For months, Donald Trump and White House officials had a habit of insisting that the president had delivered an economy with “no inflation.” The public has heard a lot less of such talk lately, and there’s no great mystery as to why. CNBC reported:
The consumer price index, a broad gauge of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 4.2%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Both numbers were in line with the Dow Jones consensus.
Inflation climbed above 4% for the first time in three years, though the increase met expectations amid concerns over how much the surge in energy prices would impact the economy. The level was the highest since April 2023 and above the 3.8% level from April.
All of that related data, incidentally, was released shortly before White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Fox News that Trump has transformed the U.S. into an “extraordinary paradise.”
Perhaps most importantly, NBC News’ report emphasized that inflation’s rise “has surpassed wage growth,” which necessarily exacerbates the affordability crisis gripping American consumers.
The White House has not yet commented on the new data, although Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council and the top economist at the White House, has argued in recent weeks that rising inflation should be blamed on Democratic policies in blue states. Those claims, like much of what Hassett has to say, have been thoroughly discredited.
And no one is buying it. The latest national CNN poll found that 77% of respondents, including a majority of Republican voters, agreed that Trump’s policies have increased the cost of living. The same poll found just 30% of Americans approve of the president’s handling of the economy, a career low for the Republican across both terms. That mirrored the results of the latest national Associated Press poll.
There’s no reason to assume those results won’t continue to get even worse.
Nancy Mace’s political career is likely over and will almost certainly be quickly forgotten. But the South Carolina Republican had the chance five years ago to create an enduring legacy by risking her office to steadfastly oppose Donald Trump’s “big lie” and self-coup attempt after he lost the 2020 election. Instead, she chose a squishy middle path between standing up for her country’s democratic legacy and pleasing the deranged boss of her party. And that path led her nowhere.
Mace chose not to run for a fifth term in the House so she could pursue the top job in the Palmetto State’s government, but after failing to qualify for the runoff in the South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary Tuesday, the odds of her political ambitions reaching any higher have dimmed considerably. Though he didn’t attack her by name as he did with former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Trump endorsed one of Mace’s primary challengers after she was one of four Republicans who signed a discharge petition forcing a vote to release the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files in 2025.
What this country needs is Republican lawmakers and conservative thought leaders plainly rejecting Trump’s thoroughly debunked stories about a massive conspiracy of election fraud across multiple states.
This wasn’t the first time Mace stood up to Trump. On Jan. 6, 2021, she published an op-ed in The Post and Courierbefore Trump incited a MAGA mob, in which she wrote, “Today, I will solemnly cast my vote to certify the results of the Electoral College,” adding, “If Congress ever had the power to singularly throw out the Electoral College, we would set a dangerous precedent that the ruling class can disenfranchise millions of voters across the country. Does anyone really want to give Nancy Pelosi this kind of power? Certifying the results is the only way to preserve our republic and our Constitution. We must follow this course, even when we don’t like the outcome. Even when we hate the outcome.”
After Trump supporters’ violence on Jan. 6 was finally subdued, Mace went even further, telling CNN, “I hold him accountable for the events that transpired for the attack on our Capitol,” and that “everything that he’s worked for … his entire legacy, was wiped out yesterday.”
She added, “And we’ve got to start over.”
But when Mace had the chance to vote to impeach Trump a week after the riot, she demurred, questioning the “constitutionality” of the impeachment process for an outgoing president and lamenting “violence on both sides of the aisle.”
A closer glance at her Jan. 6 op-ed shows her spreading a whole lot of baseless “big lie” innuendo: “Is there evidence of voting irregularities and voter fraud in multiple states? Yes.”
Mace then spent the next several years as a MAGA-coded culture warrior, taking on Trump’s political targets — especially transgender people — as her own. But her Epstein files rebellion seems to have been the last straw for Trump.
It’s a shame, because what this country needs most in June 2026 — just as it did in January 2021 — is Republican lawmakers and conservative thought leaders plainly rejecting Trump’s thoroughly debunked stories about a massive conspiracy of election fraud across multiple states. Instead, the most powerful and influential voices are spreading democracy-eroding falsehoods — because they can’t believe that 2000s-era reality TV show villain Spencer Pratt didn’t finish higher than third as a Republican in the Los Angeles mayoral primary.
To be sure, California’s vote-counting methods are, as The New York Times put it, “notoriously time-consuming, in part because of the state’s reliance on mail-in voting, and a requirement that officials do extensive work to check signatures, open envelopes and inspect ballots.”
