Trump handed a warning shot ahead of World Cup with troubling new poll

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States Are Ditching Trump’s “Great American State Fair”

President Trump’s Freedom 250 birthday extravaganza is looking so bleak that entire states are pulling out.NOTUS has reported that Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and North Carolina—the last of which Trump won in 2024—have all declined to send a representative to the president’s 16-day fair on the National Mall. Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington remain undecided even as the fair begins just two weeks from now.Each state is supposed to have a 600-square-foot themed booth with a representative or official sent by state leadership. With these states declining to send one, the administration has decided to pick their own. Multiple states said they had no knowledge as to who was chosen to represent their homes or why.Other states noted the hefty price attached to the event. Michele Walker, the comms director of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, told NOTUS her state would have to spend a minimum of $100,000 on travel, hotels, and their themed booth all together.“We decided early in the process that we do not have the capacity to participate,” Walker said. “Our limited resources are focused on America250 events across North Carolina.”This news comes just a week after nearly all of the first wave of musical performers—from Young MC to the Commodores—dropped out as well. This lack of enthusiasm only reaffirms that this “Freedom 250” event, unlike the educational America250 commission, is just a birthday party for Trump.

FIFA World Cup 2026 begins with Mexico vs. South Africa — How to watch for free

It's been a long four years, but the FIFA World Cup officially kicks off today.

Todd Blanche refuses to touch fight threatening to upend Trump's White House brawl

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."'On the UFC fight—'" the reporter began."'I'm not going to talk about the UFC fight,'" Blanche cut in. "'We're just here to talk about this.'"The reporter pressed: "'If [the judge] does order that it be blocked?'""'I'm not going to talk about the UFC fight,'" repeated Blanche, whose own DOJ filed the brief defending the event. "'We're here just to talk about why we're here.'"His remarks came just hours before oral arguments before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.The Public Integrity Project filed suit on June 7 on behalf of two Virginia residents, arguing the administration skipped congressional approval for the 92-foot, 600-ton "Claw" arena on the South Lawn, bypassed mandatory environmental review, and misused a temporary National Park Service rule designed for legitimate semiquincentennial events — not, the suit argues, a for-profit UFC card timed to Trump's 80th birthday.A lower court paused construction of Trump's $400 million White House ballroom project in April, citing lack of congressional approval. A separate judge ordered Trump's name stripped from the Kennedy Center in May on identical grounds.Stanford Law's Matthew Sanders told USA Today the complaint "lays out in a careful way the laws that apply and how they've been violated here."DOJ's own brief pushed back hard, arguing more than $60 million had been spent on the event and that plaintiffs had waited too long to file. Blocking it now, the government wrote, would amount to letting them "exercise a heckler's veto."

House rejects last-ditch FISA extension ahead of Friday deadline

The House rejected a short-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Thursday, putting the government's foreign surveillance authority on track to expire.Why it matters: A standoff over President Trump's decision to install Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence has jeopardized what lawmakers in both parties consider one of the government's most important intelligence tools.The vast majority of House Democrats opposed the extension through July 2, along with dozens of conservatives who are upset about a lack of reforms. The vote was 198-218.If Congress doesn't act, Section 702 will lapse Friday.Driving the news: Democrats have refused to back an extension of Section 702 unless Trump reverses his decision to name Pulte as acting DNI.Trump said Wednesday on Truth Social that he wants Pulte — who lacks any national security experience — "to execute the immediate and needed downsizing" of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, he "Bill Pulte cannot serve a minute as acting director of national intelligence, and until that elevation is abandoned, there's nothing really to talk about," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday.Between the lines: Before Trump picked Pulte, GOP lawmakers were close to assembling a bipartisan coalition for a longer-term Section 702 extension.Negotiations had been difficult, with lawmakers struggling for months to bridge disagreements over surveillance reforms. Zoom in: Section 702 feeds more than half of the president's daily briefing and has been credited with helping thwart terror plots and other national-security threats.The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court re-certified Section 702 procedures through 2027 earlier this year.But if Congress fails to renew the underlying statutory authority, intelligence agencies and telecommunications companies will face immediate legal uncertainty over what collection activities may continue.The result could be a chaotic and largely untested period for one of the intelligence community's most heavily used authorities.What they're saying: "It'd be a very dangerous time to allow us to not have that important national security tool," House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Wednesday. "We have a lot of big events going on around the country right now. We have the FIFA World Cup, we have the American 250 events, Freedom 250 events," the speaker added.Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told Axios that Section 702 "is critical to the president's daily brief," adding, "It's the single most important 9/11 commission recommendation that we have, and it's at risk of going dark due to foolishness."Fitzpatrick said that while he doesn't support Trump naming Pulte for the role, he "doesn't agree" with Democrats opposing FISA because of it. The other side: "Section 702 is a critical foreign intelligence authority, but we cannot in good conscience vote for reauthorization without significant reforms to protect both national security and the constitutional privacy rights of Americans," Jeffries, Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), Intelligence ranking member Jim Himes (D-Conn.) and Judiciary ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said in a statement Thursday. "The apparent motivation for his elevation is the demonstrated willingness of Bill Pulte to search government databases for alleged dirt on President Trump's chosen political enemies."What's next: The Senate could try to pass its own short-term extension by unanimous consent, but that would certainly draw objections, leaving the path to preventing a lapse in either chamber unclear.

