Republicans Cancel Votes Amid Trump’s ‘Anti-Weaponization’ Fund

Trump admin announces green card applicants must leave US and apply from home country

Maye Musk reacted by recounting her own lengthy green card process as a Canadian immigrant.

Transcript: Trump in Visible Panic after Truly Brutal Fox Poll Hits

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 22 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.Donald Trump just got hit with an absolutely crushing poll from Fox News. Disapproval of Trump on the economy is at a new high, and his ratings on inflation are simply awful. This includes among Republicans. In that context, Trump’s rambling to reporters Thursday was revealing. He again urged Republicans to pass draconian voter suppression legislation, but he accidentally admitted that this is about preventing Democrats from winning elections. And on top of all that, Republicans are revolting against Trump in a fresh way. Things are really falling apart for him. Can we sustain this through election day?We’re talking to MS NOW opinion editor James Downie, who has a good piece laying out how Trump is hitting all kinds of historic lows. James, nice to have you on.James Downie: Great to be back.Sargent: So let’s start with Trump’s ramblings to reporters. He brought up the SAVE Act, which is a vile piece of voter suppression legislation that would probably disenfranchise millions of people, and then said that Democrats are trying to block it. Listen.Donald Trump (voiceover): The Democrats don’t want to pass. Now, I’ll tell you what, the Democrat voters do want to pass, 87 percent. But the Democrat politicians don’t want to pass. And the reason is they’d never be elected again. Because with their policy of open borders, transgender for everyone—I call it transgender mutilization of your children for everybody—men playing in women’s sports, all of the stuff that they do, high taxes. They want a tax hike …Sargent: It’s complete nonsense that Democratic voters want to pass the SAVE Act. But note how Trump openly says there that passing it would mean Democrats never win another election. He actually says straight out that his voter suppression bill would lead to one-party rule in the GOP’s favor and that this would be good. Your reaction to that, James?Downie: The clip practically speaks for itself. From the beginning of this presidency, but particularly in the last couple of months, we’ve seen, from the so-called weaponization fund to the arch to all sorts of efforts at self-enrichment, this is a man who more than ever wants to avoid accountability. And the only way to do that is to stay in power forever. The fact that he is pushing this SAVE Act—versus, say, a bill to help the economy or to bring down gas prices by ending the war with Iran—shows that he isn’t really interested in winning voters over in any sort of regular, normal way. He’d rather cheat and he’d rather rig the election. Sargent: Everything is about his monuments to himself and about preventing accountability for those things. That’s where we are.Literally everything Trump talks about, pretty much all the time, is the arch, the ballroom. Now he’s got this new $1.8 billion slush fund that he’s going to use to reward allies. That’s got to be lumped in with voter suppression as yet another way to try and corruptly rig the system.Downie: Absolutely. The slush fund can be seen as—and my colleague Zeeshan Aleem at MS NOW has written about this—not only rewarding past insurrection attempts, but a promise to people who are considering insurrection attempts in the future that this is a way you can get money, that there will be something there for you on the other side of it.Sargent: Totally. This week’s Fox News poll is really something else. Trump’s approval among registered voters on the economy is 29 percent; 71 percent disapprove. These numbers have risen substantially in recent months. James, this is looking like something pretty close to total collapse on the economy, wouldn’t you say?Downie: Absolutely. Not just on the economy, although that is the most outstanding number—but total collapse in general. You see a big movement, particularly on the economy, in the last two to three months as gas prices have spiked because of the Iran war. It’s brought down his opinion polls in general. We’re seeing more and more movement toward the mid-thirties or even low thirties that is traditionally the floor for any president. It takes a lot of effort to reach those numbers—a lot of almost deliberate incompetence.Sargent: I want to read a couple more numbers here. On foreign policy, he’s at 38 percent to 62 percent. On inflation, he’s at 24 percent to 76 percent. Seventy-six percent—that’s more than three-quarters of the country disapproving of his handling of the single most important issue to voters right now. He’s even crept underwater on border security as well, which was literally the one thing where he was staying above water. He’s now underwater on that as well. And this is in a Fox News poll. I was struck by the write-up.

