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States are fleeing the Great American State Fair and, well, wouldn’t you? So far, the event seems to be going about as well as the Freedom 250 concert, which is to say that people are running away from this hot mess as quickly as possible. The Trump administration took what should have been a nonpartisan celebration that states would have been eager to participate in and warped it into…

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Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District is not on the list of competitive U.S. House districts according to the major nonpartisan political handicapping outlets’ race ratings. Donald Trump carried the seat by 14 points in 2024, and by 11 points four years before that, according to data from The Downballot. And no Democrat has won the seat since Nevada was awarded a second U.S.

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The division of the Department of Justice that was supposed to have handled President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS—and the subsequent settlement that created a slush fund for his allies—claims to have no communication records related to it.

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a progressive watchdog organization, filed a Freedom of Information request with the DOJ, and in response, they were told that the DOJ “did not locate the case you have cited” within the DOJ’s Civil Division’s case management system.

“We have further inquired with Civil Division staff in the Office of the Assistant Attorney General, and they have advised that they are not aware of any responsive records within the Civil Division pertaining to the case you have cited. Accordingly, we have located no responsive records,” wrote Brian Flannigan, division counsel for records and information in the DOJ, in a response letter.

Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization sued the IRS in January for $10 billion in damages over the leak of their tax returns by a former IRS contractor during Trump’s first term. A settlement was reached last month that created a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for anyone who believes they were unfairly prosecuted for their political beliefs, essentially the president’s allies who were prosecuted under the Biden administration. As part of the settlement, the IRS also pledged not to audit the Trump family or businesses now or at any point in the future.

The case of the president essentially suing an agency in his own government was controversial enough, but the settlement was heavily criticized, not only for the creation of a slush fund for Trump to disburse to his allies, but also for protecting the Trumps and their assets from ever facing scrutiny over their taxes.

The fact that the DOJ claims to have no records relating to communication about the settlement suggests that either it is lying or negotiations were conducted outside of the legal bodies that should have handled them. All of this is yet more proof of Trump using the presidency to settle grievances, enrich himself and his family, and disregard the law at the same time at the expense of the American people.

The last major tournament staged by FIFA, the body behind the World Cup, was last summer’s Club World Cup—an international tournament where Donald Trump crashed the trophy presentation at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, joining the winning team’s celebrations as they lifted the prize. 

As my colleague Tim Murphy wrote at the time, autocracies have long used international sports events as a platform to whitewash abuses of power. Aptly, human rights advocates coined the term “sportswashing” to describe it. During the Club World Cup, ICE continued to raid and occupy Los Angeles, Trump passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the US military struck three nuclear facilities in Iran shortly after Israel launched strikes of its own in the middle of negotiations.

For the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup, which starts Thursday, the situation may be even worse.

“If we’re talking about President Donald Trump trying to use the event to sportswash, we would start with what he is trying to deflect attention from,” Jules Boykoff, a professor of politics at Pacific University in Oregon and former professional soccer player who represented the United States’ under-23 team, told me last month. “We’ve got the terrible approval ratings right now. We’ve got the Iran war he’s carrying out with Israel that’s going terribly in terms of meeting his goals.”

“Trump has used sports to his political advantage more than any president in recent history.”

Boykoff has written extensively about the intersection of politics and international sports, including the Olympics—the 2028 Games in Los Angeles will provide Trump ample further opportunities for sportswashing—as well as activism against systems of power behind the massive developments that come with events like the World Cup or the Olympics, and how they intersect with politics beyond sporting events.

Boykoff’s latest book, Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine, was released June 9. I spoke to him about the upcoming games, the sportswashing phenomenon, and the wider politics of international sporting events.

Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

I’ve seen the term “sportswashing” enter mainstream coverage, but it’s often used to characterize autocratic figures and states in the Global South. How do you think it applies to this upcoming World Cup?

Sportswashing is when political leaders use sports to appear important or legitimate on the world stage, while deflecting attention from chronic social problems, from human rights woes at home, and also while teeing up opportunities for political and economic advancement.

