Ali Velshi delivered an emotional goodbye to his eponymous show on Sunday as the MS NOW chief data reporter prepares to move to weeknights on June 15, when he will take the reins of “The 11th Hour.”

Velshi began his nearly 20-minute monologue by thanking his team for their contributions to the show since its launch in 2020. “For more than six years, our newsroom has been filled with journalists who chose this work at the exact moment in American history when it was most needed,” he said. “Producers and bookers, writers and researchers, people who spend their week fact-checking what the powerful said, so that you and I could hold those words up to the light on weekend mornings.”

The host reflected on the major news events that he and his team covered on “Velshi” over the years, including the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the killing of George Floyd.

“Journalism starts with bearing witness,” he said. “Journalism is the decision made every single day by people who could be doing something safer and more lucrative, to go to the place where something is happening, to look at it directly, to describe it as honestly as language allows, and to make sure the people who were not there, who cannot be there or who have deliberately kept away from there, know what happened.”

According to Velshi, that kind of journalism is perhaps more important now than ever before. He pointed to President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the media and the recent scandal at CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” where several veteran reporters and producers have accused the network’s leadership of intervening to produce more favorable coverage of the president.

 “Some of the institutions that taught this country what bearing witness looks like are right now under pressure from, or perhaps in bed with, this administration,” he warned. “That is not a coincidence.”

“That’s why bearing witness has never mattered more than it does right now, and you don’t have to be a journalist to bear witness,” Velshi continued, stressing that real power in America comes from the people themselves: 

I’ve interviewed princes and presidents and potentates and prime ministers, some of the most powerful people on the face of the earth, but it was never from them that I learned what democracy is made of or where it draws its strength. It was on the road meeting the people whose names will never appear in a headline: the ones who run for the school board, who show up to the meeting that no one else attends, who refuse stubbornly and beautifully and at real cost to be exhausted into indifference. That is where I learned the thing I now believe most deeply, that in a democracy power does not flow down from the powerful, it rises from you, the authors of this democracy.

You can watch Velshi’s full remarks in the clip at the top of the page.

The post Ali Velshi delivers emotional sign-off on final weekend show appeared first on MS NOW.

Conservative Mormons, much like conservative Catholics, may be starting to realize they are not exempt from the Trump administration’s religious bigotry. 

President Donald Trump and his administration’s crusade to cut off funding to Catholic groups that provide aid to immigrants, the condemnation by Trump officials of Catholic leaders for urging sympathy toward immigrants and Trump’s repeated attacks on Pope Leo for opposing his deadly war with Iran have created an environment in which even some right-wing Catholics have had to reckon with hostility toward Christians coming from some of their presumed allies in administration. 

Lawmakers and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may be having a similar realization after the Pentagon, which is led by Christian nationalist Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, excluded the church from its list of recognized religions, along with 179 other faith traditions. The move was apparently a part of the Pentagon’s controversial push to slash the number of religious faiths it recognizes.

The move comes amid a long-standing resistance among some conservative evangelicals to classify Latter-day Saints as a branch of Christianity. 

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who is Mormon and a staunch Trump ally, was taken aback by the exclusion of his faith from the Pentagon’s list of Christian denominations.

Can anyone tell me why The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was left out of the list of Christian churches? pic.twitter.com/t4u6PI29ON

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) June 6, 2026

Republican Sen. John Curtis and Rep. Mike Kennedy, also both Utah Republicans who are members of the church, objected to the new classification as well. 

Latter-day Saints are among the most patriotic, service-oriented individuals in our country. They are also unequivocally Christian—just look at who is in the name of the Church.

It is unacceptable for a government entity to characterize a faith in a manner that contradicts the… https://t.co/ywqk59ZtRz

— Senator John Curtis (@SenJohnCurtis) June 6, 2026

Amid backlash, Sean Parnell, assistant to the defense secretary, said in a social media post that the reclassification “is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions.”

The outcry seems to have prompted a reversal from the Defense Department. On Monday, a social media post from the department included a new list with a caption that said the previous one “included redundant and unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed.”

Last week, a proposed list of simplified faith codes was released to the media. The Pentagon list included redundant and unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed.

The goal of this effort is to simplify a previously out-of-control “belief” coding system that had… pic.twitter.com/yCsQDhZcGp

— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) June 8, 2026

The new list’s codes no longer identify which of the recognized faiths are considered Christian, which raises the question of whether Pentagon officials consider the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be a form of Christianity, or if they would simply prefer not to flaunt their beliefs on the topic in public.

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President Donald Trump on Monday formally nominated his longtime loyalist and former personal defense lawyer Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general permanently.

Blanche has been serving as the nation’s top prosecutor in an acting capacity after Pam Bondi was fired by Trump in April. Blanche was Bondi’s deputy at the time.

The nomination has been sent to the Senate.

Blanche likely faces an uphill battle to get confirmed by senators who have castigated him over his handling of the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files, his efforts to prosecute officials who Trump has targeted for retaliation and the president’s “anti-weaponization” fund, which has drawn bipartisan scorn.
 
“Donald Trump has been engaged in the most corrupt enterprise in the history of the Presidency. Todd Blanche apparently has not noticed,” said Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Senate Democratic Whip and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Still, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has expressed optimism that Blanche has enough support to win confirmation.

“Blanche is well-qualified and has shown his dedication to restoring law and order across our country,” Grassley said in a statement announcing that the Senate received Trump’s nomination. “The Senate Judiciary Committee’s work to process Blanche’s nomination is underway.”

Blanche came under renewed scrutiny when he pushed for a nearly $1.8 billion settlement fund for people seeking damages from the federal government, including Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. After a court order temporarily blocking it and fierce criticism from lawmakers in his own party, Blanche reversed course on the fund and said it would not be pursued.

Prior to the settlement fund controversy, Bondi and Blanche have faced backlash over the Epstein files from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle during their tenure in the Department of Justice.

As part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the DOJ was required to publish unclassified material related to the prosecution of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Members of Congress accused both of mishandling the department’s Epstein-related documents by failing to protect the names and images of survivors, omitting the identities of some prominent figures and surveilling their search history of the files.

When she sat before the House Oversight Committee in May, Bondi acknowledged redaction errors but appeared to blame Blanche for the botched release of the Epstein files.

“As the head of a large Department with broad responsibilities, I did not lead every aspect of this effort or conduct that document review myself,” Bondi said. “I delegated oversight over this process to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.”

Bondi later denied blaming Blanche and praised him as “an incredible Attorney General” for what she characterized as a complicated and laborious task.

The post Trump formally nominates Todd Blanche as attorney general appeared first on MS NOW.

Donald Trump spent much of last week railing against California’s recent statewide primaries, baselessly insisting the slow process of tallying ballots must reflect a “rigged” system. This week, the president picked up where he left off.

