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.
One of Democrats’ best pick-up opportunities in the Senate this November is an unexpected one. Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee in the race against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), has been scandal-prone, complete with a Nazi symbol tattoo, but is polling ahead of the five-term incumbent from Maine. Last week alone Platner, 41, faced a […]
The United States and the Republic of China (the official name for Taiwan) — one of the world’s most vibrant and functional democracies — have had a formal defense relationship since 1955. Last week, Donald Trump — who’s been withholding since last year two shipments totaling $25 billion worth of US military hardware Taiwan has purchased — said that relationship is now a “bargaining chip” to get what he, his oligarch friends, and his family want from China.America was founded on the idea that democracy — a form of government that our Founders discovered functioning well among Native American societies, as I lay out in The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living — was our north star, the core concept around which all our actions revolved.We fought Great Britain to establish democracy, fought against the fascist Confederacy to preserve democracy here in America, and helped fight German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese fascists to preserve and restore democracy in Europe and Asia.After winning each battle, we became a little more democratic, enfranchising women, formerly enslaved people, and even 18-year-olds. We welcomed the diverse people of the world, groaning under oppression and poverty, to share our democracy and the free enterprise system it enabled.Most of the countries in today’s world, however, have little use for democracy. Certainly, Putin, Xi, and the Middle Eastern sheiks view it as a threat to their wealth and power. Most of the smaller countries across the world are dominated by wealthy families (oligarchy) or violent warlords (autocracy); during the decades I did international relief work, I spent time in many of them.And yet we always fought for democracy, even though we started out imperfectly. We helped create the United Nations, a democratic institution. We fought and died for European and Asian democracy. We encouraged democracy around the world through foreign aid programs like USAID and through pro-democracy advocacy operations like the Voice of America.Until Trump.Today, we have a president who holds democracy and democratic nations in disdain. He openly ridicules our democratic allies while sucking up to and praising autocrats and oligarchs. He gutted USAID, killed Voice of America, and even tried to overthrow our own democracy — and will probably try again.His racist, homophobic, and “poorly educated” followers agree with his disdain for democracy, openly embracing his despotic proclamations because he hates the same people they hate. Republican politicians who once defended American democracy cower before his threats of revenge when, like Senator Bill Cassidy, they don’t join him in embracing Putin and fail to nakedly cheer Trump’s violations of international law.Foreign billionaires like the Fox “News” Murdochs and the Middle Eastern sheiks who’ve poured billions into Trump’s family are apparently happy to see our democracy under assault. About a hundred domestic billionaire families are enthusiastically willing to trade democracy and the free press it requires for tax cuts and deregulation.So, what happens if they win?What happens if America finally, fully abandons the alliances we’ve built up over 250 years and instead embraces this autocratic new world order of Putin, Xi, and the corrupt billionaires who run most of the world’s autocracies?If we formally pull out of NATO or, simply, quietly continue the process of abandoning the alliance? If we leave Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and South Korea to the tender mercies of the Chinese Communist Party? If we continue our embrace of “America’s coolest dictator,” Bukele in El Salvador and Rodriguez in Venezuela, and let their authoritarianism continue to metastasize across our hemisphere?If the GOP and its billionaire owners manage to muzzle all but a token remnant of our once-vibrant free press, if ICE becomes Trump’s and Vance’s personal Schutzstaffel and throws open their “detention centers” to the “liberal” Americans they’ve already designated as “domestic terrorists”? If they continue to follow Putin’s system of tightly regulating who’s eligible to vote (while corrupting Democrats like Fetterman) so Republicans never lose?What happens if they win?Then the wealthiest people on Earth finally get the world they’ve always wanted, from the days they opposed the American Revolution, to fighting against Lincoln, to “America First” billionaires trying to hire Smedley Butler to assassinate FDR, to now supporting Trump:A world where democracy is weak.Labor is powerless.The press is controlled.Religion is weaponized.Elections are managed.Fear keeps people obedient.And billionaires rule without accountability.That’s the oligarch’s endgame and has been for millennia. It’s why they bought off Sinema, Manchin, Golden, and Fetterman and are inserting themselves in elections across the nation. It’s why they’re buying our media.
A frequent target of Donald Trump took the same cognitive test that the president keeps bragging about, and came away from it with a major warning for the entire country.Jim Acosta, the former CNN reporter Trump repeatedly attacked from the White House podium, walked through the Montreal Cognitive Assessment on his show this week. He passed it. He also said no president should ever need to take it.The test, known as the MoCA, was administered by Dr. Rob Davidson of the Committee to Protect Healthcare. Acosta drew the cube, copied the clock, identified the lion, rhino, and camel, named the date, and worked through the serial seven subtraction. He needed a category cue to recall one word, but otherwise sailed through the screening.Then he turned to the camera and made his point."This is something that the president of the United States should not be administered," Acosta said. "The president of the United States should not be taking a cognitive test ever, because we should be electing people to the office of the president of the United States where this is not an issue."Acosta's larger point was about Trump's pattern. The president has bragged for years about acing the same test, with his repeated comments about identifying "the squirrel" becoming a running joke during his second term. According to Acosta, the fact that Trump keeps taking the test at all is the actual headline."If he is actually taking multiple cognitive tests, hello everybody, that is a story," Acosta said. "That is a major, major story."Acosta also took aim at Trump's habit of bragging about the results. The MoCA is designed to detect mild cognitive impairment, not measure intelligence, and Acosta compared the appropriate response to a passing score with the way Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders used to handle touchdowns."Act like you've been there before," Acosta said. "If you take a cognitive test, you get a good score, and you just kind of go back to your day."The full episode is available on Acosta's YouTube channel.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Saturday issued a sharp warning about President Donald Trump's emerging Iran peace framework, saying it could "pour gasoline" on regional conflicts and supercharge Iranian-backed militant groups.The South Carolina Republican, who is normally one of Trump's most reliable allies on foreign policy issues, took to X to warn that the reported terms of the deal could be read as a strategic win for Tehran by other players in the region."If it is perceived in the region that a deal with Iran allows the regime to survive and become more powerful over time, we will have poured gasoline on the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq," Graham wrote.He warned specifically about the impact on two Iranian-aligned forces."A deal that is perceived to allow Iran to survive and possess the ability to control the Strait in the future will put Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Shia militias in Iraq on steroids," Graham wrote.The senator's remarks land at a politically delicate moment for Trump, who announced earlier in the day from the Oval Office that an agreement involving the United States, Iran, and a coalition of Arab and Muslim nations had been "largely negotiated."Graham's pushback adds to a growing chorus of conservative voices, including former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and conservative commentator David Hookstead, raising alarms about what the reported framework would actually deliver.If it is perceived in the region that a deal with Iran allows the regime to survive and become more powerful over time, we will have poured gasoline on the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq. A deal that is perceived to allow Iran to survive and possess the ability to control the…— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 23, 2026
