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House finds Florida lawmaker guilty of 25 ethics violations

The House Ethics Committee has determined that Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) is guilty of 25 violations.

According to the allegations, Cherfilus-McCormick misused an overpayment of roughly $5 million in disaster relief funds by funneling them into her campaign. Her family's health care business received the money from FEMA.

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Trump's already 'bored' as thousands of troops barrel into Iran war zone: officials

President Donald Trump is already losing interest in the war he launched four weeks ago as thousands of U.S. troops are on their way to the Middle East, according to officials.

The 79-year-old president has deployed Marines and Army paratroopers to the region to prepare to fight in a war that he declares has been "already won." That contradiction is frustrating senior White House aides and outside allies, according to three officials who spoke to MS NOW.

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'Gayatollah' rumors about Iran leader were totally fabricated by MAGA allies: sources

Administration officials cooked up claims about Iran's new leader that reportedly cracked up President Donald Trump.

Three sources told the New York Post that intelligence indicates Mojtaba Khamenei might be gay, and they said the 79-year-old president laughed out loud when he was told about that possibility.

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Trump aide snaps over claims that White House insiders openly call president an 'idiot'

White House Communications Director Steve Cheung exploded with rage over a report detailing what Donald Trump's closest associates have privately said about the president's intellectual capabilities — revealing a toxic dynamic that has defined Trump's political career.

According to the Daily Beast, former Trump biographer Michael Wolff recalled conversations with Trump allies who openly questioned his mental faculties.

Wolff, granted unprecedented access to the chaotic opening months of Trump's first administration, recounted a pivotal conversation with Sam Nunberg, a longtime Trump confidant and early political adviser known as the "Trump whisperer."

"I remember Sam looked at me and he said, 'You don't get it, do you?' And I was like, 'Tell me.' And he said, 'He's an idiot,'" Wolff recounted.

Nunberg, 44, attempted damage control when confronted with Wolff's recollection, telling the Daily Beast: "That was a long time ago and President Trump has certainly proved me wrong by getting [re-elected] in 2024."

But Nunberg wasn't alone in his private assessment. Steve Bannon, another senior Trump adviser and a key source for Wolff's explosive 2018 tell-all "Fire and Fury," held an identical view, according to Wolff. Bannon "absolutely" believed Trump was an "idiot."

Bannon offered a psychological explanation for Trump's stubborn resistance to expert input, linking it to deep-seated problems rooted in his school years.

"[Bannon] would say it was not only that Trump had problems with school—that he was a lackluster student—but he was so lackluster that he was always rebelling against school, so that his entire life after school then became resistant to anyone telling him anything, anyone suggesting that they had more expertise than he did," Wolff said.

"School was not only a bad experience for him, but it became the experience that made him reject all further learning," Wolff added.

When asked for comment, Cheung responded with characteristic venom, attacking Wolff rather than addressing the substance of the allegations.

"Michael Wolff is a lying sack ... and has been proven to be a fraud. He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain," Cheung complained.

‘Republicans handcuffed themselves’: House GOP facing ‘big problems’ of their own making

With the Senate having passed a bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) early Friday morning, the package now makes its way to the House, though Republicans are expected to face an uphill battle of their own making, per Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman.

In a “near-empty chamber” at around 3 a.m. Friday morning, the Senate approved a bill to fund most of DHS, including the Transportation Security Administration, which has remained unfunded since February, causing major airport staffing shortages and disruptions for travelers. A House rule adopted by Republicans early last year, however, may have crippled the chamber’s ability to advance the bill any further.

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Pentagon staffer stuns with demand: 'Trump wouldn't want to stand next to a Black female'

Senior military officials are concerned that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is blocking the promotions of four Army officers because of their race or gender, according to a new report.

President Donald Trump's defense secretary has been pushing Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll and other senior Army leaders to remove the names of the officers, two of whom are Black and another two women, from a promotion list of about three dozen officers, most of whom are white men, senior military officials told the New York Times.

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Mike Lindell pleads as he's served legal papers live on air at CPAC: 'Please, we're on TV'

Donald Trump ally Mike Lindell found himself floundering live on air after being served with a summons.

The MyPillow CEO made an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where O’Keefe Media Group’s Michael Casey interviewed him. During the interview, Lindell was approached by a process server who attempted to hand him court documents, The Daily Beast reported.

