Senate Republicans defeated the first attempt by Democrats to permanently block Trump's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, the New York Times reported.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate minority leader, motioned to prohibit the fund by adding an amendment to an immigration bill, according to the NYT.
The motion failed 50 to 49, with three Republicans joining the Democrats, including senators running to keep their seats in November, such as Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Jon Husted (R-OH), and Dan Sullivan (R-AK), per the NYT.
A Republican lawmaker clashed with an anchor during a live CNN broadcast on Thursday over the Iran war after four GOP House leaders broke from President Donald Trump and voted to rebuke the president over the military operation.
Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL) and CNN's Brianna Keilar got into a heated exchange over what the Trump administration has planned to do next in the ongoing war, as gas prices skyrocket for Americans and the Senate now considers Trump's war powers in Iran. Haridopolos stated that he firmly stands behind Trump and his administration.
"The person I trust in this is President Trump," Haridopolos said. "And I trust Marco Rubio, he's been a 25-year friend of mine. He knows all the intricate details of what we're doing right now. The recommendation from the White House is to know all the details. They want to continue to keep the pressure on Iran as long as possible, because I know, look, we're all hurting with gas prices. We all recognize this, but what we have to do is finally eliminate this threat in Iran."
Keilar asked the Republican if he thought the administration was entering "quagmire territory."
"This is a real winnablesituation — for the first timesince 1979, to finally take outthese crazy people in Iran," Haridopolos said. "Andwhat we're trying to do is winthe conflict. And I'm challenged,like you are, that no one likesthe higher prices. But this issomething we, the president, iswilling to do."
Keilar pushed back and asked Haridopolos if the war was a "winnable situation."
He argued that Trump knew it would be a risk and unpopular, but that the president "believed the risk" was worth it.
The conversation heated up when Haridopolos said, "if we go with your plan" — and Keilar interjected.
"Your plan? It's not my plan," she said.
"You're pushing for it. Sothat's being said," Haridopolos responded.
"I'm telling you what Americans are saying," Keilar said, pushing back.
"This isunpopular. You have now Republicans who have experiencein wars that have lasted a verylong time," she added.
Haridopolos appeared frustrated with the anchor and said, "You want me to answer?"
The two bristled and spoke over each other.
"You can, but you just told mewhat I was saying. And I'mtelling you, please don't putwords in my mouth. Butplease continue on with what youwanted to say," Keilar said.
The Kennedy Center is moving to comply with a federal court order to strip President Donald Trump's name from the iconic Washington arts venue, according to a memo obtained by CBS News.
The center's general counsel sent the memo to staff Thursday, instructing them to "immediately change email signatures, letterhead, and other documents" to reflect the original name — the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Interior and exterior signage must be switched back by June 12.
The order follows a ruling last week by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who found the Trump-appointed board had overstepped its authority when it voted in December to rename the venue "The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts." Cooper ruled that "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it."
The memo also signals that the center has yet to decide whether it will remain open past July 5, when a $257 million, two-year renovation was slated to begin — a closure Cooper's injunction also blocked. Center officials are still "considering their options," the memo says.
The renaming was announced in December by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who wrote on X that the board voted unanimously to honor Trump "because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building." Trump said at the time he was "honored" and "surprised."
But the administration signaled resistance after the ruling. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum refused to commit to complying when asked on CNN's State of the Union, saying he wasn't sure whether the order would be appealed and calling it "controversy on both sides."
In court, the administration had argued Trump's name was "merely a secondary name" — not a true renaming — a claim Cooper flatly rejected.
Trump then posted over the weekend that he would walk away from the center, calling it "broken, unsafe and busted."
The lawsuit was filed by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex officio Kennedy Center trustee who alleged that adding Trump's name was a "flagrant violation" of the Constitution. The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck analyzed a little-noticed Supreme Court occurrence in Margolin v. National Association of Immigration Judges that may reveal how Justice Amy Coney Barrett will rule on consequential Trump-era legal battles.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Barrett, advocated going further than the narrow procedural ruling to restrict federal employees' ability to challenge politically controlled administrative tribunals. The case centers on "channeling" — the doctrine requiring plaintiffs to exhaust designated administrative forums before reaching federal court.
The Trump administration weaponizes this doctrine across multiple fronts, including immigration cases, forcing challengers into executive-branch-controlled venues.
Vladeck warned Barrett's voluntary decision to join Thomas's aggressive pro-channeling position was "genuinely ominous," noting she acts "on purpose."
