Reason.com
War Powers Vote Is the Latest Embarrassment for House Speaker Mike Johnson
Johnson is seemingly incapable of standing up to the Trump administration, even when one of Congress' core responsibilities is at stake.
Center Right
The Hill News
Trump thanks Secret Service, renews call for ballroom after White House shooting
Center
President Trump early Sunday thanked the Secret Service for their actions in neutralizing an armed man who exchanged shots with officers outside the White House on Saturday and argued that the incident shows the importance of the under-construction White House ballroom. “Thank you to our great Secret Service and Law Enforcement for the swift and…
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NBC News Politics
Secret Service Takes Down Gunman Near White House
The Secret Service shot and killed an armed suspect who opened fire at a security checkpoint outside the White House. The 21-year-old suspect was known to police and Secret Service with a history of mental health concerns, according to multiple senior law enforcement officials. A second person, who authorities believe to be a bystander, was injured in the shooting and that person’s condition is unclear. NBC’s Julie Tsirkin reports for Sunday TODAY.
Center Left
The Hill News
Iran: Trump remarks on Strait of Hormuz ‘inconsistent with reality’
Iran is pushing back on parts of a tentative deal being negotiated by the Trump administration that could put an end to the war between the two countries. President Trump on Saturday evening announced the two sides were moving close to a deal. Iranian officials have acknowledged the talks, and have even said there has…
Center
Raw Story
Trump posts image of Obama in prison jumpsuit: 'Very sick'
Donald Trump posted an image Sunday morning on Truth Social depicting former President Barack Obama and several of his top national security officials dressed in orange prison jumpsuits, in what appears to be a direct threat against a former president and his allies.The image, styled as a Brady Bunch-style grid of mugshots, showed Obama — labeled "Barack Hussein Obama" — alongside former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, former UN Ambassador Samantha Power, former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, and former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, who was labeled 'Ben "Hamas" Rhodes.' The graphic was captioned with, "The Shady Bunch.""This is a bad (Sick!) group of people," Trump wrote. "Very destructive to our great Nation. Caused tremendous damage through Weaponization! President DJT"The post comes as Trump's Justice Department has moved aggressively against perceived political enemies. Trump has repeatedly suggested — without evidence — that Obama-era officials engaged in illegal surveillance and other misconduct against his 2016 campaign, a conspiracy theory his supporters refer to as "Obamagate."
Far Left
Latest Political News on Fox News
EXCLUSIVE: Trump-backed military vet mocked for disability ahead of Memorial Day: ‘Most shameful thing’
A Texas congressional primary race sparks veteran outrage after a PAC-funded ad mocks candidate Carlos De La Cruz's 100% military disability rating.
Right
Raw Story
'Jilted' Trump aide stirs outrage by telling ex-Cabinet member to 'shut his stupid mouth'
White House communications director Steven Cheung unleashed a profanity-laced broadside against former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after Pompeo criticized the Trump administration's emerging deal with Iran — setting off a wave of condemnation from commentators across the political spectrum.Pompeo had posted that the deal "being floated with Iran seems straight out of the Wendy Sherman-Robert Malley-Ben Rhodes playbook," warning it would "pay the IRGC to build a WMD program and terrorize the world." He called it "not remotely America First" and demanded the administration simply "open the damned strait."Cheung, a former UFC communications director, fired back with language rarely seen from an official White House spokesman. "Mike Pompeo has no idea what the f--- he's talking about," Cheung wrote. "He should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals. He's not read into anything that's happening, so how would he know."The statement triggered immediate blowback."I will never get used to this kind of obscenity being used in an official statement by the White House Communication Director," wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. "The White House no longer aspires to lead from a higher moral vantage point, it seeks to fight in the mud with the pigs."Journalist Brett Meiselas appealed directly to the administration's sense of decorum. "Can you all grow up? You work in the White House. Act like it for once. This shouldn't be a political thing. Just have some decency, man."The spectacle of a Trump aide attacking the man Trump himself chose as his top diplomat drew particular mockery. "Pompeo is so dumb that Cheung's boss made him Secretary of State for nearly 3 years," wrote National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru.The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes was more pointed about the credibility gap on display: "Yeah, take it from a 1980s-born political hatchetman and ex-UFC comms director, Mike Pompeo — top of his class at West Point, Harvard Law grad, House Intel, ex-CIA director, ex-SecState — is clueless about Iran."Independent journalist Aaron Rupar summed up the broader reaction in blunt terms: "Is it a sign that things are going well when your spokesperson is posting like a jilted incel 8th grader?"Mehdi Hasan simply noted the absurdity for the record: "White House comms director to former Trump Secretary of State," he wrote, quoting Cheung's statement without further comment.Tom Nichols of The Atlantic added dryly: "This sounds totally calm."
