Trump News

President Donald Trump called off his threatened strike on Iran.

The 79-year-old president announced Thursday morning on his Truth Social website that he planned to order U.S forces to hit Iran "very hard tonight," which House Speaker Mike Johnson downplayed as a negotiating tactic, but Trump backed down in a subsequent post.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faces a critical test from a key Republican vote as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) signals he will condition his support on guarantees that Blanche will aggressively restrict access to mifepristone, the abortion pill.

According to Politico's Alice Miranda Ollstein, Blanche's path to confirmation is already fraught with peril. He faces hostile Democrats and a growing contingent of Republicans still seething over his backing of Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund"—a proposal that collapsed after a GOP revolt.

Former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino's nascent 2028 presidential campaign suffered a blow when Jacob Engels, a controversial figure tasked with launching the candidate's online presence, was arrested at a budget motel and charged with felony methamphetamine possession.

According to reporting from The Bulwark's Will Sommers, Engels — a former protégé of Roger Stone and associate of far-right activist Laura Loomer — had taken the lead in promoting Bovino's candidacy before his arrest in River Falls, Wisconsin, on May 20.

Speaker Mike Johnson fled down the Capitol steps Thursday rather than say whether Congress should vote on Trump's plan to seize Iran's main oil hub.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, was caught by CNN's Manu Raju on the Capitol steps hours after Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. "will be taking Kharg Island" — the Persian Gulf terminal that handles roughly 90% of Iran's crude exports — along with "other oil infrastructure points," to "assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets."

The ranking Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee is calling for Vice President JD Vance to testify under oath about his involvement in the White House’s Jeffrey Epstein cover-up.

Appearing on MS NOW with host Ana Cabrera, a fuming Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) cited an explosive report in the New York Times on Wednesday that Vance headed meetings held in the White House Situation Room to deal with fallout from the Epstein files. According to Garcia, Vance, along with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles — who has also been in attendance at the secretive meetings — both need to be hauled before the committee headed by Rep. James Comer (R-KY).

The Trump administration has quietly floated an eyebrow-raising new "fix" for Americans struggling with skyrocketing Obamacare costs: take out a loan from health insurers, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Buried in the dense 1,121-page final rule the administration issued last month governing how the Affordable Care Act marketplace will operate next year, the proposal suggests insurers offer loans to cash-strapped customers who can't cover their out-of-pocket medical costs, per the Times. The debt would have to be repaid, "presumably with interest," the report noted.

Pentagon police are in gas masks and full chemical gear Thursday as a hazmat team locks down floors 2 through 5 of the massive complex.

Floors 2 through 5 in corridors 4 through 7 have been locked down, and other floors have been evacuated, three sources told CNN. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency's hazardous materials response team is on scene alongside the Arlington County Fire Department.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche twice refused to discuss the federal lawsuit threatening Trump's White House UFC fight — with a ruling expected within hours.

Blanche was appearing alongside DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin at a Thursday morning press conference on unaccompanied migrant children when a reporter tried to get him on record about the looming court fight.

Reacting to the bombshell reporting in the New York Times about the Jeffrey Epstein “war room” that was convened in the White House Situation Room, MS NOW’s Sam Stein singled out a proposal about Ghislaine Maxwell that he found beyond the pale.

Speaking with Morning Joe co-host Jonathan Lemire about the report from the Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Stein noted, “There's one anecdote in there where they talk about whether they should give a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, and the response inside the room has nothing to do with the morality, ethics or legality of it. It's ‘Oh no, that would create a real PR problem for us if we were to do that.’”

Vice President JD Vance is losing his chief of staff, Jacob Reses, whose influence over foreign policy, insiders say, rivaled that of the vice president's own national security adviser.

Reses, Vance's chief of staff since joining him after the 2022 Ohio Senate race, will leave the administration at the end of the summer, people close to the vice president's office said Thursday. He informed Vance of his plans several months ago after his wife became pregnant with their first child.

As President Donald Trump's approval ratings hit record lows, far-right media outlets are experiencing a parallel collapse, with major conservative websites posting devastating traffic declines in May.

According to media watchdog Status, The Righting—which monitors website traffic—reported catastrophic numbers across the conservative media landscape. The top 20 right-wing news websites all posted year-over-year declines in May visits, with 90 percent experiencing double-digit drops.

Sordid new details are coming out about how President Donald Trump and his allies hijacked the bipartisan "America250" celebration approved by Congress and siphoned off its money to alternative celebration planning entities under his own control.

According to The Atlantic's Michael Scherer, newly obtained documents behind the scenes of Trump taking over the event "described frayed trust and growing conflict that has become so acrimonious that the Department of Interior is refusing to honor a December agreement with America250" to transfer $50 million in funding.

Asked Thursday about bombing Iran's civilian water supply on Fox News, Donald Trump launched into a minutes-long rant about rigged elections instead.

Brian Kilmeade, the Fox News host who fielded Trump's call-in, had framed the water strike in approving terms — describing the U.S. campaign as an "Anaconda" strategy squeezing Iran into submission. But when he pointed out that American strikes had hit a water facility serving a population already running out of water, Trump changed the subject.