MSN

Former Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor issued a dire warning Friday about a secret instruction book hidden in a “secure location” at the White House that contains a catalog of pre-drafted executive orders that would allow the president to do "extraordinary things” — powers that Taylor feared President Donald Trump may soon invoke.

“After I served in Donald Trump’s administration, ultimately as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, one of the possibilities that worried me most was that the wrong person would gain access to that book,” Taylor wrote in a report published Friday in The i Paper.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs report for the month of April on Friday, and Fox News’ Cheryl Casone quickly hailed the figures as “better than expected” – only to be immediately undercut by an economist who pointed to weaker underlying data beneath the headline numbers.

“We got a much better than expected jobs report for the month of April: 115,000 jobs is the non-farm number – 115,000 jobs!” Casone said.

The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision that gutted racial protections for voting rights under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act rests on misleading claims about voter turnout, according to a new analysis.

Justice Samuel Alito claimed in his majority opinion that Black voter turnout had exceeded white voter turnout in two of the previous presidential elections, both nationally and in Louisiana, and The Guardian reported the conservative jurist's assertion was copied almost word-for-word from a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Department of Justice.

MS NOW host Mika Brzezinski derailed an interview with two Democratic lawmakers Friday with her reaction to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche blithe dismissal of concerns about ICE agents hanging around polling locations.

“What's the risk?” the lawyer asked.

Following The Atlantic’s bombshell report last month about FBI Director Kash Patel’s alleged excessive drinking habits, the FBI director has been hit with a wave of negative press coverage over the past seven days, which Zeteo’s Andrew Perez described Friday as a “week from hell.”

And the reported suspected that it may be one of the Cabinet member's last in the Trump administration.

Donald Trump was accused by both MS NOW host and a former high-ranking Pentagon official of a cover-up after a skirmish between US forces and Iran on Thursday.

On “Morning Joe,” co-host Joe Scarborough excoriated the president, who dismissed the firefight as a “love tap” — leading retired Rear Admiral John. Kirby to make his bold accusation.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law whom he named as a special peace envoy, is representing the United States in ongoing negotiations with Iran while also “apparently planning to hit up” foreign governments for “billions in funding for his private equity firm” — conduct one legal expert flagged on Friday as a “five-alarm constitutional fire.”

“The questions too few people are asking are: Who is Kushner actually working for, anyway? And is he breaking the law in his role in his father-in-law’s administration?” wrote Kim Wehle, a constitutional law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, in an analysis published Friday in Zeteo.

Peace negotiations between the United States and Iran continue as both countries exchange fire, with President Donald Trump pushing to end a conflict that has proven far more entrenched than anticipated — and has sent his approval ratings to a historic lows.

Current talks center on a preliminary memorandum that would establish a framework for ending the war, and the agreement would trigger a 30-day negotiation period focused on freezing Iran's nuclear program for at least 10 years and requiring Iran to surrender its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, reported CNN. In return, the U.S. would relax sanctions, unfreeze billions in Iranian funds and both sides would lift restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz.

Republicans are making moves in Iowa to limit the next governor's powers in what has been seen as an acknowledgement that a Democrat might hold that role in the deep red state for the first time in decades.

Democratic state auditor Rob Sand is campaigning for governor by highlighting economic struggles, population decline and health crises in the state, arguing that Republican leadership has failed Iowans, and he'll face off against the winner of a jumbled GOP primary, reported the New York Times.

Always one looking to make a splashy deal, Donald Trump is giving serious consideration to allowing China to make a massive investment in the U.S. — against the advice of some of his closest advisors, an expert warned Friday.

In a column for the New York Times, conservative economist Oren Cass reported the president, “May be on the verge of tying the United States to China irrevocably: Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping are reportedly considering a deal to allow China to invest $1 trillion in the United States, largely to build factories on American soil.”

Critics immediately condemned the $1 billion request related to the White House ballroom project included in Senate Republicans’ $72 billion spending package unveiled earlier this week and, as of Friday, a growing number of Republican lawmakers have joined in damning the proposal as being “too politically toxic,” Punchbowl News reported.

“A first-year poli sci major would know not to ask members to take this vote and we hope the speaker does too,” said one House Republican, speaking with Punchbowl News on the condition of anonymity.