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Sen. Mike Lee’s refusal to back down on pushing his Republican colleagues in the Senate to force through the SAVE America Act has them gritting their teeth and even has some wondering if he should be stripped of a committee chairmanship due to his "scorched earth" tactics.

According to reporting from Politico's Jordain Carney, Lee's aggressive, hyper-online tactics promoting elections legislation overhaul have sparked widespread private frustration among Republicans who view his strategy as self-serving, counterproductive, and potentially damaging to the party's midterm prospects.

Donald Trump's offhand remarks during a Monday press availability about Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL)—casually stating the lawmaker had received a "terminal" diagnosis and would be "dead by June"—have revived scrutiny of the president's own guarded approach to his health.

The Guardian's Victoria Bekiempis noted Saturday that Trump has consistently boasted about his physical and mental vitality while publicly mocking others' physical conditions, all while maintaining what observers describe as suspicious opacity about his own medical status.

Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s former lieutenant governor and failed GOP gubernatorial candidate, came clean this week over the allegations that he had made a series of shocking online comments, including describing himself as a “Black Nazi” and admitting to enjoying transgender pornography, despite his fierce anti-trans and homophobic rhetoric.

Appearing on the “After The Call” podcast in an interview published on Thursday, Robinson admitted that, regarding reports about his online comments, “there’s some truth to it,” but said he lied in an effort to protect President Donald Trump in the lead up to the 2024 election.

Over the past week, Donald Trump has cycled through claiming the United States needs no assistance from allies in its Iran conflict, then requesting their support, and finally expressing rage at their refusal—a pattern that reflects an escalating personal crisis as the war continues and public approval declines.

Greg Sargent of The New Republic identifies this behavior as evidence of Trump's central "political weakness": his inability to control himself, which has trapped him in a corner regarding Iran with no path forward that serves his political interests.

The Trump administration was hit with a major discrimination lawsuit after having cancelled a $250,000 federal grant for a New York museum celebrating Black history, a move lawyers for the museum described as “overt and coded racism.”

The grant was awarded to the museum – the Underground Railroad Education Center in Albany, New York – in January of 2024, and despite Congress having already approved the funding, the Trump administration axed the grant as part of its dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.

Zeteo journalist Andrew Pérez highlighted a more alarming comment from President Donald Trump's Thursday Oval Office meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi that overshadowed the Pearl Harbor joke controversy.

Trump stated the U.S. possesses "unthinkable" military weaponry that "you don't even want to know about," and claimed America could "end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to."

Frustration with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is intensifying among some Democrats, with conversations quietly underway about whether he should step aside after the midterm elections, according to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told progressive activists during a February dinner that lawmakers had been conducting informal vote counts to gauge whether enough support existed to remove the New York Democrat from his leadership post, the Journal reported Friday.

Former modeling agent Paolo Zampolli, a Trump confidant who introduced the president to his wife, Melania Trump, allegedly contacted a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official to help deport his Brazilian ex-girlfriend Amanda Ungaro during a custody battle over their teenage son, according to The New York Times.

Zampolli reportedly approached ICE official David Venturella after Ungaro was arrested on fraud charges at a Miami jail, requesting she be placed in ICE detention, citing her immigration status. Records acquired by The Times indicate Ungaro was picked up by ICE agents before making bail and subsequently deported.

President Donald Trump’s influential MAGA ally Mike Davis is facing new scrutiny after allegedly threatening to stop a Justice Department official during negotiations over a major tech merger, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.

Gail Slater, then head of the DOJ’s antitrust division, was reviewing Hewlett-Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion bid to acquire rival Juniper Networks when Davis – serving as outside counsel for HPE – reportedly warned her, “If you don’t approve this settlement, I will destroy you. I will destroy your job at the DOJ,” according to sworn testimony from her former deputy, Roger Alford, reviewed by the Journal.

Federal sex-crimes prosecutor Marie Villafaña repeatedly urged her boss, Alexander Acosta, then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, to pursue a 60-count indictment against Jeffrey Epstein in 2007, but Acosta dismissed her requests.

Acosta's chief criminal prosecutor, Matthew Menchel, questioned the urgency, stating Acosta wanted time to consider proceeding.

The White House is facing sharp backlash after the U.S. Treasury authorized limited sales of Iranian oil already at sea – a move aimed at easing soaring energy prices as President Donald Trump’s war with Iran escalates.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the decision as a “narrowly tailored, short-term authorization permitting the sale of Iranian oil currently stranded at sea,” Bloomberg’s Javier Blas reported Friday.

Iran fired two ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-British military base in the Indian Ocean, in a dramatic escalation that revealed Tehran's weapons can reach far beyond what its own foreign minister claimed last month, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Neither missile hit the remote island base, which hosts American bombers, nuclear submarines and guided-missile destroyers roughly 4,000 kilometers from Iran. One failed in flight, and a U.S. warship fired an SM-3 interceptor at the other. It wasn't immediately clear whether the interception succeeded, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Legal commentators say Chief Justice John Roberts is pushing back against President Donald Trump after warning that criticism of judges can spiral into personal attacks.

Speaking this week at Rice University in Houston, Roberts suggested that criticism of court rulings can become problematic when it shifts “from a focus on legal analysis to personalities.”