Alex Jones unloaded on Donald Trump Thursday over the president's decision to nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to permanently lead the Department of Justice, calling it "terrible news" and accusing Blanche of betraying Trump's MAGA base.
Trump announced his intent to nominate Blanche during a White House event Wednesday evening. Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, has served as acting AG since April after Trump fired Pam Bondi.
Jones tore into the nomination on his show Thursday morning. "Terrible. Democrat lawyer. Sold everybody out," he said on the Alex Jones Network. "Killed the investigations into the government weaponization against Trump's top supporters. It's just really terrible news."
The criticism carries a personal edge. Jones lost control of Infowars after The Onion acquired it in a bankruptcy auction tied to a $1.5 billion Sandy Hook defamation judgment against him — a takeover Jones is still fighting in court. In September 2025, Blanche ordered a DOJ official, according to the Associated Press, to drop an inquiry into that lawsuit — one Jones had celebrated as proof the DOJ was fighting "illegal lawfare" against him.
Jones also seized on the controversy surrounding UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland, who claims in a social media video that he was barred from a White House UFC event over his criticism of Israel — framing it alongside the Blanche pick and Jones's own Epstein file grievances as evidence of a "social credit score" being imposed on Trump supporters.
Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes plans to seek a new indictment against allies of President Donald Trump who aided his bid to overturn the 2020 election, her office announced Thursday after the state Supreme Courtrejected her appeal to revive the original case.
The high court's brief, unexplained ruling closed the door on a two-year-old indictment that had threatened some of Trump's closest allies — among them former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, attorney John Eastman, and 11 Arizona Republicans who falsely claimed to be the state's legitimate presidential electors.
The original indictment accused the defendants of scheming to keep Trump "in office against the will of Arizona voters" and "depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted." Trump himself was named as "Unindicted Coconspirator 1."
The grand jury found that defendants "deceived the citizens of Arizona by falsely claiming" their votes were contingent on a pending legal challenge — when in reality, the indictment alleged, they intended to encourage former Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certified Biden-Harris electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021.
The case began unraveling last year when a Maricopa County judge tossed the indictment, finding that prosecutors had failed to present the original grand jury with the full text of the Electoral Count Act — a 19th-century law governing presidential certification that defendants cited in their own defense. Mayes appealed, but the state Supreme Court denied her petition Thursday without explanation.
Her office said it will now re-present the case in its entirety to a fresh grand jury rather than abandon the prosecution.
"I will not allow American democracy to be undermined," Mayes said when she first announced the charges in April 2024.
Similar prosecutions have faltered elsewhere: a Georgia indictment collapsed after Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified, special counsel Jack Smith's federal case was dropped after Trump won reelection, and a Michigan case was dismissed after a judge ruled the electors were mere pawns.
Trump issued federal pardons to all 18 Arizona defendants in November 2025 — but those pardons carry no weight against state charges. Cases in Nevada and Wisconsin remain pending.
One of the Republican senators driven out of office by President Donald Trump has signed on to a legal challenge fighting the administration's so-called anti-weaponization fund.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who lost a GOP primary to a challenger endorsed by the president, joined Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) in submitting an amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia opposing the $1.776 billion fund established by the Treasury Department to pay off Trump allies who claim they were targeted for prosecution by previous administrations.
"The Anti-Weaponization Fund presents an immediate and dire threat to our constitutional order and the authority of Congress," the challenge states. "Indeed, among other purposes, the Fund is designed to compensate the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. The existence of the Fund strikes at the core of Congressional authority and our Constitutional order."
The fund was established as part of a settlement of a $10 billion lawsuit filed by the president against the Internal Revenue Service for an unlawful 2019 leak of his tax returns by a government contractor who was later convicted and sentenced.
Senate Republicans voted Thursday morning to strike down an amendment sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to prohibit DOJ from establishing the fund for MAGA allies,
Schumer's amendment failed 49-50, but three Republicans facing re-election in November – Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) Jon Husted (R-OH)and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) – voted with Democrats in support of it.
Former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele used Trump's birthday UFC spectacle at the White House to eviscerate what he characterized as the administration's carefully constructed — and deeply misleading — image of presidential fitness.
In a column for MS NOW, Steele called out the White House health reports as "nonsense" and flagged the underlying narrative as patently suspicious.
The target of Steele's critique was a Pentagon memo requiring military personnel hoping to attend the UFC event to meet specific body composition and fitness standards — a directive that read "more like a casting call than a military order," according to a Washington Post report cited by Steele.
