Anti-abortion groups are urging the White House and congressional Republicans to permanently block Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements before a temporary funding prohibition expires Saturday. President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on Independence Day last year, temporarily preventing Planned Parenthood from receiving roughly $800 million in annual Medicaid […]
Speaker Johnson's plan to merge the SAVE America Act with the defense bill faced resistance from GOP holdouts demanding stronger Senate assurances.
The Supreme Court is set to wrap up its term with blockbuster rulings on birthright citizenship and transgender athletes after handing President Trump a series of major wins—and setbacks—earlier this week. Meanwhile, gas prices have dipped below four dollars a gallon, but a new government report warns the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest...
Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly disavowed the existence of any formal agreement reached during his August summit with President Donald Trump in Alaska, undercutting months of Kremlin messaging that had treated the meeting as a diplomatic turning point in the war in Ukraine.Senior Russian officials had insisted for months that a path to ending the war — largely on Moscow's terms — had effectively been settled in Anchorage, with only Ukrainian resistance standing in the way, but that narrative has unraveled in recent days, and Putin himself finally undercut Trump's diplomatic claims, reported the Washington Post.“There were indeed no agreements reached in Anchorage," Putin told reporters Sunday.“The spirit of Anchorage — although it wasn’t expressed in any formal documents, and no one put any signatures down — in Anchorage we discussed certain possibilities for ending the crisis in Ukraine,” Putin added, "and the compromises discussed were precisely the proposals the American side made to us.”Three top Russian officials recently accused the White House of failing to honor the supposed Alaska agreement, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov going so far as to suggest the summit may have been a U.S. "ploy to buy time to rearm the Kyiv regime," but Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed back on the premise that any deal had been reached at all."If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end of the war," Rubio told reporters, noting that Russia's actual demands — including the entirety of Ukraine's Donetsk region — had never been agreed to.Analysts close to the Kremlin suggest the reversal reflects a shifting battlefield reality rather than a change of heart. Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign policy analyst who advises the Kremlin, wrote that Trump likely arrived in Anchorage believing Ukraine's defeat was inevitable, but that Kyiv and European allies have since spent 10 months convincing him otherwise.That shift comes as Russian forces have stalled on the battlefield for the first time in four years, while Ukraine has scaled up drone production enough to sustain strikes deep inside Russian territory, including on occupied Crimea. Military analysts say Russia is increasingly playing catch-up technologically, even as it retains advantages in manpower and conventional weaponry.Meanwhile, Trump's attention has been pulled toward the conflict with Iran, and no major diplomatic breakthrough favoring Russia has emerged since the Anchorage summit.Putin said Sunday that Russia expects renewed U.S.-led peace talks, including a visit from envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, once the situation with Iran is resolved — suggesting Moscow still hopes to revive negotiations on more favorable terms, even as it now concedes the much-touted Alaska "deal" never actually existed.
President Donald Trump has orchestrated yet another massive no-bid contract, this time channeling $500 million in taxpayer funds through a loophole to pay for his East Wing ballroom in secret, a report says.According to Washington Post reporting, White House officials used back channels and awarded the half-billion-dollar contract to Clark Construction last year in what the outlet described as a deliberately "unusual arrangement" designed to circumvent standard cost-control procedures and public disclosure requirements.The scheme exploited a legal gray area. By routing the contract through the Executive Residence—an office "typically responsible for routine mansion repairs and furniture purchases" —the White House once again "sidestepped" federal rules.Confidential documents obtained by the Post reveal Trump "personally negotiated" certain costs for the East Wing project, suggesting direct presidential involvement in structuring the deal to avoid scrutiny.The ballroom contract represents just one chapter in Trump's broader strategy of awarding no-bid deals to handpicked contractors reshaping Washington according to his personal vision. The administration has similarly bypassed competitive bidding for Lafayette Square upgrades and the controversial Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovations, which have become a public relations disaster for the administration.Experts warned the approach has deprived taxpayers of potential savings. "I would certainly expect them to compete a project of this size and complexity," Anthony Costa, a former General Services Administration official with decades of experience overseeing complex federal real estate projects across multiple presidential administrations, told the Post.While the Executive Residence technically operates under exemptions from standard competitive bidding rules, experts noted that soliciting bids would have ensured the "best pricing for taxpayers"—particularly crucial given the extraordinary scale and cost of the East Wing project.
A bipartisan briefing on the Iran ceasefire deal turned tense when President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly berated a Democratic congresswoman and cut off her microphone after she pressed him on the details of the agreement.Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) said she asked Witkoff direct questions about who authored the 14-point memorandum of understanding with Iran and why its terms appeared to favor Tehran from the start, and she also asked how much of his time as envoy was actually devoted to U.S. diplomatic work versus his own business interests, reported The Daily Beast.“How much of your work in the region is for the United States of America and resolving these issues, and how much of your time is being spent on your own ventures?” Dean said. “That, I think, really ticked them off, and that’s when I got cut off. As I said, they cut off my mic. They had not done that to other people, and so I didn’t get to have a rebuttal.”Witkoff, a real estate investor with no prior diplomatic experience, has taken a lead role in negotiating foreign policy alongside Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Dean complained that the Trump pal was vague about Iran's uranium and an offer to allow the country to access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund.“I was simply asking tough questions about who wrote the MOU, why does it sound so in favor of Iran, and from literally paragraph one, we’re already out of sync with what was to happen,” Dean said.Speaking afterward, Dean argued the war with Iran as reckless and unconstitutional, and reminded Republican colleagues on the call that more than a dozen American service members have died in the conflict since late February, with hundreds more wounded and significant civilian casualties across the region.Dean also raised concerns about Witkoff's dual role as a businessman and presidential envoy, suggesting it warrants closer scrutiny. She said she expects that scrutiny to come in the form of formal oversight if Democrats win back the House majority in November.The congresswoman compared her call with Witkoff to a separate bipartisan dinner she attended that evening at the Qatari embassy, where she said diplomats from Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia struck a far more cooperative tone, expressing a desire to work within the existing agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while keeping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.“So it was a jarring contrast,” she said. “I’m talking with literally our alleged envoy and diplomat. They were not diplomatic with us. They were not forthcoming with us, and we had a very robust conversation at the embassy this evening.”The White House has not yet responded to a request for comment on Dean's account of the call.
