There’s an old saying: There are no atheists in foxholes. Faith plays a large role in the lives of many service members (including, yes, uniformed atheists). The U.S. military has long provided religious support to service members who are naturally often far from home and their faith communities. Given that the First Amendment prohibits the government both from establishing a religion and from preventing its free exercise, the military’s formal provision of chaplains and religious services to those in uniform is understood to balance these competing constitutional demands.

Until now, that is. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently slashed the list of Pentagon-recognized religions and belief systems that service members can have reflected in their personnel records from more than 200 to just 31, with the majority of the remaining being Christian religions. Those who ascribe to one of the 180-plus now-deleted belief systems must instead list in their records either “no religion” or “other religion.” This change tilts military policy toward the unconstitutional establishment of religion and simultaneously limits its members’ free exercise of their chosen faith.

Religious resources aren’t merely a nice bonus for service members that the Pentagon chief can do away with just by snapping his fingers.

The list of recognized religions grew from 100 to more than 200 during the first Trump administration when the Pentagon’s  board of chaplains “recommended adding new faith and belief groups to standardize and better identify religious preferences recognized by the Military Services” in response to legislation mandating improved religious liberty protections. Despite such rationale, Hegseth says this larger list was “infected by political correctness and secular humanism” under previous administrations.

The defense secretary is now using the Pentagon’s previous rationale for expanding the list to drastically shrink it instead, stating that his purge is about “giving chaplains clear, usable information so they can minister to service members in a way that aligns with that service member’s faith background and religious practice.” Echoing the secretary, the Pentagon says this massive cancellation of faiths is simply an administrative exercise, one designed to allow chaplains “to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups,” and to “provide the best data to support our chaplains in that effort.” Yet how does no data — indeed, deliberate ignorance of service members’ faiths, if they ascribe to one of the 180 now-cancelled religions — equate to better support?

Religious resources aren’t merely a nice bonus for service members that the Pentagon chief can do away with by snapping his fingers. Reasonable access to well-rounded military chaplains is a traditional component of military life, allowing soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen to freely practice their religious beliefs even if deployed to foreign battlefields.

It’s impossible for the Pentagon to provide a specific “religious military professional” — the phrase military regulations use for chaplains — for every possible faith; service members don’t have a right to a chaplain of their particular belief system. But military chaplains are expected and required to support the spiritual needs of all service members, not just those who hold one of the faiths the Pentagon still recognizes.

Specifically, the Pentagon’s regulation governing military chaplains states that their primary mission is to “meet the religious requirements and care for the spiritual needs of Service members” (and others, including family members). This regulation is grounded in the First Amendment and explains that the position of military chaplain “directly and indirectly supports the free exercise of religion by all Service members.” Religious ministry professionals must be “able to personally meet the religious requirements of persons in their assigned military units, potentially in isolated or combat environments.”

The Pentagon is burying its head in the sand regarding the faiths of the U.S. fighting forces.

Yet how can military chaplains meet the religious needs of their units’ members when they won’t know what faiths are actually represented, outside of the recognized few? Among faiths no longer recognized by the Pentagon are the Unitarian Universalist religious movement (to which John Adams belonged), deism (to which Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson subscribed), atheism, the Dutch Reformed Church, paganism, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Native American Church. These faiths count millions of Americans among their members.

Since when is ignorance “the best data”? Resources can’t be adequately structured to support service members of all faiths when the Pentagon is burying its head in the sand regarding the faiths of the U.S. fighting forces. The lack of information does not equal “useful” information — except if the intended use is to stop supporting those service members’ minority faiths and practices.

While service members can reportedly still list their faith of choice on their dog tags, that doesn’t mean a chaplain can understand their spiritual needs while they’re still alive. As religious military professionals, chaplains can’t best support those they are being essentially ordered not to see. It’s also unclear how this policy cancellation will affect the qualifications of already serving chaplains; their eligibility depends on the endorsement of religiously affiliated organizations, and surely some of those organizations are tied to religions that have lost Pentagon recognition.

Couple Hegseth’s and the Pentagon’s nonsensical reasons for this new policy with the secretary’s penchant for proselytizing his Christian faith to service members, and it’s clear that this massive purge isn’t about streamlining data or structuring resources. It’s about the Trump administration’s desire to support only certain religions, and therefore only certain service members. This move hinders other service members’ free exercise of religion, at least compared with those whose beliefs are represented. And it takes a large step in the direction of unconstitutionally “establishing” (by discriminatorily supporting) the religions that remain recognized by the military.

The Pentagon’s new policy means that some military members are now sacrificing to ensure that their fellow Americans enjoy a freedom of religion they no longer fully possess. That is not just deeply ironic; it is morally and constitutionally repugnant. And it should be added to the ever-growing list of mistakes by this White House that a future president and Congress will need to rectify.

The post Thanks to Pete Hegseth, some U.S. service members lost full freedom of religion appeared first on MS NOW.

For months, Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, had championed legislation to send additional security aid to Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s invasion. The proposal, however, was stuck: House Republican leaders refused to consider it, and so the bill languished.

Last month, however, it became unstuck: Proponents of the legislation managed to go around the GOP leadership thanks to a discharge petition — a tactic that allows members to bring a bill to the floor if it’s formally endorsed by a majority of the House. As MS NOW reported last week, the Ukraine aid package cleared the House with 226 votes, including 18 Republicans.

This week, it happened again. NBC News reported:

The House tonight passed another Democrat-led bill that made its way to the floor after a group of Republicans bucked their party’s leadership and joined Democrats in forcing a vote.

The Faster Labor Contracts Act, which would force employers to start negotiating with a newly certified union within 10 days of receiving the request, passed with the support of 20 Republicans and all Democrats.

Critics will note that both this bill and the Ukraine aid still have to clear the Senate, where the measures’ fate remains uncertain, and they would still need Donald Trump’s signature to become law. It’s a fair point.

But let’s not miss the forest for the trees. Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said in an online written statement, “If the House Floor was managed properly, discharge petitions would never be needed. 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.”

Fitzpatrick didn’t mention House Speaker Mike Johnson by name, but given the context, he didn’t have to.

Indeed, it might not be immediately obvious just how embarrassing these latest developments are for the Louisiana Republican and his leadership team.

In the past century or so, successful discharge petitions have been very rare. The reason is simple: Such petitions have long been seen as a slap in the face of a sitting House speaker.

As New York magazine’s Ed Kilgore recently explained, “Indeed, prior to Johnson’s ascent to the Speakership, only two 21st-century discharge petitions achieved the 218 signatures needed to trigger a floor vote.”