"The Pentagon says service members seeking tickets to Trump's UFC event must satisfy specific height-to-waist standards and meet all fitness requirements," the Post reported.
Steele seized on the irony that, while the administration is requiring an audience of physically fit service members, Trump's own health metrics don't match.
"The president has spent years cultivating an image of himself as a peak specimen of physical vigor," Steele wrote. "Former White House physician Ronny Jackson famously described him as having 'incredibly good genes.' Earlier this year, Trump's latest White House physician reported that he stood 6-foot-3, weighed 224 pounds and enjoyed 'excellent cognitive and physical health.' One of the supporting pieces of evidence? His golf victories."
Steele then dismantled the official narrative. "Can we stop with this nonsense? At the reported '238' pounds and a BMI of 29.7, Trump sits just shy of the obesity cutoff. It's very convenient math."
The broader messaging strategy, Steele argued, appeared to be backfiring. "Trump might think of himself as a UFC champ, but in real life he's more of a McDonald's guy," he quipped, before citing a YouGov poll showing that two-thirds of Americans believe they could defeat Trump in a physical fight, compared to just 10 percent who picked the president.
"So while the administration is reportedly checking troops' waistlines, the public appears unconvinced about the physical prowess of the man hosting the event," Steele observed.
He concluded by characterizing the entire enterprise as theater designed to project strength ahead of Trump's 80th birthday. "The reported fitness requirements are just part of this broader effort. Trump wants to create the perfect backdrop as he rings in his 80th year to a testosterone-soaked spectacle of blood and chokeholds, surrounded by svelte men in uniforms."
Conservative podcaster Candace Owens is facing intense backlash within her own movement after appearing at the Kremlin-backed St. Petersburg International Economic Forum alongside sanctioned Russian officials.
Radio host Mark Levin called Owens a "Woke Reich traitor" on X.
Far-right politician Laura Loomer demanded a federal investigation into potential Foreign Agents Registration Act violations and attacked Owens' personal life.
Owens initially framed the trip as a family vacation but appeared on a panel with Alexander Zharov, a President Vladimir Putin appointee under U.S. sanctions, and Anna Kuznetsova, a Russian parliamentarian sanctioned for forced deportation of Ukrainian children.
Conservative podcast duo Chicks on the Right called Owens "the quintessential useful idiot to the Russian regime" and questioned whether the trip was self-funded.
Owens told the Free Press, "Grow up. No one is buying the propaganda against Moscow anymore."
Southern Poverty Law Center researcher Hannah Gais explained to Raw Story that Owens follows a pattern of right-wingers viewing Russia as an ally against Western liberalism.
Nancy Pelosi and a conservative reporter who has made a habit of confronting her in Capitol hallways went at it again Thursday — and the former House speaker didn't hold back.
Alison Steinberg, a congressional correspondent for LindellTV, the media outlet founded by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, approached Pelosi (D-CA) in the halls of Congress and immediately invoked their last encounter. "Last time I asked you about January 6, why you turned the National Guard away on January 6, you told me to shut up and that I was repeating Republican talking points," Steinberg said.
Pelosi didn't miss a beat. "Shut up again," she fired back, "because you're speaking lies."
Steinberg pressed on, claiming Pelosi was "right here on the record" — but Pelosi cut her off. "I did not admit it," Pelosi said. "The president never would agree to send the National Guard. Don't waste your time or mine on you."
Steinberg then pivoted, "Why was your daughter filming you on January 6?"
"Why don't you get away?" Pelosi snapped.
When Steinberg insisted she was only asking "questions the American people want answers to," Pelosi questioned her credentials outright. "I don't even think you're a real journalist," she said. "You work for Mike the Pillow Man? ... That's not journalism."
Steinberg cheerfully replied that she did, in fact, work for Lindell — and offered Pelosi a free pillow. Pelosi wasn't amused. "I'm going to record this," she said. "I want people to know that you are not a real journalist. You work for Mike the Pillow Man, and all you do is spout untruths. Get away from me!"
As Pelosi's aide stepped in to end the exchange, Steinberg got in a parting shot: "We'll give you a MyPillow so you can have a nice sleep tonight."
The two previously clashed on October 15, 2025, when Steinberg confronted Pelosi outside the Capitol with nearly identical questions about January 6 and the National Guard — prompting Pelosi to tell her to "shut up" and dismiss her as someone peddling "Republican talking points." That clip racked up more than 1.5 million views on LindellTV's X account.