But let’s be very clear about this. These Republican and conservative leaders are spreading baseless fictions meant to undermine any election that doesn’t go their way. And when it’s all said and done, for all the destruction Trump’s two administrations will have reaped upon the country and the world, the cynical deployment of voter fraud lies may end up yielding the most permanent damage.
What America really needs right now is a few honorable conservatives to stand against these despicable tactics with a clear voice. Mace had the chance to be one five years ago. Instead, she’ll leave the stage as just another Republican who briefly stood up to Trump, then vacillated, then rebelled again, but ultimately prioritized currying favor with the demagogic boss of her party over standing on principle.
For her efforts at placating Trump and MAGA, Mace is a replacement-level, power-hungry politician looking for a job.
President Donald Trump and his family have cashed in big since he won the 2024 election. Of the billions of dollars they have accrued over the past 18 months, the lion’s share has reportedly come from cryptocurrency assets that bear the president’s name or his family’s endorsement. The technology may be novel, but crypto lets the Trump family play the age-old game of separating fools from their money, all while leveraging Trump’s position in the White House to boost the sales pitch.
According to an in-depth investigation from Reuters, whose reporters reviewed thousands of documents, disclosures and blockchain records, the price of the crypto offerings Trump is marketing have plummeted — but not the profits that the Trumps have pocketed. Investors who trusted Trump’s business acumen have been left unable to achieve the profits they assumed were coming or even offload the assets as their worth collapsed. In effect, a predatory market that should be subject to stricter regulation from the government instead has been a massive cash cow for the president and his family.
Crypto lets the Trump family play the age-old game of separating fools from their money
(Reuters helpfully published a full methodology for how it calculated the gains and losses on the notoriously opaque crypto market. The White House did not comment directly on Reuters’ reporting but said in a statement: “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people.”)
Trump has long preferred projects in which he features his name prominently but takes on little, if any, financial risk. The Trump Organization’s longtime M.O. has been licensing his name to real estate projects and reaping the benefits, even if the projects failed. Trump has also stamped his name onmattresses, wall sconces and slabs of meat. He even added his name to Bibles during the 2024 campaign.
At least all those were physical products. But in 2022, when he was out of the White House, Trump got involved in the burgeoning digital marketplace. The nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, sold for $99 each featuring his name and image as part of another licensing scheme. The cash flowed into Trump’s bank account before a “digital trading card” was sold. As a result, the latecomer entry into the NFT market, after months of decline in the NFT market’s value more broadly, mattered little to him when he had already extracted whatever value he could from the deal.
Trump and his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. fully entered the world of cryptocurrency in late 2024. Leading up to his inauguration, the three hawked the $TRUMP meme coin and “governance tokens” for their crypto business, World Liberty Financial. The resulting surge in interest in those offerings and two crypto companies with the sons’ backing have generated a massive flood of new revenue for the Trumps. The report Reuters published Tuesday highlighted how the influx of funding for the Trumps left behind those hoping to join in the windfall:
While they vary in size and structure, each of these ventures has followed the same playbook. The Trumps risked little up front. Trump family members — notably, the president’s oldest sons, Eric and Donald Jr. — hyped the venture. The Trumps raked in money as investors piled in. And those buyers lost big when, for various reasons, the prices of their Trump-related crypto assets later tanked.
A Reuters examination shows that the Trump family has used this template to generate at least $2.3 billion in profit from investors since Trump retook the presidency. On the other side of that cash bonanza for America’s first family: the more than a million investors whose net losses totaled $2.3 billion at the end of April, according to a Reuters analysis. Those investors include retail buyers of crypto and crypto-linked equities, as well as those who invested indirectly through funds such as exchange-traded funds with exposure to Trump crypto. The loss total includes paper losses on unsold investments.
We shouldn’t ignore that, per Reuters’ calculations, the Trumps have profited at least as much money as outside investors have lost. World Liberty has sent 75% of the net revenue from token sales to the Trumps. Those tokens were meant to provide those who own them a say in the “new financial system” the company promises to eventually develop — though there’s been little progress on that front.
The price for those tokens, along with the $TRUMP meme coin, another straight-up licensing venture, have crashed. Investors have been barred from selling most of the coins they have accumulated, meaning even those who bought in early are unable to make money from their purchase or even cut their losses. Reuters interviewed an investor whose $2,000 investment in $TRUMP is now worth less than $120. (A spokesperson for World Liberty disputed the methods Reuters used to calculate the losses retail investors have seen.)