This roughly once-per-decade average has undergone a dramatic revision under the Louisiana Republican’s tenure. In the last Congress, which ended in early January 2025, there were two successful discharge petitions, which was itself a significant total. Meanwhile, in the current Congress, which is far from over, there have been six successful discharge petitions, which The Hill accurately described as “extraordinary.”

The first came in March 2025, and it dealt with proxy voting for new parents serving in Congress. In November 2025, another discharge petition advanced the Epstein Files Transparency Act; five days later, a measure to repeal an executive order that gutted federal workers’ union rights also received 218 signatures.

The list grew longer as discharge petitions related to extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, providing temporary protected status for Haitian migrants and extending aid to Ukraine all crossed the necessary threshold.

Usually, members embarrass Johnson by ignoring his wishes and voting against legislation he has urged them to support. But this flurry of successful discharge petitions, which has no modern precedent, makes the House speaker appear even more diminished.

Kilgore’s recent piece added, “Signs of weakness invite further revolts by House members who fear voters more than this mild-mannered former backbencher from Louisiana, whose authority is totally dependent on Trump’s backing, which can be erratic during times when the president is distracted by nonlegislative matters like ending wars and naming things after himself. Politicians, like guard dogs, can smell fear and irresolution.”

The question, then, is less whether we’ll see more successful discharge petitions and more a question of when, as Johnson’s weak hold on power unravels further.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post The more lawmakers go around Mike Johnson, the more obvious his weakness becomes appeared first on MS NOW.

During an Oval Office event on Wednesday afternoon, a reporter asked Donald Trump for his reaction to the news that inflation has reached a three-year high. The president responded that the new data was “great,” adding, “I love the inflation.”

And while that was strange, it quickly got worse. As part of his explanation for why he professed his “love” of inflation, Trump went on to say, “You know, I can say it now, something you didn’t know. You know we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil. Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran — until right now.”

He said this operation involved 22 ships that traveled “with no lights” and went undetected because Iranians “don’t have any radar because we blasted the crap out of it.”

Even at face value, this was difficult to understand. The president loves inflation because the United States is taking oil out of the Middle East?

Complicating matters, there was also uncertainty about the nature and accuracy of Trump’s claims, even within his own White House Cabinet. MS NOW reported as part of the network’s liveblog coverage:

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was simultaneously testifying before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, told lawmakers that he did not know of any such operation.

Wright said he was not aware of “millions” of barrels of oil having been extracted from Iran, but he said earlier in the hearing that the U.S. military ‌had ⁠helped get some oil out of the Strait of Hormuz.

As a rule, Wright can be counted on to toe the party line on pretty much anything Trump says, but when pressed by Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes of Ohio on the president’s public comments, Wright said Trump was merely “talking casually.”

SYKES: *plays audio of Trump claiming US is stealing Iranian oil*WRIGHT: I think the president is talking casually SYKES: Do you think that it's appropriate to 'talk casually' about war?WRIGHT: I think you talk to all different audiences and you talk in all different styles

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-10T18:22:57.391Z

When Sykes followed up by asking about the propriety of a president speaking “casually” about a war, the energy secretary was reduced to saying, “I think you talk to all different audiences, and you talk in all different styles.”

What did that mean in this context? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s similarly unclear whether Wright’s use of the word “casually” was meant to convey the idea that sometimes Trump just says stuff without any meaningful regard for accuracy.

That said, it’s certainly possible that 22 ships moved through the Strait of Hormuz. The New York Times noted, however, “He did not say what time period he meant. Ordinarily, dozens of oil tankers would pass through the strait each day, and thousands would have done so since the war began, if not for Iran’s blockade.”

The post Energy secretary says Trump was speaking ‘casually’ with claim about taking out oil appeared first on MS NOW.

If there were anything like justice in college sports, Brendan Sorsby would never play another down of football. It’s a tough thing to say about someone only 22 years old, and under most circumstances, I’d never argue that misdeeds should end an athlete’s career before they hit the professional ranks.

But Sorsby, Texas Tech’s star quarterback, isn’t an average college kid who made a mistake. He bet at least $90,000 on sports — including on games involving the Indiana Hoosiers when he was on that team’s roster as a freshman in 2022. For obvious reasons, the NCAA frowns upon such behavior and rightly issued a permanent ban when it discovered what Sorsby did. Sorsby says he’s been diagnosed with a gambling addiction.

Sorsby says he’s been diagnosed with a gambling addiction.

But on Monday, retired Texas judge Ken Curry, appointed to the case after another judge recused himself, gave Sorsby a pass with a temporary injunction that will allow him to play this season. Curry reasoned that the injunction was necessary to avoid “probable, imminent and irreparable injury” to the quarterback’s college football career. But the judge is mischaracterizing the consequences of Sorsby’s actions as injury.

Those who have watched college football scandals over the decades should be especially incensed by the judge’s ruling that Sorsby should play. His transgressions are exponentially worse than those of Reggie Bush, who was forced to forfeit his Heisman Trophy in 2010 for rules violations he allegedly committed while at the University of Southern California, and exponentially worse than Ohio State University’s Terrelle Pryor, who was suspended for receiving free tattoos and selling his memorabilia. Granted, those punishments were imposed in a bygone era when the NCAA still stood on the farce that players, the labor in its multibillion-dollar enterprise, were amateurs and all but forced them to the black market to profit from their work.

Those infractions from Bush and Pryor were metaphorical misdemeanors relative to the near-treasonous offense Sorsby committed against the NCAA. The integrity of the games, or at least the appearance thereof, are crucial for the association’s survival. Thus, its strict prohibition against gambling and its promise of a kind of death penalty (a lifetime ban) for athletes who gamble anyway.

Sorsby acknowledged a gambling addiction, a serious mental health issue that warrants professional treatment, and to his credit, he reports that he recently sought a 35-day rehab at an inpatient clinic in Arizona. Gambling addiction can cause immense harm to the afflicted and those around them. It’s also a compulsion whose victims often relapse, which isn’t something someone in Sorsby’s position can afford, even once.

It’s not something the NCAA can afford, either. In this instance, the NCAA saw a problem — the starting quarterback at a Power Conference school has a gambling problem that makes him vulnerable to compromise — and it took that problem out at the knees. Sorsby, who is discussed as a rising NFL prospect, had every right to try to enter the league’s supplemental draft or to seek a free agent tryout. Obviously, any NFL general manager with common sense would think long and hard before adding him to the roster, which means he’d be risking not being able to play in college or the pros. But such are the wages of his sin. The predicament he put himself in doesn’t warrant the judge forcing the NCAA to let him play after he flouted its rules and violated the integrity of its sport.