In the early hours of Monday morning, he used his social media platform to argue there’s “no way” a candidate he liked has fallen behind in response to an updated vote count. Hours later, he emphasized the same point, insisting it’s “not possible” for his preferred candidate in Los Angeles’ mayoral race to lose ground as more ballots are counted.

None of that made logical sense, but it is part of an exasperating effort to undermine public confidence. During his latest “Meet the Press” appearance, the president was even more aggressive on the issue, making all kinds of unfounded allegations. When NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked him to substantiate his claims with evidence, Trump replied, “All I have to do is look.”

When the host explained that that wasn’t evidence, the Republican added, “And I listen to people.” (He didn’t say who, what they were saying or why he found these unnamed people to be more credible than official election results.)

The problem, however, is not just hysterical conspiracy-mongering, all of which is demonstrably incorrect, from a president who has long railed against election results he doesn’t like. Just as important as what Trump is saying is what Team Trump is doing. NBC News reported:

A federal prosecutor in California said Friday that authorities have launched investigations tied to the state’s recent elections following President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said Friday morning on X that his office was pursuing “multiple election fraud investigations” alongside the FBI, without providing details.

To date, no credible fraud allegations have been made, so it’s not at all clear what the federal prosecutors in California intend to investigate.

Indeed, over the weekend, state Attorney General Rob Bonta told MS NOW there is no basis for the Trump appointee’s probe.

“There are no details, there is no specifics, there is no specific allegation of any individualized act of voter fraud,” the California Democrat said. “And every count, recount, hand count, court case and audit has shown time and time again — not just in California, but throughout this country — that there is no widespread voter fraud.”

Bonta added that claims of voter fraud are “only a figment of the imagination of Trump and others who follow that conspiracy theory.”

What I’m most curious about, however, is what happens when Essayli and his team look for evidence to bolster Trump’s accusations, only to come up short. Do they tell the truth and admit the election results were legitimate, inviting partisan rage from the right? Or do they bring baseless charges, inviting pushback from the courts?

The post Trump’s DOJ pretends California election conspiracy theories are worth taking seriously appeared first on MS NOW.

The threat of a potential labor crisis at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium continues to loom just days before the World Cup kicks off, after a union representing more than 2,000 hospitality workers voted to authorize a strike.

The union representing concession workers, servers, bartenders, dishwashers, cooks and other SoFi Stadium workers voted overwhelmingly Friday in favor of a strike. In the lead-up to the vote, union leaders voiced concerns about the possible presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at games, worker compensation and the potential automation of some services using artificial intelligence.

According to a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll released last week, Americans broadly oppose ICE agents being present at stadiums during the World Cup, which is also being held in Canada and Mexico.

The findings are unsurprising, given that ICE agents have garnered comparisons to the Ku Klux Klan and are central to President Donald Trump’s deadly, racist anti-immigrant crackdown. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has vowed that “every single” federal agency will be on-site at the games, “not for immigration, but for terrorist threats.”

The Athletic reported that 96% of union voters voted to authorize a strike, effectively permitting workers to walk off the job at the first game at SoFi Stadium — Paraguay vs. the U.S. — on Friday if a labor deal isn’t reached before then.

The company that operates concessions at SoFi Stadium said it has a “contingency staffing plan” in place, according to The Wall Street Journal. But one of the union co-presidents painted an unflattering picture of how the games could play out if a strike happens — particularly for wealthier attendees.

Per the Journal:

“I guess soccer can be played” if workers go on strike, said Kurt Petersen, co-president of the local union, in an interview. “But someone paying $100,000 for a suite, and they’re ending up getting bottled water and Doritos, I’m not sure that’s what they’re expecting.”

The Wall Street Journal noted that a strike would be embarrassing for Los Angeles and FIFA:

A strike at SoFi Stadium would be an embarrassment for Los Angeles as it gears up to host eight World Cup matches, the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics. It would also be a black eye for FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, which has advertised high-end food and beverage service in the stadium’s suites while charging thousands of dollars for tickets.

I would argue that a strike would also amount to an embarrassment for Trump and his allies. The president has basically adhered his brand to this tournament, having named himself chair of the 2026 World Cup task force he created and having appointed Andrew Giuliani — Rudy Giuliani’s son — as the task force’s executive director.

A strike stemming in part from his administration’s policies would only add to Trump’s toxic influence at this year’s World Cup.

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No Supreme Court justices dissented Monday from the court’s refusal to hear an appeal from Mississippi death row prisoner Tony Terrell Clark, who argued that he was forced to meet an “impossible” standard.

Clark had claimed that his right to an impartial jury was violated when Black people were kept off the jury because of their race. But to vindicate his rights on appeal in Mississippi state court, he said, he had to prove that the outcome of his trial would have been different without the jury violation.

Yet even though Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with her colleagues that Clark’s appeal didn’t merit high court review, she penned a separate statement to call out what she deemed the “problematic” standard that the state’s top court applied against him, in the context of his claim that his trial counsel ineffectively challenged the prosecution’s strikes of prospective jurors.

Clark’s case involved an interplay between two types of legal claims: a “Batson” claim and a “Strickland” claim, both of which are named for the 1980s-era Supreme Court cases from which they came. Batson claims (from the case of Batson v. Kentucky) are when a defendant argues that a potential juror was illegally kept off the jury because of their race. Strickland claims (from the case of Strickland v. Washington) are when a defendant argues that their lawyer was ineffective. Defendants bringing Strickland claims must show two things: 1) that their lawyer was deficient and 2) that the defendant was prejudiced by the deficiency.

The “impossible” Mississippi standard, as Clark put it, was that to prove on appeal that he was prejudiced by his counsel’s mishandling of a Batson challenge, the state high court said he needed to show that the outcome of his trial would have been different had the lawyer performed effectively.

Sotomayor took issue with that. “The Mississippi Supreme Court’s approach, to the extent it requires a criminal defendant to show that a competently presented Batson challenge would have produced a different trial outcome, is almost certainly wrong,” the Obama-appointed justice wrote.

She noted that other courts have taken a different approach: They make the narrower inquiry of whether the Batson challenge itself would have been successful if the lawyer had handled it properly, rather than looking at whether the resulting trial would have turned out differently, as Mississippi does.

In his Supreme Court petition, Clark explained that his post-conviction counsel tried to meet the “impossible” standard by talking to a potential Black juror who was kept off the jury. “As common-sense dictates,” his petition said, the struck juror “could not offer an opinion on whether she would have voted guilty or for a death sentence if she was on the jury.”  

In her statement Monday, Sotomayor said her colleagues “should one day resolve” the issue and decide “that Strickland does not require the kind of prejudice analysis that the Mississippi Supreme Court has adopted for Batson-related ineffectiveness claims.”