After hyping a product with almost no real value, the president and his sons have in effect siphoned billions of dollars away from investors who hoped to profit themselves
Buyers of this meme coin had even more reason to beware than investors in general given the volatile nature of the crypto market and Trump’s history of flimflam. As with most crypto tokens available to purchase, the World Liberty “governance token” and the $TRUMP meme coin also included fine-print disclaimers that their tokens are not an investment and that purchasers shouldn’t expect a profit. But that’s hard to square with the president’s marketing and him offering perks to investors including dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate and the White House.
After hyping a product with almost no real value, the president and his sons have in effect siphoned billions of dollars away from investors who hoped to profit themselves. Anyone else who did this would be accused of running a classic pump and dump scheme. But when it’s the president of the United States behind it all, the people who bought in have nowhere to turn. Instead, they’re left holding the bag.
Tech billionaire Bill Gates is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday morning, the latest high-profile witness to testify as part of the panel’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and one of the richest people on Earth, was among several prominent people to appear in the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files. Those documents show that Gates and Epstein met multiple times, and those close to Gates maintained a relationship with the sex offender.
Gates has said that he was “foolish” to spend time with Epstein. “I thought it would help me with global health, philanthropy. In fact, it failed to do that, and it was just a huge mistake,” he told The Wall Street Journal in January 2025.
Gates is not charged with any crime connected to Epstein, and he is not accused of wrongdoing. After his appearance before the House Oversight Committee was scheduled in April, his spokesperson told MS NOW, “While he never witnessed or participated in any of Epstein’s illegal conduct, he is looking forward to answering all the committee’s questions to support their important work.”
Epstein cultivated a network of rich and influential people across industries, including businessmen, Silicon Valley investors and academics. Many of them who appeared in the Epstein files have faced professional consequences — to varying degrees — for having associated with him.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Two and a half days before a deadline to extend one of the government’s most controversial surveillance authorities, Democrats and some Republicans are digging in over President Donald Trump’s decision to install Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.
The question over the next 65 hours is whether either side is willing to blink.
Pulte’s appointment has thrown a wrench into negotiations over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires Friday. His selection — which can remain in place for up to 210 days without Senate action, and much longer if Republicans play along with some complex nomination games — drew swift criticism from lawmakers in both parties.
“Make a list of the million most qualified Americans for this job,” Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., told MS NOW on Tuesday. “The guy is not on the list.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters Pulte “has no obvious qualifications.”
Senate leaders will need to garner 60 votes to pass a FISA extension. And talks have dragged on so long, they’ll need unanimous consent to agree to hold a vote before Friday’s deadline. Last Friday, seven Republicans opposed a procedural motion on the bill, joining nearly all Democrats to block an extension of FISA’s surveillance authority.
Section 702 is a cornerstone of the intelligence community’s surveillance operations. According to the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, information gathered through the program contributed to 63% of the articles included in the president’s daily brief. But it has long been controversial because Americans’ communications can be swept up incidentally when they interact with foreign targets.
Pulte, who currently serves as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has no intelligence background. And during his tenure at the housing agency, he’s accused several Trump critics of mortgage fraud, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
That partisan record has only intensified concerns among Democrats about placing Pulte in charge of the nation’s intelligence apparatus.
“If people have questions about how 702 is being deployed and about the privacy of American people who may be incidentally collected under 702, appointing someone whose only relative experience is as a lapdog of the president, someone who goes after president’s enemies, someone who would abuse the private data of Americans certainly didn’t help,” Schiff told reporters Monday.
Still, Pulte isn’t the only obstacle standing in the way of a FISA deal. Negotiations were already contentious before Trump announced his appointment.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who has pushed for changes to the law to require warrants to gather Americans’ communications said in a Friday statement that Pulte’s selection “is a symptom of the larger problem” with warrantless surveillance.
For many lawmakers, the solution is simple: Trump could withdraw Pulte’s appointment. But the president signaled Tuesday that he has no intention of doing so, announcing on Truth Social that Pulte will assume the role on June 19.
Even so, lawmakers and administration officials may be exploring some potential compromises.
One possibility under discussion would have the White House nominate someone else to serve as the Senate-confirmed director of national intelligence while allowing Pulte to remain in the acting role.
When asked Tuesday whether the White House was considering another nominee, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he thought the administration was doing just that.
“I think they’re weighing seriously making a long-term pick,” Thune said.
But so far, there doesn’t appear to be any resolution.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he discussed Pulte’s appointment with Trump during a Tuesday morning meeting, but he deferred questions about any potential compromise to the White House.