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To the extent that he’s seriously contrite, Sorsby deserves credit for taking accountability, which he did in a social media post last month. But contrition doesn’t erase consequences, and accountability often demands them. Yet here we have a judge forcing the NCAA to let Sorsby play alongside other young men who have every right to question their teammate’s motives. Other college programs have responded by vowing not to play any games against Texas Tech.

Sorsby embodies two overlapping problems involving sports and gambling: the increasing prevalence of gambling addiction among young adults, teenagers and even preteens and the seemingly growing number of instances of athletes themselves betting on games. Just last week, an arbitrator ruled that NBA free agent Terry Rozier must forfeit most of his $26.6 million salary for the 2025-26 season after he was alleged to have taken a bribe to withdraw from a game early when he was playing for the Charlotte Hornets. Rozier has pleaded not guilty to the gambling accusations.

If Sorsby ever makes it to the NFL, one wonders how he will fare in a league that prohibits its players from gambling but has rich partnership deals with FanDuel, DraftKings and Caesars Entertainment, its “official casino sponsor.” In the pros, nobody even pretends there’s a wall between the action on the field and the action the sportsbooks are taking in real time. Fans will be in the stadium, not just watching but placing bets. Whichever team signs Sorsby would be gambling too: that he won’t repeat the same offenses that put the NCAA and Texas Tech in a negative spotlight.

The post The biggest scandal in college sports is brought to you by a Texas judge appeared first on MS NOW.

MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle hit back at President Donald Trump after he downplayed Americans’ concerns over rising gas prices caused by the war with Iran.

Earlier this week, when Trump was asked about the cost of fuel and the toll it’s taking on the American people, he told reporters, “If you notice, the price is not very high, relatively speaking. I mean, it’s lower than during the Biden administration.”

While that statement is technically true, Ruhle said the president isn’t telling the full story. 

“Were prices high during the Biden administration? Sure. Specifically, when Russia invaded Ukraine in the summer of 2022, they were high,” the MS NOW host said. At their peak, gas prices under Joe Biden hit $5.07 per gallon, an all-time high.

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Ruhle said Americans were very aware of fuel costs under Biden. “The American people were struggling, and they were angry,” she said. “They were angry about gas prices and grocery prices and healthcare prices.”

As she explained, that concern was a key reason many Americans chose to back Trump in the last election. “The cost of living is one of the reasons Joe Biden and subsequently Kamala Harris did not win the 2024 election, and what Donald Trump promised was to lower prices on Day 1,” she said.

Once inside the White House, however, Trump delivered exactly the opposite. According to AAA, the current national average for a gallon of gas is $4.15 — much higher than the $3.13 per gallon Americans were paying at the end of Biden’s term.

“As a direct result of some of his policies, whether we’re talking about mass deportations or tariffs, or now the war in Iran, we are seeing increased costs,” Ruhle said, adding that the American people’s anger toward the administration over rising costs is reflected by the president’s sinking approval ratings.

“Prices are high right now, and the American people are taking notice,” she said.

The post Stephanie Ruhle sets the record straight after Trump tries to downplay high gas prices appeared first on MS NOW.

The battle over President Donald Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund is heading to federal court for the first time this week despite the administration’s claims that the fund is dead. Federal judges in both Washington and Virginia are scheduled to hear arguments over bids to block the Department of Justice from taking steps to actualize what critics are calling a “slush fund.” 

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia has already temporarily blocked the DOJ from launching the nearly $1.8 billion fund until she has heard arguments about its legality. The DOJ has acknowledged it intends to comply with that court order, which is set to expire this Friday. 

The hearings come as the DOJ has backed off the fund in public statements. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the reversal at a congressional hearing on June 3.

“We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said.

“Not moving forward ever?” pressed Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y.

“Correct,” Blanche responded. At the same time, he would not commit to rescinding the fund in writing despite repeated pleas from Meng to do so. 

The DOJ is now relying on that testimony as evidence to show the courts the legal challenges are moot. In a court document filed Friday afternoon, the DOJ indicated in writing for the first time that it was not proceeding with the fund.

“This dispute concerns an Anti-Weponization Fund that has not been set up and is now not going forward,” wrote Andrew Block, a DOJ attorney. He also argued the case is “not justiciable,” meaning it is not a matter the federal court has jurisdiction to decide.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the nonprofit watchdog group that brought this Washington-based challenge, is not satisfied with the department’s apparent cancellation of the fund. Responding to the government’s filing, the group argued the DOJ has provided no evidence that it is actually backtracking and pointed to its refusal to rescind the fund in writing. 

“So long as the Fund’s charter documents remain in effect, nothing stops [the Trump administration] from illegally siphoning, at any given moment, nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars from the Treasury’s Judgement Fund to an unidentified ‘Designated Account’ and rapidly disbursing those funds to whomever they want under a shroud of secrecy, in violation of the Constitution and multiple federal transparency and funding statutes,” CREW lawyers wrote. 

They maintained Blanche’s comments are not legally binding, saying, “The Acting Attorney General’s remarks had no legal effect whatsoever on the May 18 Agreement, which by its terms can be modified ‘only by written agreement of the Parties.’” (The May 18 agreement refers to the settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS, which created this “anti-weaponization” fund. That agreement also had an addendum that purports to give Trump immunity from IRS audits, and that addendum has not been challenged in any of these lawsuits.)

In a D.C. District Court on Wednesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon will weigh the fund’s future in the case brought by CREW, even as the fund remains blocked by Brinkema’s order in the Virginia-based challenge. 

Across the Potomac in Alexandria, Virginia, the plaintiffs who brought that challenge, a coalition of former Jan. 6 prosecutors and nonprofit organizations, are asking the judge for more time to gather information about the fund before they argue over its future. 

The coalition wants the DOJ to clarify its public statements, including those Blanche made to Congress, about its intentions for the fund. They are also seeking further substantiation from the DOJ beyond the those comments that it is actually being scrapped. 

They specifically highlighted Trump’s continued public defense of the fund in various interviews conducted after Blanche’s congressional testimony. In a pretaped interview with “Meet the Press” that aired June 7, Trump said, “I think the weaponization fund is a great idea, and so do many other Republicans. You have to get it approved.” 

Brinkema is still weighing the request for more information, and the hearing remains set for Friday morning. 