And yes, the term has been used in the past, I’ll be honest, in a somewhat xenophobic, ethnocentric fashion. It’s waggling a finger at those other countries that do it. Now, they do it: Russia in the 2018 Men’s World Cup definitely was a sportswashing endeavor; Qatar in 2022 was definitely a sportswashing endeavor. 

But it can also happen in places that are putative democracies. I know it’s a discussion now as to whether the United States is even a fully-fledged democracy anymore. Some of my political science brethren are calling it the new “competitive authoritarianism,” not unlike what we saw under [former Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán in Hungary. The point is, it can happen in places like the United States. 

“After the Winter Olympics…Putin’s ratings were higher than ever. He was standing on the stage looking legitimate as a world leader. What did he do with that? He invaded Crimea.”

Second, when we ask ourselves whether sportswashing works or not, a lot of times it’s implicit that it’s talking about a global audience. And that’s true. You could look at the Qatar World Cup of 2022 and, after the World Cup, their tourism numbers went up and they became even more of an important mediator in the region. But you should also look at domestic audiences.

Right after the Sochi, Russia, Winter Olympics of 2014, President [Vladimir] Putin’s ratings were higher than ever. He was standing on the stage looking legitimate as a world leader. What did he do with that? He invaded Crimea between the Olympics and the Paralympics. Domestic audiences can be really important here as well. Putin used those two events to basically get the oligarchs in line and on sides for him.

So that takes us to 2026, and while the [term] sportswashing hasn’t often been applied to the United States, I think it very much should, if we accept the definition that I gave before.

If we’re talking about President Donald Trump trying to use the event to sportswash, we would start with what he is trying to deflect attention from. We’ve got the terrible approval ratings right now. We’ve got the Iran war he’s carrying out with Israel that’s going terribly in terms of meeting his goals. There’s the lingering Epstein files, in which he’s named thousands of times. The list goes on and on. He needs to use this opportunity to look important on the world stage, especially for a domestic audience ahead of these midterm elections. And let’s be real, President Donald Trump has used sports to his political advantage more than any president in the recent history of the country. 

We shouldn’t be surprised that he’s going to talk about the importance of this World Cup to his presidency. He’s going to talk about that UFC event happening three days into the World Cup on the White House lawn. And he’s going to talk after that about the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

The book looks back at FIFA’s history, and accusations of sportswashing, corruption, or just excessive commercialization even before this World Cup. I was specifically interested in an inflection point around the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. Can you expand on that history and how that foundation was really established?

To understand the history of the World Cup in regards to sportswashing, you have to go back to 1934, the second World Cup ever, in Italy under Benito Mussolini—where he used that soccer team as this sort of embodiment of machismo, the embodiment of the fascist new man. Mussolini would actually ride around on a horse without a shirt a long time before Putin ever did. 

He talked about how the players on the Italian national team were what he called “soldiers of sport” and as the new fascist man who was bigger than just what was happening on the field. When they won that World Cup, he maximized his propaganda value. 

“I’ve had a lot more success using sport to open the political door to have discussions with people I might not agree with.”

If you shimmy forward to the event you were talking about in 1978, this was the World Cup for Argentina carried out by a military junta. Only 700 meters from where Argentina beat the Netherlands in the final, 3-1, was a place where leftists were imprisoned, tortured, and even in some cases killed. They got a massive sportswash assist from Henry Kissinger, the human rights ogre of yore who showed up there and palled around with General [Jorge Rafael] Videla, the guy who was really running the junta at that time, who was maximizing his leverage over the World Cup. 

Before the World Cup started and journalists from around the world descended on Argentina, the junta dialed back its direct repression—took a little bit of a break, if you will. They ramped it back up after the global media left, but it did provide an opportunity for groups like Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo—[mothers fighting against Argentina’s military dictatorship]—to have a bit more space, and the global media were there to cover it. I’m interested to see whether that happens [again].

Let’s be real, though: [for] the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Putin actually passed a law that said it was illegal to protest in the host cities [and surrounding regions], but you could protest elsewhere. I’ll be interested to see whether, under Trump, there is space for dissent.

You just mentioned soccer fans being a part of organizing. Where do you see space to expand that coalition?

These events are so huge, and they’re so enormously popular that they provide activists with an opportunity to piggyback. For the Olympics, I’ve seen this over and over again. 

