President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order at 5 p.m. Monday requiring commercial truck drivers in the United States to speak English, "America's official language," according to his spokeswoman
A document reviewed by Breitbart said, "President Trump believes that English is a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers, as they should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety officers, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station personnel, and provide and receive feedback and directions in English."
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will be directed “to rescind and replace guidance to strengthen inspection procedures for compliance with English proficiency requirements,” the document said.
President Donald Trump wants to reverse increases to food aid made under the former Biden administration — but he could be hurting his own voters the most with those plans, reported Politico.That's causing members of the administration to be wary of how to go about doing it.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, more colloquially known as food stamps, allows lower-income people to purchase “any food or food product intended for human consumption,” with the exception of alcohol, tobacco and hot foods. The program, administered at the state level but made possible with federal funding, has been tweaked many times, with an expansion under the Biden administration.
An official within the White House, granted anonymity to speak to Politico, "said the administration wants to avoid a 'one-two punch' ahead of the midterms to low-income MAGA voters and red states that could be forced to stretch their budgets," reported Meredith Lee Hill.
Experts studying the plan to reduce SNAP payments have said these cuts "would disproportionately hit the Senate battlegrounds of Georgia and North Carolina, the presidential swing states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, as well as blue states like New York and California, home to a significant bloc of vulnerable House GOP members," per the report.
Republicans have made cuts to SNAP, as well as Medicaid health coverage, a crucial part of how they balance the numbers for Trump's tax cut plan. However, Medicaid cuts have already become a massive point of contention, with some Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) putting their foot down over the potential impact it could have on rural communities.
More generally, the GOP has long expressed disdain for government food assistance, which is typically paired with the Department of Agriculture's farm subsidy programs to ensure bipartisan compromise. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX), while pushing legislation to remove the exemption for veterans from work requirements for SNAP, suggested veterans should "stop eating the Cheetos" and "contribute" to society if they want to eat.
Local police expected more than 1,200 constituents to jam the high school auditorium where Lawler was speaking in Rockland County, but first they had to follow Lawler's rules as posted outside the venue: participants were required to provide proof of residency for New York's 17th district; were warned against shouting, screaming, or yelling; and were forbidden from making "audio or video recordings."
But the rowdy constituents ignored those last two directives, as evidenced by cell phone video posted to X.
In one video, a constituent asked, "What are you doing to stand in opposition to this administration, and what specifically are you doing that warrants the label 'moderate'"?
The question drew whoops and applause from the audience. When Lawler began to answer, saying, "Again, my record speaks for itself. I've been rated the fourth most bipartisan for a reason," the audience laughed and groaned.
In another clip, constituents chanted, "blah, blah, blah" as Lawler tried to justify President Donald Trump's tariffs that have caused the upending of the stock markets.
The article described "shouts, groans and mockery."
But overall, the town hall was both "combative and catty" and looked less like "the kind of respectful town-hall conversation Americans venerate than a shouting match where both sides accuse the other of acting in bad faith," Fandos wrote.
He added that, "For much of the night, acrimony carried the room. Attendees provoked confrontations with fellow attendees, with Mr. Lawler’s staff members and with the police. No one was satisfied, including supporters of the congressman who mostly watched in silence."
President Donald Trump's escalating threats have produced chaos and fear across American political and economic life, but that dynamic could ultimately undo his presidency as many of those ultimatums ring hollow.
The president has been threatening to fire Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell over his response to global tariffs, but Trump seemingly backed down after advisers warned the move was legally and financially risky — and political scientist David Faris published a piece for Slate explaining how this "depressingly familiar loop" keeps playing out.
"This loop is now standard operating procedure from the most chaotic White House in American history," wrote Faris, an associate professor at Roosevelt University. "In fact, it seems to be more or less the only move that this iteration of Trump has, one that he is deploying against everyone from Canada to Harvard University. And it is eerily similar to the nuclear strategy concept of 'escalate to de-escalate' — using a shocking act of aggression to convince an adversary to negotiate on your terms."
However, that strategy isn't quite working for Trump because his opponents have taken note of his weakness and his administration's incompetence, so they've essentially rerouted their long-range plans around the United States.
"Trump is fundamentally a weak, lame-duck president, whose paper-thin margins in Congress and embarrassing ineptitude at staffing his administration and carrying out his policies are not kinks that will be ironed out with time but rather inescapable features of his already unbearable and disastrous presidency," Faris wrote.