“We talked about all that, and I’m gonna let the president speak to the issue,” Johnson said.
A different pick for the full-time director of national intelligence could draw enough support from Democrats to end the blockade against a FISA extension, even if Pulte remains in place as the temporary, acting director.
“If the president were to announce somebody very credible as DNI, it would make it much easier to get to where we need to get on FISA,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told MS NOW on Tuesday.
But Kaine isn’t exactly speaking for all Democrats. Some were clear they wouldn’t agree to a FISA extension as long as Pulte is in place as the acting director.
Sen. Kelly suggested Pulte is the problem — and that he couldn’t support a FISA extension even if Pulte were just in an acting director role.
As Kelly put it, he couldn’t support Pulte “as anything.”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said he wouldn’t engage in hypotheticals about finding a middle ground with the White House. But when asked if Pulte could temporarily stay on as acting director, Warner said the votes for a FISA extension probably wouldn’t materialize.
“I don’t know how— I don’t see a path forward, regardless of what I do, on how you convince the necessary Democrats, because listen, there’s plenty of Republicans who don’t want this renewed,” Warner told MS NOW.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also said Pulte’s lack of qualifications fundamentally undermines his ability to do the job, even temporarily.
“To take Mr. Pulte, who runs the housing programs, and put him in charge makes no sense whatsoever, temporary or permanent,” Durbin said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
A large, burning cross was discovered at a Chicago park on Tuesday afternoon, and police said they are investigating how it ended up there and the motive behind it.
Video taken by a motorist shows the wooden cross engulfed in bright orange flames as it leans against a tree in Grant Park, a popular area near Lake Michigan. The Chicago Fire Department confirmed the flaming object was a cross, and said officials put out the fire.
Chicago Police said there were no reports of injuries and that they are investigating the motive and circumstances around the “object on fire.”
Keinika Carlton, 43, was driving home from running errands with her daughter and mother-in-law when they saw the cross on fire. She said she felt a combination of shock, sadness, disgust, as well as curiosity.
“Is this a racial thing? Is this a religious thing?” she said. “As Black women, of course, our first thought is racial, because burning crosses are known to be used as a tactic, an act of violence toward Black Americans in the South.”
Carlton estimated the cross was at least 6 feet (1.83 meters) tall. The experience was new to all of them, including Carlton’s mother-in-law, who grew up in Kentucky.
Carlton said as they slowed down to shoot a video of the flames, she saw around her other cars slowing down and people walking nearby, staring at the cross burning.
While the motive behind the burning cross was not immediately clear, cross burnings in the U.S. have historically been seen as “symbols of hate” that are “inextricably intertwined with the history of the Ku Klux Klan,” according to a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision written by the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The justices ruled that the First Amendment allows bans on cross burnings only when they are intended to intimidate because the action “is a particularly virulent form of intimidation.”
Alyna Carlton, 22, said she never thought she would see something like that in her lifetime.
“It kind of really opened my eyes, had me realize that I’m not that far removed from the past.”
Graham Platner prevailed in the Maine Democratic Senate primary, breaking 50% of the vote and clinching the nomination to face Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican whom national Democrats hope to topple on their way to recapturing control of the Senate in November.
Platner had 75% of the votes with only 8% of the ballots counted when The Associated Press called the race Tuesday evening, suggesting a dominant performance. Maine Gov. Janet Mills had just 19%. Mills’ name remained on the ballot despite the fact she dropped out of the contest in April.
The oysterman and political newcomer triumphed at the ballot box despite allegations that roiled his campaign before Election Day: that he sent sexually explicit messages to women outside his marriage and behaved in a demeaning manner toward some former girlfriends, including two incidents in which he was allegedly physically menacing to one of them. Platner denied those incidents.
“This is the state that raised me. This is the state that saved me,” Platner said at his victory party. “Maine, I love you. I love this state.”
Platner chastised national Democrats, who he said kept seeking a headline that would tarnish him and were missing the point. “In trying so hard to understand me, they failed to understand this is not about me at all. This is a movement about us.”
“This is the state that raised me. This is the state that saved me,” Graham Platner said at his victory party. “Maine, I love you. I love this state.”
The Democrat will now face Collins, a five-term incumbent who ran unopposed in the GOP Senate primary.