But the justice conceded that Clark’s appeal didn’t present the proper case for doing so. She recalled that the state high court found that Clark failed to satisfy not only the prejudice prong but also the deficiency prong, and that he didn’t argue the deficiency issue to the justices. “Given the independent basis on which Clark’s Strickland claim failed below, I concur in the denial of Clark’s petition for a writ of certiorari,” she wrote.

Seeking to uphold Clark’s conviction and death sentence for the 2014 murder of 13-year-old Muhammed Saeed during a robbery, Mississippi’s lawyers likewise emphasized that the state court ruled against Clark on both the deficiency and prejudice prongs of the Strickland test.

When Clark’s case was previously before the high court in 2023, Sotomayor wrote a dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, that said the court’s rejection of what was then his latest appeal meant that “a Black man will be put to death in the State of Mississippi based on the decision of a jury that was plausibly selected based on race.”

Monday’s denial also follows a recent 5-4 ruling from the justices in favor of another Mississippi prisoner, Terry Pitchford, who also raised a Batson claim and argued that the state high court wrongly ruled against him, too. The Supreme Court decision in Pitchford’s favor was authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has long taken an interest in Batson claims, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson. Pitchford’s case didn’t raise the complication that Clark’s case did of the Strickland issue being layered on top of the Batson issue (though the Pitchford case raised other procedural issues that, as the 5-4 vote indicates, made it a close one).  

Sotomayor’s statement Monday appeared on the court’s order list, a routine document on which the justices announce the latest action in pending appeals. In line with the court’s typical practice, the justices didn’t explain why they denied Clark’s petition. There usually isn’t any comment from any of the justices accompanying denials. Therefore, Sotomayor’s statement made the case stand out and included a rare explanation for why at least one of the justices agreed to pass on the petition.

It takes four justices to grant review, giving the court’s six-justice GOP-appointed majority significant power not only over how cases are decided but over which cases are decided.

On that note, Monday’s order list also included a case in which Sotomayor and Jackson noted their dissent from the court’s decision to vacate a lower court ruling that sided with a defendant. The high court majority sent the case back to the lower court, ordering further review in light of the justices’ latest sentencing-related rulings that made it harder for prisoners to win compassionate release.

Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.

The post Why Sotomayor voted against a defendant but was still troubled by a ‘problematic’ process appeared first on MS NOW.

UPDATE (June 8, 2026, 9:25 p.m. ET): Los Angeles Council member Nithya Raman will advance to the November general election in the mayoral race to face the incumbent, Karen Bass, after overtaking ex-reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the primary, The Associated Press projects.

President Donald Trump and some of his top allies are repeating a familiar but false refrain: An election is “rigged,” as evidenced by their preferred candidate’s poor performance.

This time, their focus is on ex-reality TV star and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt.

On the night of the Tuesday primary, Pratt maintained a 9-point lead over his closest challenger, LA Council member Nithya Raman, leading his supporters to believe he would proceed to the November runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. But as mail-in ballots trickled in throughout the week, Pratt’s lead over Raman steadily narrowed, and by Sunday night, she had overtaken him by less than 1 point, with more than 80% of votes counted, according to The Associated Press. (The AP has not yet projected the second-place finisher to proceed to the runoff as of Monday afternoon.)

To Trump and his MAGA allies, a democratic socialist’s surge over a registered Republican with no political experience in a deep-blue city can only be indicative of one thing: fraud.

“No way this could have happened. Rigged Election!” Trump wrote on Truth Social early Monday morning.

A few hours later, Trump followed up with another Truth Social post.

“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!” he wrote.

Far-right activist Laura Loomer, a close ally of the president, told her 1.9 million followers on X on Saturday that the election “is being stolen from [Pratt] in real time!”

Benny Johnson and Elon Musk have also reposted several right-wing accounts suggesting Raman’s rise must be the result of fraud. Meghan McCain, who is a conservative commentator but also a frequent Trump critic, also injected doubt into the election results.

But election experts are not surprised by Raman’s slow rise as vote counting continues.

Why California vote counting takes so long

A poll released by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Los Angeles Times in late May suggested Pratt and Raman would be competing neck-and-neck to proceed to the runoff, and several strategists long predicted Pratt — a registered Republican backed by MAGA — would face an uphill battle in the blue city.

The mechanics of how Angelenos’ votes are counted also explain Raman’s rise: California elections officials have 30 days from Election Day to come up with the vote count, and mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received up to seven days after the election are eligible to be counted. (If mail-in ballots are missing signatures or have signatures that do not match those on file, state law requires election officials to contact voters to verify their signatures, adding more time to the process.)

Results posted on election night are based on in-person ballots cast at voting locations, both on Election Day and before, as well as mail-in ballots received before Election Day, according to the California secretary of state’s office. Subsequent counts include votes cast by provisional ballots, ballots from voters who registered and voted on the same day and the mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days of the election.

“This is not unusual,” Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, told MS NOW on Monday regarding the shifting results in the race.

Yaroslavsky pointed to the 2022 LA primary, when Republican turned centrist Democrat Rick Caruso was ahead of Bass on primary night before she pulled ahead a week later. In the November runoff, Bass ultimately beat Caruso by nearly 10 points. Nearly 85% of voters also voted by mail in that primary, contributing to the delay in Bass’s rise.

“It’s clear, it has always been the case, that Republicans and more conservative voters vote early, [and] working people, more progressive people vote late,” Yaroslavsky said.

And with more votes still to be counted, Yaroslavsky predicted Raman’s lead over Pratt would expand even further.

‘No evidence’ of cheating

Dean Logan, LA County’s registrar-recorder and county clerk, told CNN on Sunday that officials have “no evidence or examples” of cheating in the mayoral race.

“I think what we’re seeing, unfortunately, is carrying out of a narrative that has become the game play in national politics in the United States, and that is prior to the vote count being completed, take shots at the process, so if the outcome turns out different than what you want, you don’t accept that, you challenge the process,” Logan said.

Yaroslavsky agreed, telling MS NOW, “What the president is basically saying is, ‘When I win, it’s legit, when I don’t win, it’s fraud.’ That’s not the way it works.”

Logan told CNN the outcome would be clear within “days,” adding, “I know it’s frustrating, but this is really about making sure that every eligible ballot in this election is counted and counted correctly.”

In the meantime, other conspiracies are circulating, including some promoted by Pratt himself.

Pratt suggested on Sunday night, for example, that the approximately 43,000 votes Raman gained between Tuesday and Sunday came from homeless people. In another social media post on Sunday, Pratt wrote: “They’re not the only ones who know where to find votes.”

Spokespeople for the Pratt campaign did not immediately respond to questions from MS NOW on Monday seeking clarification about the candidate’s claims.

