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GOP furor over Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund sinks Senate budget reconciliation bill

May 21, 2026Center

Senate Republicans blasted acting Attorney General Todd Blanche Thursday over the Trump administration’s proposal to set up a $1.8 billion fund to compensate MAGA allies prosecuted by the Justice Department and made it clear that a budget reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement won’t move until their concerns are resolved. GOP senators pressed Blanche during…

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'People are scared': MAGA senator lashes out at Trump over 'hair trigger' tensions

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'People are scared': MAGA senator lashes out at Trump over 'hair trigger' tensions

A MAGA Senator took to the airwaves to call out President Donald Trump for hypocrisy. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) admitted on "Face the Nation" Sunday that he was not "comfortable" with Trump's newly announced and already problem-laden nuclear deal."We're bombing a country to keep'm from getting a nuclear weapon," said Kennedy. "But we're signing a deal with another country...that the world perceives as possibly, someday leading to a nuclear weapon."The countries, of course, are Iran — which Trump ostensibly started to dismantle their nuclear program — and Saudia Arabia, the nation Trump wants to allow to enrich uranium.The U.S. struck the deal Wednesday but hit a snag over the Saudi government's relationship with Israel. Less than 24 hours after announcing the deal, Trump added a condition that the Saudis normalize those relations. Experts warn the deal could trigger a cascade of nuclear ambitions across the Middle East, The Wall Street Journal has reported, and critics note the Saudis gave Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner's private equity firm $2 billion."Face the Nation" host Margaret Brennan noted Sunday that any deal would have to be approved by Congress, which prompted Kennedy to list off his concerns. "The world's on a hair trigger," Kennedy said. "The world looks at what's going on in Ukraine, the Middle East, the world looks at America's relationship now with Europe."He added, "People are scared." The Louisiana lawmaker is hardly the first U.S. senator to vent frustration with Trump this week. White House demands that Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD) do more to pass the SAVE America Act — a non-citizen voting ban critics describe as redundant and dystopian — have infuriated GOP members of the Senate. "Instead of pointing the finger at Republicans," Thune said, "they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats."Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) added, "I have 1000 percent confidence in Thune, and anybody in the White House who thinks he's not a good leader isn't qualified for their job.""This idea that he can just command members of the Republican conference to get in line is just a fantasy," responded Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). “It’s creating a circular firing squad for Republicans.”Kennedy himself added, “John can’t put a gun to people’s heads."

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Sen. Kennedy says Trump likes daily strikes on Iran: ‘Sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys’

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Sen. Kennedy says Trump likes daily strikes on Iran: ‘Sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys’

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Sunday said President Trump likes the daily strikes on Iran, which paused going into the weekend after nearly two straight weeks of attacks on Iranian infrastructure. “I think we ought to continue the blockade and starve them out,” Kennedy said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan. “I…

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Biographer says Melania legal battle exposes 'Trump law in a nutshell'

Alternet.org

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Biographer says Melania legal battle exposes 'Trump law in a nutshell'

