US News

President Donald Trump's foot-dragging on releasing hundreds of millions of dollars for the midterms is now causing real distress among the deep-pocketed donors who bankrolled him.

According to Politico, money is trickling out of Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC, but as September begins, Republican donors say it "should be gushing."

It's "chaos season" on the campaign trail, and the first serious week of the fall sprint is already a mess for Republicans thanks to their own party leader.

That's the read from the political outlet NOTUS, which declared the arrival of "chaos season" in its Tuesday morning newsletter, noting that September of an election year is when campaigns lock in the message they'll ride into November. For weeks, GOP leaders and candidates had carefully built a data-center-skeptic pitch, echoing voters souring on the sprawling AI projects as roughly three-quarters of Americans now say they'd oppose one in their own community.

President Donald Trump just pulled off what one political expert described as a "mafia state" type of move that revealed the rotten core of a deal he allegedly struck with a foreign country over its oil reserves.

Trump recently announced that the U.S. and North American Blue Energy Partners, a private company led by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, entered into a partnership to tap Venezuela's 65 billion barrel oil reserves, a deal that is estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars. Betancourt was previously under investigation on corruption charges until Trump's former attorney, Rudy Giuliani, persuaded the first Trump Department of Justice to drop its probe.

MAGA pundits were cornered by panelists on CNN's "NewsNight" with host Abby Phillip on Monday over the president's latest batch of empty threats toward Iran.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video of him attacking Kharg Island, a strategic island in the Persian Gulf that the Iranian regime has used to attack merchant ships in the area. Trump has previously threatened to strike the island and posted the threat on the same day U.S. forces hit Larak Island in the Strait.

The conservative Wall Street Journal slammed Florida's attorney general for his latest effort to attack vaccination — this time by cracking down on private Catholic schools.

The Journal has frequently gone after what it sees as Democrats assaulting religious liberty, particularly when they try to enforce birth control coverage requirements — and they had just as much contempt for this particular policy, which they called a "dangerous constitutional turn."

Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) dropped the hammer on several of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's alleged co-conspirators in a scorched-earth rant on Monday night.

Massie took to the House floor and read the names of several alleged Epstein co-conspirators. The names included Jes Staley, Leon Black, Les Wexner, David Copperfield, Lapo Elkann, Tom Pritzker, Glenn Dubin, Frédéric Fekkai, Eduardo Teodorani-Fabbri, Jean-Luc Brunel, Daniel Siad, Ramsey Elkholy, Prince Andrew, and Lesley Groff. Everyone Massie mentioned who has spoken publicly about their relationship with Epstein has denied any wrongdoing.

MS NOW's Chris Hayes flagged a suspicious episode of tomfoolery in a Democratic primary in Maine, pulled off by Republican dark money — with a deeply ironic twist.

"As Republicans head towards what is currently looking like it could be a shellacking in November ... they are returning to a time-tested playbook," said Hayes. Specifically, he said, that playbook is "unlimited dark money spending."

As the calendar turns to September, the House GOP faces a seismic problem that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has tried to avoid all summer.

On Tuesday, the House is expected to vote on a resolution to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), who has been accused of sexual misconduct, an issue that has plagued Congress, according to a new report by Axios. That puts Johnson in a tough position where his colleagues may risk further damaging their chances of retaining the majority following the 2026 midterms.

Legendary journalist Dan Rather took the Trump administration to task in a new Substack essay after officials exposed the president's disinformation playbook.

Over the last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has removed multiple journalists from the military newspaper Stars & Stripes over its coverage. President Donald Trump has also called on the FCC to investigate Kristen Welker of NBC News, a move that many have said is designed to further intimidate the press.

President Donald Trump’s newly announced deal for a stake in Venezuela’s vast oil reserves has some “sketchy” details that could come back to haunt him, according to a new analysis.

Trump announced Friday that the U.S. government and a private company would be given 100-year rights involving roughly one-fifth of Venezuela’s known oil reserves, which he declared was “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY.”

The Trump White House has quietly greenlit a fresh renovation of the historic Harry S. Truman Bowling Alley, wading into a project so politically toxic it once got canceled within 90 minutes of a single news story breaking.

The General Services Administration (GSA) awarded a nearly $253,000 contract on July 28 for lighting work on the two-lane bowling alley in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to public contract records reviewed by Politico's West Wing Playbook.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's seeming overtures toward a future run for office, or possibly even the presidency, startled a CNN panel on Monday evening — as they tried to work through the implications.

Mark Williams of Ferox Strategies attempted to downplay the possibility of it happening.