Senate Democrat defends Graham-Platner allegations while contrasting them with Trump

Trump’s 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' scrapped, Justice Department says

Trump's $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" that would have benefited political allies is being scrapped, according to the Department of Justice.

GOP's primed for primary season payback on Trump's most ambitious, controversial policy

Senate Democrats plan to kill Trump's $2 billion anti-weaponization fund as GOP dissent grows and a reconciliation vote-a-rama approaches this week.

Trump Pulls Off a Very Cool Move in the Strait - Right Under the Nose of the Iranian Regime

'Absolutely screwed': DC insider delivers brutal verdict as Senate GOP stuck in 'bad jam'

Republicans returned to Capitol Hill on Monday facing a cascade of crises of President Donald Trump's making, and a prominent Beltway insider delivered a blunt diagnosis for the party's predicament.Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman described Senate Republicans as "absolutely screwed" and stuck in a "very bad jam" over the anti-weaponization fund specifically, with the administration failing to send language that could win over GOP holdouts."These are critical weeks for Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress, with just over five months left until Election Day. Trump has been bogged down in peace negotiations with Iran. The conflict remains at a stalemate somewhere between war and peace. Trump blames ‘Dumocrats, and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans’ for not understanding that ‘it will all work out well in the end,'" Punchbowl News wrote. Republicans hope to launch a vote-a-rama Wednesday night and muscle the immigration reconciliation bill through by Thursday morning, the outlet reported. Two provisions have badly snarled that timeline.Security funding for Trump's planned White House ballroom was already attached to the package, costing support among lawmakers worried about electoral blowback. The Senate parliamentarian ruled last month that the $1 billion provision violated the Byrd Rule, forcing Republicans to redraft.The anti-weaponization fund has proven to be an even larger hurdle, with some Senate Republicans refusing to advance the bill until the White House places guardrails around the money, which the administration has shown little interest in doing. Democrats are preparing what Punchbowl called a "massive amendment blitz" to force public votes on the fund.“Senate Democrats will launch a coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer proclaimed Monday. “And no matter what Republicans do, we will force them to vote on it.”

The BBC reports Iranian strikes on US military bases are worse than Trump admitted

According to satellite imagery and video analysis, Iran has attacked at least 20 American military facilities across the Middle East, with some experts estimating as many as 28 bases targeted. The report by BBC Verify significantly exceeds public U.S. acknowledgment of the attacks. Strikes have hit key installations across eight countries: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, and Oman, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Notable losses include three THAAD anti-missile batteries, each costing approximately $1 billion, and forming a complex regional defense network that cannot be quickly replaced. At Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia alone, 42 aircraft have been destroyed or damaged since February, including F-15s, F-35s, Reaper drones, and an A-10 attack plane worth up to $700 million. Iran's tactics evolved from mass missile barrages to precise strikes targeting high-value assets. The Pentagon declined to dispute the BBC's findings, while the U.S. requested satellite imagery restrictions on the region.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.

Trump asleep at the wheel after Russia bombs NATO allies: analysis

Russia is now bombing NATO countries, and it appears that President Donald Trump is asleep at the wheel. Writing on Monday, MS NOW producer Steve Benen sounded the alarm about an incoming disaster visible on the horizon. A Wall Street Journal report last week quoted several world leaders in Europe as saying that they fear Russian President Vladimir Putin is about to go beyond Ukraine and look at the countries he can go to war with next in an effort to grow the former Soviet Union back to its original borders. "Russian drones have repeatedly crashed without causing casualties along the Danube River border between Romania and Ukraine since 2023. But the drone crash on Friday, on the roof of a residential compound in the port city, Galati, sharply escalated tensions between NATO and Moscow," The New York Times reported.On Friday, a Russian drone hit an apartment building. The incident was condemned by world leaders, and even Trump's ally and NATO ambassador, Matthew Whitaker, reaffirmed the U.S.'s commitment to NATO, promising that the U.S. was ready to defend Europe. Trump, by contrast, has remained silent. It's unusual, Benen said, because he loves to beat his chest and project strength. Hitting a building in Romania isn't merely a one-off. Benen explained that it is a pattern with Russia. Last fall, Russian drones entered Polish airspace. NATO pilots shot them down. Then, Russian pilots violated Estonian airspace.Benen added that none of these "tests" happened under non-Trump administrations. It makes Trump's "weakness toward Vladimir Putin ... especially humiliating," he wrote. The GOP has similarly been quiet. "In recent weeks, the Republican president has repeatedly criticized NATO as a 'paper tiger' because its members chose not to participate in his misguided war with Iran, but he has offered no comparable criticisms of Russia for incidents inside NATO member nations," Benen closed.