First Lady Melania Trump is engaged in an ongoing legal spat with an outspoken former biographer of her husband, and according to said author, her approach has "Trump law in a nutshell" and exposed how the family uses courts to "harass and intimidate" their enemies.Michael Wolff, the longtime author and reporter who has extensively covered the political career of President Donald Trump, filed an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the first lady earlier this year, after she herself threatened to sue him over his comments about her connections to Jeffrey Epstein. In May, Trump-appointed New York District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil dismissed Wolff's suit, ruling that he would have to wait for an actual defamation suit from Melania Trump before filing his own response.Later still, Vyskocil warned the first lady against plans to seek sanctions against Wolff's legal team and an effort to force them to pay her legal fees, explaining that the bar for such a motion was high and urging her to take matters outside of the legal system."I wonder if it’s in the interest of the parties to continue litigating in this court," she said. "I think sometimes people get so caught up in the fervor of the moment that they don’t really stop and think about the cost-benefit analysis of motions that are contemplated and the burden you put a court to."Nevertheless, this past week, the first lady's team filed a motion for sanctions against Wolff, moving forward with her plan to seek payment. “Plaintiff filed a patently meritless lawsuit and used it to harass Mrs. Trump in public,” the motion read. “Plaintiff and his counsel asserted a legally frivolous claim, propped it up with factual contentions that lacked any evidentiary support, and used them to run a political and commercial campaign. They should pay for Mrs. Trump’s fees and expenses incurred for the process they abused.”During the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," the author touched on this latest development in his legal dispute with Melania Trump, saying that one might have expected that she and her lawyers "would have their tail between their legs," after Vyskocil's warning, "But instead, they actually have gone through."In doing so, Wolff explained, the first lady has exposed the whole playbook behind her husband's approach to legal warfare."And, of course, nobody knows what’s gonna happen there," Wolff said. "But the larger point is that they will have added months and months and months to the legal calendar... and countless expense. So that is... Trump law in a nutshell—delay, harass, intimidate, exhaust, and avoid... testifying at all costs."Elsewhere in the episode, Wolff claimed that his lawsuit had caught everyone in the White House off-guard, citing conversations with a source inside the administration. His success raising $837,000 for the legal battle via GoFundMe also allegedly scared "the bejesus out of... Melania and her lawyers."

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'Exhausted' Graham complained before death that GOP colleagues wouldn't help him: report

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'Exhausted' Graham complained before death that GOP colleagues wouldn't help him: report

A "disheveled and exhausted" Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was heard complaining before he died that his GOP colleagues wouldn't help him, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.The new revelations come from documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who had “been granted extensive access to Graham since 2023” for a documentary he was filming about the South Carolina Republican, per the Journal. Holder revealed a number of new details about Graham to the Journal, chief among them being what occupied Graham’s mind in his final weeks.“Graham frequently looked tired, prompting Holder to ask if he was doing OK,” the Journal’s report reads.“Graham would say he didn’t have time to sleep because he needed to finish off the Iranian regime; sort out a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine; and establish ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel by the end of the year," the report stated. "At one point, when Graham looked ‘absolutely disheveled and exhausted,’ Holder said, the senator complained that others weren’t helping him.”Graham had long been a proponent of U.S. military action against Iran, and played an outsized role in pushing President Donald Trump to approve a more aggressive posture against Tehran. In a newly published video filmed by Holder of Graham’s reaction to the U.S. attacks on Iran in late February, Graham could be seen struggling to contain his excitement.“Look what we’ve done here," Graham could be heard saying. "I almost cried."Holder told the Journal the GOP senator remained dedicated to achieving his self-imposed goal of toppling Iran, among other things, despite a growing weariness. Holder told the Journal, “He’d say, ‘There’s no way I can die yet.'"🇺🇸🇮🇷 Unreleased documentary footage of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham reveals his years-long effort to push for regime change in Iran and lobby President Trump to expand U.S. military action against Iran, according to WSJ.The footage shows Graham speaking candidly with world… pic.twitter.com/xIb8gRWS1J— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) July 26, 2026

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'Deadly mistakes': Trump border czar gets pummeled on-air for shrugging ICE answers

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'Deadly mistakes': Trump border czar gets pummeled on-air for shrugging ICE answers

