President Donald Trump said the US would strike Iran again Thursday and threatened to take control of the country’s energy infrastructure including the key oil export hub of Kharg Island “at some point.” Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall has the latest. (Source: Bloomberg)
President Donald Trump's birthday celebration on the White House lawn was disparaged as a "volcano of corruption" in a new legal challenge.Attorneys fighting to block this weekend's UFC matches at the White House told a federal judge Wednesday the president and his allies stand to profit from what they called "the first private, for-profit sporting event ever held on White House grounds" — and warned the country is approaching a historic moment of institutional corruption, reported MS NOW."Such a volcano of corruption, if allowed to go forward, will mark an inflection point in American history," argued plaintiffs Susan Douglas and Paul Romano in their final filing.The plaintiffs, attorneys from the Public Integrity Project, painted a portrait of interlocking financial interests at the heart of the planned three-day spectacle, which is set to culminate Sunday — Trump's 80th birthday — with seven professional UFC bouts staged on the South Lawn inside a massive temporary structure known as "the Claw."They pointed to million-dollar VIP packages, brand placement opportunities near the Lincoln Memorial, and an exclusive broadcast on Paramount Plus, a streaming service run by Trump allies Larry and David Ellison. No American, they noted, will be able to watch the self-described "celebration of America" without paying a subscription fee.They further alleged Trump bought stock in the company that owns the UFC earlier this spring, giving him a direct financial stake in the event's success. UFC head Dana White, who has organized the spectacle alongside the White House, is a longtime personal friend and political ally of the president.The Trump administration called the lawsuit meritless and said the plaintiffs were merely seeking "to complain about that which offends their sensibilities." Officials also argued the suit's last-minute timing alone should disqualify it, noting the event was publicly announced nearly a year ago.U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, must now decide whether the fights go on — or whether the volcano gets capped.
Donald Trump looked at America’s 250th birthday and neurotically concluded that he’s the main attraction.A celebration intended to honor the founding of the United States is rapidly being repackaged as a celebration of Trump himself: his movement, his grievances, his white supremacy, his misogyny, and his power. Every new announcement, from the MAGA rallies to the vanity projects to the carefully choreographed spectacles on the National Mall and White House lawn, reinforces the same message: this is no longer about America turning 250. It’s about Trump making sure America spends its 250th birthday talking about Trump and the power of white men.And if that sounds familiar, it should. Washington has seen this kind of political pageantry before.The misogynists, racists, and fascists are taking over Washington, D.C. this summer, and the parallel to the massive Klan rally of August 1925, staged under another Republican president who declined to denounce it is the script. On that August day a hundred and one summers ago, somewhere between thirty- and forty-thousand Ku Klux Klan members marched down Pennsylvania Avenue twenty-two abreast and fourteen rows deep, ending at the base of the Washington Monument. President Calvin Coolidge refused to condemn them. Their version of America was defined entirely by exclusion: not Black Americans, not Catholics, not Jews, not immigrants, not organized labor, not anyone outside their narrow tribal vision of who counted. That night they burned crosses in Arlington while the band played “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and “America.”A century later, the same Mall is being prepared for the same kind of show, and the artists scheduled to perform are figuring it out and getting out as fast as they can. Within forty-eight hours of the lineup announcement for what Trump’s people are calling the “Great American State Fair” on the National Mall, the Commodores, Martina McBride, Morris Day and the Time, Bret Michaels of Poison, Young MC, and Jodie Rocco of Milli Vanilli all put out statements saying they’d been misled, that nobody told them the event was a Trump-branded MAGA operation. Young MC told Rolling Stone it was a bait-and-switch. The Commodores said their music has always been their voice and they wouldn’t lend it to a single political party.Trump’s response was telling. He didn’t try to recruit new acts or apologize for the confusion. He went on his failing Nazi-infested social media site and demanded the whole concert series be scrapped, replaced with what he called “a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250.” Then he announced he’d personally headline the June 24 opening ceremony himself. The mask came off in about seventy-two hours. The 250th anniversary of American independence has been openly converted into a Trump fascist-fest, and