All posts tagged: Trumps

New York primaries test Mamdani’s pull and Trump’s endorsement power

New York primaries test Mamdani’s pull and Trump’s endorsement power

Published by Sam Flores

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (R) welcomes US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during the “Our Team, Our Year” Get Out The Vote (GOTV) rally at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, on June 18, 2026. Kena Betancur | AFP | Getty Images Voters in New York, Maryland, Utah and South Carolina head to the polls Tuesday in primaries that will test the power of outside money, party establishment and the political figures trying to bend both to their side. The marquee race is in New York’s 12th District, where Democrats are choosing a nominee to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler in one of the safest blue seats in the country. The crowded Manhattan primary includes Assemblymen Alex Bores and Micah Lasher, along with Jack Schlossberg, a grandson of President John F. Kennedy. Bores’ record on artificial intelligence regulation — and the outside money around it — has turned the race into a national proxy fight over how aggressively Democrats should regulate one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy. Elsewhere in New York, Mayor …

‘Regime Change’ Book on President Trump’s Second Term: Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan Interview

‘Regime Change’ Book on President Trump’s Second Term: Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan Interview

Published by Sam Flores

When Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office earlier this year to interview him for their new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, he eagerly produced a two-page letter from a supporter he described as a historian. The letter’s premise was extraordinary: that Trump was more powerful than some of history’s most consequential figures, including Napoleon, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. The author of the letter was not, in fact, a historian. He was a golf caddy. But Trump’s evident pride in the comparison revealed something to the two New York Times reporters about what drives his second presidency. “Trump was visibly in a state of pleasure to be in their company,” Swan told Vanity Fair. “He wants to be a great man of history.” Based on more than 1,000 interviews and three years of reporting, Regime Change paints a vivid and deeply unsettling tableau of a chaotic period during which Trump has governed with awesome power and unprecedented impunity. He is a president, …

Who’s expected to fund Trump’s 0 billion Iran plan? : NPR

Who’s expected to fund Trump’s $300 billion Iran plan? : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif speaks alongside U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani during a meeting between the United States, Iran, Pakistan and Qatar at the Buergenstock resort in Obbuergen, Switzerland, June 21. Nathan Howard/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Nathan Howard/Getty Images A proposed $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran is a key provision in the Trump administration’s preliminary agreement with Tehran. Jake Sullivan, who served as national security adviser to President Joe Biden, told Morning Edition that the fund would be backed by outside investment rather than direct U.S. payments, though he said major questions remain about where the money would come from, calling the whole approach “something entirely new.” Sullivan explained that the memorandum does not explicitly rule out U.S. participation in the fund. While President Trump has said American taxpayers would not pay for it, Sullivan said Iran is expecting $300 billion from outside sources and that the United States has committed to helping secure it. “That is …

Trump’s MAGA brand is fading — and that makes it dangerous

Trump’s MAGA brand is fading — and that makes it dangerous

Published by Sam Flores

Trump stores are closing across the country. In Philadelphia and Crystal Lake, Illinois, shops that sell MAGA merchandise are shutting down due to a lack of interest. The Trump Truth Store + Hangout in Crystal Lake has only been open for several months. But in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, the owner explained the difficult decision she made to temporarily close the location, saying that President Trump’s war against Iran was the immediate cause of the collapse in business.  “It was dead as a door nail the minute that happened,” she said, while also noting her belief that wearing Trump regalia could attract negative attention for his MAGA followers.  The closure of these stores points to an undeniable fact: Donald Trump is deeply unpopular. His precipitous decline in the polls — which show key parts of his base, including white working-class voters, fragmenting — is much deeper than a single issue such as the economy or Iran. A growing number of Americans are rejecting what Trump and MAGA represent, a development that is a much greater …

Trump’s crackdown on ICE protesters already shows signs of backfiring

Trump’s crackdown on ICE protesters already shows signs of backfiring

Published by Sam Flores

Earlier this year, the occupation of Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement was in full swing, with more than 4,000 Department of Homeland Security officers in the city at its peak. During the operation, ICE wreaked havoc on the city, snatching residents off the streets and from their homes, sometimes leaving cars abandoned on the side of the road. Locals responded with widespread protests and grassroots efforts to track ICE, so the department turned their energy on protesters. The crackdown led to confrontations between federal officers and protesters, some of which resulted in deadly force from the government. Last week, the Department of Justice indicted 15 activists in Minnesota, alleging that they had conspired to impede the operations of Homeland Security employees and had ties to “antifa,” or anti-fascist groups. However, local activists say that the indictments, which are widely seen as an attempt to suppress political dissent and send a message to other protesters, have already backfired. The alleged actions took place during the Trump administration’s deadly Operation Metro Surge, which saw Immigration and …

