President Donald Trump received immediate backlash Tuesday over his pick to replace outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard – and just hours later, the nominee may already be in trouble after a GOP senator ousted by Trump last week voiced concerns, according to one Senate reporter.
Trump’s nominee was Bill Pulte, currently the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Pulte has no prior intelligence or national security experience, and his nomination was immediately scrutinized by liberal and conservative critics alike.
Pulte will need to be confirmed as National Intelligence director by the Senate, but according to NOTUS Senate reporter Igor Bobic, one GOP senator – Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who lost his primary election last week to his Trump-backed opponent — is already skeptical.
“YOLO watch,” Bobic wrote in a social media post on X, referencing the abbreviation for the slang term “you only live once.” “Cornyn says he doesn’t believe Bill Pulte is qualified to serve [as National Intelligence director]. And he says he has ‘serious concerns’ with the reconciliation bill.”
Cornyn is just one of several outgoing GOP lawmakers who, after either resigning or losing their re-election bid due in part to Trump’s interference or threats of interference, may feel less compelled to go along with the president’s agenda.
YOLO watch
Cornyn says he doesn’t believe Bill Pulte is qualified to serve at DNI
And he says he has “serious concerns” with the reconciliation bill — Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) June 2, 2026
A federal judge denied reality TV star Josh Duggar's appeal to vacate his possession of child sexual abuse material conviction — saying that he missed the filing deadline, People reported on Tuesday.
Duggar, who was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison after he was convicted in 2021, had argued that his constitutional rights were violated. Court records obtained by People revealed that U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks had denied Duggar's appeal on the grounds that he filed his motion too late.
"Duggar claimed that he should be protected by the 'prison mailbox rule,' which provides leeway on deadlines as long as motions are 'deposited in the institution's internal mailing system on or before the last day for filing,'" according to People.
Brooks found that Duggar's testimony was "not credible" and that "he failed to meet the burden of proving he should benefit from the mailbox rule" regarding how and when he mailed the documents.
"The Court can grant Mr. Duggar one coincidence," Brooks wrote. "Perhaps even two or three odd happenstances. But Mr. Duggar is asking the Court to believe something akin to a magic bullet theory—a sequential chain of events that defies common sense. Collectively, this chain of events—where Murphy's law was lurking at every turn—is simply not credible."
The Trump administration is expanding its immigration crackdown beyond deportations to target the citizenship of naturalized Americans.
The Justice Department has filed more denaturalization cases in the last 16 months than during all four years of Former President Joe Biden's administration, with attorney general offices tasked with identifying hundreds of additional deportation cases.
Department leaders are pressuring lawyers to generate cases quickly, sometimes by scanning news stories and social media posts. While current cases largely involve serious criminal conduct, legal scholars warn the infrastructure being built poses greater dangers.
"Once it becomes easy to take somebody's citizenship away — it becomes easy to take anybody's citizenship away," warned Cassandra Robertson, law professor at Case Western Reserve University.
Civil denaturalization proceedings offer minimal protections: defendants lack access to appointed counsel, no statute of limitations applies, and some cases proceed with little court appearance.
President Donald Trump and officials have publicly threatened citizenship for political figures, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), prompting concerns about political retribution targeting opponents.
Spencer Pratt, former reality TV star turned Republican Los Angeles mayoral candidate, confirmed that he lost millions — and shared his reason why, TMZ reported on Tuesday.
Pratt was a guest on the "No Jumper" podcast on Monday when he defended his goals to be famous and how he lost $10 million in his 20s, at the height of his reality television career. The former star of "The Hills" and MAGA-friendly candidate has challenged incumbent Mayor Karen Bass for the top city job, arguing that Bass has misused taxpayer funding and describing what led him to lose part of his own fortune amid criticism over his spending, according to TMZ.
"I had great dinners, I treated a lot of friends," Pratt said.
"I was supporting people, I was funding rappers, MMA fighters, I had so many people I was taking care of with that money," he said. "You go ask them right now — [I was] buying my friends' suits so they could go be real estate agents. I was a very good person to be friends with, with that money. I'll run it back right now, this is what's going to stop me from being mayor, those decisions? I would have done all those decisions again."
He said if it doesn't work out on Election Day, he would go back to his old business — Pratt Daddy.
"And if I don't get elected, I'm going to go back to selling healing crystals and being with my family... I'll just be eating my tacos at Don Antonio's," he added.
Spencer Pratt defends blowing through $10 million years before his L.A. mayoral run.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz found himself on the other side of the tough questions Tuesday, fielding a pointed inquiry about President Donald Trump's unusually frequent medical exams during his turn at the White House briefing podium.
