The pressure is mounting on RINO Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the do-nothing Republican establishment.
The post Sen. Jim Banks Becomes THIRD Republican Senator to Demand Senate CANCEL August Recess Until SAVE America Act Passes appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
President Donald Trump’s complaints about coverage of his second term from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last Friday were dismantled on Monday morning.On MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Joe Scarborough laid reports about the White House chaos at the feet of Trump, who insisted on Friday that those reports are all “fake news.”“The Iran war, it keeps grinding on and on and on, a war of choice, and as it grinds on, Americans' approval of it collapses by the day,” he stated. “So Friday night, at an event that should have never been held, the president tells a room of reporters not to believe, quote, ‘fake news’ about how that war is going.”“Well, that fake news actually comes from calls inside the house, from the administration, from people who know it was a mistake to go in and there's no good way to get out. So you be the judge of that,“ he added.“But you don't have to judge higher costs, affordability, the president mocking affordability, like with your grocery bill, food prices are now rising at their sharpest pace in 50 years,” he elaborated. “You can read that in the Associated Press. You can read that in a variety of news reports this weekend — but you don't have to. All you have to do is look at your bill. Food at home costs up 33 percent since 2019, against just 6.4 percent growth in the seven years before that. And ground beef is now $6.82 a pound, up 79 percent. Gas prices? They just keep spiraling up, the price of oil spiraling up and war, it drives up fuel and fertilizer prices, and those prices drive up food.”“And it is food that's eating more of your paycheck than at any time since Gerald Ford was president of the United States,” he continued. “So against this backdrop, how did the president spend that same Friday night, not reassuring Americans on the war, not reassuring Americans on the cost of beef or on the cost of gas? No, he spent an hour on the physical appearance of the press corps confronting him, even telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on camera that she's attractive but never smiles and seemed to compare her to a trans influencer.” - YouTube youtu.be
With gas prices back above $4 a gallon and the midterms approaching, Republicans are choosing to defend President Donald Trump's Iran policy rather than distance themselves from it — a bet that could backfire as voters feel the pinch at the pump.Some GOP lawmakers acknowledge the political risk, but few are willing to blame the 80-year-old president for the higher prices or criticize his decision to launch a war against Iran as they make their case to voters heading into the midterm elections, reported MS NOW.“It’s certainly something we’re concerned about,” said Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “President Trump did the right thing ... We need to support what he’s doing. If that means we have to go to the voters and explain it, so be it.”Hudson insisted the issue had not yet shown up in NRCC polling, but Republicans seem aware that voters are skeptical of the war and its impact on fuel costs.“We’ve got to explain to people that, you know, unfortunately until we get some new leadership in Iran, we’re going to continue to see conflict, which is going to see higher gas prices,” said Sen. Rick Scott, who previously chaired the Senate GOP’s campaign arm.That message may not hold. Some Republicans not seeking reelection were more candid about the risk. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) suggested voters would eventually stop trusting favorable media coverage and start reacting to what they're paying at the pump.“Eventually, I think people’s pocketbooks are going to impose reality on them, and they’re going to quit watching Fox and pay more attention to the gas prices,” Massie said. Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who like Massie was ousted by a Trump-endorsed primary challenger, was more measured, arguing that solving the affordability problem is good politics.Many rank-and-file Republicans dismissed the price increases as temporary, deflecting blame toward local regulations, alleged corporate price gouging, or the previous administration. Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) invoked Biden-era gas prices while defending the Iran strikes as necessary. Reps. Tim Moore (R-NC) and Tim Burchett (R-TN) both pointed fingers at oil companies rather than the war.Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) dismissed the entire issue as election-season noise. “The only reason you’re talking about gas prices is because we’re a few months away from a general election, and you’re just trying to get people irritated,” he told MS NOW. “That’s what you do.”“We knew it was going to go up," Nehls added, "but it is really temporary.”Vulnerable incumbents took a different tack. Reps. David Valadao (R-CA), Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) each tried to shift blame toward Democratic energy policy rather than directly defend the war's economic fallout.The polling suggests the political ground is shifting under them. Oil prices jumped roughly 10 percent last week as hostilities continued, and gains Trump had made in approval ratings after an earlier ceasefire have largely disappeared. A Gallup poll found two-thirds of Americans reporting financial hardship from rising gas prices, with majorities saying they're driving less or altering summer travel plans. A Politico poll found most Americans, including a majority of MAGA voters, blame the war for the price spike — and nearly half of those MAGA respondents said it could push them to vote outside their party.Democrats are moving quickly to capitalize. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has directly tied the price surge to the war, while Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) argued the administration has failed on both of its major promises — lowering costs and avoiding new wars.
LANSING, Michigan — Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI) has made supporting veterans his bread and butter as a first-term congressman from a swing House district in Michigan. Before stepping foot in the halls of Congress, his 22 years in the Army were the near-singular focus of biographical campaign ads. It’s a path often taken by military […]
As Washington assesses the economic and strategic costs of its conflict with Iran, one part of the calculation has received too little attention: A stable, free, and globally connected Iran could become one of America’s most consequential economic and strategic opportunities in the Middle East. The fall of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of […]
A previously unreported Drug Enforcement Administration assessment has undercut one of President Donald Trump's signature claims about his military campaign against drug traffickers.The Washington Post reported that the DEA assessment, as well as a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former officials, showed months of deadly strikes on suspected smuggling boats have done nothing to reduce the flow of cocaine into the United States.“Smugglers have adapted to the intensified pressure,” DEA analysts wrote. “Price and availability have not been noticeably affected.”Cocaine's price and purity in the U.S. have remained essentially unchanged since Operation Southern Spear began in September, the assessment found. Traffickers, rather than being deterred, have simply changed course — swapping go-fast boats for larger vessels that hug the coastline, leaning more heavily on clandestine aircraft routes through Colombia and Venezuela, and in some cases bribing officials for warning of U.S. ship movements.The findings directly contradict Trump's repeated assertion — made publicly more than a dozen times — that the strikes have slashed maritime drug trafficking by 97 percent to 98 percent. DEA analysts instead reported that early disruptions to smuggling routes reversed within months, with prices and availability returning to normal.At least 221 people have been killed in strikes on more than 67 boats since September, drawing criticism from legal analysts who call the attacks extrajudicial killings. The White House has defended the strikes as both lethal deterrence and a demonstration of resolve, while acknowledging traffickers have shifted tactics.“When you squeeze the balloon on one side, it always expands on the other side,” one DEA official told the Post on the condition of anonymity. “They always find the weak spots and exploit them.”A senior Colombian security official said the strikes have had only a limited effect, pushing more cocaine through legitimate ports and onto stockpiling ships instead.The strikes may also be undermining the U.S. government's own investigative capacity. Informants who once fed intelligence to build cases against trafficking networks are reportedly being pulled from the field, out of fear they could be killed in a strike.Meanwhile, the broader supply picture looks worse, not better. A recent United Nations report found global cocaine production at record highs, with cultivation and manufacturing having surged over the past decade. Research has tied that boom directly to rising U.S. overdose deaths — deaths that experts say are driven far more by production at the source than by what's intercepted at sea.Administration officials defended the strikes as necessary and effective.“These measures have not only eliminated narcoterrorists themselves, but also discouraged bad actors from trying to smuggle drugs into our country should they meet the same deadly fate,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “President Trump is using every tool at his disposal to save lives from the scourge of illicit narcotics, and any suggestion that these efforts have not been effective are laughable.”
A mass shooting at a Seattle festival has left three people dead. And, the U.S. and Iran have been exchanging diplomatic messages after nearly tw weeks of intense fighting.