These legal battles are playing out as another brews in the background. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who was overseeing the Trump lawsuit against the IRS that ultimately yielded the settlement agreement, has ordered additional briefing after having initially dismissed the case. That order stemmed from a request to reopen the case filed by 35 former federal judges, who argued the settlement “is a product of collusion and itself a fraud on the court.”

Williams requested Trump respond to allegations of collusion by Friday and address specifically whether the dismissal was premised on deception and whether she should reopen the case because she was a “victim of a fraud.”

These are just a few of the cases actively challenging Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion fund, which seeks to compensate individuals who allege they have been politically targeted or victimized by the DOJ. With the initial legal tests this week, the key question is how these judges will respond. Will they accept the DOJ at its word and dismiss the cases, or will they insist on a more formal binding order to prevent the DOJ from ever following through with  this fund? At this point, its fate — and this latest test of executive authority — lies with the judiciary.

The post DOJ says ‘anti-weaponization’ fund is dead. The lawsuits are still moving ahead. appeared first on MS NOW.

A Democratic lawmaker spoke on the House floor this week about her personal traumatic experience with miscarriage to advocate her amendment to a spending bill that would direct the National Institutes of Health to study strategies for improving pain management during miscarriages.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., told colleagues that she and her husband recently lost a pregnancy “after 11 weeks of hope of bringing a new member into the family. Miscarriage is hard but when your body doesn’t let go of a miscarriage, it gets harder. After several weeks of bleeding and mourning the loss of our pregnancy, my doctor made clear that future pregnancy could be much more difficult if I didn’t take medication to expel the retained miscarriage.”

A few weeks ago, my husband and I lost a pregnancy. The physical toll was something not even my doctor prepared me for.

The standard of care for women’s pain is medieval. We don’t need to agree on everything to agree this should be better. pic.twitter.com/FM07QT7Ip7

— Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (@RepMGP) June 10, 2026

Gluesenkamp Perez said she was told this medication “would be about as painful as a regular period, maybe a little stronger cramping.” But when she took the medicine on Sunday, she said “the pain was worse than the pain I experienced during labor and delivery of my son four years ago. I was not even advised to take this medication when my son was out of the house. He saw and heard things that he should never have had to.”

“Between 10% and 20% of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage,” according to the Cleveland Clinic, with most occurring within the first 13 weeks of pregnancy.

Gluesenkamp Perez condemned the standard prescription for pain medication after a miscarriage, which is an “over-the-counter pain medicine, such as acetaminophen (Tylenol), ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), or naproxen (Aleve) for cramps,” according to Kaiser Permanente.

Gluesenkamp Perez likened the advice to “offering someone a stick to chew on.”

“Women’s suffering is profoundly under-treated. And for eons, the survival of our species has been predicated on it. But while we have advanced in so many other ways, the status quo of women’s pain treatment, especially when it concerns reproductive health in this country, is medieval,” she said. She went on to say, “I know there are broad differences in beliefs on reproductive healthcare here, and we do not need to agree and debate on all of these issues to agree that women should not have to endure excruciating pain to handle a miscarriage and protect their ability to go on and bring a baby into this world.”

Her amendment was adopted with unanimous support by voice vote, according to her office.

The post Democratic lawmaker calls to improve ‘medieval’ women’s pain management appeared first on MS NOW.

Donald Trump’s recent record on U.S. attorneys and other federal prosecutors is a rather embarrassing mess. Some of the Republican lawyers have been purged for political reasons, some have resigned and some were forced out by the courts.

But perhaps most important of all are the president’s prosecutors who have actually tried to do their jobs in line with the White House’s agenda.

In Nevada, Sigal Chattah, a member of the Republican National Committee, has led a U.S. attorney’s office for the last year, and according to a Bloomberg Law report published last week, she’s used her office to “launch investigations at the behest of former clients and friends,” and also “opened a probe targeting her past political foe.”

In Illinois, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros’ tenure has become highly controversial, as evidenced by the intensifying mess surrounding his office’s handling of the “Broadview Six” case.

In Wyoming, interim U.S. Attorney for Wyoming Darin Smith botched some criminal cases so badly that federal judges had to intervene. (Senate Republicans soon after rewarded Smith with a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.)

But let’s also not overlook Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney who’s leading the office in the Central District of California.

Essayli, a former Republican state lawmaker, has cultivated quite a reputation, reportedly ignoring the recommendations of senior prosecutors and demanding that the office pursue MAGA-aligned cases without regard for insufficient evidence. Last year, he also dropped a fraud case against a fast-food chain owner who just happened to be a major Trump donor.

This week, Essayli apparently thought it’d be a good idea to appear on Glenn Beck’s program, where he vowed to bring criminal charges in “one to two months” related to his party’s conspiracy theories regarding California elections. The Republican prosecutor seemed to suggest that he hasn’t yet collected real evidence, though he apparently plans to address this problem by turning to the public for help. The New Republic reported:

First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli — who oversees 500 attorneys — went on The Glenn Beck Program on Monday to beg listeners to help him find evidence of election fraud.

“I expect people will be charged. … We have set up a tipline. I’ve set up a dedicated email. … We are looking for any sort of widescale conspiracy, if you will. … If anyone knows anything … if you’ve witnessed anything … if you saw someone collecting ballots in a suspicious way, or doing something odd with ballots, we wanna know about that.”

The circumstances were, among other things, bizarre. Federal prosecutors rarely appear on programs such as Beck’s; they almost never predict future prosecutions against alleged criminals who haven’t yet been identified; and it’s even more unusual for them to effectively try to crowdsource evidence collection.

What’s more, this is not a comprehensive list. Other Trump-appointed prosecutors in other jurisdictions have failed in other embarrassing ways.

The longer the list becomes, the worse it is for the rule of law and law enforcement. If you voted for the Republican ticket because you expected Trump and his team to be “tough on crime,” I have some bad news for you.

The post Trump-appointed federal prosecutor seeks public help on election conspiracy theories appeared first on MS NOW.

This is the June 10, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.

JOE’S NOTE

Donald Trump assured us last year that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated” after he launched attacks against three of the country’s nuclear facilities. 

On June 24, 2025, Trump wrote: “It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability.” 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also declared that same week that thanks to the leadership of President Trump, “Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been obliterated.”

Reporters who dared to cite an intelligence assessment that contradicted the administration’s fantastical claims had their patriotism questioned.

And yet, earlier this year when Trump officials were trying to justify their coming war with Iran, they had the temerity to warn that the Islamic Republic was only two weeks away from building a nuclear weapon. 

There were, of course, no apologies for members of the media who had accurately called out the president’s previous lies. 

