Republican Senators Try to Patch Things Up With the President

Even by our fully debased standard of grading President Donald Trump on a curve, yesterday was a rolling catastrophe of astonishing political blunders. Not even the kind that seem like gaffes to normies but energize his base with high-fiving celebrations of owning the libs. No, Trump didn’t own the libs yesterday. The only person he owned was himself. And yet, Senate Republicans remain submissive, even after showing small flashes of fight.

Voters of both parties are worried and stressed about housing costs and affordability, so any sane politician would seize the opportunity for a photo op of his support for a bipartisan housing bill. Instead, Trump, who lives in a gilded penthouse and private golf club when he’s not in residence rent-free at the White House, which he is needlessly renovating with taxpayer money, unexpectedly cancelled a scheduled signing ceremony (via Truth Social, of course), saying he would not sign the bill unless Senate Republicans passed the SAVE America Act, a voter suppression bill. Wow, this guy really knows how to negotiate, doesn’t he? As any viewer of Schoolhouse Rock knows, the housing bill will become law without his signature, and then he will have missed the opportunity to show everyone how much he cares. Instead, he hands Democrats an opportunity to show voters how much he only cares about his delusions and conspiracy theories, and not about addressing their struggles to afford housing.

Headlines about Trump’s lunch with Senate Republicans yesterday were dominated by the shouting matches, especially with Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, triggered by the tensions he has stoked with his own party, stemming from his SAVE America Act demands, his anger over the passage of the Iran war powers resolution, and other matters. While such a confrontation seemed to mark a new era in Trump-GOP relations, definitively declaring a turning point was perhaps premature. Late last night the Senate, with Cassidy switching his position, voted against another war powers resolution in a procedural vote GOP leadership brought to the floor for the sole purpose of assuaging Trump after his blow-up with Cassidy earlier in the day. According to the Washington Post, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and John Barrasso (R-WY) successfully pressed Cassidy to change his vote.

The Reflecting Pool Debacle Gets More Ridiculous and Embarrassing

Following his Capitol Hill showdown, Trump met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office, where he reprised his conspiracy theories about his botched reflecting pool renovation, insisting there is photographic proof of “thugs” vandalizing it. “They took razor blades and they cut patches like that, 350 feet long. A lot of them are like a foot, a foot, a foot. They cut the lining and there’s pictures of the guy bending over. I don’t know if anybody saw that, but there are pictures of the guy,” he said. Reporters, of course, have asked the White House, the National Parks Service, and the Department of the Interior to see these photos for themselves. This is not just a “Trump claimed, without evidence” moment. Trump is just making stuff up — not unprecedented for him, but notable because the reflecting pool debacle is such a huge, visible, and easily comprehensible tale of corruption and incompetence that it will prove much more difficult for him to bullshit his way out of it.

While Trump fabricated his story about the vandalism of the reflecting pool, which he has portrayed as a great affront to himself and the country’s heritage, he claimed during the same meeting not to have seen actual photographic proof that an American Tomahawk missile struck an elementary school in Minab, Iran, at the outset of the war, killing 175 people. Although the proof of the U.S. strike has been reported in major news outlets, Trump nonetheless claimed to have not seen these reports, saying, “I have to wait for it to be complete,” adding later, “I don’t think it was us.”

Trump Is Trying to Blame Global Oil Shocks on “Liberal” U.K.

Responding to questions about the resignation of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and the likely ascension of newly elected Labour MP Andy Burnham to the role, Trump said, “I hear he’s extremely liberal,” which apparently bothers Trump because “that means he probably won’t open up the North Sea.” Trump claimed to have unsuccessfully pressed Starmer to “open up the North Sea,” by which he meant drill for oil there. This only became an issue after Trump’s war in Iran caused oil shocks around the world. So now Trump will judge Burnham on his “liberalism,” which Trump defines as not bailing him out of this historic self-inflicted wound.

Trump Declares “Golden Age” At Great American State Fair Launch

Trump gave a campaign style speech on the National Mall last night to kick off his Great American State Fair, which many states have declined to participate in. He announced several weeks ago that he would be speaking at the launch after numerous musical acts backed out of performing at his overtly partisan event. Last night he repeated some of his usual grievances and lies, and then boasted that the country is in a “golden age,” claiming, “There’s never been an age like this.”

