Political News

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s old firm recently cut a $1.6 billion rare earth metals deal, and Democrats in Congress are investigating his role in the apparent conflict of interest. 

Bloomberg reports that the deal, finalized last month, likely paid off for Lutnick’s two sons, who took over Cantor Fitzgerald after their father left to join the Trump administration. The financial services company served as a placeholder agent for the deal between the Department of Commerce and USA Rare Earth, or USAR, and Democrats expressed their concerns in a letter to Brandon Lutnick, Howard’s younger son and the firm’s chairman, dated Monday. 

“It is imperative your company provide complete transparency about the substantive conflict of interest concerns raised by the circumstances of this investment,” said the letter, written by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Ron Wyden in addition to Representative Zoe Lofgren. “Secretary Lutnick appears to have played a part in facilitating the USAR deal with Commerce.”

Wyden, Warren, and Van Hollen all serve on the Senate Finance Committee, with Wyden serving as its ranking member. Lofgren is the ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. They also sent a letter to USAR detailing their concerns.  

In January, the Trump administration agreed to take a 10 percent stake in USAR, and the Commerce Department offered the company funding and loans. These terms “raise serious questions about Secretary Lutnick’s exposure to federal conflicts of interest and bribery laws,” the legislators wrote in the letter. 

One year ago, USAR was a much smaller company. After meeting with Secretary Lutnick and other administration officials, it secured government help in January and has since purchased a rare earth mine in Brazil and acquired, either in partial stakes or in totality, processing businesses in France and the United Kingdom. 

These Democrats are hoping to get details about the meetings between Cantor Fitzgerald and the Commerce Department. But, even with congressional hearings, they may not get much in the way of answers, considering how much the president and his administration traffic in corrupt, self-serving business deals. 

The Trump administration’s campaign to whitewash American history and advance white supremacy took another step forward with the release of its report attacking the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on Sunday. The report, titled “Saving America’s Story,” claims that the widely celebrated museum has been the subject of “ideological capture” and says the institution is guilty of…

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It’s been six months since a federal agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, yet virtually nothing has come of the federal investigation into the incident thus far.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross was caught on tape—from multiple angles—sidestepping the front of Good’s red Honda Pilot before advancing toward the driver side door, aiming his gun at Good, and firing his weapon.

The 37-year-old was a mother and an award-winning poet. In the immediate moments after her death on January 7, the federal government’s response seemed to be normal. The FBI mobilized to investigate the crime scene, and local authorities received assurances from the government that the probe would proceed as a joint investigation.

But by that evening, Washington had completely shut out Minnesota police and law enforcement in Hennepin County. The FBI shuttled Good’s SUV to a storage facility before Minnesota authorities got a chance to look at the evidence.

“I was on the phone with the U.S. attorney, and everybody agreed this would once again be a joint investigation. And then suddenly the [Bureau of Criminal Apprehension] was kicked off the case,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty told the Pod Save the People podcast in June, referring to the state local law enforcement agency.

“And so we realized then and there it was going to be a different situation,” Moriarty continued. “They took away Renee Good’s car. It’s shrink wrapped. It’s still sitting in a warehouse somewhere. They won’t share any evidence that they collected or got from any statements.”

The restricted access to critical evidence meant that the Justice Department was the only agency left capable of conducting a full investigation into the incident. But Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ Civil Rights Division, had no interest in doing so, The New York Times reported in January.

Three current and former department officials told the Times that Dhillon would not consider opening an investigation into whether Ross had violated the law. Instead, the department considered investigating Good and her widow, Becca Good, regarding their supposed ties to activist groups. The unusual request prompted the mass exodus of several federal prosecutors.

But the push to shield Ross went all the way to the top. Then–Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that there was “no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation” into Ross.

Shortly afterward, Donald Trump and his allies began to slander Good as a “domestic terrorist,” preemptively attempting to sentence her in the court of public opinion. Meanwhile, the day after Good was killed, Vice President JD Vance practically promised Ross’s freedom: “That guy is protected by absolute immunity,” Vance told reporters at the time. “He was doing his job.”