Platner also took harsh aim at Collins, calling her “spineless,” and said she “lied to us” about protecting abortion rights codified under Roe v. Wade after supporting Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
“Susan Collins doesn’t serve us. She serves Donald Trump,” Platner said. “We will take back the Senate seat. We will take back our power … I want you to imagine what you will feel like when we hold Trump and his criminal enterprise to account.”
In coming in first — and avoiding further rounds of counting as part of Maine’s ranked choice voting system — Platner technically defeated Mills in the Democratic primary. Mills was recruited by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., but her campaign never took off and she suspended it in April.
But her name remained on the ballot and voters could have chosen to side with their former governor as something of a protest vote against Platner.
Despite early strength, Platner’s road to nomination was paved with controversy.
Reports surfaced the week before the primary that Platner had sent sexually explicit text messages to multiple women while married. His wife, Amy Gertner, publicly defended him and criticized the release of private communications. Platner acknowledged he and his wife had gone through something difficult in their marriage “because of me” and denied the characterization of the messages.
A private meeting between Platner and Senate Democrats followed as questions mounted over whether his personal conduct would impede his ability to challenge Collins. Despite the controversies, key progressive leaders, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have continued to publicly support his candidacy.
Those allegations were followed by a report in The New York Times in which one of Platner’s ex-girlfriends accused him of physically threatening her while they were dating. The Times’ report cited several former romantic partners who described “toxic” past relationships with him. Platner has denied allegations of “physicality.”
Several of Platner’s other past romantic partners who spoke to the Times described him as a “caring” partner and said they remain friends with him, according to the report.
The allegations added to several controversies surrounding the Marine Corps veteran’s insurgent Senate campaign. He faced backlash last fall over a Nazi-style tattoo he has since covered and defamatory comments he reportedly made about victims of sexual assault in Reddit posts that were deleted before the launch of his campaign. Platner has said he was unaware of the tattoo’s Nazi symbolism when he got it in 2007.
His populist campaign, however, resonated heavily with Maine voters who deemed him the best fighter to stand up to President Donald Trump and his allies in Washington, a group they say includes Collins.
Platner also won the support of prominent national Democrats who coalesced behind him in one of the most consequential races of this midterm cycle even after the fresh allegations came to light. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., stood by Platner at his first major campaign rally in Bar Harbor following the Times report.
Mills, on the other hand, did not endorse Platner when she suspended her campaign after months of trailing him in polls and in fundraising. Instead, the governor, who is term-limited, reminded Maine voters that she is “still on the ballot” as new allegations engulfed her opponent’s campaign.
The United States military said it completed its latest round of strikes on Iran on Tuesday following the earlier downing of a U.S. helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Central Command announced.
The Associated Press reported that Iran said it retaliated with attacks in Bahrain and Kuwait and claimed it targeted a military base in Jordan that hosts U.S. forces. Jordan later confirmed that it had shot down five missiles.
Central Command said the U.S. strikes were launched “at the Commander in Chief’s direction” at 5 p.m. ET, in response to the downing of the helicopter.
During the strikes, U.S. fighter jets targeted Iranian air defense systems, ground control stations and surveillance radar sites involved in threatening U.S. forces and commercial shipping in the region, CENTCOM later reported in a statement.
“The operation was a proportional response to recent attacks on U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters,” the command’s statement said. An earlier post to X described the strikes as proportional “to unjustified Iranian aggression.”
Military officials warned U.S. forces to “remain vigilant and postured” to defend against further threats in the region.
Kuwait also said its air defenses were activated after Iran said it targeted the Gulf nation in retaliation over the U.S. airstrikes.
President Donald Trump earlier blamed Iran for downing the helicopter and said it was a “necessity” for the U.S. to respond. But a U.S. official who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity said the helicopter went down after colliding with an Iranian drone. It is unclear if the collision was intentional, the AP reported, and CENTCOM earlier said the cause of the incident is under investigation.
Two service members on the helicopter were rescued by a drone boat, and Trump said they were “safe and uninjured.”
ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl said he was on the phone with Trump when CENTCOM announced the strikes, and that Trump doubled down on his earlier stance, saying, “This is a response to what they did with our helicopter last night, and I believe the response should be very strong, very powerful, and that’s what this one is.”
The strikes come as the latest escalation in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, which is ostensibly on a break during a ceasefire while negotiations take place. But on Sunday, Israel and Iran exchanged fire, marking the first break in the ceasefire since April.
* The latest on the downed helicopter: “President Donald Trump blamed Iran for downing a U.S. Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday and said the United States must respond to the attack. A drone boat rescued two Army aviators who were aboard the Apache attack helicopter when it went down near the waterway that Iran has effectively closed during its war with the U.S. and Israel. Trump said in a social media post that both service members ‘are safe and uninjured.’”