"That weakness, and the servile paralysis of Congress, is leading him to try the same blunt maneuver over and over again, with predictably diminishing returns."
"Rather than doing the painstaking work of enacting his lunatic agenda through that narrowly divided Congress, Trump has been acting, since Day 1, like a leader who has to resort immediately to vindictive threats and massively escalatory decisions to get what he wants," the political scientist added.
Any parent who's tried escalating threats to coerce good behavior out of a child understands how quickly they learn to call your bluff, but Trump doesn't seem to understand how ineffective that tactic is, Faris wrote.
"If it was a useful tactic, Russia would already have deployed it against Ukraine, Faris wrote, "and China would have come scurrying to the negotiating table to plead with Trump to reduce tariffs."
Voters are already understanding that Trump's tactics aren't working, but he still has nearly four more years left of his term.
"Issuing a never-ending stream of escalatory and often nonsensical threats is also no way to run a country, and voters are fast coming around to the understanding that they made a terrible mistake putting this senescent maniac back in power in November," Faris wrote.
"It is not clear how the United States will even survive another 44 months of this circus with anything resembling the status quo, or our battered psyches, intact," he added. "But if Trump’s incipient authoritarians ever allow another Democrat to be elected president, that person is likely to discover that some of the damage to America’s reputation and interests is irreversible."
House Republicans are on course for obliteration in next year's midterm elections as President Donald Trump's numbers slide, said CNN data forecaster Harry Enten on Monday morning — and there are some very clear danger signs for them if you break down the data further.
"I mean, look, it's the congressional GOP. It's the House GOP," Enten told anchor John Berman. "If the House GOP is under any illusions that Donald Trump's fall in the polls won't bring them down as well, well, they are living on fantasy island."
To understand this, Enten continued, one need only look at how the parties fare on the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters simply which party they would prefer to control Congress.
"We have three polls out within the last few weeks ... they all show the Democrats up. By two points in the CNBC poll. The Fox News poll, that was on Friday, look at that, Democrats up by seven. The New York Times poll, that was out this Friday as well, Democrats by three. And keep in mind the House GOP won the popular vote back in 2024 by a little less than three percentage points. So when you see three, seven, two, averaging four, that is a tremendous shift.
"That is a shift of seven points from the November 2024 elections away from the GOP to the House Democrats."
"This is how you know that Trump is bringing down the House GOP," said Enten. "Look at Trump's net favorable rating in October of 2024, according to The New York Times. It was minus nine points. Look at where it is now. -30 points among independents. That's horrific. That's historically awful. Take a look at the generic ballot in October of 2024. The Democrats were ahead, but only by three, well within the margin of error. Look at where they are now up 17 points."
"There is no way on God's green earth that the Republicans can hold onto the House of Representatives if they lose independents by 17 percentage points," he added. "My goodness gracious, this is what dreams are made of for House Democrats. And it's all being driven, or at least in large part, being driven by Donald Trump's rapid drop with independents."
President Donald Trump waded into Canada's federal election that has essentially become a referendum on him.
The U.S. president has upended relations between the neighboring allies with steep tariffs on Canadian imports and threats to use “economic force” to annex the country as the 51st state, and Trump fired off another ultimatum Monday morning at 8:36 a.m. EST, as the first polls opened in Newfoundland and parts of Labrador.
"Good luck to the Great people of Canada," Trump posted on Truth Social. "Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America."
Liberal Party leader Mark Carney is widely expected to win what has essentially become a two-way race with Conservative Party candidate Pierre Poilievre, whose party's once commanding 25-point lead disintegrated last month as Trump ratcheted up his trade war and threats against Canadian sovereignty.
"No more artificially drawn line from many years ago," Trump posted. "Look how beautiful this land mass would be. Free access with NO BORDER. ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE! America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!"
“I feel like he just flows with the wind. I really do. Which is not a good thing,” Jane Rabon, a Republican who came to hear Graham speak in the Sun City retirement community, told the Post. “Sometimes I just want to reach out and smack him.”
Graham, along with his friend the late John McCain, was once viewed as a steadfast voice on foreign policy.
Now, the 69-year-old is navigating between the old-school foreign policy views that formed him — and the very different political demands of President Donald Trump.
Another voter at the town hall, Bruni Baker, said Graham is “kind of a RINO,” which means Republican in Name Only. “I have written him letters when I’m really p----ed at him,” she added.