Fast-forward to March of this year. Once again, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth questioned the patriotism of reporters asking about White House claims that Iran’s military capabilities had been obliterated by a week of intense U.S. airstrikes.

Yesterday, we learned that extreme claim was also false when the Islamic Republic somehow managed to shoot down an Apache helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz. 

Trump responded to the Iranian attack by ordering strikes against several strategic targets across Iran — proving once again that members of the media had accurately called out the president and the secretary of defense for overstating the success of their military operations. 

Again, no apologies to the media. Just more bluster, more bombs, and more bullshit. 

Americans now know better because they see the bitter reality staring them in the face every time they fill up their gas tanks.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We’ve won. Let me say we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won.”

— President Donald Trump on March 11

CHART OF THE DAY

ON THIS DATE

On June 10, 2018, NASA’s Opportunity rover sent its last message from the surface of Mars. Originally expected to serve a three-month mission, Opportunity functioned for over 14 years, traveling more than 28 miles across Mars and revealing fascinating discoveries about the planet’s geology.

WHAT THEY SAID

David Ignatius on President Trump’s limited options

“President Trump’s problem is he can’t finish this war. It’s a war that he desperately wants out of, but can’t seem to find an acceptable formula yet.”

Jonathan Martin on the strain of war

“Politically, it’s straightforward. Gas prices are going to keep going up, and that’s going to increase Trump’s political burden. And that is the burden Trump is putting on his candidates this fall.”

Willie Geist on new reporting on the Epstein files

“Donald Trump absolutely did not want to talk about this. JD Vance was the voice saying, ‘We’ve got to get it out there,’ but Trump would just snap at people bringing it up, which opens the question of why is he so defensive about this?”

U.S. FACING QUESTIONS OVER FIFA WORLD CUP VISA DENIALS

Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, draped in the Somali flag, is surrounded by fans following his arrival in Mogadishu on June 9, 2026.

Questions are growing about who the U.S. is allowing to attend the FIFA World Cup.

U.S. officials confirmed that Omar Artan, a Somali referee set to officiate, was barred from entering the country after flying into Miami on Saturday. He would have been the first Somali to referee at the World Cup.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told MS NOW that the denial was related to “vetting concerns.” Multiple reports cited “an anonymous official” who said — without providing evidence — that Artan was denied for “association with suspected members of terror organizations.”

Iran is also accusing the U.S. of barring members of its team staff, though U.S. officials have said visas for Iranian “athletes and necessary support staff” were issued.

The International Sports Press Association president also says “many” reporters from Iran and some African countries have been denied the necessary visas. The Department of Homeland Security did not comment on those specific cases.

EXTRA HOT TEA

2032

— The year by which Social Security funds are expected to hit a “critical low.” The drop will reportedly be partly driven by reduced immigration and Trump’s tax cuts.

ONE MORE SHOT

Serena Williams competing in — and winning! — her Round of 16 doubles match at the HSBC Championships 2026 women’s tennis tournament at The Queen’s Club in London.

CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE

The post Social Security funds to hit a “critical low” in 2032 appeared first on MS NOW.

This is an excerpt from the June 10, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.

Asked about the numbers this morning, President Trump said: “I love the inflation.”

Q: Are you concerned about the latest inflation numbers that came out this morning?TRUMP: No, I love it. I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over — do you know we've been taking out millions of barrels of oil? You know who doesn't know? Iran until right now.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-10T16:08:03.927Z

Meanwhile, wage growth continues to lag behind the rise in the cost of living, for which 70% of Americans blame President Trump. As my colleague Steve Benen writes:

Perhaps most importantly, NBC News’ report emphasized that inflation’s rise “has surpassed wage growth,” which necessarily exacerbates the affordability crisis gripping American consumers.

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 that 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.

CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE

The post Cost of living soars to highest level since 2023 appeared first on MS NOW.

Graham Platner overcame a wave of personal controversies Tuesday to secure the Democratic nomination in Maine’s U.S. Senate race. In an interview on “Morning Joe,” the oyster farmer and Marine veteran downplayed concerns that allegations about his past behavior could come back to haunt Democrats in the midterm elections as they seek to defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins and retake the Senate in November.

Platner told MS NOW that recent reports — which include accusations from former girlfriends of threatening behavior and allegations that he sent women sexually explicit text messages outside of his marriage — were “entirely blown out of proportion as to what the reality of the situation is.”

Platner has denied any allegations of physicality in his past relationships, while acknowledging that he and his wife, Amy, “had some struggles” early in their marriage.

“We worked through them because that’s what you do when you’re in love with somebody, and it made our marriage much stronger,” he said Wednesday morning.

“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski pressed Platner over whether his alleged behavior could affect his ability to fight on behalf of survivors and “call out those who have abused women,” such as Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. He told MS NOW that the two situations were very different.

“I engaged in consensual romantic activities with adults at an earlier part of my life; that seems like a fairly normal thing most people do,” he said. “Going to an island with billionaires to possibly assault children is a vastly, vastly different thing.”

When asked whether more stories about his past behavior could emerge before November’s election, the Democrat said, “There is nothing out there that will run counter to any of the stories that I’ve talked about openly this entire campaign.”

“I’ve been very open about the fact that I struggled, very open about the fact I had a long litany of failed relationships for years because I myself was not in a good place,” he said. “And then every now and again, we will have a media outlet or politically motivated attack come up and try to drag it all up, but it’s all very much within the exact same story that I’ve told this entire time.”

Platner has spoken at length about his struggles with PTSD, depression and alcohol abuse, which he attributes to his time in the U.S. military. The Marine and Army veteran served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

“I came out of the infantry in a time where we just didn’t really talk about the fact that we were all suffering,” he said. “It was this whole idea that we’re just going to be tough and get through it — and it was not an effective solution.”

Platner said it was not until he returned to Maine in 2016 that he sought help for his struggles and began treatment.

“Much like getting over any kind of trauma, there isn’t like one day where you’re not doing well and then one day you’re magically good again,” he said. “It’s a journey.”

Platner said the road to recovery is “continuous” and something he works on daily. “I wake up every single morning just trying to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than the way I was before,” he said.

You can watch Platner’s full interview on “Morning Joe” in the clip at the top of the page.

The post ‘Blown out of proportion’: Graham Platner dismisses scandals after primary win appeared first on MS NOW.

In the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, Senate Republican leaders knew that Donald Trump was pressuring their members to reject certification of Joe Biden’s victory, but they pleaded with GOP senators to discard the outgoing president’s wishes. In fact, Senate Republican leaders told members there wasn’t even any point in trying, since the radical scheme wouldn’t work anyway.

Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the then-majority whip, publicly conceded in December 2020 that the plan to reject election certification “would go down like a shot dog.”

Trump wasn’t pleased. In fact, the defeated president labeled Thune a “RINO” — “Republican in Name Only” — on social media, adding, “South Dakota doesn’t like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!”

In 2022, Thune ran unopposed — in both the primary and the general election. What’s more, his career was far from over, and he became the Senate majority leader early last year.

In 2026, there’s a relative détente between Thune and Trump, though in recent weeks, it’s become increasingly clear the two Republican leaders are not on the same page.

“Thune has to say ‘no’ to Trump a lot,” Punchbowl News reported. “And second-term Trump clearly doesn’t like this at all.”

Consider the developments from the past few weeks:

• Trump tapped Bill Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence, and Thune made his dissatisfaction known.
• Trump announced a $1.776 billion compensation fund, widely panned as a “slush fund,” and Thune told reporters he was “not a fan” of the provisionally discarded idea.
• Trump endorsed Ken Paxton in Texas’ Senate race, and Thune again made his dissatisfaction known.
• Trump peddled new election conspiracy theories, and Thune said anyone touting such theories needs to “prove if there was cheating.”
• Trump told Thune to fire Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, to eliminate the filibuster, to end the chamber’s “blue-slip” practice and to pass the anti-voting SAVE America Act — and Thune ignored all these directions.

To be sure, the president hasn’t thrown any recent tantrums about the South Dakotan, but with the way things are going, it’s hard not to wonder if the dam might soon break.

The post With increasing frequency, GOP’s Thune and Trump are not on the same page appeared first on MS NOW.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup, which begins this week, is expected to bring millions of visitors from dozens of countries to the United States. I have tickets to the World Cup finals next month, and I’m finding it hard to contain my excitement at my opportunity to watch what I know will be the pinnacle of competition in a sport loved by billions of fans worldwide.

But as a doctor, I can’t help but think about how dangerously unprepared the United States is to meet the public health demands of hosting the largest sporting event in U.S. history. The World Cup will bring with it significant public health risks, bringing people from all corners of the world together, where infectious diseases can easily travel and become amplified in enclosed, semiconfined spaces such as stadiums, bars and restaurants.

As a doctor, I can’t help but think about how dangerously unprepared the United States is.

I know firsthand how infectious diseases spread in mass gatherings. As a Muslim performing the Hajj in Mecca, I saw some people contract meningitis, and I was one of the countless others on that spiritual pilgrimage who became infected with an upper respiratory infection. Mass gatherings of the size of the Hajj or the World Cup provide ideal conditions for infectious diseases, heat illness, crowd injuries and foodborne outbreaks to occur.

As a practicing physician who writes and speaks about public health, I have little confidence that the U.S. is prepared for the part of its World Cup-hosting duties that includes ensuring the safety of the health of millions of visitors.

The World Cup comes to a United States that remains scarred by the Covid-19 pandemic. There’s rising mistrust of vaccines, worsening healthcare staff shortages and the re-emergence of infectious diseases that had been eliminated. More than 2,000 cases of measles in the U.S. this year serve as a reminder of what happens when public health information officials such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traffic in misinformation instead of work to preserve public health. Thanks in no small part to Kennedy, vaccine hesitancy is on the rise, and the kindergarten rate of vaccination is below the 95% rate necessary to confer protection upon the larger community.

Although a recent hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship on the Atlantic posed a low risk to the general American public, if it had gotten out of hand, the U.S. would not have been prepared. If cases had spread across the country, we would not have been able to sufficiently test and identify cases because the lab test that detects the virus is only available at a handful of special laboratories throughout the country. And the silence from HHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was worrisome. Because public health only succeeds when and where there is clear, transparent communication, officials at those agencies should have held a national press briefing to answer the public’s questions. But they didn’t. According to an Annenberg Public Policy Center poll from March, only 43% of Americans trust public health communications from federal agencies.

The pillars of a strong public health infrastructure are early recognition of diseases, clear communication and trust, all of which appear to have been eroded lately. That’s why it seems unlikely that the U.S. could respond effectively to a major public health threat on our soil during the World Cup or at any time in the near future.

There’s little evidence that the U.S. implemented a proactive approach to the World Cup.

Our public health infrastructure has been underfunded for decades, surveillance systems have been gutted, and hundreds of critical CDC and HHS workers have been laid off. The greatest threats to a successful World Cup, then, may not be terrorism or violence, but an inability to manage predictable health emergencies at scale.

There’s little evidence that the U.S. implemented a proactive approach to the World Cup. To the contrary, it appears the country will react passively if havoc occurs. A proactive approach would have included strengthening infectious disease monitoring at airports, improving hospital surge planning, investing in public health infrastructure such as vaccine research, and rebuilding trust through transparency.

When I look at my World Cup tickets, I am filled with excitement, but I can’t shake the feeling that our country isn’t prepared for public health crises that may occur in the coming weeks.

The post As a fan, I’m excited for the World Cup. As a doctor, I’m worried. appeared first on MS NOW.

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

* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial race, Republican primary voters advanced Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Attorney General Alan Wilson to a runoff. That’s notable in its own right, though it was also of interest to see who didn’t make the cut.

Among those who fell short were two incumbent GOP members of Congress, Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace, the latter of whom finished an embarrassing fifth. They join a growing group of incumbent members of Congress who gave up their House seats to seek statewide office, only to fall short in party primaries.

Among Republicans, the list includes Texas’ Wesley Hunt and Chip Roy, Georgia’s Buddy Carter and Iowa’s Randy Feenstra. Among Democrats, Texas’ Jasmine Crockett, Illinois’ Raja Krishnamoorthi and Illinois’ Robin Kelly are in the same unfortunate club.

As Punchbowl News summarized, “It’s a tried-and-tested strategy: Spend a couple of terms in the House, build up political support and then run for statewide office. But this election cycle has been rough for House lawmakers seeking promotions.”

* In Texas’ closely watched Senate race, the latest statewide poll, commissioned by the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, found Democratic state Rep. James Talarico with a narrow lead over Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton, 47% to 44%.

* Last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Nancy Lacore, a three-star admiral and former chief of the Navy Reserve. This year, Lacore is running for Congress as a Democrat, and this week, she won a primary in the race to succeed Mace.

* California’s gubernatorial race is officially set: Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News personality, finished second in the first round of balloting and will face Xavier Becerra, a former Democratic congressman who served as Joe Biden’s health secretary, in the fall.

* Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has backed several progressive candidates in recent months, and his preferred candidates have fared quite well in a variety of Democratic primaries nationwide.

* American Bridge, a prominent super PAC aligned with Democratic politics, announced this week that it’s kicking off a roughly $50 million ad campaign targeting Republicans in more than a dozen House districts and four Senate races.

* And in Alaska’s closely watched Senate race, the newest candidate, a man named Dan Sullivan, continues to make clear that he’s serious about his candidacy despite the fact that he shares a name with Sen. Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent.

The post Wednesday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.10.26: House members fail again in bids for higher office appeared first on MS NOW.

There was an unintentionally funny scene on Capitol Hill this week when Republican Rep. Rob Wittman of Virginia pretended to have a phone conversation to avoid a question that he apparently didn’t want to answer. It was a reminder that Wittman appears to have missed his calling as a professional actor, since he really committed to the bit.

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA) faked a phone call for roughly 90 seconds after being asked about Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments regarding potential Social Security cuts.

The phone's screen remained visible, with his cheek inadvertently tapping different parts of the display. pic.twitter.com/y3ST5AX651

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) June 10, 2026

Just as notable as Wittman’s odd performance, however, was the question the congressman was trying to avoid. Specifically, he was asked about provocative comments House Speaker Mike Johnson made a day earlier, which have started generating additional attention. The Washington Post reported:

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) suggested Monday that he would release a plan next year to address ballooning entitlement spending, leading to Democratic attacks.

“The reason we are in trouble is because over 74 percent of federal spending is on autopilot, mandatory spending,” Johnson told a Louisiana radio station. “That’s your entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and then things like Social Security. They have to be adjusted and fixed.”

As part of the same on-air interview, Congress’ top Republican lawmaker added, “We have a plan to do that next year.”

To be fair, Johnson didn’t say a word about what’s in his “plan,” so it’s impossible to say whether and how he and other GOP officials would cut these popular social insurance programs.

But therein lies the problem: To hear the House speaker tell it, Republicans already have a plan related to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, although Johnson suggested the party won’t pursue its goals until 2027, presumably in the hope that the GOP holds onto its narrow majority on Capitol Hill.

The follow-up question is obvious: Why wait? If Republicans have a plan, why not share it and talk about its merits?

Indeed, in an American Civics 101 sort of way, Johnson should want to present his vision, on the promise of pursuing it in the next Congress. If the public approves of the plan, voters can back GOP candidates in the midterm elections, and Johnson can try to make the case early next year that his party’s agenda has a popular mandate.

Unless, that is, the House speaker believes Americans won’t like his plan, which is why he wants to keep it under wraps until after Election Day has come and gone.

For those who actually care about the future of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, Johnson’s apparent reluctance to share the details of his plan isn’t exactly reassuring.

The post Speaker Johnson eyes a new ‘plan’ for Social Security and Medicare to be shared in 2027 appeared first on MS NOW.

💾

As 2026 got underway and much of the country was mortified by the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, the public backlash was swift and quantifiable. An Economist/YouGov poll found that a 47% plurality of Americans said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was making Americans less safe, while a 46% plurality said ICE should be abolished altogether.

A Quinnipiac poll released at about the same time found that 57% of Americans disapproved of the way ICE was enforcing immigration laws.

The need for reform seemed obvious. In fact, an NBC News poll released in February found that almost 3 in 4 U.S. adults supported either “reforming” or “abolishing” the agency.

Democratic officials seized on those public attitudes and demanded that Congress impose new restrictions and safeguards on federal immigration agencies as part of pending spending bills that fund ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Four months later, the Republican majority ignored the polls, circumvented Democratic lawmakers and narrowly approved a spending package that will fund ICE and CBP for the remainder of Donald Trump’s second term, throwing an additional $70 billion at immigration enforcement. (The party used the budget reconciliation process, which prevented Senate Democrats from imposing a 60-vote threshold in the upper chamber.)

GOP leaders beat back efforts to include a provision formally killing off the idea of a White House compensation fund, but that wasn’t the only thing missing from the package: The legislation includes literally nothing in the way of new safeguards or restrictions on federal immigration agencies or their enforcement tactics.

In other words, polls showed strong public support for changes to the status quo. Republicans decided they did not care.

In a written statement, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said, “House Republicans are choosing to hand over $70 billion more in taxpayer dollars to fund ICE and Border Patrol’s chaos in our communities. This is on top of the $140 billion they already gave ICE in their ‘Big, Ugly Bill.’ MAGA Republicans refused to negotiate on popular and essential reforms to responsibly enforce our immigration laws while respecting the civil liberties of our people. I voted hell no.”

The Maryland congressman added, “ICE and Border Patrol aren’t targeting ‘the worst of the worst.’ College students, nurses, babies and children, pregnant women, cancer patients, and even American citizens have been rounded up in their lawless, brutal raids. This corrupt agency is making all of us less safe. We need affordable health care, not an open money spigot for ICE corruption and masked federal agents killing American citizens and disappearing our neighbors from the streets.”

The president is expected to sign the package into law, probably as early as Wednesday.

The post Republicans ignore public calls for reforms, throw another $70 billion at ICE and CPB appeared first on MS NOW.

In response to a lawsuit seeking to halt what plaintiffs called a “deeply corrupt” plan to hold UFC cage fights at the White House this weekend, the Trump administration pointed to events hosted under prior administrations.  

“No one raised a cavil at the Biden ice-rink or Elton John stage,” the government said in its opposition filing.

It said that during Joe Biden’s presidency, the White House “erected a 48 foot by 68 foot ice-skating rink on the South Lawn, complete with a 100-ton air cooled refrigeration system and pump, lighting system, and sound system,” for an event that the filing said was “supported by the National Hockey League and Comcast.”

In response to criticism of what the new lawsuit called the Trump administration’s “unlawful” building of the “92-foot-tall, 600-ton steel structure it calls ‘the Claw,’” the administration said the White House had previously “erected substantial temporary structures when hosting concerts,” citing a 2022 Elton John performance on the South Lawn.

It added that President Barack Obama “regularly put on exhibitions at the White House in partnership with private entities, including the South by South Lawn event; the concert entitled BET Presents: Love and Happiness: An Obama Celebration; as well as a Beyonce concert.”

The administration argued that “the historic precedent of Presidents erecting temporary fortifications … and Congress acquiescing to those activities” bolsters the legality of this weekend’s planned festivities.