A high-ranking official in President Donald Trump's administration was subjected to ridicule and scorn Sunday after he struggled to answer basic questions.CNN anchor Dana Bash asked White House Border Czar Tom Homan about Immigration Control and Enforcement officers in Texas and Maine who fatally shot unarmed fathers this month. "Do you know specifically what happened to the officers involved in the Texas and Maine shootings?" Bash asked. "Are they on administrative leave?""I don't know, specifically," he said. "The policy would be to put them on administrative leave."Bash pressed, "But as border czar, you don't know for sure if they have been?"Homan shrugged and said, "No."Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was killed during a traffic stop in Texas on July 7 — FBI claims that he had drugs in his car were later disproved.Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero, 25, was fatally shot in Maine on July 13 by an ICE agent identified in reports as David Brouillette, an Army veteran whose two ex-wives have accused him of abuse.Bash quizzed Homan on this point. "One of the ICE officers connected to the fatal shooting in Maine was accused of abuse by two ex-wives…Should someone with those issues be an ICE agent?" asked Bash.Homan replied, "No, if those are facts, I don't think he should have ever cleared vetting."Homan's admissions of ignorance stunned onlookers who expected greater detail from an official who oversees Trump's mass deportation initiative."If Tom Homan doesn't know he should be fired on the spot," replied X user Craig Carl. "This is a blatant lie or gross incompetence.""ICE has vetting?" political commentator Mike Bates quipped. "Who knew!""Feckless lying stupid sack of s---," fumed Lizzie Cochrane.Even Bash joined in on the bashing, as video shows, when Homan declared, "I wouldn't say that mistakes were made.""We've seen with our own eyes that mistakes were made," she said. "Deadly mistakes were made. At least 5 of them."

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GOP strategist: Democrats are destroying themselves

Alternet.org

2 hours ago

GOP strategist: Democrats are destroying themselves

President Donald Trump is so weak that political experts anticipate potentially Democrats flipping the House of Representatives, Senate or both — and yet an anti-Trump Republican strategist warns they may be undone by incompetence at the top of their organization. “The Democratic National Committee is failing every person reading these words,” Steve Schmidt, who advised President George W. Bush, wrote for his Substack on Sunday. “You should be very angry about it because that failure is neither providential nor pre-ordained. It’s a choice — like Trump — and it’s killing the United States of America.”Schmidt reviewed the party’s financial travails, writing that “the MAGA Republicans have more than $128.5 million cash on hand compared to the Democratic National Committee, which is more than $2 million in debt. It’s also on track to spend exponentially more money on politics in Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Marianas, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa than across Mississippi and Louisiana, both of which have great US Senate candidates.”He added, “It’s unacceptable. The DNC is terribly led by Chairman Ken Martin. A sign of the political ineptitude of both [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer and [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries is their inability to deal with what must be dealt with.”He went on to quote The New York Times story that shed light on these travails. The report found that when it came to Democrats’ troubles “at the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members. Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs.”The Times added, “Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department.”Schmidt condemned Martin’s reported behavior, writing that “personally, I’m sick of the tolerance for losing and the Democratic Party mediocrities, careerists and hustlers who can’t, won’t, and will never stop losing because deep down they’re simply doing what they’re good at: losing.”He continued, “The problem is that we’re losing the country because it isn’t being properly defended by the institution that’s built to stand up to MAGA and be for something better. It’s one of the foremost tragedies of this whole era. It’s deeply true and very real.”AlterNet previously reported on criticisms of Martin’s performance. In June anonymous high-ranking DNC sources told AlterNet that Martin has failed to prepare for Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting, mishandled releasing an autopsy of its failed 2024 presidential campaign and refused to adequately address threats to voting security on electronic machines, even though it admitted that "any assessment of the state of technology in the Democratic party would be incomplete without an acknowledgement that comprehensive data warehouses like Phoenix represent an irresistible target for hackers and other bad actors seeking to undermine the integrity of the modern political process."

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Sanders says he does not regret supporting Graham Platner in Maine Senate race

The Hill News

2 hours ago

Sanders says he does not regret supporting Graham Platner in Maine Senate race

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday said he did not regret supporting former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner (D) after a former girlfriend’s accusations of sexual assault came to light and led the progressive candidate to drop his bid. CBS News’s Margaret Brennan asked Sanders about his support for Platner on Sunday’s “Face the Nation,”…

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Top NYT journo calls on reporters to ‘rethink’ White House Correspondents Dinner after Trump dares to clap back

New York Post

3 hours ago

Top NYT journo calls on reporters to ‘rethink’ White House Correspondents Dinner after Trump dares to clap back

During the ritzy WHCD redo Friday, the back-patting association doled out awards to reporters for stories fiercely critical of Trump, including his past association with late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein

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GOP furor over Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund sinks Senate budget reconciliation bill

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GOP furor over Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund sinks Senate budget reconciliation bill

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