Mark Salter, McCain’s former speechwriter, said Graham was spouting nonsense he did not believe as “Trump fluffery.”
“People do what they have to do with Trump, but Lindsey’s reputation was built on his foreign policy views,” Salter said.
“The idea that foreign leaders have respect for Trump’s strength is laughable,” Salter told the Post. “He’s destroying the world order that people like John McCain and, once upon a time, Lindsey Graham … built and resulted in the United States being one of the most powerful and wealthy countries on Earth.”
Trump endorsed Graham, saying, the senator, “has always been there when I needed him.”
Graham said, “This is his last term, and I won’t be around forever, and I’m trying to help him.”
How much longer he will be able to is up to the voters in the Palmetto State. Businessman Mark Lynch is a primary challenger for Graham and is hoping to capitalize on the unrest among the base.
“Trump’s endorsement of Lindsey Graham means nothing to South Carolina because we all know Lindsey,” Lynch said.
Pro Trump lawmakers and administration officials have learned that screaming and shouting on camera is what their supporters want to see — and so they are doing it more and more often, Amanda Marcotte wrote in a scathing analysis for Salon published on Monday.
The poster child for this, she wrote, is Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who has become known for her tirades against transgender people — despite for most of her time in elected office having claimed to support transgender rights.
She made the rounds again this month after a tirade aimed at a man in the makeup aisle of an Ulta Beauty store: "The camera focuses entirely on the story's hero, a man in a polo and shorts holding a bottle of what appears to be face cleanser, as he holds his own against his congressional representative getting increasingly shrill as she yells invective at him. Even though he said nothing about gay marriage, she demands his gratitude for voting 'for gay marriage twice,'" then when he demands to know why that's relevant, she begins screaming f-bombs at him.
"Most adults who act like Mace in public immediately wish to disappear off the face of the earth in shame. But not our Nancy! No, she's the one who posted this video online, proud of her emotional incontinence," wrote Marcotte. "Mace is serving pure toddler here. She likely wished to throw herself to the floor and start pounding it, but doing so would have meant dropping her iPhone."
But Mace is by no means alone. On Fox News last week, Stephen Miller put on a similar performance in response to federal judges putting the breaks on extrajudicial mass arrests and deportations of migrants. Miller's "usual register on TV is 'verge of a nervous breakdown,'" but per Marcotte, he "got so shrill on Fox News Tuesday that Lauren Tousignant at Jezebel worried she'd soon have to 'look at Stephen Miller’s face as he pops a dozen blood vessels as his brain explodes.'"
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also lost it on camera during a CNN segment discussing the "Signalgate" scandal surrounding his uses of unsecured group chats to share highly sensitive military attack plans. "While carping about 'the fake news media' during the White House Easter egg roll, Hegseth's whining got so pitched his voice started to crack, while his children stood behind him, embarrassed at the spectacle," Marcotte wrote.
There is a method to the madness, she continued. "The goal of the bombastic MAGA aesthetic is to flood the brain with emotions, so that no rational thought can penetrate. This strategy dates back to Roger Ailes founding Fox News in the 90s. The network dispensed with the staid conservative aesthetic for the 2x4-to-the-face vibe. The loud graphics, busy screens, and sexed-up appearances of the hosts have become ubiquitous on cable television. At the time, it stood out, setting the foundation for how the entire Republican world would look under Trump's leadership."
"The way the right does excess is never about waking you up, but pounding you into submission," she concluded. "The MAGA temper tantrum is the iconic example of shouting so loudly that you can't hear yourself think."
Maura Gillespie, former adviser to then-speaker of the House John Boehner, slammed defense secretary Pete Hegseth as “pretty egregious” after President Donald Trump said he "had a talk with him” about his performance thus far.
The president revealed the conversation during a newly published interview with The Atlantic, saying it had been a "positive talk," and "CNN News Central" host John Berman asked Gillespie to comment on the topic.
“Maura is this a glass half empty or glass half full for Pete Hegseth?” Berman asked. “The president basically says that he doesn't have it together yet, that he's going to get it together, or is it half full in the sense that he still has a job?
“For Pete Hegseth he still has a job this morning,” said Gillespie, the founder and principal of BlueStack Strategies. “But for Donald Trump, he doesn't need this distraction or essentially making him look bad, right? He doesn't want his administration or anyone else to be taking away from what he is trying to show the world and the American people [what] he can do for them.”