The suit’s success doesn’t fully hinge on whether Judge Amit Mehta, the Obama appointee who is overseeing this emergency litigation in Washington, D.C., finds the historical comparisons compelling. That’s because the administration has raised several legal grounds on which Mehta can reject the suit, and it is likely that at least one of those grounds will succeed in defeating the effort and allowing the event to continue as planned, regardless of how corrupt it may be.

One of the challenges the plaintiffs face is whether they have legal standing to bring their case, meaning whether they are uniquely harmed in a way that a successful suit could remedy. (Otherwise, anyone could bring a lawsuit about anything against anyone.) Standing has also been contested in challenges to other recent executive actions, including the White House ballroom and the “anti-weaponization” fund.

The plaintiffs in the UFC case are activist Susan Douglas and Vietnam War veteran Paul Romano. They told Mehta 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.”

They also said the two of them would have submitted public comments had the “massive construction project” been submitted for environmental review, as required.

Their suit 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.”

In its opposition filing, the administration said the plaintiffs “intend to seek out that which offends their sensibilities, just so they can complain about it. This contradicts the fundamental standing principle that injuries cannot be self-inflicted. … None of Plaintiffs’ alleged harms entitles them to an early stoppage of this weekend’s matches.”

The administration also said the last-minute nature of the suit should defeat the emergency request, calling the timing “inexcusable” because “these events were publicly announced almost a year ago; the dates were confirmed by the White House three months ago; and site preparations have been publicly visible for weeks.”

If the bid to halt the event is rejected on preliminary grounds like standing, then the courts may never weigh in on the merits of the plaintiffs’ underlying legal claims about the administration running afoul of permitting requirements and the like, which the administration also contests.

In their complaint filed Saturday, the plaintiffs zeroed in on the relationship between UFC head Dana White and President Donald Trump. The plaintiffs argued 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 in “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 reports that earlier this spring he bought up to $50,000 worth of 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.”

In the opposition filing, the administration called the event “a collaboration” between the White House, executive agencies and the UFC.  

Mehta gave the plaintiffs until Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET to file a final reply brief. If he sides with the plaintiffs, the administration signaled in its opposition filing that it is prepared to quickly appeal.

The post Trump cites Biden, Obama, Beyoncé and Elton John in defense of UFC 250 event appeared first on MS NOW.

The specific details of what transpired on Monday are still coming into focus, but according to U.S. Central Command, an Army AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed off the coast of Oman and the two crew members on board were rescued and are in stable condition. Whether the incident was the result of a deliberate Iranian attack is the subject of some debate.

The Trump administration accused Iran of downing the helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz, while officials in Tehran said it was instead caught in the crossfire of drone attacks against commercial vessels.

Of particular interest, though, was Donald Trump’s reaction. On Tuesday morning, the president spoke to The Wall Street Journal and downplayed the importance of the incident. In fact, according to the Journal’s article, the Republican “repeatedly” said the downing of the helicopter “wasn’t a big deal.”

It soon became a very big deal, indeed.

A few hours after the president told the Journal that the incident wasn’t especially important, he used his social media platform to announce that Iranians “shot down” a U.S. helicopter, which would necessitate a military response. With this in mind, MS NOW reported overnight:

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.

We remain in the middle of a ceasefire in which the fire hasn’t ceased.

Why did Trump go from “repeatedly” saying the downing of the helicopter “wasn’t a big deal” to approving another round of military strikes? The Wall Street Journal went on to report that it was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine who recommended additional military action, which led the president to change his mind. (This reporting has not been independently verified by MS NOW.)

As for the road forward, early Tuesday, Trump said that a deal to end the war could be reached “in two or three days.” Roughly 24 hours later, the American president said largely the opposite, writing online, “Iran’s Military is a complete and total mess. Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore — They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action. The Bully of the Middle East is DEAD!!! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”

This didn’t make a whole lot of sense — it was weird to see Trump claim that Iran is powerless and “all talk and no action” while also accusing it of having “shot down” a U.S. helicopter — though the combination of military strikes and mixed messages once again suggest the end point to the conflict is not near.

The post Trump peddles more mixed messages after accusing Iran of downing a U.S. helicopter appeared first on MS NOW.

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 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.

The figures were entirely in line with a variety of related metrics related to the rising cost of living, including the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, the core personal consumption expenditures price index and wholesale prices, all of which recently hit three-year highs.

All that related data, incidentally, was released shortly before White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Fox News that Trump had transformed the U.S. into an “extraordinary paradise.”

Asked for his reaction to the developments, Trump said the latest inflation data was “great,” adding, “I love the inflation.” (He went on to claim that his love for inflation is based on a secret program that takes Iranian oil. It’s unclear whether that program exists in reality.)

Q: Are you concerned about the latest inflation numbers that came out this morning?TRUMP: No, I love it. I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over — do you know we've been taking out millions of barrels of oil? You know who doesn't know? Iran until right now.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-10T16:08:03.927Z

As for what’s driving the discouraging data, it is — to the surprise of no one — energy costs that are pushing prices higher, which is the direct result of the war with Iran.

Perhaps most importantly, NBC News’ report emphasized that inflation’s rise “has surpassed wage growth,” which necessarily exacerbates the affordability crisis gripping American consumers.

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 that 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.

This post, which updates our related earlier coverage, has been revised to include the quote from Trump..

The post Trump professes his ‘love’ of inflation as consumer costs reach a 3-year high appeared first on MS NOW.

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 Courier before 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.

Trump crashed out in an interview last weekend with “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker as he ranted about fictitious voter fraud in California. Vice President JD Vance — infamous for knowingly spreading racist lies about immigrants for political purposes — said the situation in California “seems pretty shady to me.” House Speaker Mike Johnson said California’s vote-counting process “stinks to high heaven,” adding, “I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.”

Elon Musk — MAGA campaign funder, propagator of racist conspiracy theories and beneficiary of untold billions in government subsidies — posted to X, “The real reason they don’t want voter ID is to commit voting fraud. That is the obvious truth.”

Republican and conservative leaders are spreading baseless fictions meant to undermine any election that doesn’t go their way.

Glenn Beck posted about California election laws: “A lot of the fraud is LEGAL. It’s a rigged system.” Rod Dreher, columnist for Bari Weiss’ MAGA-adjacent Free Press (who reportedly until recently was a paid propagandist for former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian government), posted that the “official story” of the LA mayoral primary results “is simply impossible to believe” and that “The problem is that many, many, MANY of us simply cannot believe it. It seems for all the world like fraud. This matters, & is going to matter more.”

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.

The post Nancy Mace lost the South Carolina governor’s race. But her legacy of failure runs much deeper. appeared first on MS NOW.