As of now, very little has been materially done to investigate Good’s death or hold her killer accountable. In a statement to The Atlantic, the Department of Homeland Security both confirmed that it was still looking into the circumstances of the shooting and echoed Vance’s comments that Ross had “acted in self-defense” after Good had “weaponized her vehicle against him.”

The magazine noted in a story Monday that the word choice was “not particularly indicative of an agency keeping an open mind as to what happened.”

In lieu of legitimate action from the federal government, state and local law enforcement have started to try to gain access to the evidence in their own ways, including legal action to demand federal agents hand over the protected material.

Good’s widow has also filed her own lawsuit, asking for the return of the car so that Minnesota investigators can take a look at it.

The family’s legal team “continues to take all aggressive offensive measures and is fiercely committed to pursuing truth and accountability,” Antonio Romanucci, the family’s attorney, said in an emailed statement to The Atlantic.

After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in September, Vice President JD Vance got lost in conspiracy theories.

That’s what New York Times journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman wrote in their new book, Regime Change, which looked at the internal workings of President Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and the first year of his second term in office. The pair mentioned how Vance describes himself as a “doomer” who is “always latching onto the most negative possibilities,” and after Kirk, who Vance considered one of his friends, was killed, the vice president went off the deep end.

Vance’s “instincts told him that there was a larger plot behind the murder,” Swan and Haberman wrote. “He went down countless online rabbit holes, becoming so consumed by the videos and the theories that his wife, Usha, told him she was worried about him.”

This new revelation is worrying. Vance is the immediate successor to the presidency if anything happens to President Trump, who has visible health problems. Besides that, Trump has reportedly chosen Vance as his successor to run for president in 2028.

Future presidents should not be diving into internet conspiracy theories and YouTube rabbit holes, and vice presidents should not have that much time on their hands. How is Vance able to get into the weeds with his position? While he didn’t create a specific policy portfolio, he has taken on some important duties, helping with peace negotiations with Iran and representing the U.S. in different international trips. Evidently, that hasn’t kept him away from crazy internet theories.

The Justice Department is trying to save acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from a lawsuit seeking the release of his correspondence regarding sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing.

The lawsuit, filed in June by the government watchdog American Oversight, requested “All email communications sent or received by Todd Blanche and containing both a key term from Column A and a key term from Column B,” and “All text messages and messages on messaging platforms ... sent or received by Todd Blanche and containing the term ‘Epstein.’”

Column A contains “Epstein” and “Maxwell,” while column B contains “Trump,” “DJT,” “POTUS,” “DOE174,” “Tallahassee,” and nine other terms.

The lawsuit also argued that Blanche’s upcoming Senate confirmation hearings creates “an urgency to inform the public about Mr. Blanche’s work in his official capacity surrounding the government’s treatment of the Smith Report,” and that “Mr. Blanche’s work history regarding the Epstein Files raises significant questions about the government’s integrity that affect public confidence.” American Oversight requested the records by July 14. The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled Blanche’s confirmation hearing for July 15 and 16.

The Justice Department argued against these requests in a 38-page memo, filed Monday, that alleges that American Oversight’s FOIA request would disrupt “the processing of other requests awaiting agency attention” and that granting this one would “wreak havoc on agencies and the court.”

“The FOIA was intended to be available to all members of the public, not just those who are professional FOIA requesters or who have the resources to file a complaint in district court and move for preliminary injunctive relief. It is unfair … for AO to jump ahead of other requesters who filed their FOIA requests earlier, and who are waiting patiently in line for their requests to be processed,” the DOJ argued. “Granting relief would create perverse incentives and send the message that requesters whose preferred deadlines align with high-profile governmental proceedings can circumvent statutory procedures to leapfrog other requesters.”

This response comes as over 1,200 former DOJ employees signed a letter on Tuesday urging Congress to reject Blanche’s nomination.

The Department of Justice has yet to release or unredact all of the entire Epstein files, and has been dogged by Blanche’s own controversies over his handling of the files, given his meeting with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and his past work as President Trump’s personal lawyer. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi has said Blanche is wholly responsible for any missteps with the files, even under her tenure. The new strange, albeit flimsy, argument from the DOJ will only rightly increase scrutiny as his hearing approaches.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday alleged that the Trump administration had shared confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with Tehran, violating federal immigration regulations and endangering hundreds of people.