“Unfortunately, I think that there are certainly some downsides and some things that people are frustrated by," Gillespie added. "But certainly the inequities and the real lack of experience that Pete Hegseth has shown time and time again, even in the two or three months he's been in the job, is pretty, pretty egregious."
She was joined by Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, who noted Trump’s poll numbers are not great and “he's trying to get [Hegseth] off of his plate and get it focused on things that are positive around him.
“I want to put up one of the poll numbers that Chuck was just talking about there," Berman said. "There are all kinds of polls to mark the president's first 100 days in office, which is officially tomorrow, and the CNN poll just came out. I just think one number that encapsulates everything is his approval rating among independents, which is at 31 percent, 67 percent disapprove. That's low, Maura. To put it in perspective, that's about what his approval rating was in January of 2021 after the insurrection. So this is really, these are bad numbers for independents. Why do you think it's happening?”
“Because of the economy,” Gillespie said. “I think that there's been this decline in confidence that he is going to actually do what he promised to do in that regard, and so independents who wanted to vote for him because they wanted a change and they were not impressed by the Democratic Party [are questioning that decision].”
She added, “Republicans at large still poll higher on doing something about the economy than Democrats do. But this is a sign that independents are no longer as confident in Donald Trump to address it, since he thus far has not.”
Congressional Republicans on Sunday released legislation that would pump an additional $150 billion into the Pentagon—a morass of waste and profiteering—over the next decade as part of a sweeping reconciliation package that's also expected to include deep cuts to Medicaid and tax breaks for the wealthy.
The House Armed Services Committee, a major target of weapons industry lobbying, unveiled the plan for what it called "a historic investment of $150 billion to restore America's military capabilities and strengthen our national defense." The panel said the legislation was developed "in close conjunction" with Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump, who is separately pursuing a $1 trillion U.S. military budget for the next fiscal year.
The legislation would direct the new Pentagon funding toward a number of initiatives backed by the president, including a "Golden Dome" missile defense system that experts have called a massive boondoggle that could benefit Elon Musk.
The bill, which is scheduled for a committee markup on Tuesday, also includes $4.5 billion to speed production of the B-21 stealth bomber, a Northrop Grumman-made aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Sunday that the GOP's proposed Pentagon spending increase is "a glaring example of misplaced priorities."
"This is no time to throw more money at a weapons manufacturing base that is already maxed out," said Hartung. "Any additional money pumped into this system is likely to be wasted. The only beneficiaries will be weapons contractors, who will be glad to accept the new funds whether they can use them effectively or not."
"Given that the Pentagon and its contractor network are having a hard time spending existing funds well," Hartung added, "Congress should think twice before sending more taxpayer money their way."
The Republican push for additional Pentagon funding comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing calls to resign for sharing plans for a U.S. military attack on Yemen in at least two private group chats.
Earlier this month, as Common Dreams reported, Hegseth endorsed Trump's push for a $1 trillion U.S. military budget, which would mark the highest level of spending since the Second World War.
President Donald Trump is facing plummeting support as he approaches his 100th day in office, but panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" agreed it didn't have to be that way.
The president is underwater in several new polls as voters turn against his trade wars and government cuts, and Politico's politics bureau chief Jonathan Martin identified some of the choices Trump could have made early in his presidency to avoid drawing voters' ire.
"These are self-inflicted wounds that Donald Trump has chosen," Martin said. "To borrow an old phrase, they're wars of choice. If he had not done DOGE and Elon Musk, and if he had not done 'Liberation Day' in a tariff regime, think about where his numbers would be today. Think about it.
"If he takes the oath on Jan. 20 and the first 100 days, he cracks down on illegal immigration, he does executive orders on 'woke' this, 'woke' that, and then, yeah, he brings in a series of CEOs every week to the Oval Office, some domestic, some from abroad, and just jawboning the economy and talks about the big, beautiful jobs he's creating, he'd be over 50 [percent], at least at 50 [percent] today. It's remarkable. This is at his own hand that he has done this to himself, not any external forces."
Host Joe Scarborough agreed, saying he had wrecked the humming economy he had inherited from former President Joe Biden.
"Well, you know, I had said when he was getting sworn in, if he went golfing every day, if he, you know, did what Dwight Eisenhower made people think Ike did, you know, he'd be over 50 percent just riding the economy out," Scarborough said. "He didn't, he obviously didn't do that."
Musk has done almost as much as Trump to drive down the president's approval ratings through his deep cuts to government agencies that tossed thousands of federal workers out of a job, but the panelists agreed that was another choice he'd made to damage his own presidency.