* It would be great if this were true, but hasn’t he said the same thing too many times before? “U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that, despite the exchange of strikes between Iran and Israel, a deal to end the war in the Middle East could be reached ‘in two or three days.’”
* Meanwhile, in Lebanon: “Israeli airstrikes pummeled the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens more, in the latest sign that a new U.S.-brokered cease-fire has failed to take hold.”
* On Capitol Hill: “The House on Tuesday narrowly voted to take up Republicans’ $70 billion immigration enforcement bill, clearing a key hurdle to enacting the measure to fund President Trump’s deportation crackdown through the end of his term. The vote was 213-211 along party lines, with every Democrat opposed. A final vote on the legislation, which if passed would go to Mr. Trump’s desk, was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.”
* A staggering statistic: “In the first years after birth, the human brain develops at a remarkable pace. Every second, more than a million new neural connections spring into being, shaping a person’s physical and emotional health for the rest of their life. Since the Trump administration entered the White House last year, at least 500 babies and toddlers have spent some of that pivotal time in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
* Speaking of ICE: “Mismanagement at a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas created unsafe conditions that contributed to detainee deaths and suffering even as millions of wasted tax dollars enriched contractors, according to a federal report released Tuesday.”
* In case this isn’t obvious, 2032 is during the next president’s term: “Social Security ’s retirement trust fund is projected to face a funding shortfall in 2032, a year earlier than last year’s projections, according to an annual report released Tuesday, while Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits in 2033, which is unchanged from last year’s estimate.”
* Trump-appointed judges aren’t just wrong when issuing rulings: “A judge on the largest U.S. federal appeals court is facing a judicial misconduct inquiry after news reports over the weekend revealed that he had been criminally charged over a parking lot dispute in Idaho in April. Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Mary Murguia of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an order released on Monday said she had initiated a judicial misconduct complaint against U.S. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson after he was hit with misdemeanor charges of battery and malicious injury to property on April 22.”
After House Republicans initially showed opposition to President Donald Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund, the House passed the GOP’s immigration enforcement reconciliation bill on Tuesday without any legislative restrictions on the proposed $1.776 billion pot of money.
The bill — which funds Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for three years — passed on a party-line 214-212 vote.
The outcome reflects both the political and procedural realities facing Republicans in Washington, as they navigate razor-thin majorities, unified control of government and the ever-present risk of Trump’s wrath.
Procedurally, House Republicans had virtually no opportunity to offer amendments restricting the fund, a consequence of the chamber’s leadership-driven process. In the Senate, meanwhile, the parliamentarian ruled that most fund-related amendments would require 60 votes — a threshold supporters just didn’t meet.
Ultimately, all but one Republican senator — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — voted for the bill, a remarkable reversal for several lawmakers who had previously said they couldn’t support the package without language blocking the fund. The White House had also signaled that Trump could veto the legislation if it included restrictions on the program.
Politically, many Republicans concluded that sinking the party’s signature immigration bill wasn’t a tenable outcome, particularly given Trump’s recent penchant for retribution against Republican naysayers.
In the end, GOP lawmakers opted to fight another day.
“A lot of us would like to see the weaponization fund be killed and buried forever,” a moderate House Republican told MS NOW, requesting anonymity to discuss the internal sentiments.
But, this lawmaker added, “not funding border patrol and ICE is, I think, unhelpful.”
“Holding something hostage for something on weaponization, I think, would be difficult to achieve, especially since the Senate’s already passed it,” this Republican said.
A number of Republicans toyed with opposing the reconciliation bill.
Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., caused some drama on the floor after he unexpectedly voted no. (After a lengthy discussion with House GOP leaders, he ultimately switched his vote.)
Of course, more moderate House Republicans could have withheld their support until GOP leaders added language prohibiting Trump’s compensation fund — as some Senate Republicans wanted. And about a dozen conservative Republicans initially held out on supporting a rule to set up debate of the bill on Tuesday, arguing that GOP leaders should add language from another hardline immigration bill — H.R. 2, a sweeping measure to install more restrictive asylum rules, require businesses to use the federal “E-verify” system for worker authorization, and remove certain protections unaccompanied children.
In the end, every Republican voted for the bill and every Democrat voted against it. The only lawmaker to technically cross party lines was Independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of California — who was a Republican up until March and usually sides with the GOP.