Daily Mail reporter Elina Shirazi didn't let Oz — filling in for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is on maternity leave — off the hook.
"This is the fourth checkup that the president has had," Shirazi said. "He's supposed to have one a year. He's had several CT heart scans. What are the doctors looking for?"
Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon by training, brushed off the concern. "I think it's just a routine regular exam," he said, pivoting to praise for the president's vitals. "His cholesterol, his blood pressure, all the numbers are certainly in excellent parameters."
"That amount of energy and that amount of mental acuity does not exist in a vacuum," Oz continued. "The president has unique abilities to just keep going at all hours of the day with remarkable strength."
Last summer, Trump was also diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition in which veins struggle to return blood to the heart, causing visible swelling in his legs. The White House insisted there were no serious complications.
After his May visit, Trump declared on social media that "Everything checked out PERFECTLY." His doctor recommended that he lose weight and exercise more.
President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday to triumphantly announce that the White House Correspondents' Dinner will get a do-over.
"In a sign of Strength and Fortitude, it was just announced that The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which violently ended rather abruptly on April 25th, will be rescheduled to July 24th," Trump wrote. "This announcement is a very good thing in that we cannot allow Lunatics to change our way of life, or even its scheduling."
"I was asked to be there, and speak, by Weijia Jiang, President of The White House Correspondents’ Association, and have accepted," Trump continued, adding, "I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out. In any event, it will be a 'HOT' ticket! Interestingly, the location will be The Waldorf Astoria, on Pennsylvania Avenue, a Building and Ballroom that I built."
The shooting that shut down the previous dinner earlier this year left much of the press badly shaken. The alleged gunman was found to have a manifesto listing Trump administration targets.
President Donald Trump has built his political brand on defying limits, but a series of high-profile reversals in recent days suggests that even he cannot indefinitely outrun the consequences of his most outlandish gambits.
The Trump administration signaled Monday that it plans to abandon its $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization fund" following an adverse court ruling — a significant retreat on an initiative that had already sparked a revolt among Republican congressional leaders, and he beat a retreat on renaming the Kennedy Center after himself, reported CNN's Aaron Blake.
"In both situations, it remains up in the air precisely how much Trump has capitulated," Blake wrote. "But he’s at least telegraphing retreat. Both ideas were wild to begin with — and now the president appears to be dealing with the consequences."
On the so-called slush fund, Senate Majority Leader John Thune had called on the administration to "shut it down themselves," while other GOP senators demanded the White House explicitly rule out reviving the fund in the future.
The fund, created as part of a settlement resolving Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, was intended to compensate allies who claimed they were victimized by the Biden-era Justice Department. Critics — including a federal judge — questioned whether the two sides of the settlement were colluding, and the fund drew outrage when the administration acknowledged it could benefit Jan. 6 defendants who assaulted police officers.
That announcement followed Trump's Friday retreat on the Kennedy Center, where he said he would transfer control back to Congress after a judge ruled that plastering his name on a building memorializing a dead president was illegal. Trump had previously purged the center's board to install loyalists before the renaming — a move that a court found violated federal law.
The two reversals fit a pattern. Earlier this year, Trump abandoned his push to seize Greenland amid bipartisan opposition, and his plan to fund a lavish White House ballroom with taxpayer money was stripped from a spending bill after Republican panic over the optics.
"In all of these cases, Trump was asking the courts and/or Republicans to sign off on what seemed to be impossible requests," Blake wrote. "He was asking them to stomach something drastic because he’s Trump, and they’re supposed to do what he wants."
"But when his wild gambits push the envelope too far — and increasingly seem to jeopardize the GOP’s chances in November — they reinforce that Trump isn’t the unrestrained leader of his political movement that he’d like to be," Blake added.
Trump, for his part, shows no sign of moderating his ambitions — his appointment Tuesday of a controversial housing official as acting director of national intelligence suggested the envelope-pushing is far from over.
Donald Trump’s attempt to insert Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHA) Director Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Tuesday could run into a legal roadblock according to MS NJOW’s Ken Dilanian, with Republican lawmakers also questioning whether he should hold the job.
According to a report from the New York Times, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), James Lankford (R-OK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are questioning his stunning lack of experience in intelligence matters.
As Dilanian pointed out, that lack of experience runs afoul of the law that created the intelligence gathering department after the 9/11 attacks.
Speaking with host Anna Cabrera, he explained, “This is really an incredible development. Bill Pulte is an investment guy, he's a real estate guy. He has not only no intelligence experience, [but] no foreign policy experience. And we should remember there is a provision in the law; this job was created after 9/11, remember, to knit together strands of intelligence and connect the dots and there's a provision in the authorizing legislation that requires that the person holding this job has significant, substantial intelligence experience.”