The Supreme Court extended presidential control over federal agencies. What could go wrong?
A Republican lawmaker slammed the calamity the Trump administration has created by revoking Temporary Protected Status for thousands of immigrants. Last year, the Trump administration abruptly revoked TPS for Haitian and Syrian immigrants, a move that impacted approximately 356,000 people currently living in the U.S. The order was swiftly challenged, but the Supreme Court recently ruled that President Donald Trump has the authority to unilaterally revoke TPS, an opinion that stunned many legal analysts. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) slammed the decision during a new interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead." "As I have stressed to the administration for over a year, while I don't dispute the president's ability to end TPS ... it is foolish to do it at this moment because we are going to create a calamity within our own health care system as a result," Lawler said. Lawler, whose district includes one of the largest Haitian immigrant populations in the U.S., noted that many of these immigrants work in health care, caring for the elderly and disabled. He added that he's asked the administration to instead extend work visas to the immigrants, some of whom have lived in the U.S. for decades. Lawler also noted that it would be dangerous to send Haitian and Syrian immigrants back to their home countries, which raises a host of questions about the timing of the move. "The fact is, from a humanitarian standpoint, it is disastrous to send them back home at this moment, and it will have a profound negative impact on the American people," Lawler said.
The failure of the American media is one of the biggest disappointments of the last 11 years. Instead of standing together and standing their ground with integrity and dignity when Trump began bullying them in 2015, media organizations let him wear them down with his never-ending litany of insults. Once a toxic narcissist knows they can get away with it, they’ll just keep hurting you and taking things from you. Our media never properly pushed back against Trump because, before his 2016 campaign, they’d never had to defend themselves against personal attacks from a candidate or a president. They went from treating him like the joke he should have always been to giving him absolute power over their newsrooms. While we’ve seen individual moments of pushback here and there, Trump ultimately prevails every time. Either he makes the reporter the story by bullying them, or he gets away with not answering their questions because he’s too busy scapegoating them as a distraction from whatever he was asked about. It disgusts me every time, because no one stands together on that press line. I don’t care which outlet you work for — when Trump bullies one reporter, he’s bullying them all. They should be demanding the answers he refuses to give, because that’s their job. But they should also be demanding that he stop treating their colleagues like a middle school bully. From the outside, it might look like it’s too late. Every news outlet we once trusted is now owned by a billionaire with their own personal political agendas. While ABC beefs with the FCC over Jimmy Kimmel, CBS’s full capitulation to Trump is complete. And now, David Ellison is about to do the same to CNN by putting Bari Weiss in charge there as well. Everything about this is anti-American. Our First Amendment rights are being violated by an oligarch class that’s been allowed to take over far too many media outlets, and with the White House now targeting members of the independent media, how long before Trump tries to shut down the internet so no one can talk about the Epstein Files or his failing health?There are many ways to fight back against male white corporate oppression, however, and one news network is setting the examples for all of us to follow. And there’s no way the FCC can intervene on Trump’s behalf this time, because it’s not an American network.All hail the venerable British Broadcasting Company (BBC), both on television and over the wireless, as they used to say. The BBC has always set the standard for journalism, and that’s remained true during the Trumpian nightmare garbage fire. Because he can’t control them. He can sue them, however, because that’s what Trump does whenever anyone with a big enough audience tells the truth about him. It’s a favorite con of his, burying and then bankrupting his enemies with endless depositions and appeals. Trump is desperate to rewrite the history of his failed coup after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, despite all of the footage that’s still readily available to everyone.So, of course, Trump is now suing the BBC for $10 BILLION, crying “defamation” after it aired a documentary about the January 6th insurrection, in which they used some of the footage of his Ellipsis speech that he claims was “edited.” Yes, the same speech that was live-streamed by all of the MAGA terrorists in the crowd, just like the subsequent attack on the Capitol. While plenty of other institutions have caved to Trump, the stiff upper lips at the BBC aren’t intimidated so easily. In fact, they’re going after what the January 6th House Select Committee never could get: Trump’s January 6th phone records.Discovery is glorious, especially when it’s used for good. Not only are they asking for Trump’s phone records from the Day of Rage, but also the days leading up to his desperately violent attempt to stay in power. But they’re not stopping with Trump’s actions regarding January 6th; the BBC has also served a subpoena related to his revocable trust, which is run by Don Jr. It contains private information on the Trump Crime Family’s assets and business relationships, so just imagine what the BBC might find if they gain access to all of Trump’s financials. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Trump’s phone records would show whether or not he ever called any state’s governor to have them send their National Guard troops to the Capitol to fight off the MAGA crowds. We already have the footage of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer essentially co-Presidenting by taking the action Trump never did and, hopefully, the BBC will also use this clip as part of its defense should the lawsuit go to trial.Any American news outlet could have done the same as the BBC, even without a lawsuit against them, but they haven’t, and they won’t. We all know the truth about January 6th because we were all witnesses. Whether we watched it online or on TV, the live feeds were readily available and were recorded.