Not every Republican was thrilled with that outcome.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who’s retiring at the end of this year, unleashed on his GOP colleagues in a lengthy email on Tuesday, slamming them for voting down his amendment that would have blocked the fund.
The result, he argued, will come back to bite Republicans during the November midterm elections.
“I’m sure most of you would prefer to move forward, but I believe we will look back at this experience as yet another reason why we will have historic headwinds against us in November,” Tillis wrote in the email, which was obtained by MS NOW.
“We missed an opportunity to remove a political albatross (the 1776 Fund) from around the necks of our colleagues who are in cycle,” Tillis said. “Instead, we added weight to that albatross by having 41 members vote to protect the program.”
Tillis’ amendment overwhelmingly failed in a 15-84 vote, with just 12 Republicans and three Democrats voting in support. Hours later, Tillis voted for the reconciliation bill after clearly saying he’d be a “no” without language pushing back on the anti-weaponization fund.
With the immigration enforcement package now in the rearview mirror, some House Republicans are setting their sights on a new strategy to block the anti-weaponization fund: A standalone bill sponsored by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., to prevent federal funds from being used to pay claims submitted to the fund.
The push for the bill comes after Trump over the weekend said he still thinks the weaponization fund is “a great idea.”
“And so do many other Republicans,” Trump said.
“If they get it approved, that’s great,” he said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.”
The comments flew in the face of remarks made by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who told lawmakers last week that the administration is “not moving forward with the fund. Period.”
Blanche’s comments seemed to calm the nerves of some lawmakers and clear the way for passage of the reconciliation bill without any legislative restrictions.
Fitzpatrick and Suozzi are planning to file a discharge petition to force a vote on the measure this week, a source familiar with the matter told MS NOW, a posture that is already prompting consternation in the Republican ranks.
During a closed-door House GOP conference meeting on Tuesday, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., urged members not to sign discharge petitions, according to a source in the room, as top lawmakers try to beat-back at a process that circumvents leadership’s wishes.
Fitzpatrick is firing back.
In a post on X, he said discharge petitions wouldn’t be needed if the House floor “was managed properly.”
“A successful discharge petition is clear and direct evidence of a poorly managed House Floor—because it demonstrates that the will of the majority of the People is being thwarted by the privileged few,” he wrote. “Leadership of both parties have been guilty of this for years.”
He added that the rise of discharge petitions in this Congress was just “further evidence of the brokenness of the two-party system—and the rise of Independent voters is a direct manifestation of this.”
But the limits of that strategy are hard to ignore. As forcefully as Fitzpatrick opposed the anti-weaponization fund, he ultimately gave up his most powerful bargaining chip. By backing the reconciliation bill without restrictions on the program, he helped clear the path for legislation that is almost certain to become law, while pinning his hopes on a standalone measure that’s almost certain to never become law.
Passage of the ICE and border patrol bill puts a bookend on a months-long fight over the administration’s immigration crackdown. That battle began in January, following the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis, which prompted Democrats to demand immigration reforms in exchange for additional funding and contributed to a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.
The dispute escalated in March, when Republicans agreed to separate ICE and Border Patrol funding from the broader DHS appropriations process.
But the disagreement reached its peak last month, when the administration blindsided many Republican lawmakers with the anti-weaponization fund — a proposal that exposed rare divisions within the GOP and continues to generate resistance even after Congress delivered Trump a major legislative victory.
Happy Tuesday. Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of technology and politics.
Treasury insecurity
The Trump administration’s choice to deepen the Treasury Department’s involvement in its racist anti-immigrant crackdown may have exposed taxpayers’ personal information, according to a new report from the Treasury’s inspector general.
The IG’s report “raises concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ability to safeguard taxpayer information,” The Associated Press reported Monday. The IG report found the administration’s arrangement for the IRS to share data with ICE was error-prone and unreliable.
Under this arrangement, ICE can submit the names and addresses of people the agency says are in the United States illegally, and the IRS cross-references that information with tax records.
The arrangement has been challenged by lawsuits and led former acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause to resign from her role in February.
The report states that after the agreement was signed, ICE requested address information on more than 1.2 million people, and the IRS ultimately provided last-known addresses for about 47,000 people. [The inspector general] concluded that the IRS’s automated matching process was flawed. Inconsistent formatting in ICE’s data led to questionable matches, including in cases where incomplete or inaccurate addresses were labeled as valid, the report says. Representatives from Treasury and the IRS did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment.