Other conservative influencers have also falsely said Raman “conceded” the race at her primary night rally. But as MS NOW covered in real time, Raman did not concede the race. Instead, she warned her supporters that it would take time for the votes to be counted and that they may not get a favorable outcome.

“Tonight may not give us a final answer on this race. Many thousands of votes will be counted in the days ahead, and we may not get an answer we like,” she said.

In a statement provided to MS NOW on Monday, Raman said, “We are encouraged by the latest vote count and remain grateful to the thousands of Angelenos who have powered this campaign.”

The post Trump says ‘not possible’ for Pratt to fall short in ‘rigged’ LA mayor’s race. He’s wrong. appeared first on MS NOW.

On Sunday, President Trump quit an interview with Kristen Welker of “Meet the Press” after becoming frustrated as he faced challenging questions. Fighting with the media is nothing new for the president, but the notion of giving up midway through when things get tough may be more indicative of Trump’s current mindset and emblematic of his second presidency.

Usually, it is difficult to tell when a presidency is over. Officially, Jan. 20 every four (or eight) years marks the end of a presidency. But long before that comes the moment when a president loses potency, ceases to be a driving force and is reduced to reaction. It is like the moment when your new car becomes just your car: You don’t know when it happened precisely, but you know it’s in the past.

In the year and half since Trump’s return, it seems everything has changed — except the economy.

In the 2024 election, voters gave Trump what few get in life: a mulligan. Trump received a political do-over. But as the GOP celebrated its 2024 wins, an irrational exuberance took over. It forgot — or never realized — that along with a do-over for Trump, voters gave Republicans a mandate to focus on the stubborn issues of affordability that continue to plague the post-Covid economy. For Americans of all ages, living, eating, breathing and simply going to work is incredibly and increasingly unaffordable, much less doing it all with a family. 

Long after Inauguration Day celebrations ended, the GOP kept partying, while the country saw norms shattered, DOGE shuttered and citizens shot by ICE. Then came a war with Iran that has Americans emptying their wallets to fill their gas tanks. Inflation is creeping back up, while Americans’ savings are going down. 

In the year and half since Trump’s return, it seems everything has changed — except the economy. It is very hard to say that the president’s second act has improved the lives or financial status of many, unless of course your last name is Trump. His second administration has been a historic misread of a political mandate, and a tragic mistake of a presidency. 

While it’s clear that Trump maintains an iron grip on the GOP, what good is that if he does nothing with it to alleviate the hardships of the American people? To date the administration and GOP have offered no economic agenda or ideas for the future. The only thing Republicans on the hill are focused on is giving more money to the Department of Homeland Security — which had already been given so much money it started to buy two private jets, one with a bar and a bedroom. 

The president has lost all credibility on the economy, the No. 1 priority of the American public. He has lost control over ending the war. The administration is rudderless. Trump is enamored with being president, yet wants nothing to do with the job. His Cabinet members turn their attention from serving the people to appeasing their boss. Many top officials now hold their jobs in an acting capacity — not just in title but in their emphasis on performance for an audience of one. 

Things are bleak for the party in control of all three branches of the federal government.

After giving up on governing, with no vision, the president has turned to what’s simply in his line of sight. Event after unrelated event, speech after rambling speech, he is obsessed with what he perceives as the beautification of his D.C. bubble. He talks about fountains, his arch and ballroom, a repainted reflecting pool, a UFC fight at the White House and a partisan rally for himself after the failure of a planned concert on the National Mall. His appointees propose plastering his face on passports and $250 bills. Banners with Trump’s looming image adorn government buildings in Washington while he rants about not being able to put his name on the Kennedy Center.

Things are bleak for the party in control of all three branches of the federal government. The Democrats seem to offer no discernible plan for the economy or other pressing issues, but when voters want to throw the bums out, not being the “bums” in power may be enough.

The 2026 midterms are on the horizon, and the 2028 presidential race will begin the day after.

In a matter of months, attention will soon move from the White House to the campaign trail, and even successful presidents struggle to keep the spotlight off their potential successors. Candidates from both parties will have a chance to define themselves and offer their ideas on everything from artificial intelligence to taxes to war and peace. America’s next act will be written not in the Oval Office or the halls of Congress, but in the town halls and events across America. 

Meanwhile, the second Trump administration is already a lost cause at home and abroad. He has made himself a lame duck president, and is getting lamer every day.

The post Trump’s ‘Meet the Press’ walkout shows a presidency that’s already finished appeared first on MS NOW.

New Yorkers are not being shy about sharing their opinions on Donald Trump’s planned appearance at Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, with one Knicks fan predicting the president may not receive a warm reception in his hometown.

MS NOW caught up with fans outside the Garden ahead of the Knicks’ first NBA Finals home game against the San Antonio Spurs on Monday, as the franchise seeks its first championship since 1973 while holding a 2-0 series lead.

“New York’s been suffering long enough without a championship,” one fan told MS NOW. “[Trump] could stay out and we can maybe get through this one without any bad luck.”

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Last week, the president told reporters he was a “big fan” of the team and had been invited to attend by owner James Dolan. 

Trump’s visit means enhanced security measures will be in place at the Garden and the surrounding area. Officials announced that plans for a watch party outside the venue were not allowed to move forward, a decision the NYPD says it made in coordination with the Secret Service.

The New York City police commissioner said the traditional watch parties at the team’s home court will resume Wednesday for Game 4.

One Knicks supporter told MS NOW that he thought Trump’s visit would cause a “distraction” from the game. “We want the win. We’re focused on basketball and nothing more,” he said.

Another questioned why the president, who has frequently criticized New York City and its leadership, would want to return to his hometown, telling MS NOW, “New York is filled with such diversity, and a lot of the stuff that he doesn’t stand for is here. So, why is he coming here?”

“The energy is just really happy, lively. New York is alive,” she said. “And I just feel like if he comes, it’s going to be really strange, like it’s going to be a big downer.”

One fan said the president should be prepared for those unhappy with his visit to make their feelings heard during the game. “Hey, let him come. We’re gonna boo the f— up out of you, bro,” he said.  

However, the reaction was not all negative. At least one fan who spoke to MS NOW said he was looking forward to the president’s visit. “Honestly, that gets me very excited,” the fan said. “I think that President Trump attending one of the games is huge for New York and United States as a whole.”

Another fan said he did not view Trump’s visit as “positive or negative” but thought it would definitely cause a reaction. “I think it’d be pretty funny — think we get a lot of laughs out of people,” he said. 

You can watch the fans share their opinion on Trump’s planned visit in the video below.

The post New York Knicks fans sound off on Trump appearance ahead of NBA finals game: ‘Bad luck’ appeared first on MS NOW.