I lived in Rio de Janeiro in the lead-up to and during those Olympics, and I saw it out in the streets with my own two eyes. We saw it in Tokyo in the lead-in until it got scuppered by Covid. And we’re seeing it in Los Angeles where activists have been active since 2017.

It’s really true when activists chant “the whole world is watching” with the World Cup and Olympics. So it’s an incredible opportunity to speak to a wider audience. 

Before I started writing about the politics of sports, I wrote about the suppression of political dissent. It was hard to jumpstart conversations with people about that topic, especially with people who didn’t necessarily hold my [political] beliefs.

FIFA instituted ad-laden “water breaks partway through each half, regardless of weather…Leave it to FIFA to figure out a way to monetize climate change.”

I’ve had a lot more success using sport to open the political door to have discussions with people who I might not agree with on a lot of things, but they can agree with me [that the way] we use public money should be more savvy, instead of just handing it over to the barons of sport.

And that can be a real entry point for having conversations about other things like policing around these sports mega-events, or how locals are kind of left out in the cold. I think that’s the logic behind a lot of the activism we will be seeing at the World Cup. I’ll be interested to see how that pans out.

I am also interested in your experience in professional soccer and with the US men’s under-23 team, as players’ unions have criticized player schedules. It’s almost the end of the season and I’m already seeing players getting injured and tired. Do you relate your experiences while playing to your thought process now [about] how these mega-tournaments function?

When I was running up and down the field for the US under-23 men’s national soccer team, I was 19 years old. That’s when I played my first international match against Brazil. I was quite clueless about a lot of the things that we were talking about today. 

When I arrived at the first match, I expected people to cheer vociferously. I’d been weaned on a steady diet of pro-US propaganda. And that just wasn’t the case all around France. This was a tournament in France where we played Brazil, and then what was Yugoslavia, what was Czechoslovakia, and what was the Soviet Union. It really got me thinking. 

We did not have a union back then, and when I was playing professional soccer, that was actually a real problem. We got paid okay, but we could have gotten paid so much more. More importantly, we had no protection. So if we got hurt, I mean, I could just like lose my contract the next day if I got seriously hurt. 

So I’m really happy to see these unions popping up both in Major League Soccer in the United States—it’s only getting stronger—[and] at the international level, there’s FIFPro, who has been raising a lot of important questions about athlete health and safety at this World Cup.

There’s the number of matches that players have played. You can chalk up quite a lot of this to the FIFA greed machine. They’re cranking out tournament after tournament—they trial ballooned the idea of having a FIFA Men’s World Cup every two years. 

FIFPro [has also] been smart and outspoken on the issues around climate change and its attendant heat issues. There are a few indoor stadiums that are air conditioned, but places like Miami are absolutely not. 

“Things have changed a lot, and for the better, since I was playing [pro] soccer in the 1990s.”

And what does FIFA do? They decided to institute water breaks partway through each half, regardless of weather at the World Cup. On one hand, great, the FIFPro union got a concession for worker safety. On the other hand, they’re using it as an opportunity to make even more money. I mean, they’re allowing commercials during those water breaks. Leave it to FIFA to figure out a way to monetize climate change to their advantage.

I think that things have changed a lot, and for the better, since I was playing [pro] soccer in the 1990s, and I hope things continue to get better. I’m concerned that groups like UEFA, the European body for soccer, and FIFA are just going to continue to milk these players for all the money they can squeeze out of them. But the World Cup is a good chance to raise awareness about this, especially both in the lead-in to the tournament, where players are coming down with injuries, who’ve played thousands of minutes over the last few months, but also during the tournament in the early stages, when some big names, unfortunately, might just get hurt.

Saudi Arabia has the 2034 World Cup and other sports investments—like their own soccer league with players like Cristiano Ronaldo, as well as golf and e-sports. Where do you see Saudi Arabia within this framework and their relationships with FIFA and the US?

Saudi Arabia has been active in sportswashing for a long time. They’re also spending quite a bit of money on sort of what we might call macho sports—boxing and UFC, and so on. That fits pretty nicely with the history you and I were talking about before, with authoritarians affiliating themselves with these macho fighters. Trump does it, of course, all the time.