New York City is using an artificial intelligence tool developed with help from consulting firm McKinsey & Company to administer SNAP benefits. The tool will reportedly be used to identify payment errors, as the Trump administration has vowed to withhold vital food aid funding from states with higher error rates. Given AI ethicists’ concerns about algorithms meting out discrimination, this tool certainly requires oversight to ensure it doesn’t facilitate harm.
Some prominent conservative influencers and lawmakers had a conniption after White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller publicly objected to efforts to limit the Trump administration’s spy powers.
Read my report on the backlash to Miller on MS NOW.
Trump’s AI orders for the military
President Donald Trump, who’s reportedly made investments in AI companies and whose sons are linked to drone companies, issued an executive order Friday calling on the military to accelerate its use of AI.
Speaking of Trump and AI, my colleague Steve Benen wrote about the president’s proposal for the government to take a stake in AI, continuing his quasisocialist (arguably, authoritarian) trend of having the government take a stake in supposedly free-market enterprises.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the social media company fixed a security issue that allowed hackers to use its AI chatbot to access Instagram users’ account passwords.
A new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a digital watchdog group, found that violent threats and hate speech toward lawmakers spiked last year after Meta rolled back some content moderation policies designed to protect users from harassment, bullying and threats of violence. After Meta made its decision, human rights groups warned the move risked fueling violence. Last year, Meta’s oversight board issued a ruling that found the company acted “hastily” and with little regard for global impact when it made those content moderation changes.
In a statement to MS NOW, a spokesperson for Meta said:
We regularly issue public reports tracking violating content on our platforms, and the prevalence of hateful conduct did not increase throughout 2025. We cannot address the claims in this report as we were not provided it in advance of publication.
My colleague Erum Salam got the scoop on a federal insider trading probe related to alleged online betting by scandal-plagued former Republican New York Rep. George Santos, whose prison sentence for fraud was commuted by Trump last year. Santos called the insider trading claims “preposterous” in a social media post.
Vice president and White House fraud czar JD Vance has asked the Justice Department to investigate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison over their handling of Medicaid fraud complaints.
Vance made the referral after receiving a 205-page report from the Republican-led House Oversight Committee alleging senior Minnesota officials failed to address widespread fraud in federally funded social services programs. The committee estimated almost $300 million in federal child nutrition funds and $9 billion in Medicaid-related funds were misused.
“Minnesota state officials are not above the law, and if they facilitated fraud, lied under oath about what they knew, or harassed and intimated whistleblowers, they must face justice,” Vance wrote on X on Tuesday.
“The allegations in the House Republican report are unfounded, and Vice President Vance’s referral is a political stunt from an administration that uses the machinery of government to target its perceived opponents while extending leniency to those aligned with its interests,” Ellison said in a statement issued to MS NOW by his office. “It is deeply troubling to see official powers and public resources diverted away from serving the people and instead aimed at pursuing political adversaries. That is not what government is for, and it diminishes public trust in our institutions.”
In the report, the committee alleged Walz’s and Ellison’s offices were made aware of fraud tips but went to “great lengths to keep them quiet, including intimidation through regular check-ins with high-level agency officials and threats of surveillance.”
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the referral and did not confirm if it was pursuing an investigation. A referral from Congress or another official does not automatically mean the DOJ must pursue an investigation.
However, the DOJ under former Attorney General Pam Bondi and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has rarely failed to act on matters that President Donald Trump has declared important to him.
Minnesota, and Somalian immigrants in particular, became a target of the Trump administration after right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a video visiting several child care centers in Minneapolis, alleging they were empty or closed, and therefore misusing public funds. Shirley posted the video in December, months after the state itself had publicly flagged several providers as high risks for fraud and begun working with federal authorities to address it, including securing indictments.
During his State of the Union address in February, Trump seized on the outrage generated by the video by announcing a fraud task force to be led by Vance.
“You had people within Gov. Walz’s office who were saying, ‘You know what, this looks like fraud. It looks like these Somalian illegal immigrants are doing something that’s very shady,’” the vice president said in a Fox News interview late Monday.
“And then you had people who shut them down, who shut these whistleblowers down and said, ‘You know, you’re a racist or you’re a xenophobe for asking questions about where taxpayer money is going,’” he said.
Walz spokesman Teddy Tschann dismissed the committee’s allegations as politically motivated and hypocritical.
“Gov. Walz is glad to see fraudsters are going to prison,” Tschann said in a statement to MS NOW. “If the committee is concerned about corruption, they should investigate why President Trump continues to let fraudsters out of prison.”
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