only white MAGA who love to see gladiators beat each other bloody and senseless need apply.Louise and I lived in Washington during the Obama years, and we visited just about every monument the city has, sometimes more than once. We were invited to the White House, and walking up that long drive past the East Wing (which is now rubble) always felt like walking into something larger than any single president. The Lincoln Memorial at dusk, when the reflecting pool went dark and the seated figure of Lincoln doubled itself on that still water, was the kind of place where Americans of every stripe stood quietly together and remembered who we were supposed to be. That reflecting pool, finished in 1923, has held the gravity of Marian Anderson’s 1939 Easter Sunday concert when she’d been denied the stage at Constitution Hall because she was Black, and the gravity of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, and every quiet sunset visit by every family who came to the Mall to feel something solemn about this country.Trump has now had that pool painted blue at a cost he claims is around two million dollars, the same shade you’d find at the kid’s pool in a discount motel. He calls it “American flag blue.” Right. He drove his motorcade across the wet coating before it set, climbed out, and held a press conference standing in the middle of the pool with his cabinet secretaries around him, and now we’re paying to repair that damage, too. He told reporters the old gray stone was “never good.” That dark surface that turned itself into a mirror for Lincoln’s face for over a century, he claimed, was “never good.” The Cultural Landscape Foundation has sued to stop his desecration because the project skipped the federal review process that exists precisely to prevent a president from treating a national memorial like the patio renovation at one of his gaudy golf motels.The June 24 event will be Trump in front of a crowd at the National Mall, hand-picked artists who didn’t pull out, and a brand of “patriotism” carefully scrubbed of anyone who might complicate the picture. The “State Fair” will run sixteen days. Vanilla Ice and Flo Rida are still on the bill.
President Donald Trump lobbed a series of outrageous statements about the Iran war Thursday morning during a call to "Fox & Friends."The 79-year-old president phoned in to the show he regularly watches to provide an update on the war, which he has escalated in recent days in response to the downing of a U.S. Army helicopter, and he complained at length about media coverage of the conflict, saying that Iranian officials have told him they appreciate the assistance from American journalists."You read the Wall Street Journal, they had an editorial today [suggesting] we're not hitting them hard enough," Trump said, chuckling. "Not hitting them hard enough? We dropped $250 million of bombs on them last night – you know, the whole thing is crazy. They're really in submission. They just don't know it yet."Trump also claimed that he's growing less interested in reaching a peace deal and suggested he would like to escalate the war even further."I don't know if America has the appetite to do what I would really much prefer doing," he said. "You remember in Iraq, I said, 'Don't go in,' but they went in, they made a big mistake, it should have never – you know, that war lasted for 10 years. It killed tens of thousands of people, millions of people on both sides, millions of people – nobody ever reported that.""We've lost 13 soldiers in two wars. In Venezuela, we lost none, took over the country, and in Iraq -- in Iran we lost 13," he added. "In Vietnam, we lost hundreds of thousands, 19 years – nobody says that. They say, three months, you've been there for three months. They've gone crazy because I've been there for three months."The president's statements astounded observers."It was 58K in Vietnam," pointed out market analyst Chris Beauchamp, adding a vulgar acronym."If he were a serious person I would assume he means he would have approved the use of nuclear weapons," posted popular Bluesky user Philo of Alexan. "He is not a serious person, so this is just the usual Trump empty bragging.""We wasted $250 million to make gas prices in America even higher… is not the flex he thinks it is," opined Friendly Atheist blogger Hemant Mehta."We dropped 1/7th of Trump’s slush fund on Iran last night," said political scientist Michael McDonald."To put this $250 million figure in context, that's the cost of 31 no-bid fountain repairs," noted the Majority Democrats' account."This would have fed and housed thousands of Americans," sighed widely followed X user Molly Ploofkins."Last week they cut $200 million from the WIC program to help pregnant women afford food," added Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI)."Trump bragging about literally lighting our tax dollars on fire in his idiotic war as Republicans start pushing for even more Medicaid cuts," snarled popular X user Jesse Lee."Legitimately impressed in our collectively rationalize away the fact that the president is insane," marveled political scientist Josh Zingher. "We experiencing a level of mass delusion most societies could only dream of."