One episode in the book that is extremely instructive is how two sportswashers, President Trump and [Saudi crown prince] Mohammed bin Salman, came together for a state dinner and extended visit in Washington, DC. These folks internationally are often working together and supporting each other’s sportswashes. It [also] reminds us that sportswashing isn’t just [events]—it’s about cutting deals and advancing yourself politically and economically. And that’s all that that state dinner was about.

Cristiano Ronaldo, who you just referenced, was there. He [hadn’t] come to the US since 2014 because of the credible rape allegations against him, [but] he knew Trump would not let anything happen to him. 

Another key ligature to all this is FIFA President Gianni Infantino. He was buddies with Putin back in 2018 for that World Cup, played football in the Kremlin with Putin in the lead-up to that tournament, and received a special friendship order from Putin afterwards. He lifted his residence, moved to Qatar for the 2022 World Cup, and ran interference for the emirs there around all the issues with human rights and [migrant] workers. And now he moved to the United States. He and Trump are extraordinarily friendly. They both have a penchant for political spectacle. They both like being around wealth and affluence and they both like being in the spotlight.

Infantino handed the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia, there was no real serious bid process around that. There’s so much to say about that, but I would argue Infantino has a crucial role in all this.

I’m curious about a lot of people who are justly criticizing and boycotting the World Cup—what they enjoy about soccer and what it could be. Do you have any thoughts on that, and how we could get to the ideal where soccer is legitimately for everyone who has some form of the sport that they love?

I have had the privilege of soccer enriching my life from the time I was a four-year-old kid.

I understand the effective power of sport and how it can be channeled for good. In my memoir, Kicking, there’s a lot of stories about how soccer activists in Portland fought back against the power brokers of soccer in Portland. They got the [Portland Thorns’] general manager [fired after supporting a coach alleged to have abused players]. They got the owner of the Thorns to sell the team. Those are huge victories that wouldn’t have happened were it not for the bonds that soccer created being used then to pivot into political action. 

With all the money swirling through the highest levels of echelons of sport, I’m concerned that maybe the game has become so heavily commercialized that it’s losing a lot of the luster of community-building. But, you know, there are leagues around the country and around the world that aren’t necessarily at that highest level that we watch on TV every Saturday and Sunday, but where you can engage in a much more community-oriented way.

In Portland, Oregon, we’ve got a professional [lower league] team called Portland Bangers FC. And it’s super fun. The mascot is like a seven-foot-tall sausage, and it’s totally goofy. The soccer is fine, but it’s really about community, and tickets are very affordable. Now we have a team called the Cherry Bombs in Portland where the sponsor is Planned Parenthood. 

I think [community-building through soccer] is too important to give up on, and I’m going to keep fighting alongside others for improvements for worker-athletes on the field and for conditions for fans and others off the field.

Look, it’s not as if we should have any sympathy for outgoing National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, one of the most craven, grasping folks in President Donald Trump’s orbit, but man, Bill Pulte did her dirty. Gabbard had announced last month that she would be resigning on June 30 to take care of her husband, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. It sounded like it would be an…

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A cartoon by Tim Campbell. Related | Trump thinks yelling on social media will solve his Middle East mess…

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio and UFC CEO Dana White signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday cementing a public-private partnership between the mixed martial arts company and the U.S. government.

Trump will likely financially benefit from this deal due to his investment in its parent company, TKO Group Holdings. While conservative media has sold this as “cage fights for diplomacy,” the actual agreement mostly sees the UFC partnering with the State Department’s “sports diplomacy” programs at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. That program is responsible for “citizen exchanges” and other cultural events but spent more than $52 million last year—giving the UFC a major leg-up compared to other sports leagues.

The MOU also comes just three days before the UFC fight night on the White House lawn on Trump’s birthday.

“UFC is the world’s leading mixed martial arts organization. As an American-founded organization, the UFC has grown into a major global sports platform, reflecting U.S. leadership in modern combat sports promotion, athletic performance standards, and international event production,” the State Department wrote in a press release. “Its events are broadcast worldwide and contribute to the United States’ broader cultural and sports influence through professional competition and athlete development.”