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ICE shooters protected as MAGA states expected to block extradition to Minnesota: expert

Minnesota legal officials looking to prosecute ICE agents involved in the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good may be hindered by MAGA-leaning states, according to a new report.

Lawmakers lack some basic details for a prosecution case against those responsible for the deaths of Pretti and Good. Though Minnesota officials had made efforts to verify the identities of those involved, Donald Trump's administration has put up a fight and refused to comply with the state.

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Trump 'spooked' by Iran attack — and now actively 'looking for offramp': MS NOW's Lemire

For all of his saber-rattling at Iran, Donald Trump is desperately looking for a way out of the war he initiated four weeks ago now that he is not finding it to be the cakewalk he anticipated, according to MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire.

On Friday morning, the “Morning Joe” co-host reported that a recent counterattack by Iran drove home to the president that the leadership of on the Middle Eastern country has the upper hand — and he may have painted himself into a corner.

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JD Vance team believes Israel waging smear campaign to draw him into Iran war: report

Vice President JD Vance has largely stayed on the sidelines of President Donald Trump's war against Iran, but his advisers believe that Israel is trying to pull him into a more active role in the conflict.

The 42-year-old vice president is expected to be the top U.S. negotiator in potential peace talks with Iran and has already spoken multiple times by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but Vance advisers suspect some in Israel are trying to undermine him because he's insufficiently hawkish, reported Axios.

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'Near-empty chamber' appalls onlookers as only 5 senators attend midnight TSA crisis vote

Onlookers were left baffled early Friday after a “near-empty chamber” in the Senate managed to advance a major spending bill that would direct tens of billions of dollars to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

At around 3 a.m. Friday, the Senate adopted a bill to fund most of DHS, excluding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, bringing lawmakers one step closer to ending the growing airport disruptions caused by the funding lapse. As noted by Punchbowl News reporter Andrew Desiderio, however, only five senators were present for the vote.

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Trigger-happy Hegseth puts Pentagon on brink of new crisis with missile frenzy: insiders

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's "Operation Epic Fury" is draining America's precision missile arsenal at a rate that has triggered serious alarms inside the Pentagon, according to the Washington Post.

In just four weeks of war with Iran, the U.S. military has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles — a staggering burn rate that has prompted urgent internal Pentagon discussions about ammunition replenishment and the crippling strategic consequences.

The Tomahawk has been the backbone of American military operations since its combat debut during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. These missiles are prized for their ability to travel more than 1,000 miles, eliminating the need to send pilots into heavily defended airspace. But there's a critical problem — only a few hundred are manufactured annually, meaning the global supply is severely limited and not easily replenished.

The frantic pace of consumption has forced the Navy to conduct emergency resupply operations at sea — a capability that has only recently been developed. Each destroyer carries dozens of these massive weapons, 20 feet long and weighing about 3,500 pounds each.

Pentagon officials are sounding the alarm in private. One official characterized the remaining Tomahawk supply in the Middle East as "alarmingly low." Another used military slang to describe the dire situation: the Pentagon is approaching "Winchester" — military terminology for running out of ammunition — for Tomahawk missiles in the Middle East.

The strategic implications are staggering. Heavy reliance on Tomahawks in the Iran conflict will force Pentagon planners into painful choices — whether to relocate missiles from other critical regions, including the Indo-Pacific, and whether to launch an expensive long-term manufacturing surge.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, laid out the grim mathematics. If the military has indeed fired more than 800 Tomahawks against Iran, "that would be about a quarter of the total inventory and would leave a large gap for a conflict in the Western Pacific." His think tank estimates the Navy possessed approximately 3,100 Tomahawks when the war began a month ago.

"It would take several years to replenish," Cancian warned.

'Beg him to stop': Trump's brag about basic brain health test alarms ex-White House doc

A former White House cardiologist has begged Donald Trump to stop bragging about his mental health — as his next checkup deadline looms.

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who served as Dick Cheney's cardiologist during the George Bush administration, urged the current president to stop gloating about cognitive tests he's done. Trump bragged yesterday about results that he's referenced many times, prompting Reiner to note a new cognitive test will be administered to the president soon.

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