Thomas Kika

The cost-of-living crisis is proving to be the biggest thorn in the side of Donald Trump during his second term, and according to a new report from NOTUS, his energy policies will make matters even more "toxic" for him and the GOP if he does not "reverse course."

Experts speaking with NOTUS prior to Trump's second inauguration predicted that skyrocketing energy prices would become a major political problem for the next administration, and as of this week, those same experts said "their predictions have already come to pass." In some parts of the US, household energy bills jumped by as much as 25 percent over the past three years, and the situation will only worsen as the rest of Trump's term plays out, with AI data centers consuming more and more power.

Trump's handling of the economy and his inability to bring down consumer prices have seen his approval with voters tank over the course of the year. Democrats running campaigns centered on affordability also saw major gains in off-year elections, leading many observers to predict major losses for the GOP in the 2026 midterms. Increased power bills could become a focal point for the cost-of-living conversation, and as NOTUS highlighted, Trump's energy policies are poised to make things worse.

Experts who spoke to the outlet agreed that any and all methods of energy generation will be needed in the coming years to manage consumer costs. Trump, however, has gotten increasingly aggressive in his crusade against renewable energy projects, moving to end many of them outright instead of simply pulling subsidies for them.

“Since a year ago, I think every single member of Congress and interest group has accepted the reality that load growth is high and that we’re going to have challenges meeting it reliably and affordably,” Rob Gramlich, the president of the Washington consulting firm Grid Strategies, told NOTUS: “Most people say we’re going to need a lot of generation of all types. The problem is, the president has not acknowledged that."

“The rhetoric went from ‘renewables shouldn’t be subsidized’ to outright hostility towards certain energy types," Neil Chatterjee, a Republican and a former commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said. "That caught me off guard a little bit, and that was frustrating."

While pushing an initiative to further integrate AI into the government, Trump's Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed that the effort would "ultimately... push downward pressure on the prices of electricity," despite the typical effects increased AI usage has on energy costs. NOTUS pointed out that he offered no specifics for how his claims would bear out.

Jackson Morris, director of state power sector policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, suggested to NOTUS that Wright's claims were a sign that the administration sees where the energy crisis is heading and how "toxic" it might get for them.

“If you read the tea leaves, Chris Wright, he’s very ideological about a lot of things, so it’s interesting to see within the administration, the people like him tasked with implementing AI dominance," Morris said. "They are seeing the writing on the wall. They’re like, if everybody’s bill doubles, we’re not going to be able to build out data centers because politics will be so toxic.”

Visitors to an American military cemetery in the Netherlands are pushing back following the removal of plaques honoring Black veterans of World War II, according to an NBC News report, seemingly done as part of Donald Trump's anti-diversity crusade.

Per the report, "visitors have filled the guestbook with objections" since the plaques came down earlier this year at the visitor center for the American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands. The two displays honored Black soldiers who took part in the war effort and helped liberate Europe from Nazi control. Operated by the American Battle Monuments Commission, the cemetery is the final resting place for around 8,300 American soldiers.

As NBC noted, the cemetery's graves themselves were dug by an all-Black contingent of soldiers.

"One display told the story of 23-year-old George H. Pruitt, a Black soldier buried at the cemetery, who died attempting to rescue a comrade from drowning in 1945," the report explained. The other described the U.S. policy of racial segregation in place during World War II. Some 1 million Black soldiers enlisted in the U.S. military during the war, serving in separate units, mostly doing menial tasks but also fighting in some combat missions. An all-Black unit dug the thousands of graves in Margraten during the brutal 1944-45 season of famine in the German-occupied Netherlands known as the Hunger Winter."

Emails obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) and Dutch News confirmed that the decision to remove the plaques was in direct response to Trump's executive order targeting "diversity, equity and inclusion" programs, an order which has since impacted a wide array of displays, memorials and programs honoring African-American history.

US Ambassador to the Netherlands Joe Popolo -- one of the many wealthy businesspeople and GOP megadonors named to European diplomatic roles by Trump -- spoke out in support of the removal, arguing that the "signs at Margraten are not intended to promote an agenda that criticizes America."

The displays were reportedly removed without any public notice, prompting anger from visiting Americans, as well as local officials and residents. One local who spoke out against the removal to NBC News was 79-year-old Cor Linssen, the son of a Black US soldier and a Dutch mother. Linssen, along with a group of other children of Black US soldiers, visited the cemetery to view the plaques together back in February.

“It’s an important part of history,” Linssen said. “They should put the panels back.”

An evangelical preacher and licensed mental health counselor has been kicked off the ballot for a local race in Dallas, Texas, after her past felony convictions came to light.