Nowhere in the press release was Trump’s investment in the UFC mentioned.

While the UFC has certainly gained serious traction over the years, it is not without its blemishes—White has been criticized for years for making millions upon millions of dollars while his union-less, battered fighters often need second jobs to keep the lights on.

An immigration judge has ordered the deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mohsen Mahdawi, who is Palestinian, to Jordan in a legal filing published Wednesday. Mahdawi has been targeted by the Trump administration for his pro-Palestinian activism for more than a year, in a high-profile case that saw him abruptly detained by immigration authorities during an April 2025 naturalization appointment.

Mahdawi is one of hundreds of students nationwide who experienced visa revocations, arrests, or threats after participating in protests denouncing Israel. The Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech, which began in the first days of President Trump’s second term, continues: many protesters are still fighting deportation cases, and in some cases criminal charges. Mahmoud Khalil, abducted as a recent Columbia graduate, was given a temporary reprieve in mid-May after he spent months in custody in 2025, missing the birth of his son—but must now petition the Supreme Court to halt deportation proceedings to Algeria. 

Other targeted noncitizen students, like Tufts’ Rümeysa Öztürk and Cornell’s Momodou Taal, chose to leave after facing the American security state. Öztürk, who was detained for weeks over an op-ed in Tufts’ student newspaper, returned to Turkey after graduating. 

“The time stolen from me by the U.S. government belongs not just to me, but to the children and youth I have dedicated my life to advocating for,” Öztürk wrote in April. “With them in mind, I am choosing to return home as planned.” 

Leqaa Kordia, an undocumented Palestinian woman detained at a Columbia University protest, was held in a notorious Texas ICE jail for a year, until her release last April. She, too, is still fighting deportation. “I mean, to be imprisoned for a whole year simply for practicing my freedom of speech and to be accused of horrific things that I have nothing to do with, it’s outrageous,” Kordia told PBS in May. 

Mahdawi will be appealing his case, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a press release Wednesday. “The First Amendment protects all of us from government censorship, citizen or not,” said Nate Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “The government’s continued persecution of our client for his beliefs should send a chill down the spine of everyone in this country, because once we start allowing exceptions to the First Amendment for speech the current government doesn’t like, there’s no telling where the censorship will stop.” While a separate habeas corpus petition by Mahdawi makes its way through federal court, he cannot be re-detained or deported. 

Documents from the AAUP v. Rubio trial, in which the American Association of University Professors sued to stop the US from detaining students on ideological grounds, proved the federal government frequently used spurious sources to target students based on their political opinions. As my colleague Najib Aminy reported in January, those sources included anonymous blacklisting sites like Canary Mission. 

DHS and the State Department “acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target non-citizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment-protected political speech,” the judge in that case wrote in his court order. “Moreover, the effect of these targeted deportation proceedings continues unconstitutionally to chill freedom of speech to this day.”

President Trump’s announcement that a deal has been reached with Iran and approved by “all parties involved” is confusing everyone.

The Israeli government is not aware that a finalized deal has been reached, an official told the country’s Channel 12, and it’s unclear where the Iranian government stands. Fars, a semiofficial news agency affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, quoted an “informed source close to Iran’s negotiation team,” who said that “no text for a preliminary memorandum of understanding with the United States has been approved.”

Axios, citing unnamed sources, reported that Iran and Qatari mediators believed they had come up with a written agreement Wednesday that the U.S. would accept. Those sources said that Iran told different countries on Thursday that an agreement was reached in principle but was still waiting for Iranian leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s final approval.

Trump announced on Truth Social Thursday afternoon that the deal had been approved by “the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others.” He made things even weirder shortly later in the Oval Office, saying that a signing ceremony could take place with Iran this weekend in Europe, which he would not be able to attend due to the planned UFC fight on the White House lawn Sunday.

“The [Strait of Hormuz] will be open as soon as we sign, which could be soon, very soon, maybe over the weekend in Europe. I won’t be able to be there, but, uh, [JD Vance] will be there, vice president, and some of the people, [Steve Witkoff] did a great job, [Jared Kushner],” Trump said, mentioning the people he had tasked with negotiating with Iran.

