South Carolina Senate blocks redistricting plan in blow to Trump
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South Carolina state senators voted Tuesday against a plan to advance a new congressional map, putting a pin in the state’s GOP-led redistricting push amid the national back-and-forth ahead of the midterms. “I can no longer support the passage of this bill for one simple reason: South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today,”…
President Donald Trump lashed out at a handful of lawmakers whom he described as "scum" on Tuesday over their efforts to take the lead on regulating prediction markets. In a new Truth Social post, Trump called out Chris Christie, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for their efforts to create state laws surrounding prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. Trump claimed in the post that the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, an independent agency that regulates certain financial markets that Trump hollowed out during his second term, needs to maintain regulatory control over prediction markets. "It is critically important that the CFTC’s exclusive authority over Prediction Markets is maintained, and that they will thrive," Trump wrote. "Under my leadership, we are setting 'rules of the road' that are the Gold Standard for the States. We cannot have SCUM like Chris Christie, Letitia James, Tim Walz, and JB Pritzker setting the rules! Other Countries are after this new form of Financial Market, and we want to remain at the top." "Likewise, and even more importantly, where we are currently the Crypto (Bitcoin, etc.) Capital of the World, other Countries are trying diligently to replace us in that capacity, but we won’t let that happen," he added. "It is a major Industry, and we must protect it. Mike Selig, CFTC Chairman, and respected by all, is doing a great job. Thank you Mike!"During Trump's second term, several prediction markets with ties to his family have been approved. For instance, the CFTC approved Polymarket after it received an investment from 1789 Capital, a company partly owned by Donald Trump Jr, Seeking Alpha reported. The agency also approved an offshoot of Gemini that was founded by Donald Trump Jr. and Trump's other son, Eric Trump, according to the report.
Before she even joined the Trump administration as Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard was set up to fail, an analyst reported on Tuesday.Secret Pentagon memos that have now been made public show just what was happening behind the scenes in the years leading up to the second Trump administration, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote in a Substack post published Tuesday.Gabbard has cited her husband's cancer diagnosis as her reason for her pending departure — but there is more to it, Klippenstein explained. "She oversaw her agency’s National Counterterrorism Center move into purely domestic matters (contrary to its original design)," Klippenstein wrote. "The intelligence budget went up. The surveillance state tightened its grip on the American people, with Gabbard presiding over an intelligence community striking up alliances with private companies, including social media giants.""The real story is one of defeat. It’s the story of an intelligence chief discovering she ran nothing, and a national security system that strangles reform with such ease you almost have to respect it," Klippenstein explained.What happened leading up to Gabbard's role, which was created in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, revealed that "Congress is responsible" for altering the job and its reach."Gabbard’s title — Director of National Intelligence — was created in response to public outrage over the intelligence community’s failure to prevent 9/11. But because the member agencies (CIA, FBI, etc.) did not want to have to answer to a higher authority, the position was rendered so toothless and symbolic that one former DNI himself even called the position 'neutered,'" Klippenstein wrote.Donald Rumsfeld also played a role, and in 2004 he began opposing the bill authored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) to establish a "single, overarching intelligence boss with actual authority over the entire community.""Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney wanted nothing to do with a new official who could touch the intelligence budget of the Pentagon, which controls four of the five largest U.S. intelligence agencies," Klippenstein wrote. "House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, doing Rumsfeld’s bidding, immediately held up the committee’s final report to stall the bill."And in a private memo to President George W. Bush, written by Rumsfeld, "dripping with contempt," he described his view on the new position. "Rumsfeld warned the president that giving the new intelligence director 'full budget authority' — the exact position Bush had publicly endorsed to appease voters — would create 'a train wreck,'" Klippenstein wrote. "Instead, Rumsfeld proposed a precise blueprint for the toothless agency. The new director’s 'importance and value,' Rumsfeld wrote, 'is not as a collector or producer of intelligence — or as a super CIA director — but rather as the leader of the intelligence community.'"Ultimately, Collins and Lieberman retreated on pushing their bill forward."This episode shows what the national security world thinks of Congress — that they’re a joke — and how the security apparatus effortlessly undermines the Constitution’s balance of powers. Nowhere does Collins express an ounce of frustration, because Congress has completely internalized its role as the ball-gag wearing gimp in Pulp Fiction," Klippenstein wrote.Years later, the decisions left a lasting impression."One could make the mistake of saying that the main culprit here was pitbull Rumsfeld, who was protecting his turf, but the major actor wasn’t a person or an agency," Klippenstein wrote. "It was 'national security,' the mindset itself, and the religion behind it. The belief that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the generals, and the military brass know best. It was able to defy the will of the people, the president, and the Congress.""Tulsi Gabbard never had a chance," Klippenstein added.
