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Author Jonathan V. Last, editor of the center-right news site The Bulwark, says President Donald Trump is exhibiting what he calls a “shocking” level of “noticeable mental decline,” citing the president’s remarks during his Monday speech to McDonald’s franchise owners and suppliers as his evidence.

Several times he quotes Trump at length, including here:

A conservative political operative turned commentator and journalist has a grassroots prescription for what she believes ails conservatism in the age of Trump — a “cure” for Trumpism.

Sarah Isgur worked on campaigns for Mitt Romney and Carly Fiorina, served as a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, and is now an editor at The Dispatch, a conservative news site.

The Heritage Foundation, billed as the “intellectual backbone” of the conservative movement, has just lost one of the nation’s most prominent conservatives: Princeton Professor Robert P. George. His departure came after the organization’s president, Kevin Roberts, publicly called Tucker Carlson a “close friend” of Heritage — even after the former Fox News host gave a platform to far-right extremist leader Nick Fuentes. The split lands at the same moment President Donald Trump extended support to Carlson, despite Carlson’s interview with Fuentes, who is widely seen as promoting Christian nationalism, white supremacy, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.

George is a legal scholar who served as the chairman of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which opposes same-sex marriage. He was once described as the “this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker.”

One of Capitol Hill’s most prominent — and most vocal — Democrats is warning about what he says are the ways President Donald Trump could try to remain in power beyond his current term.

Trump has long hinted that he is interested in a third term, and even has had red “Trump 2028” caps as part of his merchandise offering. And while he recently appeared to put to rest questions about a third term — prohibited under a plain reading of the U.S. Constitution — by saying he has been told he cannot run, doubts among some still linger.

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, insists that despite five months of rising prices, inflation is actually “way down.” But polls and recent election results suggest voters see things differently.

Hassett on Tuesday told CNBC, “We’re comfortable that inflation has come way down — the 5% on average, for Joe Biden.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is refusing to commit to a critical element of the Senate’s bipartisan agreement to end the shutdown and fund the federal government.

Eight members of the Democratic caucus on Sunday voted to advance legislation that included a promise by Senate Republicans to hold a vote on reinstating the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Without the reinstatement, millions of Americans could see their monthly premiums skyrocket, and millions are expected to lose their health insurance.

Founded in 1973, the Heritage Foundation has become what its president, Kevin Roberts, now hails as the “intellectual backbone” of the conservative movement. It crafted the policy blueprint that powered President Ronald Reagan’s right-wing revolution — and today, under Roberts’s leadership, it’s once again shaping the machinery of power. Through its highly controversial Project 2025 — a plan widely credited to Roberts as its chief architect — Heritage laid out a road map for President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda. But Roberts’s recent missteps have rattled the institution, raising strong questions about his leadership — and the future direction of the conservative movement itself.

Roberts gained widespread attention in July 2024 when he issued a warning to Democrats: “we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

President Donald Trump renewed his demand that Republican senators eliminate the 60-vote filibuster, which he sees as one of the biggest roadblocks to achieving his far-reaching agenda. Now, he said he wants to eliminate the filibuster as a way to ensure permanent Republican control of the government.

The president has been calling for senators to act, despite Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s strong opposition to invoking the “nuclear option.”

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy sought Friday to cast a positive light on the Federal Aviation Administration’s order requiring airlines to cut 10 percent of flights at 40 major airports — a move prompted by overworked air traffic controllers who have gone weeks without pay as the government shutdown stretches into its 38th day with no immediate end in sight.

More than 800 flights nationwide were canceled on Friday, leaving some travelers “scrambling to figure out backup plans,” the Associated Press reported.

As the federal government shutdown enters its 38th day with no end in sight, the Speaker of the House and the House Democratic Minority Leader appear united — on one aspect only: blaming the Senate.

Amid reports that a few Senate Democrats might agree to vote to reopen the government if Republicans guarantee a date-certain vote on restoring the Affordable Care Act subsidies, Speaker Mike Johnson appeared to attempt to scuttle that potential bargain on Thursday.

After the Trump administration was ordered by the federal courts to pay SNAP recipients during the federal government shutdown, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is urging Americans using food stamps and other social services to join the Republican Party.

Congressional Republicans slashed over $1 trillion from Medicaid and SNAP in President Donald Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Former Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith reportedly has told people close to him that he is not intimidated by the Trump DOJ’s reported investigation into his activities and is looking forward to presenting the public case he made against now-President Donald Trump.

“Mr. Smith, the special counsel who twice indicted Mr. Trump, appears unintimidated by the president’s demand that Republican lawmakers investigate him and that the Justice Department put him in prison for as-yet unproved and unspecified crimes,” The New York Times reported on Monday.

In a rare break from President Donald Trump and Republican orthodoxy, one GOP congressman is acknowledging what many Americans already feel: times are tough.

“Our economy is not great,” U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who served as Secretary of the Interior during the first Trump administration, told Fox Business on Friday.