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Republicans returned to Capitol Hill on Monday facing a cascade of crises of President Donald Trump's making, and a prominent Beltway insider delivered a blunt diagnosis for the party's predicament.

Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman described Senate Republicans as "absolutely screwed" and stuck in a "very bad jam" over the anti-weaponization fund specifically, with the administration failing to send language that could win over GOP holdouts.

Sen. David McCormick (R-PA) nearly used the word regime to describe the Trump administration during a Fox News appearance on "America's Newsroom," where he defended President Donald Trump's decision to initiate conflict with Iran.

In his Youtube Channel "David Parkman Show", political analyst David Pakman characterized McCormick's slip as Freudian. Arguing it reveled what many Americans believe to be true: the Trump administration is crossing into authoritarianism.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blocked the promotions of at least seven Navy officers hand-picked by a board of senior admirals, removing all women and most minority candidates from the list of nominees for promotions.

The intervention left a slate of 22 one-star admiral nominees that includes no women, despite females making up roughly 21 percent of the active-duty Navy, and only two nonwhite officers, despite racial minorities accounting for approximately 38 percent of the force, reported the New York Times.

President Donald Trump announced Monday that a key obstacle standing in the way of his administration’s negotiations with Tehran to end the U.S. war against Iran had apparently been addressed, potentially clearing the path to an end to the conflict.

“I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, [Lebanon], and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

A federal appeals court on Monday blocked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's ban on transgender servicemembers, ruling the policy is driven by unconstitutional animus — and torching the government's legal strategy along the way.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction protecting currently serving troops from the Hegseth Policy — the February 2025 Pentagon directive implementing President Trump's executive order barring from service anyone with a history of gender dysphoria. The court vacated the injunction for prospective recruits.

President Donald Trump swept all seven main battleground states in the 2024 presidential election, but as the midterm elections draw closer, a number of his supporters in those states are starting to voice regret as the president’s deeply unpopular war against Iran continues to squeeze Americans’ pocketbooks.

“Last time I filled up [my tank with gas] I was like, ‘Oh, this hurts,’” said Adele Wilson, a 30-year-old Michigan resident and dental assistant, speaking with The New York Times in its report Monday.

Roger Stone, a longtime President Donald Trump ally and self-described former President Richard Nixon devotee, called for Trump to fire all Smithsonian Institution employees over an alleged false claim about Nixon's impeachment history.

Stone demanded on X, "President Trump should fire everyone at the Smithsonian about this lie," adding, "More importantly, make the list of those responsible public."

Former bureau officials have created the FBI Support Network, an organization designed to provide legal, mental health and job search assistance to current bureau employees struggling under what they characterize as a politically motivated restructuring of the agency under Director Kash Patel.

The initiative, an offshoot of the Justice Connection organization comprised of former Justice Department employees, emerged in response to what former officials describe as unprecedented strain within the bureau, reported the New York Times.

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley confronted new executive producer Nick Bilton and another CBS executive Monday morning in what Guardian US media reporter Jeremy Barr described as a "heated meeting," pushing back forcefully on last week's mass firings at the storied newsmagazine.

Pelley didn't mince words about who he held responsible.

The Trump administration repeatedly overruled internal objections from National Park Service officials as it pushed to lease a large swath of public parkland in Washington, D.C., to a private operator.

Internal records obtained through a public records request reveal that Park Service employees raised repeated legal, environmental and ethical alarms about a plan to lease nearly 40 acres of Rock Creek Park, including the Rock Creek Tennis Center, home of the long-running DC Open tournament, reported the Washington Post.

President Donald Trump is expected to meet with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Monday at the White House to address a major obstacle to a top GOP priority – one created by the president himself, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman revealed.

That obstacle is Trump’s taxpayer-funded $1.7 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” designed to award payouts to those who’ve alleged to have been unfairly targeted by the Biden administration’s Justice Department. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has admitted that even those convicted of assaulting police officers during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot would be eligible for compensation from the fund.