Trump says the Iran deal signing ceremony will happen this weekend in Europe but "I won't be able to be there"

(the UFC fight at the White House is Sunday) pic.twitter.com/K5tvLgLuqP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 11, 2026

Does this mean a deal is imminent, or is Trump just blowing hot air again? From what the president is saying, it’s either done or very close, but there’s no clear confirmation from Iran, and U.S. ally Israel doesn’t seem to be aware of anything, either. For the sake of international stability, one would expect everyone to be on the same page. But unfortunately, this is how Trump has chosen to operate.

With Donald Trump’s pardon of former Indiana Rep. Steve Buyer over the weekend, he has now pardoned at least 11 former GOP politicians, almost all of them on charges of corruption or somehow violating the public trust.

Buyer served in Congress from 1993 to 2011, and after leaving office, he promptly went to work as a consultant and lobbyist for many of the companies that used to lobby him. In 2018, while golfing with an executive from T-Mobile, Buyer learned that the company was reviving its bid to take over Sprint, a fact that was not yet public. He promptly began buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Sprint stock. In 2019, Buyer learned of another impending merger through his work and bought shares of Navigant—a move that would later earn him several hundred thousand dollars.

In 2022, Buyer was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to 22 months in prison, which he served. The Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal. In May, Trump posted letters written by Buyer’s former GOP colleagues, alleging that Buyer—who had made $354,000 from his two insider trading schemes—was a victim of the “deep state.”

“Like you, Mr. President, Steve has been the victim of lawfare conducted by the Biden Administration,” the Republican lawmakers insisted.

Trump’s official pardon of Buyer doesn’t list any specific reasons or rationale, other than the support of the other GOP politicos. Maybe it was Buyer’s penchant for golf—not only did he learn some of the insider info on the golf course, he was known in Congress for his love of the sport.

Regardless of the reasoning, Buyer’s crimes sound a lot like those committed by another onetime elected official who received clemency from Trump.

In December 2020, after losing re-election to Joe Biden, Trump pardoned former New York GOP Rep. Chris Collins, who had pleaded guilty to insider trading charges just a few weeks earlier. Collins admitted that, while attending a party at the White House in 2017, he received a phone call from the board of directors of a health care company warning that one of the company’s products had failed an important regulatory test. Collins promptly sold his shares, avoiding nearly half a million in losses he would have incurred if he had waited until the news broke publicly.

Congress is currently debating—and has been for years and years—provisions to restrict stock trading by sitting lawmakers. Current laws ban insider trading for everyone—not just members of Congress—but that definition doesn’t cover members of Congress buying and sell stocks that could be affected by legislation they vote on. One of the proposed reforms would ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks, but the most recent version, advanced by the Republican majority, would allow current members to hang onto the individual stocks they already own.

Federal employees are banned from owning stocks that might be affected by their work, but the president is exempted from that. Trump does disclose his financial transactions, and earlier this spring, revealed he had made more than 3,600 stock trades this year, including numerous stocks directly impacted by decisions he made as president.

Trump’s pardons and commutations for politicians haven’t been limited to insider trading. In all, he’s given clemency to 13 former members of Congress, all of whom were either charged with or convicted various forms of financial wrongdoing or corruption.

The list includes:

• George Santos, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft.
• Michael Grimm, Republican from Long Island, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud, but also acknowledged wire fraud, hiring undocumented immigrants, and perjury.
• Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican who was convicted on 17 charges for a variety of misdeeds, including threatening to use his legislative power to stop a land deal unless he was paid by an investor.
• Duke Cunningham, a California Republican who pleaded guilty to tax evasion, conspiracy to commit bribery, wire fraud, and mail fraud.
• Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who pleaded guilty to misusing campaign funds, including to finance activities related to extramarital affairs.

Of those 13 onetime members of Congress who received clemency from Trump, two were Democrats—current Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, who was facing felony charges for money laundering and bribery, and Rod Blagojevich, the former member of Congress and Illinois governor who infamously tried to sell Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat. Blagojevich appeared on The Apprentice with Trump and supported his 2020 and 2024 political campaigns.