Far Left
Alternet.org
Trump now clashing with a Supreme Court that usually gives him what he wants
President Donald Trump keeps clashing with the Supreme Court, even though he repeatedly gives them exactly what they want.“With the court preparing to issue major rulings in the coming weeks that will determine the fate of key aspects of the president’s agenda, Mr. Trump has vacillated between combative and conciliatory in his treatment of the justices,” The New York Times reported on Sunday. “He has seemed ever aware and at times resentful of the critical role the justices play in determining the lawfulness of his policies, with the court representing perhaps the one force in American government truly able to thwart his agenda. At the heart of the tension: a president who appears to believe that justices, especially those he appointed, should be loyalists rather than independent actors in a separate, equal branch of government.”The Times added that Trump is “furious” with America’s most powerful bench because it invalidated the sweeping tariffs he passed without congressional approval earlier in his term. He has also attacked the court preemptively in recent weeks as he prepares for possible losses on issues like his crusade to get rid of birthright citizenship.“It would be a disgrace if the Supreme Court of the United States allows that to happen,” Trump said last week. “It’s all up to a couple of people, and I hope they do what’s right.” He reinforced this desire to seemingly intimidate the justices by becoming the first sitting president to attend a Supreme Court oral argument in person, which he did in April for roughly an hour before abruptly leaving. He subsequently took to social media and complained that the Supreme Court had “not even recognized or acknowledged” that he was in the courtroom.Despite Trump’s complaints, the Supreme Court has ruled in his favor far more often than not, from giving him unprecedented presidential powers in Trump v. United States (2024) to a ruling to make it easier for Republicans to gerrymander in Louisiana v. Callais (2026) while not hearing a case involving the Virginia Supreme Court striking down voter-approved new congressional maps when it would make it easier for Democrats to gerrymander.“The president gave a surprisingly frank assessment of his view of the Supreme Court — and how he expects personal loyalty from the justices that he appoints to it,” The New Republic's Matt Ford wrote earlier this month. “In the lengthy post, Trump criticized two members of the High Court for voting in Trump v. Learning Resources, the case that nixed his purported ability to impose hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs under a Cold War-era emergency-powers law. The Supreme Court held 6-3 that Trump had exceeded the powers laid out in the statute…. It would be hard to find a better example than this of Trump's thinking that the justices that he nominated to the High Court should be personally loyal to him."Ford added Trump believes he is entitled to total obedience from Supreme Court justices "simply because he appointed them,” which raises troubling questions about what he has demanded from appointees for lower court positions."If this is his public thinking about the justices," Ford argued, "it casts doubt on whether any second-term Trump appointee can be trusted to place the national interest or the law ahead of Trump's personal and political goals…. If Trump is willing to demand personal loyalty from Supreme Court justices, what about his lower-court nominees?"He added, "The Supreme Court has given him nearly everything that he has wanted over the last two years — and he still isn't satisfied. This is the same Supreme Court that just boosted his party's midterm chances earlier this month by demolishing what's left of the Voting Rights Act."
Left
Raw Story
Trump uses deadly shooting to push for controversial ballroom in midnight tirade
Hours after a deadly shooting incident outside the White House, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social just after midnight to thank the Secret Service and, in the same post, push for the construction of his controversial White House ballroom.In a post published shortly after 12 a.m. Eastern, Trump opened with praise for the agents who killed the gunman near the White House gates earlier in the evening. He described the suspect as a man with "a violent history and possible obsession with our Country's most cherished structure.""Thank you to our great Secret Service and Law Enforcement for the swift and professional action taken this evening against a gunman near the White House," Trump wrote.The president then pivoted to his ballroom project. Trump argued that the shooting, combined with what he called the "White House Correspondent'Dinner shooting" from a month earlier, demonstrated the need for what he has been describing as a massive new venue on the White House grounds."This event is one month removed from the White House Correspondent'Dinner shooting, and goes to show how important it is, for all future Presidents, to get, what will be, the most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington, D.C.," Trump wrote, along with the prominent typo.He closed with a familiar appeal."The National Security of our Country demands it!" Trump added.The ballroom, which Trump has touted as one of his second-term priorities, has drawn criticism from lawmakers and watchdogs who view it as a vanity project and claim that the security justification is stretched well beyond its merits. Trump's overnight post Sunday morning is the latest in a pattern of using public safety incidents and high-profile news events as occasions to argue for the ballroom's necessity.
Far Left