When the American job market struggled badly during Donald Trump’s first term, the White House not only struggled to come up with an explanation, but it also struggled to come up with anything to say at all.

The reticence was understandable, though embarrassing: The president promised to deliver an economic “boom” immediately after taking office, and he failed spectacularly, delivering the worst job market since the Great Recession (excluding the pandemic).

The White House was in a far better mood late last week, however, when the public learned that the economy gained 172,000 jobs in May, extending a three-month winning streak and getting closer to the kind of robust growth Americans saw during Joe Biden’s presidency.

But as the political and financial sectors digest the latest data, there’s a trend that’s worth dwelling on.

In the first four months of Trump’s second term, as 2025 was just getting underway, job growth slowly improved, and over the three months leading up to the unveiling of the White House’s trade tariffs agenda, the economy averaged monthly job growth of roughly 72,000.

Then the White House-imposed “Liberation Day” arrived, launching an avoidable and unnecessary trade war. In the 10 months that followed, the U.S. job market, on average, lost 4,900 jobs per month. That’s not a typo: For the first time in several years, the economy actually started losing jobs in a sustained way.

In February, to the hysterical outrage of the president, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his tariffs agenda. In the three months that followed, the economy added a combined 565,000 jobs — more than quadruple the total for the entirety of 2025 — for an average of more than 188,000 jobs per month.

Maybe that’s a coincidence, but I rather doubt it. To recap:

• Average monthly job growth in the immediate run-up to Trump’s tariffs: 72,000
• Average monthly job growth during Trump’s tariffs: -4,900
• Average monthly job growth in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s tariffs: 188,000

What this suggests is that if Trump wanted an economic success story, all he had to do was nothing. He inherited an economy firing on all cylinders, which was the envy of the world. If he had spent every day golfing, the job market almost certainly would have continued to hum along quite nicely.

But Trump couldn’t leave well enough alone, choosing instead to ignore literally everything we know about Economics 101 and imposing illegal tariffs that did economic, political and diplomatic harm to his own country.

Trump has repeatedly railed against the justices who ruled against him in the tariffs case, including two he appointed to the high court. The latest job numbers, however, suggest he owes them a fruit basket, not condemnation.

It’s something to keep in mind as the White House eyes new efforts to impose a fresh round of trade tariffs.

The post Improved job numbers make Trump’s trade tariffs look even worse appeared first on MS NOW.

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Monday struck down the $100,000 fee imposed last year on H-1B visas for highly skilled workers.

In a 42-page ruling in response to a lawsuit brought by 20 Democratic states, Judge Leo Sorokin, an Obama-appointed judge, agreed with the plaintiffs who argued the fee imposed by President Donald Trump’s executive order in September amounted to an “unauthorized tax.”

Created by Congress in 1990, the visas allow 65,000 highly skilled workers born outside the U.S. to work in the country per year, for up to six years. The visas have long been a target of immigration opponents, who allege it takes high-paying jobs from skilled Americans — a claim unsupported by research.

The plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit alleged Trump’s new policy would contribute to a shortage of teachers, medical professionals and academic researchers.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling from MS NOW on Monday afternoon.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Fallon Gallagher contributed reporting.

The post Federal judge declares Trump’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas unlawful appeared first on MS NOW.

All Donald Trump had to do was nothing. A group of lawmakers, hoping to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, crafted a bipartisan solution that appeared likely to advance ahead of Friday’s deadline. If the president simply let the process play out, the White House’s position was on track to succeed.

But Trump wasn’t content to do nothing. Instead, with time running out, he announced last week that Bill Pulte, his highly controversial director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, would serve as the acting director of national intelligence, sending shockwaves through political and intelligence circles.

Pulte has literally no background in intelligence or national security, failing to meet the statutory qualifications for the office, and he’s earned a reputation as a hyperpartisan hatchet man who has routinely abused his office to target the White House’s perceived political foes. Complicating matters, MS NOW reported last fall that a federal grand jury investigated whether Pulte illegally shared sensitive information with unauthorized people.

Democrats let Republicans know the president’s move imperiled the FISA extension, at which point Trump made matters worse, telling reporters he expected his unqualified loyalist to “find out some things about the rigged elections.”

On Friday, the president went even further still. The Wall Street Journal reported:

President Trump said he wants Bill Pulte, his incoming acting director of national intelligence, to begin firing a large number of employees as part of a shake-up of the U.S. intelligence community. […]

Trump, in the interview, argued that Pulte’s acting status is an asset. “You’re less shackled,” he said. “It sort of gives you more power, you know, for a somewhat limited period of time.”

So from the president’s perspective, his acting DNI, who apparently didn’t have the security clearance needed to do the job, should quickly start firing U.S. intelligence professionals without having to worry too much about the “shackles” that come with congressional oversight or accountability.

This did not go unnoticed on Capitol Hill.

Politico reported that several Democrats who had been inclined to help Republicans pass a long-term FISA extension are now saying they are not interested in cooperating until Pulte is removed.

Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Politico, “You just couldn’t have thrown an uglier wrench into the process,” adding that Democrats are now running away from the bipartisan deal.

Soon after, the Connecticut Democrat appeared on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” telling host Margaret Brennan, “The president needs to sober up and realize that this appointment is arguably, in the basket of awful appointments he has made, this is probably the worst and most dangerous.”

Four days remain before the FISA deadline. Watch this space.

The post As Democrats slam Pulte as ‘dangerous,’ Trump expands acting DNI’s portfolio appeared first on MS NOW.

As last week got underway, Donald Trump used his social media platform to take swipe at, of all people, communists. “Communists always do well with the Voters or, as they would say, THE PEOPLE, in the Early Years!” the president wrote for reasons that were unclear. “But, in the end, the Country, State, or City, GOES TO HELL!”

He added soon after, “Has anyone ever seen a Happy Communist?”

With this rhetorical question still rattling around the algorithm, it was rather ironic to see the Republican end the week calling for a government stake in yet another private industry. The New York Times reported:

President Trump told reporters on Friday that he would soon meet with artificial intelligence companies to discuss partnerships that would give the United States government a stake in the burgeoning industry.

“There’s so much money and it’s so big,” Trump said, according to a pool report from his flight to Wisconsin on Air Force One. Trump added that in the deals he envisions “the American public essentially becomes a partner” in the growth of A.I.

Asked which private AI companies he was eyeing, the president replied, “All of them. All the big ones.”

The comment came just days after independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described socialist, wrote an opinion piece for the Times touting a congressional proposal he had introduced that would “give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest A.I. companies in our country.” The proposal was predictably panned soon after by the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal as “the road to AI state socialism.”

It was around this same time that Trump not only endorsed the same idea, he also told reporters that there was some overlap between his economic vision and the Vermont socialist’s.