Authorities arrest 2 more suspects in planned attack on Trump’s UFC show : NPR

Authorities arrest 2 more suspects in planned attack on Trump’s UFC show : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

President Donald Trump applauds after Justin Gaethje defeated Ilia Toupruia in the lightweight championship bout at UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, June 15, 2026, in Washington. Alex Brandon/AP hide caption toggle caption Alex Brandon/AP WASHINGTON — Two more people in Missouri and Washington state have been arrested in connection with what authorities say was a planned attack targeting President Donald Trump’s UFC cage-fighting show at the White House earlier this month. Law enforcement officials disrupted the plan a few days before the June 14 White House event, according to court documents. William Lee Spartacus Falkner of Belfair, Washington, was arrested Friday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder, according to court documents filed Monday in the Western District of Washington. Jordan W. Rincker, 28, was arrested Sunday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the Western District of Missouri. A defense attorney appointed to represent Falkner did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment, and court records do not reveal if Rincker has obtained an attorney. …

Ron Paul: Trump’s Attempt To End The Iran War Infuriates The Uniparty

Ron Paul: Trump’s Attempt To End The Iran War Infuriates The Uniparty

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Ron Paul Against the odds, the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the US and Iran appears to be holding, after threats and counter-threats. It may collapse, but it has survived a first round of talks between the two sides in Switzerland over the weekend. President Trump started a war on Iran against all sober guidance and in violation of the US Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war. There must be a reckoning for our elected leaders who violate their oath of office, the Constitution, and simple common sense. However, what is more telling is the reaction when President Trump finally took the correct move and attempted to end the war. The neocons who had hailed him as a great leader – Levin, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. – suddenly turned against him when he turned against further escalation of the war. via CNN Even Trump’s top funder, Miriam Adelson, attacked Trump in her newspaper Israel Hayom. “You could have been the greatest president of all, but you failed,” the newspaper wrote in an …

Inside Trump’s Plan to Seize the Smithsonian

Inside Trump’s Plan to Seize the Smithsonian

Published by Daniella Wilson

When President Trump summoned Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, for lunch at the White House on August 28 of last year, Bunch’s advisers assumed that the end was near. Trump had spent months threatening the Smithsonian’s independence; just nine days earlier, he’d written on Truth Social that “the Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.” It stood to be a tough visit, and not only because Bunch, the first Black leader of the Smithsonian, takes the widely held position that slavery was, in fact, “bad.” Bunch is the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and, as such, is one of the country’s leading and most visible advocates for the commemoration and celebration of Black history. From the start of the second Trump administration, the entire Smithsonian had been a target of those on the MAGA right who are preoccupied with expunging what they understand to be “wokeness” …

Trump’s top Senate ally Lindsey Graham breaks with president on fight over intelligence chief

Trump’s top Senate ally Lindsey Graham breaks with president on fight over intelligence chief

Published by Sam Flores

Sen. Lindsey Graham is backing away from President Donald Trump on a key issue dividing Capitol Hill. The South Carolina senator is one of the president’s closest allies in the Senate, where he has relied on Trump’s endorsement to win re-election and charted as close of a course to MAGA as one could after strongly opposing the president’s initial 2016 campaign and breaking with him in the wake of the January 6 attack. But the president’s relationship with the Senate Republican caucus has deteriorated in recent weeks, spurred on by his twin endorsements against sitting Republican incumbents who would go on to lose their primary contests and further complicate the Republican Party’s path to holding the Senate in the midterms. The president has generally made life miserable for Senate Republicans: He has waged war against the chair of the independent Federal Reserve, demanded funding for deeply unpopular pet projects as part of key legislation, and leaned on Senate gadflies like Mike Lee to push leadership into supporting the elimination of the filibuster. Graham spoke Sunday …