Trump has suggested that Cuellar was indicted because, despite being a Democrat, he did not support Joe Biden’s border policies. Stepping up to help Cuellar escape prosecution did not, however, endear the Democrat lawmaker to Trump—at least not in the way Trump hoped. Cuellar said that despite being a conservative Democrat, he wasn’t about to become a Republican, earning him an angry, and threatening, Truth Social post from the president: “Such a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry’s daughters, will not like. Oh’ well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!”

President Donald Trump proclaimed Wednesday that he loves inflation—and now he’s facing ridicule from Democrats, who are using it as evidence that he’s increasingly out of touch with the public. Trump was asked about recently released data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows inflation at the highest it’s been since 2023. The increase has been attributed to Trump’s war in Iran…

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Democrats’ odds of taking control of the Senate just got even better, with The Center for Politics Sabato’s Crystal Ball flipping three races blue. According to the new ratings, North Carolina’s open Senate race is now projected to flip into Democrats’ hands, with the contest now rated “Lean Democratic.” And the Senate contests in Alaska and Ohio—states that President Donald Trump…

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The Trump administration’s Epstein investigator is getting his shot at running U.S. national intelligence.

The president’s nominating process to replace Tulsi Gabbard took a sudden right turn Thursday when he named Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, as his permanent director of national intelligence.

“Few people anywhere in the Legal Community are respected at the level of Jay. I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible,” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Clayton has previously worked as a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, providing counsel on corporate crisis management. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s law school. He was handed his role atop the Southern District of New York without any prosecutorial experience, and seemingly does not have any relevant experience to run America’s national security operation, either.

The president had initially tapped Bill Pulte, a national real estate developer serving as the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to temporarily serve in Gabbard’s stead. But Pulte—who similarly had no relevant experience for the job—became a point of contention with lawmakers, who argued that his appointment, even just as acting DNI, was effectively illegal as his résumé lacked requirements for the job that had been written into the law.

To prevent Pulte becoming permanent DNI, Democrats blocked efforts to renew FISA Section 702, a statute that allows federal agencies such as the NSA and the CIA to surveil people without warrants, but that is set to expire Friday.

It is not yet clear how Clayton will change opinions—or the written requirements. Why the White House singled him out as an exceptional candidate to satisfy the administration’s agenda is far less murky.

Clayton has passed countless litmus tests proving his loyalty to the MAGA movement. He has seeded doubt in America’s election integrity, claiming as recently as Monday that there is a “deep problem with voting in America.” He has also defended Trump’s $1.8 billion taxpayer-bankrolled slush fund for the president’s aggrieved political allies, arguing with CNBC last month that Trump was entitled to “recourse” after a government contractor leaked his tax returns.

“Anybody whose tax returns have been intentionally leaked should have recourse against the government,” Clayton said.

And Clayton unquestioningly did the president’s bidding with regard to his appointment to the SDNY, probing Jeffrey Epstein’s social connections—so long as they tied back to former Democratic President Bill Clinton, former Obama administration adviser Larry Summers, and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman. Later, Clayton was handed an additional Trump administration priority in overseeing the investigation into Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, despite his dubious financial ties to the cases.

It is not clear how quickly the Senate will move to confirm Clayton’s confirmation. Among other steps, Clayton still has to fill out a detailed questionnaire, undergo an FBI background check, and sit for a public hearing before the upper chamber conducts its final vote.

This story has been updated.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin attacked New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday as the Trump administration continues threatening to invade the Big Apple with Immigration and Customs Enforcement troops. “He and I don’t get along,” Mullin said when asked if he worried that treating New York with an authoritarian hand would yield the same destructive results seen in Los…

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Someone has traced “8647”—the anti-Trump expression that got former FBI Director James Comey indicted—into the grass on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

It’s still unclear who made the markings, or how. The administration has yet to formally respond.

Reuters photographer Nathan Howard captured a photo of the apparent tracing.

The slogan “8647” has two parts: “86”—originating in restaurants and meaning to nix or cancel—has developed a broader slang usage for cancelling something. In some cases, it has been used to refer to killing or disappearing someone. “47” refers to Trump’s status as the forty-seventh president.