Trump's birthday brawl derided as 'volcano of corruption' in court filing

President Donald Trump's birthday celebration on the White House lawn was disparaged as a "volcano of corruption" in a new legal challenge.Attorneys fighting to block this weekend's UFC matches at the White House told a federal judge Wednesday the president and his allies stand to profit from what they called "the first private, for-profit sporting event ever held on White House grounds" — and warned the country is approaching a historic moment of institutional corruption, reported MS NOW."Such a volcano of corruption, if allowed to go forward, will mark an inflection point in American history," argued plaintiffs Susan Douglas and Paul Romano in their final filing.The plaintiffs, attorneys from the Public Integrity Project, painted a portrait of interlocking financial interests at the heart of the planned three-day spectacle, which is set to culminate Sunday — Trump's 80th birthday — with seven professional UFC bouts staged on the South Lawn inside a massive temporary structure known as "the Claw."They pointed to million-dollar VIP packages, brand placement opportunities near the Lincoln Memorial, and an exclusive broadcast on Paramount Plus, a streaming service run by Trump allies Larry and David Ellison. No American, they noted, will be able to watch the self-described "celebration of America" without paying a subscription fee.They further alleged Trump bought stock in the company that owns the UFC earlier this spring, giving him a direct financial stake in the event's success. UFC head Dana White, who has organized the spectacle alongside the White House, is a longtime personal friend and political ally of the president.The Trump administration called the lawsuit meritless and said the plaintiffs were merely seeking "to complain about that which offends their sensibilities." Officials also argued the suit's last-minute timing alone should disqualify it, noting the event was publicly announced nearly a year ago.U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, must now decide whether the fights go on — or whether the volcano gets capped.

Retired colonel sounds the alarm about Trump's inescapable failure

A retired colonel sounded the alarm in a new piece for The Hill this week, warning that President Donald Trump is running headlong into a massive problem that he will inevitably botch.Jonathan Sweet is a retired lieutenant colonel who had three decades of service as a military intelligence officer and now frequently writes about military affairs alongside national security reporter Mark Toth. Their latest piece, published on Thursday morning, argued that Trump "doesn't know how to win in Iran" as the beleaguered peace talks with the Middle Eastern nation drag on with no end in sight."The day the ceasefire began in Iran is the day President Trump’s war strategy began to fall apart," Sweet and Toth wrote. "U.S. and Israeli forces were crushing Iran’s military and were poised to begin systematically targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij, Iran’s street-level domestic security force and regime enforcers. Then came Trump’s order to stand down. Operation Epic Fury came to a crashing halt, and the White House and the Persian Gulf have been mired ever since in a ceasefire that is on a road to nowhere."The pair further argued that, counter to the insistence of the Trump administration, Iran's military is not a "complete and total mess," nor has it been "completely defeated." In fact, they countered, "whether Mr. Trump fully grasps it or not, has learned to fight the U.S., Israel, and its Gulf state allies on an asymmetrical basis," meaning that "a traditional air force, navy or ground army is not required.""Trump, simply put, does not know how to defeat Iran’s asymmetric war against him," the pair argued. "Plus, he is failing to understand how the Iranian regime is using kinetic tools on a regional basis to gain leverage in the ongoing peace talks. We have described that approach as a three-ring-circus. Mining the Strait of Hormuz is the center ring or main act. Limited ballistic missile and drone strikes against the U.S. and its allies in the region is the second ring. The third? Linking the survival of Hezbollah, the crown jewel of Iran’s axis of resistance against Israel, to the ever-elusive deal being negotiated."They continued: "Trump repeatedly claims that he has effected regime change in Iran. But he has not. The faces changed when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ali Larijani and other top regime leaders were killed on the opening day of the war, but the regime’s militant ideology is the same. In reality, Iran’s regime has only become more entrenched. Most alarming, however, is that Trump seems oblivious that many of his comments, statements, and posts on Truth Social are perceived by Iran’s hardliners as signs of weakness."Ultimately, Sweet and Toth concluded, as they often have, that the only way for Trump to achieve victory over Iran in a meaningful way is to end efforts for a diplomatic solution, and instead "defeat them for real" by renewing the active military campaign against them.

Trump Announces Bold New Kharg Island Move to Crush Iran Regime