Political scholar reveals the 'bald-faced lie' putting Trump at odds with GOP

President Donald Trump is committed to rewriting reality when it comes to a certain "bald-faced lie," one political scholar wrote for The Hill, and it is one that is putting him on a collision course with his own party.John Kenneth White is a professor emeritus of political science at the Catholic University of America, and on Monday, he published a piece for The Hill arguing that Trump has lost "all sense of reality" when it comes to the Jan. 6 Capitol Riots — and it is proving to be a massive headache for Republicans staring down tight races in the coming midterms."For years, President Trump and his fellow Republicans have sought to recast the events of that day. Trump called it a “day of love,'" White wrote. "Recently, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told reporters it had been a 'self-made riot by people who hate Trump.' Today, the price of admission into Trump’s Republican Party is to accept the bald-faced lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and the violence of Jan. 6 either did not happen or was staged."He added later: "But Trump’s version of history is running afoul of Republicans who fear voter retribution is coming this November. After Trump sued his own government for leaking information about his tax returns, the Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion settlement. The money, Trump said, is to be paid to people who were 'really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt with corrupt people running it,' among whom he likely intends to include Jan. 6 rioters."This plan, White noted, was a bridge too far even for Republicans, many of whom "demurred" at the idea. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that he was "not a big fan," of the fund, while Rep. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin called it a "galactic blunder." This face-off between Trump and the GOP comes as economic matters are set to be the defining issue of the midterms, and Republicans sweat about the president's increasing obsession with frivolous and costly ideas at the expense of actual policy wins."Trump’s intentional forgetfulness about the violence of Jan. 6 and his role in it is akin to white Southerners’ rewriting of history after the Civil War," White continued. "Following the Confederacy’s defeat, the South recast the Civil War as a noble cause in defense of states’ rights. By the early 20th century, nearly 700 Confederate statues were erected throughout the South and the history books were whitewashed to make the conflict primarily about states’ rights, not slavery."He added later: "Trump has adopted an even more aggressive stance when it comes to rewriting the history of Jan. 6. This month, the Justice Department began scrubbing its website of any references to the insurrection. The department said it is, 'proud to reverse' its 'weaponization under the Biden administration,' and 'will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes,' including removing 'partisan propaganda' from the Justice Department’s website."

Top Trump DOJ revenge case hits major snag after crucial ruling in unrelated case

The Trump Justice Department's criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey got a worrisome sign on Monday — and it wasn't a development in that case itself, but one in an unrelated case involving the National Park Service.According to Politico, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss has issued a two-week restraining order prohibiting the park service from doing anything to interfere with a protest by the liberal group Accountability Now USA, which has for months been protesting President Donald Trump outside a federal courthouse near the National Mall — by flying a huge banner that says "86-47," with "47" being a reference to Trump and "86" a common slang term for getting rid of something.The group has been harassed by the Secret Service, and more recently, a National Park Service official issued an email ordering the group to remove it as it is "obscenity" not protected by the First Amendment. This is in line with a number of Trump officials and allies who have claimed "86-47" is a call for violence against the president."Moss, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, disagreed in his ruling.“The Court does not doubt that political violence is on the rise and that it poses a grave threat not just to the targets of the threats but to the country as a whole," wrote Moss. "But the enormity of that problem does not change the meaning of Plaintiff’s speech, which by any reasonable measure merely advocated for the President’s impeachment and removal from office — that is, ‘to throw [him] out.’”This could have grave implications for the administration's separate efforts to prosecute Comey, who was charged with violent threats for a social media post from last year depicting seashells arranged to spell out "8647." Comey deleted the post and apologized, but has made clear he was never advocating violence.All of this comes as the DOJ quietly reassigned a prosecutor in charge of the Comey case.