Tulsi Gabbard Resigns as Trump's Director of National Intelligence

Gabbard cited her husband's cancer diagnosis, but differed with others in the Administration on Iran.

'It's a joke': Expert warns grand jury misconduct has become routine under Trump DOJ

Misconduct in front of grand juries is now routine for the Department of Justice under Trump, warned a legal expert."Did grand jury abuses happen? Yes, but very, very rarely," Michael Popok said about previous administrations during the latest episode of his podcast, Legal AF. "But now, when you hollow out the Department of Justice, when tens of thousands of people and your brain drain happened, and they're not really replaced with anybody of anywhere close to competency...now, it's a joke." Popok was discussing allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the DOJ's botched case against the "Broadview Six," a group of protesters who were federally charged in 2025 after demonstrating outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility. On Thursday, Judge April Perry called out DOJ prosecutors for prosecutorial misconduct. A U.S. Attorney dropped the charges against the Broadview Six later that day, and, on Friday, the former lead prosecutor for the case, Sheri Macklenburg, was dismissed from a temporary role with the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It's remarkable," Popok said. "The DOJ had to confess to Judge Perry that there was an extraordinary amount of grand jury misconduct by their own prosecutor." Popok said that even though grand jury transcripts would make "your eyes pop out of your head," it wasn't "the first time we've heard about a prosecutor who misled a grand jury and got caught." He went on to explain, alongside his guest, journalist Adam Klasfeld, that the other obvious example is DOJ prosecutor Lindsey Halligan's handling of a criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey. In November, a federal magistrate judge said "government misconduct" may have tainted Halligan's effort to bring an indictment against Comey, according to reporting by Politico. Klasfeld noted that "the full grand jury didn't see the final indictment." "When I look at the Broadview Six, the party that's making a mockery of the justice system here is the Trump Justice Department," Klasfeld said. "I haven't seen anything like this, and to Michael's point, this isn't the first time it happened in terms of funny business before a grand jury." Popok explained, "It's just a reflection that they're out of gas, and led by a feckless attorney general."The Popok Pop Up: Breaking; Joined by Adam Klasfeld (All Rise News) by Legal AFA recording from Legal AF's live videoRead on Substack

DOJ prosecutor accused of botching anti-ICE protest case ousted by Dem senator

A senator dismissed a Department of Justice prosecutor who led a botched case against six protesters and is now being accused of misconduct, according to new reports. Sheri Mecklenburg is a 20-year veteran DOJ prosecutor, according to Talking Points Memo reporter Josh Marshall. She led the case against the "Broadview Six," a group of protesters who were federally charged after demonstrating in front of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Illinois last year. In February, Mecklenburg suddenly withdrew from the case and took on a temporary assignment with the criminal justice team for Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, according to reporting by NOTUS. "She made no mention that she'd be leaving in a court hearing earlier in Feb. There was really no explanation for the suddenness of the move. Or at least the lack of heads up," Marshall explained in a post on Bluesky. "At the time I figured since the case seemed like such a loser maybe she just wanted out." Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced on Friday that Mecklenburg was dismissed from that role, according to NOTUS and Talking Points Memo. The decision comes on the heels of courtroom drama related to the Broadview Six case. On Thursday, Judge April Perry ordered DOJ prosecutors to appear in court to explain what she believed was misconduct in how they sought an indictment from a grand jury, and the case came to a swift and sudden end shortly after when a U.S. Attorney dropped all charges days before a trial was set to begin.Perry said she had "never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior" that were on display by DOJ prosecutors, including Mecklenburg, before a grand jury in 2025. According to Marshall's Thursday post on Bluesky, "if you look at the hearing transcript today most or all the alleged misconduct was hers."

The New York Times Continues to Defend Its Despicable Anti-Israel Op-Ed

Trump wants new Fed chair to be 'totally independent'

The US president piled major pressure on Kevin Warsh's predecessor to cut interest rates.

Top Republican warns Trump against making a deal with Iran: 'Finish the job'

Sen. Roger Wicker publicly warns Trump against pursuing a weak Iran deal, urging the president to continue military pressure on Tehran's regime.