Pedra Geter is an evangelical preacher based in Texas. She describes herself as "a Prophet, Evangelist, Mother, Entrepreneur and College Student pursuing my PHD in Human Resource Development" on her LinkedIn page, and more recent materials have referred to her as "Dr. Pedra Geter." The page also lists her professions as "evangelist," "televengelist" and "motivational speaker" dating back to 1999.

Geter had recently been running in the Dallas County commissioner Democratic primary, challenging longtime incumbent Dr. Elba Garcia. On Monday, however, a local NPR affiliate, KERA News, reported that her candidacy had been terminated after past felony convictions came to light, barring her from pursuing public office in Texas.

Geter confirmed that she had received multiple felony convictions in the past, with KERA News uncovering Dallas County court documents showing convictions for fraud, forgery and reckless conduct. At the time she filed to run for office, she had not submitted official paperwork to prove that she had been pardoned of those convictions, as would be required of her under the law. The Texas state constitution forbids anyone convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery or other high crimes from holding elected public office.

"As the filing authority, we've made our ruling," Kardal Coleman, chair of the Dallas County Democratic Party, told KERA News. "Her application was rejected."

Geter plans to appeal this decision on her candidacy, citing the fact that she served time for the convictions and was released from her sentence.

"What [the state election law] states is: To be eligible for public or elected office, a candidate must not have been finally convicted of a felony from which the individual has not been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities," Geter explained. "I have been released from the resulting disability."

As of now, Garcia is running unopposed for reelection as Dallas County commissioner.

Donald Trump's much-hyped new battleship fleet, named after himself, "will never sail," a group of experts told CNBC in a new report, owing to the outdated design that will make them a "bomb magnet" in a real conflict.

Earlier this week, the president unveiled a new "Trump-class" of US Navy battleships, which he touted as "some of the most lethal surface warfare ships" and "the fastest, the biggest, and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built." Despite his enthusiasm from Trump about maintaining "American military supremacy," CNBC on Friday noted the "glaring problem" putting them at odds with reality: "battleships have been obsolete for decades."

"The last was built more than 80 years ago, and the U.S. Navy retired the last Iowa-class ships nearly 30 years ago," CNBC explained. "Once symbols of naval might with their massive guns, battleships have long since been eclipsed by aircraft carriers and modern destroyers armed with long-range missiles."

The outlet conceded that Trump's labeling of these new ships with the outdated model name could be a "misnomer," and the actual ships might be more in line with modern sensibilities. Speaking to several experts about the ships, however, CNBC found that the "Trump-class" fleet is still out of step with naval realities, with Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, arguing that they "would take too long to design, cost far too much and run counter to the Navy’s current strategy of distributed firepower."

"A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water," Cancian said, also adding that "there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail."

Bernard Loo, senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, dismissed the ships as "more of a prestige project" than anything practical. For comparison, he cited the story of Japan’s World War II super-battleships Yamato and Musashi: heavily armed battleships that were the largest ever built. Despite their power, they were sunk by more versatile and fleet-footed aircraft launched from carrier ships before they saw significant use.

If deployed, Loo suggested that "Trump-class" battleships would meet the same "bomb magnet" fate.

"The size and the prestige value of it all make it an even more tempting target, potentially for your adversary," he said.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, suggested that, like with many of Trump's odd decisions, he might be operating with a reverence for symbols of power over realities, and might have a view of American naval supremacy based on the 1980s, the last time that the US recommissioned WWII-era battleships to counter the Soviet Union.

While he may have managed to score reelection last year with a popular vote lead, Donald Trump's "avalanche of outrages" over the course of 2025 have reaffirmed that he is "unfit for office," according to an extensive and scathing breakdown from the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

As the board noted at the start of its new piece, it "spent 2024 warning of the dangers a second Trump administration could bring." As his first year back draws to a close, the board argued that none of his shocking decisions and actions have been surprising; it's only surprise about it all has been "the speed with which he has upended the American Experiment."

Suggesting that voters last year may have been swayed by Trump's "undeniable luck, charisma, and bravado" and "nostalgia for a pre-pandemic America," the board argued that his reelection has proven to be "a folly" where he is "no longer constrained by the guardrails the conservative establishment placed on his first presidential stint." His first term, meanwhile, was "a fluke," which saw his "worst impulses... kept in check by his cabinet" and with an economy that "sailed swiftly on the course inherited from President Barack Obama."

