The Senate minority leader said Democrats would use Senate procedure to try to kill President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, forcing Republicans to vote to preserve the compensation money.
Questions about a Democrat’s character amid a sexting scandal found an incumbent senator resorting to Trump Derangement Syndrome-spin to claim a “pretty clear contrast.” Over the weekend, […]
Tina Peters—the Trump-supporting, election-denying former Colorado county election clerk found guilty of tampering with voting machines—is now free.Peters was freed from prison on Monday after Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis granted her clemency and reduced her sentence just weeks earlier. Peters was originally sentenced to nine years in prison for conspiring to publicize the voting machine records in Mesa County, turning all the cameras off while allowing fellow election denier Conan Hayes to copy, photograph, and download information in an effort to prove President Trump’s absurd claims of election fraud in 2020. Polis’s decision to cut short her sentence angered his local party, even leading them to censure him. Now, he claims that he “concluded that her sentence was simply too long.” After the backlash, he appeared on a party Zoom call with black tape over his mouth. His fellow Colorado Democrats weren’t amused then, and certainly aren’t now. “The Governor’s grant of clemency to Tina Peters is an affront to our democracy, the people of Colorado, and election officials across the country,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement. “It sends a dangerous message about accountability for those who would attack elections. Peters’ release also will embolden the election denial movement; since the grant of clemency, she has continued to spread election falsehoods and conspiracies.”Peters has become something of a political prisoner for those on the MAGA right, especially those in the deepest depths of QAnon. Trump had been pressuring Polis to release Peters for months, and Vice President JD Vance recently suggested that Peters should get a taxpayer-funded payout from Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” for those who felt wronged or targeted by the Biden administration. Meanwhile, the first thing Peters did upon her release on Monday was go on Steve Bannon’s podcast, double down on her claims of election fraud, and ask Trump for a job. NEW: Tina Peters, newly freed by Colorado Gov Jared Polis (D), begins her MAGA media tour by telling Steve Bannon that Democrats are cheating on elections and she was imprisoned as retribution for exposing voting machines that flip votes. pic.twitter.com/KCC9q22fOZ— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) June 1, 2026“I would like for President Trump—I’d like to be more involved in prison reform,” Peters said, if “that’s the way the Lord leads me.”This story has been updated.
Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte argued in her Monday column that Donald Trump’s supporters are buying an obvious health fantasy because MAGA politics function less like a normal movement and more like a cult built around a swaggering strongman. The Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday that Trump's medical records lack the specific information that physicians say they would expect from a thorough physical. In Marcotte's telling, the reason MAGA believes Trump's every claim is that it is a cult. After his physical, Trump cheered that "everything checked out perfectly.""This is almost certainly a lie, though how big of one remains to be seen. People in perfect health don’t have swollen and bruised hands or the water balloon-sized ankles Trump sometimes sports," wrote Marcotte. She noted that even Trump's staffers have exposed his health issues. They attribute any problems to Trump's chronic venous insufficiency, which Trump was diagnosed with after his legs started swelling up."There is zero reason to trust Trump or his staff; they lie constantly about nearly everything," said Marcotte. "This includes false explanations about the president’s health, because the White House keeps insisting he’s merely blinking in photos with his eyes closed, when anyone who watches the videos can see his eyes are shut for long stints of time, and not just milliseconds."She noted that normal people with good health don't have the medical problems that Trump appears to have, like the rash on his neck, the swelling in his legs and the bruising on his hands. Overnight, Trump was posing on social media again, prompting questions about whether he's having insomnia problems.But, she said that as a "life-long con artist," Trump is great at playing the "Daddy-like figure," as his supporters are desperate to satisfy the "childish impulse" to believe that he will always save them. "Trump’s political success is due almost entirely to his understanding of this, along with a willingness to lean more fully into the role of cult leader beyond what even [Ronald] Reagan or [George W.] Bush were capable of," wrote Marcotte.Marcotte closed by acknowledging that past presidents had huge egos, but Trump's level of narcissism and ignorance of history "allows him to half-convince himself that he’s a great man. This is certainly why he picked the GOP over the Democratic Party when he decided to run for office. A lifelong con artist, Trump saw that the Republican Party was a sea of marks who would offer themselves up for exploitation forever, as long as he was willing to pretend to be the almighty prophet-leader they craved."
