Democrats prepare for potential election interference in midterms – US politics live
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The Democrats are wargaming messaging strategies over fears that Donald Trump may try to influence the midterm electionsSign up for the Breaking News US emailAndrew Roth in Washington and William Christou in BeirutThe US launched a new round of airstrikes on Iran into this morning after Donald Trump warned Tehran would “pay the price” for stalled negotiations, prompting Iran to respond with strikes targeting Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.We hit them hard yesterday and we’re going to hit them hard again today.We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers. Continue reading...
A White House reporter drew attention to an "incredible quote" from House Speaker Mike Johnson regarding President Donald Trump's threats against Iran.The president threatened on social media to take control of Kharg Island and seize Iran's oil and gas markets, which would require the deployment of ground troops, but the Louisiana Republican dismissed his comments as a negotiating tactic."I think he's communicating directly with our adversaries over there," Johnson told reporters. "I would not put too much stock in the details of that."Associated Press correspondent Seung Min Kim was flabbergasted by the House speaker's statement."It's kind of an incredible quote because, you know, we are supposed to take the president of the United States' word, especially when he makes these really serious threats in an ongoing war," Kim said. "But what the president or what, sorry, what the speaker seems to be signaling, and we should note that the speaker has met with the president several times this week to talk about other issues, but I'm sure the issue of the war came up.""He's signaling that this is sort of this, you know, three-dimensional chess negotiation play," she added.Invading the Persian Gulf island would represent a major escalation in the war, and the president acknowledged the political risk in a phone call Thursday morning to "Fox & Friends.""We do need to underscore how serious of a move that would be, particularly on Kharg Island, because if, you know, aside from the reason why it's such a critical target, obviously being where all, nearly all of the oil exports go through, it's also very close to the mainland," Kim said. "So if you do have American troops there, it makes them very vulnerable to missiles, drone, other attacks from the Iranian mainland, and that is what the president is hinting at in his Fox interview, that this is something that the Americans would not have the stomach for." - YouTube youtu.be
The UFC Freedom 250 fight night, which will be held on June 14 is being presented as a patriotic celebration to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States. But in actual fact, the date doesn’t coincide with the birth of the nation, it falls on the President’s birthday.By installing an MMA octagon on the most symbolically charged turf in American democracy, Donald Trump is doing more than celebrating a sport. He is staging a vision of power in which the head of state no longer serves the nation – he embodies it, as a champion who dominates and subdues.With his administration navigating one of the gravest international crises of his second term, Trump appears consumed by two preoccupations: his plans for a grand White House ballroom and the UFC fight event scheduled on the South Lawn for June 14th. He has compared the structure being erected – a 27-meter-high octagon called “The Claw” to the Eiffel Tower, and has suggested it might never come down.The event was deemed significant enough that according to Politico, the G7 schedule was adjusted G7 schedule was adjusted to avoid a conflict.Claiming ownership of national symbolsOrganisers have framed the event as a patriotic and apolitical celebration of American history: between bouts, the UFC plans to air segments honouring national heroes, the nation’s founding, and the 250th anniversary of the United States. Yet none of the commemorations invoked actually fall on that date. The 250th anniversary of independence will be marked on July 4 2026; the flag’s 250th anniversary comes in 2027; and the Army’s bicentennial was already observed in 2025. The only milestone that actually falls on June 14 is Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. Under the cover of national commemoration, the event functions first as a presidential birthday party – and a political and financial operation.The broadcast will air on Paramount+, whose parent company was acquired in August 2025 by David Ellison, the son of Oracle’s co-founder and a figure closely associated with Donald Trump. The audience has been carefully selected: military personnel selected by the Pentagon under specific fitness criteria will serve as the televised backdrop. Trump has personally acquired shares in TKO Holding Group, the UFC’s parent company, which he has been promoting for months. This is not a sporting event honoured by the president’s presence. It is a presidential event dressed up as an MMA gala.A long-standing fascination with combat sportsTrump has long been drawn to combat sports and the spectacle of violence – this despite having avoided military service during the Vietnam War through a diagnosis of bone spurs provided by a physician who was a family acquaintance.In the 1980s, he cultivated close ties with professional wrestling’s WWE. In 2007, he staged a scripted showdown with WWE owner Vince McMahon in an event billed as the “Battle of the Billionaires”.Professional wrestling operates according to the logic of kayfabe – a convention by which audiences are invited to engage with a narrative everyone knows to be scripted. This dynamic illuminates much about how Trump operates. He grasped early that politics worked on the same principle: he did not turn politics into spectacle, he revealed that it already was one.The UFC, however, belongs to a different register. The fights are real. Trump’s interest dates to the early 2000s, when he hosted several UFC events at his Atlantic City casinos. Dana White, the UFC’s CEO, regularly recalls the support Trump allegedly provided when the organisation was still struggling for legitimacy. This closeness is not a recent enthusiasm – it reflects a long-standing relationship with a cultural world that has become central to a significant strand of the contemporary American right.From civic hero to fighting championTo appreciate the full weight of this choice, it helps to trace how the figure of the heroic American president has evolved. From the founding era onward, presidents have frequently been associated with a form of heroism – beginning with George Washington, whose greatness derived not from force but from his willingness to relinquish power after victory. Lincoln embodied moral authority rather than military might. In the twentieth century, the president-as-hero – from Roosevelt to Eisenhower – drew legitimacy from the idea of service: suffering, sacrifice, putting the nation before oneself. The democratic hero existed to serve something larger than himself.That model began to fracture after September 11, 2001. American political rhetoric gradually displaced it with the notion of toughness – hardness, resilience, the will to dominate. The hero was no longer expected merely to serve; he was expected to win. George W. Bush landing on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit, already gestured towards this shift.
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."
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.
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.’”“And I was blown away by how cynical that was,” he admitted. “But really, I think the most interesting and most troubling element of this, well, there's a lot of troubling elements of this, is Todd Blanche,” he said of the current acting attorney general. “Todd Blanche, at the time, is the deputy AG, okay? He is ostensibly part of the Justice Department and therefore should have some sort of separation from the White House. And yet he's sitting in the Situation Room throughout this, plotting ways to shield the president of the United States from public scrutiny and legal scrutiny.”“He is not acting as a part of the Justice Department. He's acting as Trump's defense lawyer, and he's intimately involved in all the decision-making,” he observed. - YouTube youtu.be
The House refused to renew a broad surveillance authority for US intelligence agencies as the struggle intensified over President Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily place controversial housing official Bill Pulte in charge of US spy agencies.
The House of Representatives has just voted down a bill that would have extended the intelligence community's warrantless surveillance powers by three weeks.
