The following is the full transcript of an interview with Sen. Bill Cassidy that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on June 28, 2026. This interview was conducted on June 25, 2026.
President Trump railed against Monday's Supreme Court ruling that allows states to keep counting ballots after Election Day and urged Congress to pass his voter ID legislation that would severely restrict mail-in ballots.
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) was mocked online Monday after he told Newsmax that the housing bill, which aims to increase home ownership and home supply for Americans, left him "spooked." Fine was speaking to the conservative news outlet as the bill was expected to be on President Donald Trump's desk. It's unclear whether the president will sign the bipartisan bill, which he declined to sign last week, saying he would withhold his signature until Republicans passed his elections legislation, the SAVE America Act."My issue was if Elizabeth Warren thinks a bill is great, then it probably isn't," Fine said. "The enthusiasm Democrats had for this bill got me spooked. And I didn't come to Washington to work with Democrats. I came to Washington to beat them."Social media users responded to Fine's comments."This is the Republican Party in a nutshell. Even when a bill is good, they won't support it because it'd mean working with Democrats—and their lunatic base would be furious about it," writer and podcaster Hemant Mehta wrote on X."Perfect encapsulation of how government is broken. Lawmaker votes against something simply because the other side was enthusiastic about it. Did he even read it? Instead of being 'spooked,' why not read it and decide the merits for yourself? Nope. Instead you govern off vibes," radio and television host Rob Guerrera wrote on X."This is insane. To them it’s just a matter of thwarting any Democrat supported plan, not helping their constituents," Holly Gaye, political commentator and marketing director, wrote on Bluesky."Can he read?" Guha Krishnamurthi, professor of law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, wrote on Bluesky.This is the Republican Party in a nutshell. Even when a bill is good, they won't support it because it'd mean working with Democrats—and their lunatic base would be furious about it. https://t.co/SyOwDXbH6x— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) June 29, 2026
The Supreme Court has refused to hear Donald Trump's appeal of a $5 million verdict that found him liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of author E. Jean Carroll.
Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) has sent a direct and forceful letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding swift action to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) racket for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian nationals now that the Supreme Court has cleared the path in Mullin v. The post Sen. Eric Schmitt Calls on DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin to ‘Move Fast’ and Deport Hundreds of Thousands Under TPS appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are in "a race against time," according to The Hill, as they face "bleak" odds of addressing one of voters' biggest concerns ahead of the midterm races.The cost of living and general economic affordability remain the most pressing issues for voters this year, and numerous polls have indicated that a significant number of them blame Trump directly for the current state of affairs, particularly the problem of runaway inflation. In the face of his mounting unpopularity, the GOP has been staring down increasingly worse midterm odds and seems poised to lose one or both of its congressional majorities to Democrats in November.According to a Monday morning report from The Hill, Trump and his party are desperately "hoping that inflation can be bent downward in time to revive their chances in November’s midterm elections," but their outlook is not strong."New data released late last week on personal consumption expenditures (PCE) showed inflation above 4 percent," the outlet explained. "Even excluding food and gas costs, so-called core inflation was at 3.4 percent for the year ending in May. This, in turn, makes an imminent reduction in interest rates by the Federal Reserve much less likely — despite Trump’s clamoring for it."The report continued: "Gas prices also remain elevated, with the national average cost per gallon at $3.90 on Friday, according to AAA. Although down from its apex, this price is still almost $1 above the level that was seen just before Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Iran in late February."The Hill also noted some signs of hope for the party, specifically the plummeting cost of oil in the wake of Trump's shaky ceasefire deal with Iran. This, however, does not guarantee that the prices consumers see at the pump will be down enough before November.“We have time, but we don’t have that much time,” GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak told The Hill. “There are several reasons for Republicans to believe things are going to get better. The questions are: How much better are they going to get, and how much are voters going to feel it?”"The polling numbers demonstrate just how steep a climb the president and his party are facing," the outlet added. "Inflation is consistently the issue on which Trump performs worst when voters are asked about his performance in office. In the polling averages maintained by RealClearPolitics, Trump’s net rating is almost 40 points underwater on the topic. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found that just 22 percent of adults approved of how Trump was handling their cost of living, while 69 percent disapproved."It continued later: "Most pertinently of all, inflation has remained stubborn. In November 2024, the month of Trump’s reelection, the annualized rate of inflation was 2.7 percent. The reading one year later was exactly the same. The rate ebbed slightly at the start of this year, only to ramp up again as a consequence of the war with Iran."