“When Tulsi Gabbard was nominated for this role, a lot of people believed that she didn't fit the bill, but at least she had been a military officer and a member of Congress,” he recalled.
“I don't even know if Bill Pulte has a security clearance right now. And this role, this job, this person gets access to some of the most sensitive intelligence that the U.S. government collects. The biggest secrets, just incredible things, sensitive compartmented programs, need-to-know things that only a handful of people in the government know — and now Bill Pulte will know them.”
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) kicked off Pride Month on Tuesday by insisting that “homosexuality has no place in America,” and instead voiced support for the non-existent “Nuclear Family Month” in an apparent jab to the LGBTQ community, a series of remarks that elicited sighs from onlookers.
“These posts get sadder and sadder every year,” wrote Andrew Wortman, a prominent political commentator and writer, in a social media post on X to his nearly 300,000 followers.
Ogles has developed a reputation for making provocative and controversial remarks, including his assertion that “Muslims don’t belong in American society” back in March, or that his child “still has nightmares” about former President Joe Biden. His latest remarks, that "homosexuality" had “no place” in the United States, appeared to exhaust several observers.
“Notable that Rep. Andy Ogles isn't even opposing gay marriage here. He's straight up saying ‘homosexuality has no place in America,’” noted MS NOW’s Matt Fuller in a social media post on X. “Seems like the GOP may be retracing its steps on this issue.”
Ogles’ remarks even caught the attention of a fellow supporter of President Donald Trump and ex-lawmaker, former Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who is openly gay.
“As much as I support the Nuclear family and how fundamental it is for life. I never thought I’d hear a person I consider a friend say there is no place for me in this country simply because of who I chose to love,” Santos wrote in a social media post on X, responding to Ogles’ online post.
“I never once pushed my lifestyle onto anyone and have always voted and advocated for conservative principles. But I have the same civil rights as anyone else in this country and I am saddened by this insane comment.”
And Katherine Gates, the digital director for the voter outreach organization Voters of Tomorrow, expressed sympathy for Ogles.
“It seems exhausting being this hateful!” Gates wrote in a social media post on X. “B---- and moan all you want Andy. Gay marriage isn’t going anywhere. Happy pride y’all.”
As much as I support the Nuclear family and how fundamental it is for life.
I never thought I’d hear a person I consider a friend say there is no place for me in this country simply because of who I chose to love.
I never once pushed my lifestyle onto anyone and have always… — George Santos (@Georgesantos) June 2, 2026
Former Brazilian model Amanda Ungaro made claims linking First Lady Melania Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, in a since-deleted X post.
In a WhatsApp recording shared online, Ungaro accused her former partner Paolo Zampolli —a President Donald Trump appointee to the Kennedy Center's Board of Trustees— of falsely claiming he introduced the Trumps in 1998, The Daily Beast reports. Ungaro alleged Melania Trump was an Epstein escort and that Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump.
Ungaro explained she obtained this information from conversations she had with Zampolli over 20 years ago.
Melania Trump publicly denied these claims during an April press conference, stating "I am not Epstein's victim," and asserting she met Trump by chance at a New York City party in 1998, with details documented in her memoir.
Zampolli dismissed Ungaro's claims as a "disgrace," expressing concern for her mental health.
Ungaro is currently in a custody dispute with Zampolli and has accused him of using his influence to arrange her immigration arrest.
Seven Democratic-led states filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging the Trump administration's decision to pay nearly $1 billion in taxpayer funds to a French energy company to abandon plans for a major offshore wind project.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, joined by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont, challenging an agreement reached by the Department of Justice, reported the New York Times.
"This administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead," James said in a statement.
The lawsuit targets a March agreement in which the DOJ paid $928 million to TotalEnergies to surrender its lease for the Attentive Energy wind farm, a project 54 miles off Jones Beach that would have powered more than one million homes and businesses and supported over a thousand union jobs.
The states argue the deal was illegal on two counts. First, the Justice Department used the Judgment Fund — a congressional account designed to settle lawsuits against the federal government — even though TotalEnergies had never sued the United States. Second, the administration allegedly bypassed the required hearings and review process mandated under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act before canceling an offshore wind lease.
In exchange for the payout, TotalEnergies pledged to redirect the money toward U.S. oil and gas infrastructure, a priority of the Trump administration, but it's not clear whether that investment will produce any new projects beyond those already in the works.
The president has opposed offshore wind since at least 2012, when he unsuccessfully tried to block a wind project visible from one of his Scottish golf courses. His administration has pursued multiple strategies to dismantle the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry, including a December halt to East Coast construction orders that federal judges later struck down.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio erupted at a Senate hearing Tuesday after Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) accused him of attending a party with President Donald Trump in Miami instead of joining high-stakes Iran peace negotiations in Pakistan — an exchange that quickly devolved into one of the most combustible moments of his first congressional testimony since the Iran war began.