Trump: Bernie Sanders lost, you know that I got many of his people — they voted for me. Because, as far as economics is concerned, we have certain things that are not that far apart pic.twitter.com/ZMaks3WS2Z

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 5, 2026

The debate can and should continue about the merits of such a policy, but it’s hard not to notice the familiarity of the circumstances. On the one hand, Trump seems to like condemning those who disagree with him as communists. On the other hand, he also seems oddly interested in having the government taking ownership of parts of a variety of private industries.

In fact, late last year, after the government became the largest shareholder in a company developing extreme ultraviolet lithography tools that are seen as key to the development of semiconductors, my MS NOW colleague Ja’han Jones noted that this extended the Republican administration’s “socialist — if not blatantly authoritarian — trend of making the government a stakeholder in supposed ‘free market’ enterprises.”

Indeed, Jones added, “This trend stands in clear contrast with an administration that publicly decries socialism and a conservative movement that has labeled things like free buses and government-owned grocery stores as anathema to private industry and the American way of life.”

There’s no reason to assume the list won’t keep growing. The president, by his own admission, isn’t eyeing stakes only in AI companies, he and his team have also raised the prospect of seeking ownership stakes in oil companies, pharmaceutical companies and, in one recent instance, the rare-earth metals industry.

This is the same Republican president who’s also spoken publicly about limiting private companies’ profits, dictating private industries’ prices and cutting salaries for some private sector executives.

The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip published a provocative analysis on this last summer, noting that Trump’s vision doesn’t quite constitute “socialism,” because it more closely resembles “state capitalism, a hybrid between socialism and capitalism in which the state guides the decisions of nominally private enterprises.”

During the 2024 race, when many business leaders lined up behind the GOP ticket, they likely thought Republican rule would mean corporate tax breaks and fewer regulations. And while those assumptions have proved correct — the White House has delivered corporate tax breaks and freed polluters from regulatory burdens — those same business leaders have also ended up with more than they probably bargained for.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump eyes a government stake in AI companies, adding to an unexpected pattern appeared first on MS NOW.

A fourth-generation Louisiana farmer blamed President Donald Trump for his failure to deliver on his repeated promises to help the U.S. agricultural community. Willis Nelson joined MS NOW’s “The Weekend: Primetime” on Saturday to discuss the impact the president’s tariffs and war with Iran have had on his family’s farm and his concerns about its future.

“The last year has been really very tough for my farm and my brother’s,” Nelson said. “Input prices keep going up.”

The row crop farmer said rising fuel and fertilizer prices have already done irreversible damage, telling MS NOW it was “too late” for the administration to help with this season.

“We didn’t do our planting season … so we already took a hit on that,” he said. “Fuel prices are still high — very high. I think it’s pretty much doubled from the last time we bought a tank load.”

“Our expenses are way higher and bringing our profit margin even lower,” he explained. 

Nelson said Trump promised to give farmers a “fair trade for our crops” and get them a “fair price on what we grow and sell,” but he has not made good on those pledges as president. 

“We’ve been told a lot of promises, but the promises haven’t been delivered on,” the farmer told MS NOW. Instead, Trump’s policies have caused the farming community more pain. Nelson said Trump’s tariffs likely have caused his farm to lose 30% of its profits on some crops. He also called the president’s Iran war a “manmade problem that could have been avoided.”

Nelson said he and his fellow farmers are not looking for a bailout from the government but simply want the president to reaffirm his commitment to rural America and stop pursuing policies that harm an already vulnerable community.

“People in the public opinion, they look at farmers as taking handouts from the government. We never want that,” he said. “If we could just get a fair price on what we’re growing and what we sell it for, we as farmers could be able to stand on our own. That’s the main thing.”

You can watch Nelson’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.

The post Farmer slams Trump over empty promises on fair trade as costs keep rising appeared first on MS NOW.

This is the June 8, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.

MIKA’S NOTE

Donald Trump’s unspooled performance on “Meet the Press” yesterday was unnerving, not least of all because the sight of any American president looking that unhinged and unhealthy should concern every American who saw his pitiful performance. 

The president spewed a stream of lies and conspiracy theories targeted at the most ignorant members of his dwindling base. His frantic attempts to change the subject away from the endless war he started, high gas prices, which he cares nothing about, and the failed Republican candidates in California seem to only make Trump look more diminished and desperate. 

Eleven years after the reality host entered U.S. politics, his behavior on the Sunday show seems to prove the media still has much to learn about how to best handle his madman routine. 

In a July 2016 meeting, Trump told Lesley Stahl that he attacks the press “to discredit” and “demean” reporters so that when they write negative stories about him, “no one will believe them.” So when members of the media are attacked as “fake news” peddlers for reporting the facts about the 2020 election, they MUST forcefully respond with facts that make it into the clip low-information viewers will see: 

“Mr. President, 63 federal judges threw out all of your 2020 election claims. Many of those federal judges were appointed by you.”

“Mr. President, the high court that you have called ‘My Supreme Court’ rejected every one of your false claims about a stolen election.”

“Republican election officials from Pennsylvania to Arizona also refused to buy into your lies.”

“Georgia’s secretary of state and governor rejected your lies and even recorded a call where you tried to get the secretary of state to find enough votes to rig the election.”

“Mr. President, you are lying to my audience right now, and if you continue, we will have to end this interview. Please stop lying to the audience.”

Yesterday, Donald Trump continued stumbling over facts and then started screaming about how the California elections were being rigged because officials were still counting votes six days after the June 2 election. 

It’s hard to imagine the president of the United States doesn’t know that almost all states count votes well beyond a week after Election Day. When Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was re-elected governor in 2006, the vote count took 30 days — as required by California law. When Republican congressmen get elected in California this November, it will take 30 days to count and certify those votes in their districts. 

Donald Trump knows this. 

But his howling protests toward Kristen Welker were aimed not at the host or regular viewers, but rather at Americans who don’t follow the news and will likely only see a clip of his false outbursts on social media. And many will accept Trump’s ravings at face value. That’s why the media has to up its game going into an election that the president desperately wants to undermine. We must all be more aggressive than ever in getting facts out to viewers, and go into every interview armed with facts and ready to fight back. 

His lies must be met with facts. 

His insults must be answered with the truth he does not want to hear. And his Cabinet’s efforts to blur reality must be knocked down at every turn. The lies and insults toward the free press must be answered.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I call the shots. I call all the shots. He [Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots.”

— President Donald Trump, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to accept a deal with Iran

CHARTS OF THE DAY

Source: YouGov survey of 1,106 U.S. adults conducted January 27-30, 2026. Margin of error: 4 percentage points

ON THIS DATE

In 1949, George Orwell published his final novel, “1984.” The dystopian work of speculative fiction — drawing on themes from wartime rule in Britain and the Soviet Union — was the driving force behind words like “Orwellian,” “groupthink” and “doublespeak” entering the contemporary lexicon. 