Courts Deal Trump Losses in His Effort to Control Elections

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to force state election officials in Michigan to turn over its voter rolls to the federal government. The court affirmed a lower court ruling by a Trump-appointed judge, dismissing the Department of Justice’s lawsuit filed to obtain the sensitive voter information. The ruling is binding on all states in the circuit, including Kentucky, where the DOJ has also sued state officials. This is the first appellate court to rule on the administration’s unprecedented power grab, along with nine trial courts who rebuffed Trump. In another case in which states challenged Trump’s 2025 executive order purporting to control elections, U.S. District Judge Denise Casper held Wednesday that significant parts of the order were unconstitutional, including its requirement to provide proof of citizenship when using the federal voter registration form, and its prohibition on counting mail ballots postmarked but not received at election boards by Election Day.

Election Fraud!

Thomas Pischke, a Republican senator in the South Dakota state legislature, is facing two felony counts for falsifying signatures for candidates for state Republican Party positions without their knowledge. “It’s a bad optic for the party,” said Jim Eschenbaum, the state GOP chair.

Judge Blocks Trump DOJ Attempt to Subpoena Trans Patients’ Medical Records

A federal judge in New York has blocked DOJ’s attempts to subpoena New York City hospitals for private medical information of trans youth who obtained gender-affirming care at their facilities. Chris Geidner has all the details at Law Dork.

Harrowing Read

Mother Jones’ Samantha Michaels profiles the Perez family, whose four children, all U.S. citizens, were left to fend for themselves after ICE detained both their parents. The Perezes, who live just seven miles from Mar-a-Lago, are among more than 146,000 U.S. citizen kids whose parents were detained by ICE between January 2025 and April 2026.

A Catholic at Pete Hegseth’s Prayer Meeting

After outcry over apparent snubs of Catholics at the Pentagon and anti-Catholic statements by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s religious mentor, Doug Wilson, Hegseth’s monthly prayer meeting yesterday featured a Catholic speaker. Jonathan Morris, a former priest, is also a Fox News contributor who has appeared on the network with Hegseth. Brian Kaylor watched it so you don’t have to.

Frozen Embryos Are People, Too, Says HHS

Moira Donegan takes a look at a Department of Health and Human Services call for grant applications, part of a revival of a George W. Bush-era program to raise awareness about frozen embryos. She finds that the Trump administration is referring to them as “children who already exist and are in need of a family.” The phrasing, she writes, “lends ammunition to anti-choice groups that have sought recognition of fetal and embryonic personhood in the courts, and who can now claim that embryos are already persons under the law as evidenced by the fact that they are treated as such in federal policy.”

The Logic Behind the Court’s New Carveout to Freedom of Religion

In a 6-3 decision yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that Damon Landor, a Rastafarian man, could not sue Louisiana prison guards who had forcibly shaved off his dreadlocks, in violation of his religious rights under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), the federal law that protects the religious liberties of the incarcerated. The conservative majority twisted itself into a pretzel to rule that the law did not authorize money damages against individual prison officials because, as if the law were a contract, they did not agree the law applied to them. It was a result, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent, that “magically transforms a federal statute into an invitation to be accepted or declined, deemed binding only if each particular defendant has explicitly agreed to be penalized.”

While the factual and legal particulars differ, it’s hard not to see the lengths to which the Court’s conservative majority will go to find no remedy for a non-Christian plaintiff whose rights were blatantly violated, and almost comically absurd remedies for conservative Christians. The Court started down this path in 2014, with the Hobby Lobby line of cases, in which it ruled that family businesses with religious owners did not have to comply with a federal requirement under the Affordable Care Act that employer-sponsored health insurance plans cover contraception. During Trump’s first term, the Court embraced his administration’s expansion of exemptions for non-profits opposed to contraception, to opt out of the coverage not only on religious, but also vaguely-defined “moral” grounds. The Court also has granted a religious exemption to a baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. It protected a website designer who had not even yet launched her business, from any remote possibility of a civil rights inquiry over her anti-LGBTQ stances. For the Court, even the mere prospect of an anti-LGBTQ Christian having to live in a world where LGBTQ people have rights is grounds for shielding them from the faith-crushing behemoth of human rights. For Damon Landor, though, they found an exception for the men who violated his rights by altering a religiously-mandated part of his body.

Remarkably, yesterday’s decision found a critic in the nation’s leading evangelical prison ministry. Prison Fellowship, founded in 1976 by Nixon White House special counsel Charles Colson after he found Jesus while serving a seven-month sentence for obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal, quickly faulted the decision. “At Prison Fellowship, we advocated for the passage of RLUIPA because we believe human dignity is central to how any justice system should operate,” Heather Rice-Minus, the organization’s president and CEO said in a statement. “When that dignity is violated, especially in matters of religious beliefs, it raises serious concerns about how we treat incarcerated individuals and whether their fundamental identity is being honored. We’re disappointed by the Court’s decision because the justice system must protect the worth and liberties of every individual, including those in prison.”