"This was so predictable, right, that, like, yes, Americans generally agree with the idea of cutting waste, fraud and abuse," said co-host Jonathan Lemire. "But the way that this was done and the sheer volume of cuts into programs that people really liked, that helped people, would lead to the backlash. We saw the anger at the town halls across the country, but it's more than that. These polls here, we want to get your take. Trump is underwater on the issues that were supposed to be strengths, like, Americans don't like how he's going about some of the immigration and the deportations."
"Due process, it turns out a popular thing for most Americans," Lemire added, "and mostly it's the economy where he inherited an economy by most metrics, going pretty well under president Biden, and it is a talk about self-inflicted wounds. This tariff fight has has rattled the markets, and if these are eventually implemented here in the weeks ahead, it's going to raise prices, inflation for everyone, including his own voters."
Donald Trump exploited voters’ nostalgia for pre-pandemic America and, in 100 days, exchanged it for economic crisis. Then he showed how ‘indifferent” he was to people’s suffering by taking off to play golf.
Stephen Collinson described Americans who were desperate for local prices and saw, through ruby-colored spectacles, a pre-COVID country that was better than the one they were living in.
Instead, “The president deliberately and singlehandedly adopted policies that are almost certain to spike prices even more; that could lead to shortages; and that have CEOs and small businesses dealing with chaos and the possibility of a recession.”
And he wrote, it’s all about to get worse.
Instead of a political mastermind, Trump’s first 100 days have shown a man with a “brittle temper” and over-inflated sense of his own talents, Collinson wrote.
And it’s pushing America “to the brink.”
“Trillions of dollars have been wiped off stock markets. Airlines are cutting flights; top firms are trashing their own annual forecasts; some retailers have given up selling China-made goods in the US because of the tariffs. The International Monetary Fund cut US growth forecasts; the Federal Reserve says some businesses have stopped hiring; the CEO of Walmart told Trump his policies will seize up the supply chain by summer.
“... He’s now wielding vast and unaccountable authority to test his lifelong theory that the United States, the world’s richest nation, has long been ripped off by every other country. His aim is to force foreign markets wide open for US products and to make manufacturers bring back factories and jobs to revive industrialized regions that have paid a heavy price for the globalization of trade. He insists that scores of nations are lining up to do US-friendly deals that will make Americans rich.
“Millions of American jobs may depend on the outcome of his gamble.”
He concluded that the swirling chaos surrounding the country was “remarkable” because it was the result of any particular uncontrollable action.
Instead, he wrote, it was the direct result of a man barreling ahead with his idea for tariffs despite being advised against it by many experts.
“The president’s deteriorating political position is escalating pressure to produce outcomes that justify the massive shock and damage he’s caused to the economy,” he wrote.
“...Trump’s vision of himself as a master impresario conducting the economy suggests that even rockier times will be ahead.”
Republicans will embark on a ‘legislative sprint’ this week to finalize President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” domestic policy bill, according to a Politico report.
And key disputes must be settled. They include the size of spending cuts needed to pay for their plans and how dramatically they will reshape Medicaid and other safety-net programs.
“Starting it at $1.5 trillion in cuts is a loser just because we’ll end up at nothing,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told the news outlet. He called his GOP colleagues “pretty gutless” when it comes to slashing government spending.
One House Republican, who was granted anonymity by Politico, pointed to the scale of cuts as a “major fault line.” The person added that there could be “70 or 80 members of the House who, if we don’t have real and substantial cuts, are going to wonder, why does any of this matter?”
If Speaker Mike Johnson has his way, the bill would be passed no later than Memorial Day.
“I don’t view these deadlines as sacrosanct deadlines,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). He is one of the key voices calling for deep spending cuts.
Roy wants to prioritize an “artificial” timeline over a sound legislative process because he said a rushed process “risks the quality” of the final legislative product.
“I have to believe and articulate with a straight face that we will be reducing [the] deficit,” he said, adding that no amount of promised tariff revenue would factor into his calculations because “Congress isn’t voting on that.”
Another GOP lawmaker who was granted anonymity claimed, “If the final product increases the rate that we’re going bankrupt, I think it’s going to be hard to get 218 votes for that in the House.”
Senate Republicans are not being as aggressive with their schedule, Politico reported. Instead, they are waiting to see how far the House proposals end up from what can get the necessary 51 votes in the Senate.