This appears to be an impressively clandestine act of protest right in the middle of preparations for President Trump’s garish “Freedom 250” festival, which begins next week with the already collapsing “Great American State Fair.” The FIFA World Cup Fan Zone also began drawing visitors to the National Mall on Thursday, just in time to see the message.

Donald Trump has canceled an attack against Iran that was scheduled to take place Thursday evening.

The president in a post on Truth Social suggested that the two countries had come to an agreement.

“Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others,” Trump wrote.

“The Naval Blockade will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized—Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly,” he added.

The markets immediately reacted to Trump’s announcement: Stock indexes soared and oil prices plummeted.

The Trump administration’s negotiating strategy with Tehran has promised peace deals week after week to no avail. The wildly unpopular Middle East conflict is currently in its fourth month.

U.S. forces had already bombed Iran through two consecutive nights this week in the White House’s latest attempt to force Iranian leadership into negotiations to end the war. The attacks occurred despite the obvious risks of escalation.

“If we need to negotiate with bombs, we will negotiate with bombs,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday. “We will strike them hard tonight and hopefully Iran makes a good decision.”

The development comes in the immediate wake of a violent threat Trump made against Iran earlier Thursday, in which he pledged that the U.S. would strike Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” and would further take control of Iranian oil assets and infrastructure, including Kharg Island.

Negotiators worked through Wednesday night in Tehran to iron out the specifications of the peace deal, which both Qatari and Iranian leadership believed would satisfy the White House’s expectations, reported Axios. Insiders that spoke with the publication said that the new plan narrowed in on three main issues: focusing on the mechanism for releasing Iran’s frozen assets, arranging to reopen the Strait of Hormuz during a 60-day ceasefire period, and creating a roadmap for negotiating Iran’s nuclear program during the ceasefire.

This story has been updated.

SpaceX, arguably the most legitimate of Elon Musk’s businesses, is set to have the largest initial public offering ever. But even if you’re not someone whose heart goes aflutter at the prospect of a multibazillion-dollar tech deal, and even if you’re not some day-trader wannabe, you apparently get to care about SpaceX. A lot. Why? Because if you’re a normie with a 401(k)…

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A cartoon by Clay Bennett. Related | Inflation skyrockets to highest level in years—Trump says all is well…

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Trump officials are secretly telling Trump’s supporters that his $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund is still on, even as they publicly say that it’s dead.

The Atlantic reports that staffers in the Justice Department and White House are still telling Trump allies that they will get some form of payment, looking at ways to activate parts of the slush fund and alternative methods of compensating Trump loyalists at the same time, even though last week, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said publicly that “we are not moving forward with the fund.”

The DOJ has refused to put the fund’s demise in writing, even after being pressed by a federal judge on Wednesday. When asked why they were refusing, DOJ lawyers replied, “I don’t know,” suggesting that work is going on behind the scenes. Judge Richard Leon warned the administration that if they say the fund is dead, they had better not be lying.

Inside the administration, officials are reportedly divided on whether the fund will come to fruition. Anonymous sources told The Atlantic that the administration is continuing to work on the fund quietly, hoping the objections will dissipate and the story will leave the news cycle.

“Trump didn’t want to fight this out in public,” one DOJ official told the publication. Blanche’s nomination as attorney general is already facing opposition from some Senate Republicans, like Thom Tillis and John Curtis, who are threatening to hold it up to ensure the Anti-Weaponization Fund is officially killed. The fund faces legal challenges, as well, with Republican Senator Bill Cassidy joining his Democratic colleague Cory Booker in a court filing supporting a lawsuit against the fund.

A White House official told The Atlantic in an email that “any speculation about potential future actions is just that—speculation. President Trump remains committed to addressing Biden-era weaponization.”

As the midterms approach, the fund will be politically toxic for Republicans, and Democrats will certainly be using it as campaign fodder. The Trump administration has to know this, but will it take the safe option and kill it, or try to keep its efforts hidden until after November?

GOP lawmakers who defied President Donald Trump to push for the release of the Epstein files are nearing extinction. Three House Republicans who joined Democrats to push for the files to be released have seen their political careers go up in flames as GOP primary voters rejected their candidacies. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) joined the list on Tuesday when she lost a Republican primary for…

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