“A Hot Steaming Pile of DOGE Shit”

That’s what Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) predicted yesterday when reporters asked for his views on the firings President Donald Trump’s acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte is reportedly carrying out. Tillis added, for good measure, that he considers Pulte an “incompetent sycophant.” Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has introduced a bill that would prevent a president from installing an acting director to the position, and if there is a vacancy, require the elevation of the principal deputy director of national intelligence, who must be confirmed by the Senate, to the acting post.

Trump Claims He Directed the Outcome of California’s Gubernatorial Primary

During a speech at a Mack Trucks facility in Macungie, Pennsylvania yesterday, during which he was supposed to be “shifting” to talk about the economy, Trump blurted out that he told the Department of Justice to “take a look” at California’s gubernatorial primary election because he feared that the candidate he had endorsed, former Fox News contributor Steve Hilton, would not advance to the run-off. Trump said that during California’s notoriously slow but perfectly legal vote-counting process, he told the U.S. Attorney in central California, Bill Essayli, “‘Do me a favor. Take a look, they are trying to steal that election, too.’” Essayli publicly announced an investigation, and Trump falsely claimed that the only reason Hilton advanced to the run-off was because of Essayli’s intervention.

Trump Frustrating Senate Republicans With Relentless Push for SAVE America Act

Trump will be lunching with GOP senators today, pushing them once again to pass the SAVE America Act, even if it requires blowing up the filibuster or firing the Senate Parliamentarian. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has consistently said the votes aren’t there for Trump’s voter suppression measure, and that Trump’s demands to end the filibuster or fire the parliamentarian in order to force it through are not going to happen. The president, who is drawing more vocal opposition from senators in his party of late, particularly over his vanity White House ballroom, his preposterously corrupt slush fund, and his disastrous prosecution of the Iran War, will not be Thune’s guest, however. He was invited by Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), contributing to speculation that the close Trump ally is gunning for Thune’s job.

Dems Demand Answers on a Shady Trump Crypto Deal Involving Steve Witkoff

Senate Democrats are calling on their Republican counterparts to hold hearings on a shady deal between the Trump family’s cryptocurrency firm and figures in the United Arab Emirates. Citing reporting in Forbes, Reuters, and the New York Times, the senators write that “four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly purchased a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial (WLF) for approximately $500 million — with $218 million paid up front to entities tied to the families of President Trump and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.” A few months later, “the Trump Administration approved $1.4 billion in arms sales to the UAE, authorized the sale of 35,000 advanced AI chips to the UAE’s G42 firm despite national security concerns, and took steps to loosen cryptocurrency regulations — including disbanding the Justice Department’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.” 

Witkoff is one of the “negotiators,” along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, on the Iran “peace deal.” Trump’s war, though, has caused his popularity in the UAE to plummet, with one businessman telling the Washington Post, “we got played.” 

Did Right-Wing Groups Press the Trump Administration to Indict the Southern Poverty Law Center?

The New York Times reports that in a brief filed in federal court in support of its motion to dismiss the criminal case against it on the grounds of vindictive prosecution, the Southern Poverty Law Center argues its indictment was possibly triggered by a lettersent in September to Stephen Miller, signed by leaders of Christian right organizations including Turning Point USA, Alliance Defending Freedom, Moms for Liberty, and others, who the SPLC had designated as extremist organizations in its Hate Map. An FBI document created a month later used some language that was identical to the letter to Miller, who also had been the subject of SPLC investigations into his ties with white nationalists. “Both the letter and the F.B.I. document also cited identical quotations from critics of the law center who called the Hate Map ‘a partisan progressive hit operation’ and ‘a willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks,’” according to the Times.

Military Leaders Finding Workarounds For Warrior Pete’s Anti-Vaccine Policy

After Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth eliminated the requirement that members of the military receive a flu vaccine, and the flu outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, military services are finding ways to get servicemembers and recruits vaccinated. They’re reinstituting the flu vaccine requirement, but apparently can’t say so; they’re calling it an “exception” to Hegseth’s policy. 

How Fascism Works

Paul Waldman reads Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s new book on Trump II, Regime Change, finding its main theme is how his sycophantic aides “enable him to be the worst version of himself, and in turn he makes them the worst version of themselves.” And architecture critic Philip Kennicott writes about the Reflecting Pool: “A place that was meant to amplify the ideals of our democracy by reflecting an image of its sacred monuments was now a police zone, where cops carried out what seem to be arbitrary arrests motivated by the president’s need to blame his own mismanagement on an imaginary enemy.”

Trump Is So Unpopular No One Wants to Name Their Kid Donald Anymore

Last year, the baby name Donald “hit its lowest point of popularity in U.S. history, according to data maintained by the Social Security Administration,” NOTUS reports.