"Instead of allowing inflation to continue to abate and the U.S. economy to live up to its label as 'the envy of the world,' he haphazardly and likely illegally instituted tariffs on global trading partners that amount to a tax on American consumers," the board explained. "Rather than sitting back and taking credit for curtailing immigration at the southern border, which concerned a large number of voters, he’s lost public support as masked federal agents abuse, harass, and intimidate immigrants and citizens alike."

The board continued: "Trump’s signature legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is set to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, all while a shrinking middle continues to lose faith in America’s institutions — some of which have willingly acquiesced to whatever Trump demands."

All the while, Trump has also been using the presidency to enrich "himself, his family, and his cronies" at the expense of everyday Americans, a push typified by the Big Beautiful Bill tax cuts, which disproportionately and overwhelmingly favor the wealthiest Americans. Indeed, a recent report from Politico found that the economy is currently being propped up by spending splurges by the wealthiest 10% of US residents, while everyone else struggles to get by and becomes increasingly agitated over Trump's mishandling of their economy.

"As 2025 ends and a new year begins, we must not allow the avalanche of outrages to numb us to the fact that Trump remains unfit for office," the board concluded.

Donald Trump's administration has gone to great lengths to spin his first year back in the White House as one of the best and most productive in US history, but as a new analysis from The Guardian laid out, his "erratic and at times confused behavior throughout 2025" has often dominated the conversation, and "questions about his mental and physical performance."

Trump is currently 79-years-old and is officially the oldest individual ever elected to the US presidency. While Trump in 2024 went to great lengths to attack Joe Biden's age and the signs that his ability to hold the job was deteriorating, many of the same concerns have now come to haunt his second term.

As The Guardian points out from the jump, Trump's behaviors during widely publicized meetings offered some of the more prominent and headline-generating examples of his seeming decline, both physically and mentally.

"Trump has appeared to fall asleep during some meetings," the analysis explained. "Amid others, he has drifted off-topic, launching into bizarre segues on interior decor or about whales and birds. His public appearances have lacked focus, and he has used speeches to ramble about how Barack Obama walks down stairs, or to invent stories about the Unabomber."

The last point referred to a digression Trump made in July, where he claimed that his late uncle, John Trump, had taught the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and claimed that his uncle often talked about what kind of student he had been. As The Guardian noted, "that cannot possibly be true," as Kazcynski never studied at MIT, and John Trump died in 1985, 11 years before he was identified by authorities as the Unabomber.

The White House and Trump's Republican allies have responded to these concerns with impassioned defenses of his fitness, "often in hyperbolic terms." A representative for the White House told The Guardian earlier this year that Trump's “mental sharpness is second to none," while his former White House doctor, Rep. Ronny Jackson, claimed that he was the "healthiest president this nation has ever seen."

Democrats hope to make Trump's declining physical and mental state a central message in the 2026 midterm elections, and The Guardian argued that they would "have a fair amount of ammunition" to do so.

"Earlier this year, Trump mixed up Albania with Armenia when discussing a peace deal involving the latter; discussing autism in a speech at the White House, he mused about 'certain elements of genius that can be given to a baby,'" the analysis laid out. "Announcing that 13 grants would be awarded to investigate autism, Trump added: 'Nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen.'"

During the same address about autism, Trump also stumbled over his pronunciation of the drug, acetaminophen, a gaffe relentlessly lampooned on late-night comedy shows.

A few of his more recent outbursts have seen Trump speak "without inhibition," leading to comments that alarm and disgust even his most ardent supporters.

"In December alone, he declared Somali immigrants to be 'garbage' and, in a move that shocked even some Republicans, essentially blamed Rob Reiner for his own death," The Guardian explained.

Allies of President Donald Trump, speaking to Politico, said that his plummeting economic approval is "baffling" as the rich prosper while the poor struggle, with one former adviser saying that he "just can’t quite get [his] arms around" the problem.

"President Donald Trump’s economy has exceeded expectations in his first year back in office," Politico's Wednesday stated. "Mainly for America’s wealthiest households, that is."

According to available data, spending splurges by the wealthiest Americans are keeping "Trump's economy humming," with the Royal Bank of Canada finding that the wealthiest 10 percent of the country spent around $20.3 trillion this year, nearly matching the spending of all other earners combined, $22.5 trillion. The US economy, juiced by the wealthy, grew by 4.3 percent in the 3rd quarter. Bank of America also reported 4 percent growth in income from its top earners, compared to the much more stagnant 1.4 percent for lower earners.

"That splurge has been primed by a buoyant stock market, elevated real estate prices and solid wage gains for the wealthy," Politico added.