The Trump administration is proposing a rule requiring federal workers to sign nondisclosure agreements, according to a draft notice the Office of Personnel Management posted Tuesday.“OPM believes that a governmentwide NDA form will promote consistency across Government, better protect confidential information, and better inform Federal employees of their rights and obligations regarding confidential information,” says the notice, which was posted to the Federal Register
Texas Republicans headed to the polls Tuesday in a make-or-break Senate runoff — and for at least one voter, President Donald Trump's endorsement didn't seal the deal. It backfired.CNN caught up with two Republican voters outside a Plano polling location on Election Day, and their reactions to Trump's last-minute backing of Attorney General Ken Paxton told two very different stories about the state of the GOP.The first voter said Trump's endorsement was the deciding factor — pushing him away from Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, and toward Paxton. "I was torn because I was gonna go with Cornyn," he said. "But when Trump backed [Paxton] — I like who he backs."The second voter went the other way entirely."I made one vote, and that was for Cornyn," he told CNN's Arlette Saenz. "Primarily because he's not supported by Trump."When Saenz pressed him, he didn't mince words. "I think he's ruined my Republican party," he said of Trump. "I think he's divided America. I think he's bad news. And I still lean Republican, so I voted for Cornyn."NOTUS White House reporter Jasmine Wright, appearing on CNN, said the exchange captured a split that's playing out statewide. "You're literally seeing the 80-20, 70-30 split that we see represented in polling," she said, adding that the White House is banking on the majority holding. "This question that we continue to ask — whether or not Trump still holds a vice grip on the Republican Party — continues to show us yes, yes, and yes."Trump amplified that grip Tuesday morning, resharing a post urging Texans to "Get the RINOs out now" while calling Paxton the country's best attorney general.Cornyn, meanwhile, made his closing argument on Fox News, hammering Paxton's scandal-ridden record. "Texans have learned that you can't trust what Paxton says," he said, citing Paxton's impeachment by a Republican-led House and a $6.6 million whistleblower judgment against him.The winner faces Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in November. Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.
Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson warned on Tuesday that President Donald Trump's health has been declining and claimed that White House insiders have been trying to hide it.In his Substack post on Tuesday, Wilson responded to Trump's scheduled visit to Walter Reed Medical Center — his third visit in the last 13 months of his second term in office. The founder of the anti-Trump organization The Lincoln Project identified that Trump's hospital visit could signal what's ahead, despite Trump's comments that his visit with doctors went "perfectly.""This is the most dishonest White House about the President’s physical condition since Edith Wilson was forging her stricken husband’s signature behind the curtains in 1919," Wilson wrote. "The parallel is not casual. The memos, the 'excellent health,' the 'sharpest president in American history,' the careful staging…the cover-up of Trump’s diminished physical and mental capacity isn’t coming.""The cover-up is already running. Karoline Leavitt, Stephen Chung, and the rest of the White House noise machine have lied to the media for years about Trump’s condition, and never once been held to account," Wilson explained.Wilson also argued that the media has been "flinching" from covering the reality behind Trump's health — and that it could be only a matter of time before that changes."Genuine power doesn’t need to be advertised this loudly," Wilson wrote. "The frantic, escalating, almost pornographic self-celebration is the tell. It’s a confession in plain sight. The man building his mausoleum while he’s still alive is the man who knows he’s running out of road."And although the White House has tried to offer explanations for Trump's bruised hands, it hasn't stopped the growing questions surrounding his health."So here we are. A 79-year-old man, swollen of extremity and bruised of hand, looking like the victim of a zombie bite by denying it until he turns, shuffling between Walter Reed and a half-built ballroom nobody asked for, with an approval rating in free fall, a base finally asking quiet questions about grocery prices, a press corps too cowed to say out loud what they all know, and a clock, biological, cultural, and political, that he cannot bully into stopping," Wilson wrote."He is not coming back from this," Wilson added. "There is no third act. There is only the long, undignified, makeup-smeared decline of a man and a movement whose moment has passed, narrating itself ever more loudly into an ever emptier hall, a frowzy barfly of a man, replaying past glories that never happened and hoping you won’t notice the bad wig."
President Donald Trump scrapped a rare trip to Camp David on Tuesday after returning from a three-hour medical exam at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, with bad weather cited as the reason for the last-minute change.Trump was scheduled to travel to the presidential retreat in rural Maryland on Wednesday to hold his 12th cabinet meeting since taking office, but the White House announced the gathering would instead be held at the White House. Trump typically flies to Camp David by helicopter, making heavy rain a potential factor in grounding.The cancellation came hours after Trump posted on Truth Social that he had "just finished" his "6-month physical" at Walter Reed, adding that "Everything checked out PERFECTLY."The 79-year-old president — who turns 80 next month — spent more than three hours at the military medical center for what the White House described as preventive medical and dental checkups. It was his fourth publicly disclosed exam since returning to office.The White House did not release detailed results. Spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump "remains in excellent health" and called him "the sharpest and most accessible President in American history."Wednesday's cabinet meeting had been expected to cover economic wins, fraud task force updates, and foreign policy — but Iran was likely to dominate the agenda. The U.S. conducted strikes on targets in southern Iran late Monday, prompting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to threaten American military bases in the Middle East.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that nuclear talks with Tehran were still ongoing but could take "a few days" to finalize."The president expressed his desire to make sure he's either going to make a good deal or no deal," Rubio told reporters in India.
The race between Senator John Cornyn and his right-wing rival, Ken Paxton, has cost mountains of cash. More of it has gone to help Mr. Cornyn — but that money may not be enough.
