A federal judge has temporarily blocked any payouts from the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” settlement fund, the Associated Press reports.
Trump Spends $5 Million to Coat Horse Statues in Gold
NOTUS: “Four massive bronze horses positioned along the roads surrounding the Lincoln Memorial still shine in the sun from their first restoration in the 1970s. But their gold-toned coating is faded and patchy, and their heavy stone bases are cracked and dirty.”
“The Trump administration wants them glittering with a fresh coat of gold in time for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4. So in mid-April, the National Park Service handed a $5 million contract to a gilding studio in Maryland to repair the statues and cover them with a thick layer of 23.75-karat gold leaf.”
Musicians Keep Bailing from Trump’s Concert
Mediaite: “The musical lineup for President Donald Trump’s ‘Freedom 250’ concert series, marketed as the ‘Great American State Fair,’ has been remarkably hard to keep up-to-date.”
“Just one day after it was announced, two-thirds of the musical acts have dropped out — some even saying they had no idea they were performing at this event or were misled about it being ‘political’ — and the whole mess seems to have reignited a decades-old feud within one group.”
How Spencer Pratt Happens
Andrew Sharp: “Pratt’s political talent is a big and still-underappreciated story here, but the story of his rise is obviously indivisible from that of the Democratic establishment’s decline. Watching this election unfold over the past several weeks, for all Pratt’s success, I’ve been equally struck by the thought that everything that makes Pratt politically viable used to be specialties of the Democratic Party. Boundless energy, good humor, good-looking and telegenic, occasionally stupid but generally likable, embracing technology, targeting opponents as corrupt and out of touch—that is where Dems lived! And that is becoming less true by the day.”
“Next to the 42 year-old Pratt in L.A., there is the 72 year-old Bass, an incumbent mayor endorsed by Kamala Harris who barely made a dent in the crime and homelessness crisis during her first term, infamously boarded a plane to Ghana during the early stages of the worst wildfires in L.A. history, and worked after the fact to obscure the city’s failures.”
China Is Fortifying Its Nuclear Arsenal
Reuters: “In a remote Chinese desert, a vast military complex is taking shape that some security scholars say appears built to ensure no American first strike on China’s nuclear arsenal could reliably knock out Beijing’s ability to hit back.”
“China’s nuclear missiles can already reach any city in the United States. Now, satellite images reviewed by Reuters show Beijing is building a sprawling web of launch pads, bunkers and communications nodes near the isolated nuclear silos that hold the Chinese military’s longest-range missiles.”
Congress Barrels Toward Summer Scrambling for Big Win
Bloomberg: “Republican lawmakers preparing to return to Washington next week hope to leave their epic meltdown over a key funding bill in the rearview mirror.”
“It doesn’t bode well for their ability to turn things around.”
“As lawmakers head toward summer and approach the meat of campaign season, Republicans know they need to put points on the board.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Does the outcome of this race tell you who’s going to win the nomination? No. But it does tell you there’s a lot of support around a populist economic platform.”
— David Axelrod, quoted by Politico, on how the Michigan U.S. Senate Democratic primary is a good proxy for the 2028 presidential race.
The Rise and Fall of the House Freedom Caucus Leaders
NOTUS: “The group of roughly three dozen far-right lawmakers rose to prominence by derailing legislation and helping to force out GOP speakers. Their relationship with Trump has been complicated over the years, but their power has waned significantly as Trump’s power has grown.”
Trump’s Boat Strikes Have Failed to Curb Cocaine Flow
New York Times: “With deadly precision, the Trump administration has launched dozens of attacks on small boats in the waters off South America, killing nearly 200 people in a campaign U.S. officials say is meant to curb the flow of illicit drugs to the United States.”
“But almost nine months into the operation, epidemiologists, addiction scientists and public health experts say cocaine, by far the top drug smuggled out of South America, is as easy to get in much of the United States as it was before the strikes began.”
White House Pushed Loan for Company Tied to Don Jr.
White House adviser Peter Navarro asked the Pentagon to loan $620 million to a company linked to Donald Trump Jr., ProPublica reports.
White House Whipsaws Once Again on Iran
Wall Street Journal: “The White House is offering two, seemingly contradictory messages when it comes to Iran. Some officials, including Trump at times, are acting with urgency to suggest a deal is within reach that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz.”
“But then Trump has said that he’s in no rush and isn’t concerned if high energy prices persist through the rest of the year.”
Why Democrats Can’t Learn Much from the 2024 Election
G. Elliot Morris: “Donald Trump won the ‘tipping-point’ state (the one whose electoral votes push the winner past 270, if you order the states by Democratic/Republican vote margin) by just 1.7 percentage points in 2024. Trump defeated Kamala Harris by just 120,000 votes in Pennsylvania. The excess electoral votes he won in Michigan and Wisconsin were decided by 110,000 votes — a fifth of the size of the smallest state.”
“The problem this presents for election analysts is that every campaign decision becomes potentially decisive for the outcome. There were 152 million votes cast in 2024, but the contest was decided by just 230,000 in those three states above — or 0.15 percent of all voters. When a race is that close, almost anything plausibly mattered.”
Trump Responds to Jill Biden
President Trump commented on former first lady Jill Biden’s remarks that she feared her husband was having a stroke or was drugged during his 2024 debate with Trump.
Said Trump: “Jill Biden is now out there finally admitting that she did NOT know what went wrong with Sleepy Joe during our spectacular, and highly rated, 2024 Presidential Debate, where Joe was not exactly performing to the highest level of debate standards.”
He added: “She said that she thought he was having a ‘stroke,’ and various other really bad things, and yet never rushed onto the stage to help her troubled husband, as any good wife would do… The only thing she failed to mention was how well I was doing prior to his near total collapse.”
Tom Kean Jr.’s Absence Could Cost GOP a House Seat
Washington Post: “For almost three months, Rep. Tom Kean Jr.’s whereabouts and condition have been a mystery in his New Jersey congressional district. Now they are becoming a source of growing alarm for his party in Washington, where Republicans fear his prolonged absence could cost them his swing seat — and possibly their House majority.”
“Kean has not voted in the House since March 5. His district, one of the most affluent in the nation, is also one of the country’s most competitive, a seat Republicans need to hold for a chance to keep a House that they currently control by only a handful of votes. The cost of his absence has already shown up on the House floor.”
Quote of the Day
“When Talarico goes in for a blood test when he gets a physical, blood doesn’t come out. Soy milk comes out. This man has less testosterone than Jasmine Crockett. They would choose a person who looks like he doesn’t belong in the senate but in a cabaret show.”
— White House adviser Stephen Miller, on Fox News.
If It Quacks Like a Lame Duck….
Jonathan Lemire and Michael Scherer: “Even though Trump’s power over his party appears at its pinnacle, many Republicans believe that the president has actually accelerated his own political decline.”
“Many of those primary winners may struggle in November, darkening the GOP’s prospects for keeping control of Congress. And at least some of the defeated incumbents, who will serve on Capitol Hill until next January, now feel liberated to push back on what they dislike in Trump’s agenda.”
“Others in the Senate who are not up for reelection are bitter about the president’s role in their colleagues’ defeat and have shown little interest in helping him pursue his personal-grievance campaign.”
Republicans Still Stuck on Party-Line Immigration Bill
Semafor: “Senate Republicans are still seeking reassurances from the White House on guardrails for President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion fund to compensate people allegedly victimized by the government — and they can’t advance their immigration enforcement bill without an answer.”
Going Ugly
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