapon,” the president wrote. “Our deal is the exact opposite, but nobody has seen it, or knows what it is. It isn’t even fully negotiated yet.”

“So don’t listen to the losers, who are critical about something they know nothing about,” he continued. “Unlike those before me who should have solved this problem many years ago, I don’t make bad deals!”

The Journal’s editorial board noted that, despite Trump’s assertion that he doesn’t “make bad deals,” he is likely feeling pressure from his constituents over the rising gas prices as November’s midterms creep ever closer, contributing to his panicked efforts to put an end to the conflict he started.“We’d add that a bad deal would leave him worse off politically, even if gas prices fall. Even a half victory by Iran would hurt America’s standing—and Mr. Trump’s,” the board wrote.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/murdoch-paper-wall-street-journal-sounds-alarm-on-who-really-holds-trump-card-in-iran-war/?

May 29

Trump's irreversible choices

Photo illustration of President Trump pushing over the stripes of the U.S. flag

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

President Trump has proudly stretched the power of the presidency in never-before-witnessed ways, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

But it's the choices he's made with that power — often alone, often impulsive — that explain his plunging popularity and will define his second term.

Why it matters: Every president tests limits. Trump tests them faster than anyone, often with little thought about the consequences, his advisers tell us. Only courts or markets, or his quest for good press, can rein him in.

By then, the tariffs are in place, the war has started, the ally is insulted.

You can sort his choices into three buckets:

⚖️ 1. Rule of law as weapon: Trump has pointed the machinery of the federal government at his enemies while enriching himself and his family.

He sent ICE into American cities underprepared and with a shifting mandate — cheering the made-for-TV chest-thumping, even as agents jailed and deported some U.S. citizens.
He unleashed the Justice Department against critics, with indictments so thin that grand juries and Republican-appointed judges tossed some of them — while he rewarded supporters who claim they were targets of government "weaponization."
He let family and friends profit from the presidency.

💵 2. Economy by improvisation: It often feels like Trump is running the world's largest economy on gut feelings and Truth Social posts.

He leveled haphazard, unpredictable tariffs on friends and adversaries alike — ignoring Congress, the courts and the Constitution in doing so.
He pressured a sitting Fed chair to force interest rates lower, with his DOJ going so far as to open a criminal investigation, breaking a half-century norm of central bank independence.
He announced 50-year mortgages and $2,000 tariff dividend checks on Truth Social without a detailed policy framework or legislative language.

🪖 3. Power projection on personal whim: Trump often seems to be running U.S. foreign policy and the military via social media — by instinct, with an eye on the visuals.

He taunted lifelong allies — NATO as a whole; Ukraine, Canada, Denmark, individually, among others — impulsively and personally, turning decades-old partnerships into punchlines.
He launched a war against Iran, at Israel's urging, without a clear plan for the long, brutal, expensive aftermath now unfolding.
He permitted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to oust the Army's top uniformed officer and the Navy secretary during the war.

📊 By the numbers: Nate Silver's polling average has the president underwater by 19 points, a second-term low and right around the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attacks.

A CNN poll this month found 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy — a benchmark that never crossed 50% in his first term, even during the pandemic.

👓 Between the lines: Trump's pattern is to take a hard line, then relent when bond yields turn bad or MAGA influencers balk. Social media dubbed this TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. But the pullback doesn't erase the act.

Supply chains have already moved. Allies have already hedged. An enemy in a war of choice still gets a vote on when it ends.

The bottom line: Many Trump policies can be undone by the next Democratic president. That's the result of acting alone, without leaning on Congress to pass laws.

But the world won't instantly trust America again. Generals don't come out of forced retirement. Institutions, once bent, don't always snap back.

📱Watch a "Behind the Curtain" video: Jim and Mike discuss Trump's ever-expanding uses of power. (Executive producer: Jimmy Shelton) ...

May 29

🥊 Now under construction: White House fight night

Rendering: UFC via X

New renderings show the temporary arena for the UFC Freedom 250 fight at the White House on June 14 — 19 days away.

The South Lawn venue will seat roughly 5,000 VIPs and military personnel for the Flag Day fight (also President Trump's 80th birthday).

Rendering: UFC via X

85,000 fans will watch on screens at a Fan Fest on the nearby Ellipse (above).

Photo: Allison Robbert/AP

🏗️ Above: Cranes have started building the UFC Octagon.

May 29

⚠️ America's shrinking cyber agency

Photo illustration of President Trump holding an unplugged electrical cord attached to a giant computer

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images

The government's lead civilian cyber agency has diminished executive branch stature as Washington prepares for emerging AI cyber threats, Axios' Sam Sabin writes.

Former officials and industry leaders fear the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency no longer has the capacity to help utilities, banks and other critical infrastructure operators prepare for a feared wave of AI-fueled cyberattacks.

Why it matters: The agency is weakened as the government braces for AI models like Anthropic's Mythos to supercharge cyberattacks.

👂 What we're hearing: When President Trump hears "CISA," he doesn't think of protecting chemical plants, telecom networks or hydroelectric dams, a source familiar with Trump's thinking told Axios.

"He thinks of some guy he'd never heard of making over-the-top claims about 2020 being the most secure election ever held," the source said, referring to former CISA director Chris Krebs.
Since the beginning of 2025, the agency has lost roughly a third of its workforce through buyouts and budget cuts.

🔮 What's next: CISA's acting director recently told employees the agency plans to hire 300+ new staffers. (Federal News Network)

May 29