The following is a lightly edited transcript of the June 29 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.The saga involving Donald Trump’s Reflecting Pool renovation is getting stranger and darker. Federal prosecutors are now saying they’re aware of citations that have been issued to the supposed vandals that, according to Trump, have sabotaged the renovation, but no details and no records of any kind are being released. Meanwhile, Trump is rambling in a truly crazed way about this, describing the people who have received citations or have even been arrested as enemies of our country. This is really taking on the cast of an unhinged tyrant, and while it’s tempting to laugh at the story, there’s something about it that signals a profound degradation that’s underway.Former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori has been writing well about how Trump has been degrading the rule of law and arguing that we need to be thinking now about how to address that down the line. So we’re working through all this with him. Ankush, thanks for coming on.Ankush Khardori: Thanks for having me.Sargent: So we know very little about this right now. Trump is very angry that the Reflecting Pool has gone off the rails. There’s been the algae and the peeling paint. Trump has posted on Truth Social that six people have been arrested and seven others have gotten citations, some he says for cutting a 350-foot gash in the pool’s sealant with a knife or with razors. But there doesn’t seem to be any clear evidence of these arrests. Ankush, this has gotten truly weird, hasn’t it?Khardori: Yes, this is quite strange. Ordinarily you would expect a little bit more clarity from the federal government in a situation like this.Sargent: You sure would. And there’s one guy we know of who says he’s gotten a citation—the former Olympic canoeist David Carter Hearn. He’s 67. I believe there’s another woman who’s been quoted saying something similar, that she got a citation or was temporarily detained. I mean, a 67-year-old former Olympian who was biking in on the National Mall doesn’t seem like an Antifa vandal, does he?Khardori: No. This thing seems like it’s gotten quite out of hand and that federal law enforcement, the Park Police in particular, seem to have been dispatched to preserve the president’s ego, I guess.Sargent: Can you talk about that a little? In other words, you think that maybe the park police were in some sense directed to find something wrong out there? Khardori: It kind of seems like they were directed to watch things very, very closely and to behave in a way that they ordinarily wouldn’t.Sargent: Right. And we should just clarify for people that the Reflecting Pool is on the National Mall. It’s in front of the Lincoln Memorial. And that’s why the Park Police, I guess, have jurisdiction or something. But here’s where it gets murky. It gets really murky here. The New York Times just got a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, which handles prosecutions in D.C. And all they said was, we are aware of citations being issued, meaning by the park police. But the U.S. Attorney’s office provided no specifics, no number of people given citations. Here’s how the Times put it: “No records of arrests or citations have been produced by the administration or law enforcement officials to support the president’s claims.”Ankush, he said six people were arrested and seven people were given citations for serious vandalism. And they’re not putting out anything about this, the Washington office of the U.S. Attorney’s office. What on earth could this possibly mean?Khardori: Look, my first suspicion is that they don’t want to put out information that would contradict the president’s claims about what’s happening there. Because bear in mind that the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., under Jeanine Pirro, has been more than happy to speak publicly on pending matters when it serves the administration’s preferred narrative.I think the most prominent example that comes to my mind is when they arrested the sandwich guy. Jeanine Pirro put out a video taunting him. Now, that video is deeply hilarious for the wrong reasons for her in hindsight, since they totally flopped on that case—they couldn’t even get a misdemeanor conviction on the guy. But of course, that’s just to say that when there’s a thing of public interest to them where they want to produce information and make a show to the public, they will absolutely do it. So we should infer that the facts would not reflect well upon them if they were being forthright about them.Sargent: It’s such a good point. The U.S. attorneys have been willing to bend over backwards to support even the most tenuous and ridiculous things that Trump wants to make true.
The Hanseatic League was awesome.
Saturday on “The Alex Marlow Show,” Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Dave McCormick talked about defense. McCormick said there has been “breaking the hold that the big defense contractors have had on defense contracting. You’re now seeing that with next generation defense The post Exclusive — Sen. David McCormick: How President Trump Is ‘Breaking the Hold’ of Big Defense Contractors appeared first on Breitbart.