The AI company behind Claude is set to offer the public shares of stock sometime this year.
President Trump announced on Monday that he spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu and Hezbollah leaders to enforce a ceasefire as fighting between the two stalls US negotiations with Iran. As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, Iran suspended talks with the US amid Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon. The post JUST IN: Trump Says He Spoke With Netanyahu and Hezbollah to End Fighting as Iran Talks Stall appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Jared Kushner's luxury coastal resort project in Albania was under investigation by the country's anti-corruption prosecutors amid growing protests against the development, Politico reported on Monday.President Donald Trump's son-in-law is the head of Affinity Partners, a private equity firm behind a project slated to include 10,000 hotel rooms located "on the uninhabited Adriatic island of Sazan and several hundred hectares of the Vjosa-Narta protected landscape, a sensitive coastal wetland area home to flamingos, seals and sea turtle nesting sites," according to Politico. Albania's special anti-corruption prosecution office, SPAK, said it had launched a probe into the change in land ownership in 2024, as questions have been raised about the land's protected status.Kushner is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and has a multi-billion dollar real estate portfolio. He has been serving as the president's special envoy for peace and has been involved in negotiations involving Iran, Gaza and the war in Ukraine, which has raised eyebrows among critics over potential conflicts of interest.Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has confirmed to Politico that the negotiations around the project were ongoing. He has "denied that the project encroaches on a protected wildlife reserve and said that the final proposal has yet to be submitted and the environmental study is not complete."Protests have broken out in the country over the project since May, with people calling for the project to be halted and to protect the area. Activists have also called for the prime minister to resign.Some of the demonstrations have become violent."Footage emerged — after protests Saturday — of private security guards appearing to assault and then drag a protester along a cliff, while threatening other demonstrators who attempted to remove fences and halt construction," Politico reported.
A prominent economist has calculated the overall cost of President Donald Trump’s Iran war on American consumers, boiled it down to how much it is costing each U.S. household, and is issuing a warning on the economy.Dr. Mark Zandi is the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics and the co-founder of Economy.com. He puts the total cost of Trump’s war at $100 billion — a conservative estimate to some — which amounts to about $750 per household so far. That $100 billion includes “the additional U.S. military costs and the higher energy and other prices resulting from the war,” says Zandi, who calls it a “big economic blow.” Last week, Zandi told CNBC that if prices stay roughly the same, and the war drags on to a full year, the total cost will jump to about $2,000 for each U.S. household.He warns that while Trump’s “deficit-financed tax cuts have cushioned it” so far, as of the middle of last month, “the bigger tax refunds Americans have received this year no longer cover the higher costs of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel caused by the war.” Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, on May 19 reported that “Americans will be spending $2 billion more on gasoline over the four day Memorial Day weekend compared to a year ago, according to GasBuddy estimates, or roughly $22 million more every hour.”Looking at the “hard-pressed middle and lower-income households,” Zandi found that the financial pressure is “mounting quickly.”He notes that the U.S. consumer’s savings rate is now “about as low as it ever goes,” and warns that “unless the war ends soon and energy prices come down,” Americans “will have little choice but to rein in their spending, weighing further on the already sagging economy.” Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, told CNBC that consumers “are increasingly facing an income squeeze, which is forcing them to use savings, credit and wealth to sustain their spending patterns.”The Trump White House over the weekend offered a different take.Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters that “People are spending more on gas, but they’re also spending more on everything else — not just groceries, but restaurants and so on,” MS NOW reported. “I think that that’s a sign that you would see when people are optimistic about the future.”
New York mayor refused to attend as other Democrats drew rebukes for marching with Israel’s far-right finance ministerAs they’ve done for decades, prominent members of the Democratic party establishment marched on Sunday in New York City’s annual Israel Day parade. Perhaps more noteworthy, however, was who was missing.Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, refused to attend, citing his opposition to the Israeli government, which he has accused of committing genocide in Gaza. Continue reading...