Steinberg has built a pattern of combative hallway confrontations with lawmakers. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) accused her of being a "paid influencer" for Ken Paxton during a tense interview earlier this year. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) called her "stupid" and told her she didn't want to tell her "jack" when pressed about financial disclosure discrepancies.
A new Fox News poll could signal a serious problem for President Donald Trump, CNN anchor Dana Bash reported on Thursday.
Bash referred to new polling from Fox News showing Ohio's Senate race could put Republicans in a tough position ahead of the midterm elections after Trump's approval rating has appeared to drop.
"That is a big flashing red sign for the president and for the Republicans on the ballot in this very red state of Ohio," Bash said. "This is the president's approval rating in Ohio right now. It is 42 percent, 42 percent approval. And the disapproval is 57 percent."
That's now a 15-point deficit, Bash explained.
"And then in November, the disapproval was 57 and 46 percent. And that is a 6 percent. So this is really a big, big problem potentially for the president," Bash said.
Republican incumbent Senator Jon Husted was reportedly viewed less favorably by voters compared to his Democratic challenger, former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, according to the poll.
Senior oil industry executives have privately warned Trump administration officials that global fuel inventories are draining at an alarming rate following the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but the White House denies those high-level talks.
Four industry executives told Politico that insiders have delivered warnings in recent weeks to senior White House officials and Cabinet members that a significant price spike could arrive as soon as mid-to-late June, and data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows companies are increasingly drawing on storage reserves to compensate for the near-total halt in crude oil flows from the Middle East.
"We're at dangerously low levels already," one industry executive said. "You're hitting tank bottom."
Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz since the United States and Israellaunched military strikes three months ago, triggering what analysts describe as the largest disruption to global crude oil flows on record, and U.S. crude stocks fell by 8 million barrels last week — the eighth consecutive weekly decline — and now sit 3 percent below their five-year average.
Gasoline stocks are 5 percent below that benchmark, with diesel and jet fuel each running 3 percent under, and total U.S. commercial petroleum inventories have fallen by 52 million barrels since the war began. Globally, inventories have declined by approximately 500 million barrels, dropping at a rate of roughly 5.8 million barrels per day.
"I've never seen inventory numbers fall so much so quickly," said Jim Burkhard of S&P Global Energy. "It is stunning."
Exxon Mobil senior vice president Neil Chapman told an investor conference last week that benchmark crude prices could reach $150 to $160 a barrel if inventory levels continue their decline. The national average gasoline price stood at $4.26 a gallon Wednesday, according to AAA — $1.28 higher than before the conflict began.
The White House disputed insider accounts of private warnings, with a spokesperson stating that Politico's anonymous sources were "wrong" and that the administration "does not have a supply problem." Officials pointed to record domestic oil production, Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases and new supply arrangements as protective measures for American consumers.
Worldwide stocks are currently holding around 7.5 billion barrels — down about 500 million barrels since the start of the war – but most of that oil has already been sold and isn't being held in reserve, and one expert told the Council on Foreign Relations this week that drained storage tanks are an “iceberg under the water.”
“You may not see immediately on the horizon the actual economic challenges that will be coming, because you look at the flat price and you say, ‘OK, we can muddle through this and Iran will come to terms eventually,’” Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told the council Wednesday. “But if we get in a situation where we have this strait effectively closed, or the strait status quo, and we’re sitting in September or October, then you’re going to be looking at industrial shortages.”
Discussing the growing Republican betrayal problems Donald Trump is experiencing as he attacks his own caucus and has made it his mission to oust some of them in primaries, longtime DC insider Mark McKinnon claimed the president is not going to like what is coming.
Appearing on MS NOW with host Alex Witt, McKinnon claimed that the retribution the president has been inflicting on some of his former allies is going to be returned in spades.
"You know, I was just thinking about [Sens. Bill] Cassidy and [Thom] Tillis, [John] Cornyn, and [GOP Rep. Thomas] Massie — it's really kind of revenge of the walking dead,” he quipped.
“I mean, these these guys, these guys are on their way out and man, they are going to — they are going to get their, you know, they're going to get their licks in while they can,” he mused. “So I think it's again, it's just a testament to Trump's waning political power because the people that he screwed in the primary are now going to screw him in the general and screw him on the way out and screw it and do everything they can to take down whatever is a priority for him right now.”