"This is why I was shocked to see that you were at a party with President Trump in Miami instead of accompanying Vice President Vance to Pakistan for negotiations," the Nevada Democrat told Rubio before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Rubio cut her off immediately.
"What party was I at?" he fired back. "I was at a party? That's an absurd statement. I was not at a party."
Rosen pressed on, arguing that Rubio had left unconfirmed civilians — Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff — to handle negotiations that Rubio himself was confirmed to lead.
"It's just unthinkable to me that you are missing high-stakes negotiations," she said. "It's sad."
That set Rubio off.
"You people are going to slander me," he snapped, before delivering a lengthy rebuttal insisting he was "co-located with the president" to relay real-time intelligence to the negotiating team in Islamabad. He said he spoke to Witkoff and Kushner at least six times that evening, twice on a secure line.
What Rosen called a "party" was, in fact, UFC 327 at Miami's Kaseya Center on April 11 — where Trump and Rubio sat ringside as the Pakistan talks collapsed after 21 hours without a deal. House Democrats called it "amateur hour."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio got in a heated exchange with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday.
Rubio was testifying for the first time since the United States launched the Iran war and Booker raised questions about the Ebola crisis and the military operation. Booker told Rubio he was concerned the U.S. had rolled back its investment in eradicating diseases in Africa, and expressed doubt that the Iran war was over, despite the Trump administration's claims that it was.
"With the crisis of Ebola, we seethe challenges have been broughtabout as a result of oursurveillance, early detection,and the like.I'm concerned about what theadministration's strategy is," Booker said. "We are clearly seeing that whatgoes on on the continent of Africa directly affects ourpublic health as well."
But Rubio did not see eye to eye with Booker.
"I don't agree withthe assessment," Rubio said. "It's not about cutting back.The response is that how muchmoney you spent it's the resultsyou will get.Ebola, the outbreak was in awar-torn, isolated, rural areain the DRC.Since then, our response hasbeen very rapid."
Booker pushed back.
"You did not cutearly detection?" Booker asked.
"That's not thereason there was Ebola," Rubio said.
Booker cut him off as the conversation intensified.
"I'm not trying toget in an argument.I would like to have myquestions answered," Booker said. "We cut early detection when itcomes to infectious diseases onthe continent, factually. This is not an opinion.We cut early warning systems onthe continent."
Rubio continued to argue with Booker and interjected the senator, saying "It had nothing to dowith the Ebola outbreak."
"I don't need totell you, we are living in aplace where an infectiousdisease crisis anywhere is athreat everywhere," Booker said, adding that he worried further budget cuts would complicate future outbreaks. "The United States made majorreductions in these areasputting us more at risk.If you're talking about the Ebola crisis, other cuts we havemade, you see it factually.Even our own State Departmentpersonnel I've talked to aresaying we are less prepared fora global outbreak than we werebefore."
Rubio denied Booker's comments.
"I don't agree withthat assessment," Rubio said. "I don't know who told you thatat the State Department."
"You can't evenagree on the facts.It is not accurate that we cutearly detection?" Booker asked, pressing Rubio to respond.
"Those have beenrepurposed," Rubio said. "The different arrangements withthe countries are an example."
But Booker wasn't convinced.
"If you're tellingme that we are as or moreprepared before the Trumpadministration came in, I wouldlike to see the facts," Booker said.
"I think when thereforms are finalized we will bebetter prepared.We are responding faster notjust humanitarian crises butfaster than before," Rubio said.
Booker then moved on to discuss the Strait of Hormuz blockade.
"The conclusion I have is the Strait of Hormuz was openedbefore this unjustified war," Booker said. "We are now scrambling to find away to get it back open again."
Booker argued the U.S. was now in a "worse situation,an adversary and our enemy iscausing havoc in the region,funding proxies and terrorists,has discovered, thanks to youall, the power of shutting downthe Strait of Hormuz." He said Iran was now in a better position, while America was worse off.
"It made our adversary have astronger negotiating position," Booker said. "We are the strongest on earthand we are in a stalemate with Iran.We are begging to get back intoa deal that you trashed in thefirst place."
"There is no onebegging," Rubio maintained.
Rubio argued that the war was over — and Booker pushed back, saying that although Trump says it has ended, it hasn't.
"You keep saying howwe are winning the war," Booker said.
"The war is over now," Rubio said.
"The war is notover.The American people see how weare losing at the pump and withcosts.Yet this thing has not beenresolved," Booker said.