WHAT THEY SAID

David Ignatius on Iran-Israeli strikes

“Donald Trump says he is in control, but the events yesterday showed how far that is from true — Trump is observing these events, not controlling them. The distance between Trump and Netanyahu today is one of the most striking factors of the conflict.”

John Heilemann on midterms 

“The president is at a historically low place in his approval rating. He has lost ground with independents to a dramatic degree. It’s very hard to change the trajectory of an election now.”

Ben Smith on CBS’ tilt toward Trump

“A slight agenda shift is not what Donald Trump is looking for from the media. Now CBS is not only facing skepticism from its traditional audience — which includes a lot of Democrats — but also from the White House. This is not a strategy that’s pleasing anyone.”

Pablo Torre on Trump attending Game 3 of the NBA Finals

“Sports, like America, has an affordability crisis right now, and now you can’t even be outside the Garden, let alone inside. I thought the Knicks were ours as a city. Turns out, none of it is ours. It belongs to the same guy that we’ve spent hours this morning talking about.”

EXTRA HOT TEA

$1.9 billion

—The box office numbers for this year’s Broadway season, the highest grossing in history. 

ONE MORE SHOT

Lorne Michaels and the cast of “Schmigadoon!” which won Best New Musical at the 79th Annual Tony Awards.

CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE

The post The media has to up its game for an election that Trump desperately wants to undermine appeared first on MS NOW.

This is an excerpt from the June 8, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.

Source: YouGov survey of 1,106 U.S. adults conducted January 27-30, 2026. Margin of error: 4 percentage points

CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE

The post Fewer Americans now believe they will reach the American dream than in 2009 appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* In Texas’ closely watched Senate race, Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton is running despite an avalanche of scandals, including the fact that Texas’ Republican-led state House impeached him over alleged bribery, abuse of power and obstruction of justice.

The good news for Paxton is the Republican-led state Senate ultimately acquitted him. The bad news for Paxton is Dan Cogdell, a Houston-based defense lawyer who represented the Texas attorney general in both the impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, told NOTUS in a statement that his former client “has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.”

Making matters worse, Paxton’s former defense lawyer, after getting to know Paxton and reviewing the evidence against him, endorsed his opponent, James Talarico, and contributed to the Democratic state lawmaker’s 2026 campaign.

* Graham Platner’s Democratic Senate campaign in Maine has confronted a series of damaging allegations — and this week, he’ll face voters for the first time in the state’s Democratic Senate primary. Technically, Gov. Janet Mills will be on the ballot despite the incumbent suspending her candidacy in late April, and there’s growing interest in whether Platner’s local Democratic detractors will turn out to register a protest vote against him.

* Speaking of Maine, both parties are also poised to hold gubernatorial primary elections, and many of the top candidates will have familiar last names: Among the top Democratic contenders are Angus King III (the son of Sen. Angus King) and Hannah Pingree (the daughter of Rep. Chellie Pingree). On the Republican side, there’s also a crowded field, which includes Jonathan Bush, George H. W. Bush’s nephew.

* As California continues to count its votes from last week’s primaries, we now know that Xavier Becerra, a former Democratic congressman who served as Joe Biden’s health secretary, has advanced to the general election in the state’s gubernatorial race. It’s not yet clear who his rival will be.

* Sen. Lindsey Graham is generally seen as the odds-on favorite in South Carolina’s Republican primary, but with one day remaining before the intraparty contest, it’s worth emphasizing that the GOP incumbent has already spent an astounding $27 million on his re-election campaign. As HuffPost noted, his Republican rivals combined have spent less than a fifth of that total.

* In Michigan’s closely watched Senate primary, Democratic leaders have made little effort to hide their concerns that Abdul El-Sayed might struggle as a general election candidate, but the former state health official nevertheless picked up a key endorsement over the weekend from the United Auto Workers.

The post Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.8.26: Paxton’s impeachment lawyer endorses Talarico in Texas appeared first on MS NOW.

A new lawsuit seeks to halt the “UFC Freedom 250” event that is scheduled for this coming weekend, calling it “deeply corrupt” and arguing that it runs afoul of federal regulations.

The plaintiffs are activist Susan Douglas and Vietnam War veteran Paul Romano. Represented by lawyers with the Public Integrity Project, they said in their complaint that they brought the case “to seek judicial relief for their injuries, uphold the rule of law, and protect our nation’s most cherished monuments from corrupt exploitation.”

Their complaint focuses on the relationship between UFC head Dana White and President Donald Trump. The plaintiffs argue that the event is poised to benefit the two men personally rather than benefit the country, a distinction the plaintiffs maintain has legal significance in their favor.

White said the goal is to “celebrate the 250th birthday of America” when he puts on the cage fights among professional mixed martial artists on the South Lawn of the White House in a massive structure known as “the Claw.”

The plaintiffs cast the card in a less patriotic light.  

While observing that the event coincides with Trump’s 80th birthday, they noted that White is a close friend and ally of the president, who is giving White and his company “what none have enjoyed before: unfettered access to the White House and Lincoln Memorial to stage a private, for-profit sports event, with all the promotional and branding opportunities that accompany such access.”

The plaintiffs added that Trump stands to benefit directly too, citing reporting that earlier this spring he bought up to $50,000 stock in the company that owns the UFC.

They said White “has good reason to stick to his story” about the event being a celebration of America because, they observed, federal law “tightly restricts private use of the national capital’s most sacred monumental spaces, which are national parklands.”

They said the plan for the event “is for fighters to conduct the ceremonial weigh-ins and face-offs at the Lincoln Memorial, make pre-fight walkouts from the Oval Office, and do combat in a massive structure now under construction just steps from the Executive Residence.”

Under the usual permitting regime, no special events can be held on the South Lawn or at the Lincoln Memorial, and structures can’t be built on the South Lawn without express authorization from Congress and a thorough environmental review. The plaintiffs conceded that there is a temporary regulation authorizing events that celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary. But they said the UFC Freedom 250 event fails to satisfy even that relaxed rule because it would still require the event to be “for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Independence” and “planned, organized, and executed” by the federal government. The plaintiffs contend the UFC event is neither of those things.  

Their specific legal claims include alleged violations of National Park Service regulations, erecting structures on federal parkland without congressional authorization and failure to conduct environmental review.

When the government responds in court, one of its arguments may be that the plaintiffs don’t have legal standing to bring the case — that is, that they aren’t uniquely harmed by the spectacle such that a successful suit would heal them. The government has raised the standing issue in other recent pending challenges against high-profile executive actions like the White House ballroom and the “anti-weaponization” fund.