Despite these gains for the wealthy, middle-to-lower-income earners are still feeling the pinch of soaring prices, and broadly feel as if Trump is not doing enough to fix the cost of living and does not seem to care. Democrats who ran on platforms focused on affordability saw major electoral victories in 2025's off-year elections, signaling the potential for impending GOP doom in the 2026 midterms if things do not turn around for the average consumer.

According to Politico, some of Trump's own allies remain stumped as to how things can be going so well economically for the president, on paper, while his approval across the board is tanking, including Stephen Moore, an economist and former adviser to the president who has worked with the administration on its messaging.

“I’m mystified by the whole argument about affordability. I just can’t quite get my arms around it because it’s a really, really strong economy right now,” Moore told Politico. “If the trends continue as they have over the last six months, it’s going to be harder and harder for the Democrats to sustain this narrative that it’s not a good economy.”

Pundits have increasingly compared Trump's handling of economic messaging to the tactics that ultimately sank the presidency of Joe Biden. While Biden oversaw an economy that, in many ways, rebounded substantially from the ravages of COVID-19 and saw historic stock market gains, everyday Americans felt little of that prosperity, feeling the pinch of major inflation that kicked off in 2022. Despite these troubles, Biden frequently claimed that things were good, and that consumers were just not getting the right message, just as Trump has done in recent months.

The Department of Energy's newest order, based on one of Donald Trump's long-running "obsessions," seems destined to fall flat as it runs into "inevitable court battles," according to an analysis from MS NOW.

On Monday, the DOE announced that all leases for ongoing offshore wind energy construction projects were being paused. Energy Secretary Doug Burgum claimed this decision was “due to national security risks identified” by the Defense Department’s “recently completed classified reports.” All told, the move will suspend five projects on the East Coast that, if completed and brought online, could have produced clean energy for millions of homes.

Despite Burgum's claims, many have pointed out that the decision, along with the administration's many other attacks on offshore wind energy projects, is in line with Trump's longstanding hatred of wind turbines, suggesting that the government is "engineering justifications for acting on President Donald Trump’s obsessions," according to MS NOW contributor Hayes Brown.

In an analysis published Tuesday, Brown suggested that this latest suspension of wind projects seems doomed to fail in court, citing a number of other orders that have been struck down, and the fact that the government's evidence against wind turbines is weak or nonexistent.

"It’s hard to think the wind farm claims will hold up in the inevitable court battles that will follow," Brown wrote. "Already, federal judges have overruled the initial executive order freezing new permits and the attempt to shut down the Rhode Island project. The scant evidence provided publicly, and the fact that the Biden administration had already conducted studies on the projects’ national security impact before approving them, don’t bode well for Burgum’s new order."

Throughout the piece, Brown also chronicled the history of Trump's antipathy towards wind turbines. The disdain appears to have begun when a series of turbines were constructed off the coast of Trump's golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland, which he decried as "some of the ugliest you've ever seen." Throughout the years, as his political career took off, he continued to rail against the turbines, which he refers to as "windmills."

"He’s called them out for being a blight on landscapes, and he’s repeatedly warned (often lately without being prompted) that they’re deadly to birds and, somehow even more bafflingly, whales," Brown explained.

Donald Trump's top officials with the Department of Justice seem to be having trouble keeping their lies straight, according to an analysis from the Bulwark, with at least one prominent figure's understanding of "which lies you can get away with" being undercut by the president's own words.

Writing for the Bulwark on Monday, Will Saletan argued this point by highlighting a recent Meet the Press appearance by Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal attorney turned deputy attorney general. When pressed by host Kristen Welker about whether or not he is in communication with the president about certain criminal cases, Blanche deflected.

"I will never talk about the communications I have with President Trump," Blanche said.

This, Saletan noted, is abnormal for the DOJ, which is supposed to remain independent from the executive branch. He suggested that Blanche did not give the expected to a question referencing Trump's Truth Social post in which he "openly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to indict former FBI Director James Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Leticia James."

"In an ethical administration, the deputy attorney general could have honestly said, 'No, the president doesn’t do such things,'" Saletan said. "Why did Blanche play it safe? Maybe because Welker, by reminding him of what Trump had publicly written, made Blanche think that lying about the pressure campaign would be untenable."

Elsewhere in the interview, Welker brought up veteran federal prosecutor Erik Siebert, who claimed that he was fired from the DOJ for refusing to pursue criminal charges against Comey. Blanche insisted that Siebert was not, in fact, fired, and had instead resigned.

However, as Saletan highlighted, that's another claim that's out of line with the president's own words. In a September Truth Social post, where he said Siebert "didn’t quit, I fired him!" Saletan characterized that as "one of those rare cases in which Truth Social told the truth."

