Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) slammed President Trump over the economy and inflation on Wednesday, saying the U.S. was “IN DECLINE.” “Unbelievable!! Here is exactly what Trump’s war on Iran, costing billions everyday, is doing to Americans. MAGA used to call this Biden inflation and scream from the rooftops over this garbage,” Greene wrote…
The U.S. military said it launched new attacks on Iran on Wednesday, with President Trump saying it's time for the regime to "pay the price." Ed O'Keefe reports.
President Donald Trump has put himself in a "weak" position in his war against Iran, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in an analysis published on Wednesday."For nine weeks, the cease-fire has let Iran dictate events in the Gulf," wrote the board. The way things have progressed, they argued, Iran itself "gets to start each 'skirmish' — shooting at U.S. forces, U.S. allies, or commercial ships — and then decide when the exchange ends," all while attacking Israel through its Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon and using the conflict there as "an excuse to stall talks with the U.S."Through all this, the board wrote, Trump has downplayed Iran's offensives, calling fire on U.S. troops "a trifle," an Iranian bombing of a Kuwaiti airport “not a big deal,” and even saying something almost identical about the Iranian downing of an Apache helicopter.Ultimately, wrote the board, "Mr. Trump limited Israel’s strikes and previewed his own in public. When the U.S. says 'proportional,' Iran hears 'weak.' Offering the regime such forward guidance signals that Mr. Trump still fears a return to war" — all of which tells Iran they have wide latitude to continue violating the ceasefire with minimal to no response from the U.S. military."Mr. Trump won’t want to hear it, but he has been dancing to Iran’s tune," the board concluded. "He will have to break from it or go down as losing the war politically despite the early military gains."This comes as the latest round of talks to resolve the war fail, and new economic data shows inflation surging again as the Strait of Hormuz and much of the world's oil shipping remain blocked.
A new report on Wednesday showed inflation rising 4.2 percent in May, marking its highest level in three years and underlining how hard the Iran war is hitting consumers. The Labor Department report is unwelcome news for President Trump and the GOP in an election year where affordability is the dominant issue. Democrats were already…
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) confronted North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Mack Traynor during his 8th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmation hearing, after Traynor repeatedly refused to directly answer who won the 2020 presidential election. When Blumenthal asked the straightforward question, Traynor claimed it was political controversy and inappropriate for a sitting judge to address, citing Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's precedent. Blumenthal pressed further, demanding Traynor state as fact who received more votes, but Traynor continued deflecting his answer. Blumenthal accused Traynor of using a scripted response dictated by the White House, arguing he was protecting the President's election lie by refusing to acknowledge a simple fact. Blumenthal said, "Everybody in this room knows the answer. You're unwilling to state it." The exchange highlighted Trump-nominated judges' coordinated avoidance of confirming basic electoral facts during Senate confirmation hearings.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.
The Wall Street Journal is arguing that one detail matches its reporting about President Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein.In a new legal filing, lawyers for Dow Jones, the company that owns the Wall Street Journal, argued that Trump "cannot" dispute that a signature appearing on a typewritten note and a sketch of a naked woman sent to Epstein resembles his own.Trump sued the Wall Street Journal over an article about a book of letters compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. He alleged that the paper defamed him by noting that the letter and sketch bear his signature. Earlier this year, a court accepted the Journal's motion to dismiss because Trump couldn't prove actual malice in the article. Trump was able to revive a defamation claim, but Dow Jones's lawyers are again seeking to dismiss Trump's lawsuit in their new legal filing.The defense lawyers are telling the court to throw out Trump's lawsuit because "the article is true." After the Journal reviewed the letter and sketch with Trump's signature, Epstein's estate released the "Birthday Book" to the House Oversight Committee in September."The article is true because the description of the letter 'bearing Trump's name' in the article is an entirely accurate description of the letter as it appears in the Birthday Book," the filing read. "The article states that the Journal 'reviewed' the letter before publication and described its contents in detail (which exactly match the contents of the letter released by Congress)," the legal filing argued, adding that Trump doesn't even dispute the resemblance of his signature to the one in the birthday book "because he cannot."
Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune was noticeably absent from Wednesday’s Oval Office bill signing ceremony — but top House and Senate leaders — including Speaker Mike Johnson — were present, cheering on the president. Thune did take time to talk with reporters, where he tied Wednesday’s surging inflation numbers to Trump’s Iran war.The Washington Examiner’s David Sivak asked Thune directly why he wasn’t present at the president’s signing of the $70 billion reconciliation bill to fund ICE and the Border Patrol, or to talk about FISA legislation with Trump. Thune noted that Speaker Johnson is “down there anyway” and that he and Johnson “talk regularly,” Sivak reported. Thune appeared to suggest that there might not have been an invitation, adding, “I don’t know that we got asked, but I’ve got stuff going on here, as you know.”Thune spelled out the inflation connection to reporters, as Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio reported. “The sooner we get the situation in Iran stabilized, the Strait [of Hormuz] opened up, those [inflation] numbers will trend in a better direction,” he said. “But obviously right now there are important national security objectives we’re trying to achieve.”“The American people realize that if we’re heading in the right direction and the trendlines are good and the confidence is good long-term — which I [think] it will be because of all the other things we’ve done on the economy — then obviously people will start to see improvement,” he also said. “It may not happen overnight, but it will. But at least for now, we’ve got to do everything we can to keep the pressure on [in] getting the situation in the Middle East resolved.”Getting the situation in Iran resolved was not how President Trump appeared to approach Iran on Wednesday. “Iran’s Military is a complete and total mess,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore – They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action. The Bully of the Middle East is dead!!! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”In that Oval Office meeting, Trump also slammed Iran, saying that the U.S. would hit Iran hard again on Wednesday, and insisted the Iranian government is “playing us for suckers.”Thune has distanced himself from the president over time, refusing his repeated demands to pass the controversial SAVE America Act — legislation some call voter suppression — to kill the filibuster, and to fire the Senate parliamentarian. He has also opposed Trump’s intelligence nominee. Thune tried to persuade Trump to back Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), but the president endorsed Ken Paxton instead — and Paxton went on to defeat Cornyn in the May primary runoff.