According to the plaintiffs’ complaint in the UFC case, Douglas is a retired government employee who frequently organizes and attends protests and other events on the National Mall, at the Lincoln Memorial and near the White House. Romano, they said, is a retired Air Force sergeant and former police officer with the Department of Defense who frequently travels along the National Mall and past the White House and Lincoln Memorial as part of his part-time work as a ride-share driver. They have both “protested and testified against alterations to DC’s monumental landscape,” per their complaint.

In an accompanying filing seeking a temporary restraining order against the government, Douglas and Romano argue that they “are suffering aesthetic injuries from the erection of ‘the Claw’ on the South Lawn” and that Douglas in particular “will suffer aesthetic injury if the UFC Freedom 250 weigh-ins are permitted to occur at the Lincoln Memorial.”

They said Douglas “regularly travels to the affected areas for protests and has specific plans to visit on four occasions between now and the conclusion of UFC Freedom 250, including on the nights of both the weigh-ins, June 13, and the June 14 fights.”

They said Romano “has no choice but to see the offending aesthetics, as he must frequently travel through the area for work. He therefore has no choice but to observe the desecration of these sites.”

They added that Romano in particular, being a Vietnam War veteran, suffers “the dignitary and emotional harms that come from national memorials being used for corrupt purposes.” And they said they would have submitted public comments if the “massive construction project” were submitted for environmental review as required.

In response to the suit, the White House released a statement:

This is an obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory lawsuit brought simply to prevent President Trump from hosting what will undoubtedly go down as one of the most historic sporting events in our Nation’s history during our semiquincentennial celebration. This iconic event is no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year.

This article has been updated to include the White House’s statement.

The post Lawsuit seeks to halt ‘corrupt’ UFC event at the White House on Trump’s birthday appeared first on MS NOW.

A couple of months after taking the reins at the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat down with Dr. Jonathan LaPook, CBS News’ chief medical correspondent, who pressed the Cabinet secretary on some of his most controversial decisions. RFK Jr., however, repeatedly said he wasn’t aware of the actions LaPook was describing.

It was an embarrassing moment, but it wasn’t an isolated incident. About a month later, during back-to-back appearances before House and Senate committees, the HHS secretary ran into a similar problem: Lawmakers kept asking Kennedy about steps he and his department had taken, and he kept responding with answers such as “When did I do that?”

It reached the point at which Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington eventually told RFK Jr. that she wasn’t sure whether he was “the one making decisions” at the department he ostensibly leads.

All of this came to mind while reading The New York Times’ new reporting on the way Kennedy manages HHS — or, in his case, fails to manage HHS. From the article:

Mr. Kennedy has shown little interest in managing the details of work in his department, according to multiple colleagues. Instead, they say, he is single-mindedly focused on his top priorities, including food recommendations and pesticide exposures, and hunting for evidence to support his long-held beliefs that vaccines are harmful.

Deeply mistrustful of career civil officials, the secretary has surrounded himself with a close circle of handpicked advisers and stacked agencies with political appointees aligned with his views. While major posts have sat vacant and a wave of veteran health experts and scientists have departed, Mr. Kennedy has remained isolated from much of the department’s top staff.

The Times’ reporting (which has not been independently verified by MS NOW) was based on accounts from a dozen people at HHS, including many who have had direct contact with him as secretary, who agreed that Kennedy rarely engages with department employees or members of Congress.

Even his work hours have proven controversial: When he’s in the department’s headquarters in the nation’s capital, he “keeps a low profile” after arriving around 10 a.m., before departing by 4 p.m.

The reporting is striking, but it isn’t too surprising. When Donald Trump nominated Kennedy, the list of reasons not to confirm him was long, though it emphasized his lengthy record of weird and conspiratorial beliefs related to public health, medicine and science.

But there was a related practical concern that in hindsight probably received too little attention: The Department of Health and Human Services is a massive federal bureaucracy, which has a direct impact on the well-being of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Even putting aside his unscientific vision, Kennedy simply didn’t have the requisite skills, background or experience to lead a Cabinet agency of this size or importance. Indeed, by all appearances, he didn’t even express any meaningful interest in being a managerial technocrat.

RFK Jr. is an activist and an advocate for his discredited conspiracy theories. Of course he’s disengaged as a secretary, preferring instead to focus his energies on his pet causes. Kennedy has been put in a position for which he was wholly unprepared and ill suited.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post RFK Jr. is reportedly disengaged at the federal department he ostensibly leads appeared first on MS NOW.

Before Donald Trump abruptly ended his latest “Meet the Press” interview, NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked the president to reconcile his pre-election assurances about not starting new wars with his decision to start a war with Iran. The host started to ask, “Did you break that promise to the American …” when the Republican interrupted to say, “No.”

Welker pressed forward, adding, “So you’re saying you didn’t break your promise. And yet, Mr. President, in your first term, you held to that promise, and it was so fundamental to who you were as a candidate, to a first-term president. What changed, because you insisted ‘no new wars’?”

Trump replied, “First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” (As the exchange continued, the president tried to defend his position by referring to the stock market and then pivoted to attacking Welker’s professional integrity.)

Let’s not brush past the rhetorical question the president posed. Indeed, the Republican seemed to suggest he had increased defense spending precisely because he intended to go to war, which is quite an admission. It also reflects the mindset of someone desperate to rebrand the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.”

But the underlying point is just as important, if not more so, since Trump’s record is unambiguous.

Trump: "I didn't guarantee no war."Trump guaranteeing no more wars:

— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) 2026-06-07T16:26:26.795Z

Throughout the 2024 election cycle, Trump and his team went to bizarre lengths to present the Republican as the “peace” candidate who would “expel the warmongers” from the federal government and lead as a “peacemaker,” while rascally Democrats prepared to lead us into war. Common sense might have suggested any thinking adult would know better than to believe such obvious nonsense, but some voters accepted these absurdities at face value and cast their ballots accordingly, optimistic that the GOP nominee would pursue a foreign policy rooted in restraint.

In other words, many Americans believed Trump when he told voters, among other things, “I’m going to be the one that keeps you out of war”; “we’re not going to have war in the Middle East”; and “they said, ‘You will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

Under the circumstances, the president could at least try to make the case to the nation that despite what he said on the campaign trail, he concluded it was in the nation’s best interest to go to war anyway. To be sure, that wouldn’t be an easy sell under the circumstances, but it would at least be an honest response when pressed on his pre-election promises.

But that’s not the path the Republican has chosen. Instead, the candidate who promised not to launch a war has been reduced to “I didn’t guarantee ‘no war,’” as if we don’t remember the events of two years ago.

I’m reminded of a George Orwell quote from “1984” that I emphasized in my book about GOP efforts to rewrite recent history: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

The post On campaign promises about foreign wars, Trump rewrites recent history appeared first on MS NOW.