A federal judge decried what he said were “breathtaking” constitutional violations by senior Trump administration officials and called the president an “authoritarian” who expects everyone in the executive branch to “toe the line absolutely,” the Washington Post reports.
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U.S. Warned Iran Strikes Could Lead to Major Conflict
“Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Oman urged Donald Trump not to launch airstrikes against Iran in a last-minute lobbying campaign prompted by fears that an attack by Washington would lead to a major and intractable conflict across the Middle East,” The Guardian reports.
“The warnings of chaos from the longstanding US allies appear to have helped persuade Trump late on Wednesday to hold off for the moment on a military assault. In the case of Saudi Arabia, its reticence led it to deny the US use of its airspace to mount any attacks.”
Trump’s Immigration Erosion Worries His Team
“President Trump’s team recently reviewed private GOP polling that showed support for his immigration policies falling. The results, reflected in public surveys, bolstered internal concern about the administration’s confrontational enforcement tactics,” Axios reports.
“Now, as the chaotic scenes from Minnesota play out around the clock on TV and social media, Axios has learned that some Trump advisers quietly are talking about ‘recalibrating’ the White House’s approach — though it’s unclear what changes Trump would embrace, if any.”
“The worries in part of Trump’s brain trust are the first signs of internal second-guessing his controversial ICE enforcement tactics.”
For members: The Public Turns Against Trump’s Mass Deportations
Irony Is Dead
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Democrats Chart Long-Shot Path to Retake Senate
“Democrats are voicing growing confidence about their long-shot push to reclaim control of the Senate, identifying a narrow path to the majority in November’s midterm elections that is still strewn with obstacles,” the Washington Post reports.
“Breaking Republicans’ 53-47 grip on the chamber was once seen as an almost impossible goal for the party, with nearly two-thirds of the seats on the ballot coming in states that President Donald Trump won in 2024. While it remains a steep climb, a string of recruiting wins, persistent voter concerns about the cost of living and a backlash to much of the Trump administration’s agenda have moved Democrats closer to what would be a seismic upset.”
Powell Probe Upends Final Stretch of Fed Chair Contest
“The criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell threatens to upend the contest over whom President Trump will choose to succeed him as it enters its final stretch,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The episode is creating new obstacles on Capitol Hill and raising hard questions about whether any nominee can be seen as independent—tension that was always present but is now much harder to ignore. Trump has made clear he prizes loyalty in his pick, but the Justice Department probe—which Powell said was part of a pressure campaign to get the Fed to lower interest rates—threatens to make that quality a liability.”
House Republicans Are a Mess
Punchbowl News: “The House GOP leadership’s current processes aren’t designed for this historically-narrow majority, and most members in the Republican Conference recognize they need to change how they operate.”
“With less than 10 months until Election Day, many rank-and-file Republicans feel like they’re free agents and are completely willing to buck their leaders to gain leverage. But the GOP leadership also has some blame here. They’re still putting bills on the floor that their vulnerable members oppose.”
“And House Republicans have a major attendance issue that they can’t seem to resolve. All of this calls into question what, if anything, GOP lawmakers can get done in the next few months.”
Absences Make It Hard to Pass Trump’s Agenda
Washington Post: “Even when everyone is in Washington, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) faces challenges holding his razor-thin majority together in the House. But a spate of absences in recent weeks — some by choice and others by fate — has made it even more difficult to pass legislation, including President Donald Trump’s agenda.”
Said Johnson: “It’s dicey some days. I told everybody … ‘no risk-taking, take vitamins and stay healthy and be here.’”
U.S. Testing Device Linked to Havana Syndrome
“The U.S. government has in its possession a device that is believed to cause Havana Syndrome — the affliction that scores of intelligence officers, military personnel, and diplomats began reporting in Cuba in 2016 — according to four sources,” Sasha Ingber reports.
Pentagon Taking Over ‘Stars and Stripes’
The Pentagon announced Thursday it would take editorial control of independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes to refocus coverage on “warfighting” and remove “woke distractions,” The Hill reports.
Machado Presented Trump with Nobel Prize
“Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado met Thursday with President Trump and presented him with her Nobel Peace Prize, an honor he has long coveted,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“But she emerged with no public backing from Trump, who instead has doubled down on his willingness to deal with stalwarts of the socialist Venezuelan regime rather than press for a democratic transition.”
Washington Post: Machado’s Nobel gamble: A peace offering to win over a wary Trump.
A Shift Toward ‘Absolute Immunity’ for ICE
New York Times: “The fatal shooting of Renee Good last week by an ICE agent in Minneapolis — and the quick reaction by Trump administration officials to declare the agent a hero and Ms. Good a villain — has put a new focus on whether federal agents enforcing President Trump’s deportation drive have been properly prepared for confrontations on city streets.”
“The response of Mr. Trump and his top lieutenants to the killing has also underscored how they have embraced what is supposed to be a last resort under the written standards: using lethal force in self-defense.”
“Rather than encourage agents to de-escalate combustible encounters, as the agency guidelines emphasize, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants have provided tacit approval for more aggressive tactics.”
Trump and Schumer Hold Rare White House Meeting
“President Donald Trump met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday — a rare one-on-one meeting between the two native New Yorkers,” Politico reports.
“The two have shadow-boxed repeatedly over the past year, including on a failed nominations deal and a historic government shutdown, but have had virtually no personal interaction.”
“Trump, according to a statement from Schumer’s office, called the meeting to talk about the Gateway tunnel project, which the administration said late last year would not be funded because of the shutdown.”
“But the Senate leader also used the sit-down to raise two unrelated issues — health care and the administration’s decision to deploy ICE around the country to carry out mass deportations.”
Trump’s Pick for Ambassador to Iceland Apologizes
President Trump’s pick for ambassador to Iceland, former Rep. Billy Long, told Arctic Today that he apologizes for comments he made Tuesday about making Iceland the 52nd state with himself as governor.
Said Long: “There was nothing serious about that, I was with some people, who I hadn’t met for three years, and they were kidding about Jeff Landry being governor of Greenland and they started joking about me and if anyone took offense to it, then I apologize.”
Trump to Voters, Allies, and Critics: ‘I Don’t Care’
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Nydia Velázquez Gives Mamdani a Warning
Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) “has a word of warning for Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor she just helped to elect: Back off city politics,” the New York Times reports.
“Tension has quietly been growing between the two Democratic allies for weeks over who should succeed Ms. Velázquez in Congress as she retires after 32 years representing parts of Brooklyn and Queens.”
“But Ms. Velázquez pushed it into the open… when she formally endorsed Antonio Reynoso, the progressive Brooklyn borough president, as her successor, and cautioned the new mayor that his decision to campaign for Assemblywoman Claire Valdez, a fellow democratic socialist, could drive a wedge through the coalition that put him in office.”
Predictions Markets Share One Commonality
New York Times: “The companies running online prediction markets, where ordinary people bet on real-world events, can count on intense interest in what President Trump might have up his sleeve…”
“At the intersection of the prediction market industry and Trump world is Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. He is both an investor in and an unpaid adviser to Polymarket, and a paid adviser to Kalshi … That has created questions about whether regulators could have been swayed by simply knowing the interests of the president’s son.”
Jeff Bezos Needs to Speak Up
Jonathan Chait writes that the raid on a Washington Post reporter’s home is deeply troubling.
“The question that has hung over the Post since Bezos’s heel turn has been whether he is still willing to protect the paper from a president who yearns to subdue it. He could answer the question by speaking out forcefully in defense of his journalists and their right to report on the government without intimidation. Or he could continue to remain silent, which, in its own way, is also an answer.”
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