"One problem with lawyering for an overt crook is that it’s hard to keep track of which lies you can get away with, because the crook sometimes blurts out what you’re trying to cover up." Saletan explained.

President Donald Trump has frequently boasted about ending or preventing several wars when listing off the accomplishments of his second term, but according to a new analysis from the Washington Post, his focus on creating "flashy headlines" is causing these deals to fall apart.

The piece, written by Post columnist and veteran foreign correspondent Keith B. Richburg, highlighted a few notable conflicts Trump has claimed to have quelled via ceasefire agreements, including disputes between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as Thailand and Cambodia, and Israel's ongoing war in Gaza.

Trump hosted a meeting between the leaders of Rwanda and the DRC, claiming "a new year of harmony and cooperation" had begun. However, as Richburg explained, "fighting raged on" between the two nations, with a Rwandan militia seizing the Congolese town of Uvira just days after the summit in Washington, D.C.

In October, Trump hosted a similar ceasefire signing event between leaders of Thailand and Cambodia, but just a few months later, in early December, fighting along the border between the two nations broke out. So far, 11 Thai troops and at least 11 Cambodian civilians have been killed as the two sides trade artillery fire, with over half a million displaced. Trump claimed that a ceasefire had been reached after calling the prime ministers of each country, but the two leaders said this was not true.

One of Trump's most heavily touted accomplishments of his second term was a peace plan aimed at ending the war in Gaza. Despite much hype, the disarmament of Hamas and the appointment of a Gaza peace board have failed to materialize, and Hamas has continued to assert its control in the area.

"The setbacks show that in the complicated business of peacemaking, signing a ceasefire deal before the cameras is usually just the beginning," Richburg wrote. "Changing the realities on the ground — and getting combatants to lay down their weapons — requires a more sustained level of follow-through and commitment."

The issues at play in these conflicts, Richburg explained, are deeply complex and steeped in decades of disputes. Fixing them requires long-term commitments to diplomacy, not Trump's favored tactic of deadlines and media-friendly ceasefire meetings.

"In all these conflicts, enmities run deep, and are passed on through generations," Richburg wrote. "They are not easily undone by handshakes in Washington, Kuala Lumpur or Cairo. And they defy quick and easy solutions. Trump fancies himself a peacemaker and a dealmaker. But solving historically complex conflicts is not like making a real estate deal, where everyone can walk away satisfied. Solving a war takes time, patient diplomacy and follow through. Artificial deadlines are meaningless."

Donald Trump's "professional-wrestling style of leadership" during his second term as president has become even more bombastic, combative and self-centered in recent weeks — and according to a new analysis from New York Times chief White House reporter Peter Baker, it's beginning to leave even his conservative political allies feeling "sickened."

As Baker notes, Trump's brash demeanor has been a large part of his appeal to his supporters, who view him as "bracingly authentic in a world of cookie-cutter, talking points-reading politicians," and still do in light of his more recent behavior.

"They love his professional-wrestling style of leadership," Baker wrote. "He tells it like it is. He’s not afraid to mix it up. He takes down the elites and the 'woke' liberals."

Now, however, Trump's outbursts and general behavior have started to leave a bad taste in the mouths of once-loyal conservative allies. Some, Baker suggested, have started to whisper that the president is becoming "unhinged," something once only "shouted by Democrats and Never Trumpers."

Baker laid out a string of recent Trump controversies, noting that one above all turned allies against him, citing a specific reaction from Nebraska GOP Rep. Don Bacon.

"It was one thing when Mr. Trump called a reporter 'piggy,'" Baker wrote. "Or casually threatened to put a half-dozen members of Congress to death for accurately stating the laws of war. Or labeled all Somali immigrants 'garbage.' Or declared that daring to question his physical energy level at age 79 was 'seditious, perhaps even treasonous.' But when Mr. Trump cavalierly attacked the Hollywood icon Rob Reiner just hours after his body was found in a grisly murder scene, it sickened even some of his own political allies."

“I’d expect to hear something like this from a drunk guy at a bar, not the president of the United States,” Bacon said during an appearance on CNN, discussing Trump's comments about Reiner. “Can the president be presidential?”

Bacon was far from the only Trump ally to speak out.

"This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote in a post to X. "Many families deal with a family member with drug addiction and mental health issues. It’s incredibly difficult and should be met with empathy especially when it ends in murder.”

"A man and his wife were murdered last night," Jenna Ellis, a member of the Trump 2020 legal team, wrote in her own post. "This is NOT the appropriate response."