President Trump is threatening a ground invasion of Iran.On Truth Social Thursday morning, Trump posted that the U.S. military “will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT.“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” the post read.Trump’s threats are an alarming escalation, especially considering he previously claimed the U.S. and Iran are close to a deal to end the war. Publicly announcing plans for such an attack also carries risks, as it puts U.S. troops in harm’s way and gives Iran time to prepare countermeasures. Trump could also be bluffing, thinking that the specter of a ground invasion of Iranian territory will force concessions.That seems to be in line with what he told Fox & Friends Thursday morning. Trump was asked about the post, and complained about media coverage of Iran, claiming the country has been decimated but that news outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal say that it’s doing well.“They’re dying to make a deal. They want to make a deal so badly,” Trump said. “We dropped $250 million of bombs on them last night, the whole thing is crazy. And they’re really in submission, they just don’t know it yet.” Trump on Fox & Friends: "They're dying to make a deal. They want to make a deal so badly. We dropped $250 million of bombs on them last night. They're really in submission. They just don't know it yet." pic.twitter.com/XKW5CGc1CU— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 11, 2026Trump’s daily accounts of the war with Iran are increasingly incoherent, and it’s tough to tell what’s real and what isn’t. Anything could happen Thursday night, and in the meantime, the world will be watching with uncertainty as a man with visible cognitive decline has his finger on the trigger.
Austin Metcalf's heartbroken father showed remarkable compassion for Karmelo Anthony after the teen was sentenced to decades behind bars for fatally stabbing his son.
As soccer fans from across the world travel to the United States this month to cheer on their countries’ teams at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a poll released Wednesday by Data for Progress suggests Americans don’t believe many visitors have warm feelings toward the host country after a year-and-a-half of President Donald Trump’s leadership.Overall the poll found that 62% of American voters think the country’s reputation has deteriorated under Trump, with just 32% saying it’s gotten better.Republicans were the only political faction to believe Trump has improved global views of the US, while Independents and Democrats overwhelmingly said the president has made them worse.The poll also found 52% of US voters believed Trump’s mass deportation policies have hurt the country’s image in the world, with just 34% saying the deportations have helped.Trump’s immigration policies collided with the World Cup earlier this week when Somali referee Omar Artan, who was selected by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to work at the celebrated event, was barred from entering the US despite having a valid visa.A Trump administration official claimed Artan had an “association with suspected members of terror organizations,” but provided no evidence for the allegation. US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) called his treatment by the US “a disgrace.”Polling data published last year by Pew suggests that Democrats and Independents are more accurately measuring global public sentiment of the US under Trump’s leadership than Republicans.Specifically, Pew found that net positive perceptions of the US dropped by 10 percentage points or more among residents in a dozen countries between 2024 and 2025, including in key allies such as Canada, Mexico, Germany, and France.What’s more, Pew found only five countries where the United States’ reputation has improved since Trump’s election: South Africa, India, Israel, Nigeria, and Turkey.Trump during his second term has taken a number of actions that have sparked anger from foreign governments, including making repeated threats to seize Greenland as a US territory, invading Venezuela and abducting its president, imposing an oil blockade on and threatening to take over Cuba, launching a global trade war, and waging an illegal war of choice on Iran.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin will speak with reporters Thursday morning about the Trump administration’s efforts to protect unaccompanied migrant children. The joint press conference comes as the administration has faced scrutiny over President Trump‘s sweeping immigration enforcement and deportation agenda. It also comes a day…
