SmartNews

MS NOW host Michael Steele erupted on Thursday's broadcast of "The Weeknight" while discussing what he described as the Trump administration's "claptrap" about the 2026 midterm elections.

Steele discussed the Trump administration's efforts to eliminate mail-in voting with panelists Angelo Carusone, CEO of Media Matters, and Janai Nelson of the Legal Defense Fund. Steele noted the apparent irony in the effort, considering that President Donald Trump has voted by mail in every election since he moved to the White House.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump's administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, baffled analysts on Thursday after he uncorked a series of wild claims during an interview on Newsmax about the Trump administration's efforts to combat health care fraud.

Oz was interviewed by Newsmax host Greta Van Susteren about a multi-billion-dollar hospice scam that the Trump administration recently uncovered. But one claim he made during the more than five-minute-long segment raised multiple red flags for political analysts.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that courts can force the Justice Department to release Epstein files that the Trump administration has fought to keep hidden.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan issued the ruling in Washington, D.C., siding with independent journalist Katie Phang in the first lawsuit ever brought to enforce the Epstein Files Transparency Act — a law Congress passed nearly unanimously in 2025.

President Donald Trump is backing down on his holdout on signing a popular, bipartisan housing bill that he's held hostage for the last 24 hours after a "lengthy" meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), according to a new report.

Johnson went to the White House on Thursday to talk to Trump about his abrupt decision to cancel the signing ceremony for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bill that passed through Congress with enough support to override a presidential veto, if Trump chooses to go that route. The bill seeks to address one of the main concerns on Americans' minds as the midterm elections approach -- the cost of housing.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) ran to President Donald Trump for help with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) after she hijacked the House and derailed his agenda.

Luna has frozen all floor votes until the Senate passes the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act — Trump's elections overhaul that has stalled for months. Johnson met with Trump at the White House on Thursday, seeking a way out, according to a Politico report.

A legal expert said on Thursday that a recent spate of decisions published by the Supreme Court made some of the liberal justices "incandescently angry" because the majority opinions read like "gaslighting."

The court published opinions on a range of cases, from one that protects chemical giant Monsanto from lawsuits over cancer-causing chemicals in some of its products to an opinion that ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants. In each of the cases, Lithwick argued, the court's majority continued to "twist itself into pretzels" to give the Trump administration what it wanted, according to Dahlia Lithwick, a lawyer and journalist.