In March 2025, the State Department started to hold meetings with Iranian officials to discuss detained Iranian immigrants, according to the complaint from the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund and the Public Citizen Litigation Group.

In those meetings, U.S. officials allegedly shared sensitive information about Iranian immigrants, including details from their asylum applications, in which immigrants reported whether they’d been persecuted for their religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or involvement in women’s rights activism.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement then forced Iranian immigrants to meet with Iranian officials, who seemed to have comprehensive knowledge of their asylum applications, the complaint said. Those meetings have continued amid the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran.

Federal regulation passed in the 1990s bars the U.S. government from revealing confidential information about asylum applications, credible fear determinations, and reasonable fear determinations. If confirmed by a court, the Trump administration has blatantly violated this rule in order to execute the president’s mass deportation agenda.

Roughly 600 Iranian immigrants were detained by immigration enforcement last year. In September, Iranian officials agreed to take as many as 400 deported Iranian immigrants. That month, a flight returned dozens of immigrants to Iran. In nearly every case, either the immigrants’ asylum requests had been denied, or they had not been provided a hearing. Two more flights took place in December and January. The last was a week before the war started.

In addition to cracking down on undocumented immigrants, the Trump administration has made sweeping efforts to undermine legal immigration pathways. There have been mounting reports that asylum cases are being routinely dismissed by immigration judges, and that asylum seekers are then taken into ICE custody for expedited removal. The government has stacked the deck by appointing immigration judges bent on denying asylum claims, curbing America’s refugee program, and imposing steep price increases on H-1B visas.

Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner’s bid is in free fall, with Democrats of all political stripes calling for him to drop out less than 24 hours after a woman came forward to credibly accuse Platner of rape. Notably silent, however, is one of the people most responsible for Platner’s meteoric rise in the first place: progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont…

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A cartoon by Pedro Molina. Related | Supreme Court enshrines Trump’s racist BS into law…

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President Trump still wants to take control of Greenland, threatening to seize the country while speaking to reporters in Turkey Tuesday.

“That’s what hurt my relationship with NATO. Because Greenland doesn’t help Denmark, Denmark doesn’t spend money to really help Greenland, but it’s an important part for the United States. And it’s surrounded by China ships and Russian ships,” Trump said. “That should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark. And when NATO wouldn’t go along with it, and with all of the money we spend to help them with Russia, and we don’t have to spend any money. We could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe.”

Trump on Greenland: "That's what hurt my relationship with NATO. Because Greenland doesn't help Denmark. Denmark doesn't spend money to really help Greenland, but it's an important part for the United States. And it's surrounded by China ships and Russian ships. Greenland should… pic.twitter.com/MdvZPdGrEn

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 7, 2026

Trump seemed to have forgotten about Greenland for the past few months after nearly setting off an international incident in January, with his rhetoric alarming NATO leaders so much that they deployed troops to the island in case Trump quickly decided to seize it by force.

The situation seemed to calm down after Trump met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later that month. Public opinion in Greenland and Denmark toward the U.S. has plummeted amid Trump’s desperate attempts to take over the territory, including bribing its residents. Trump’s latest bluster is not likely to help.

President Donald Trump just revealed how unseriously he takes national security.

During a joint press conference Tuesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara, Trump appeared dumbfounded when pressed about his terms for potentially selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey despite a congressional ban.

A reporter asked Trump whether the sale of F-35 jets would require the country’s Russian-made S-400 missile defense system to be sold to a “third party.”

“Third party? What is the third—with respect to what?” Trump asked.

“There are concerns about the Russian missile defense system. Do you have those concerns about this system?” the reporter asked.

“I have no concerns at all about anything,” Trump replied.

“I mean,” he continued, “he’s a leader of a country that he’s made a much better country, a much more powerful country. You see it, I mean, it’s beautiful. You get off the roads are beautiful, it’s an amazing thing. No, I have no concerns with anything having to do with Turkey. The relationship, I would say the relationship with Turkey right now is better probably than it’s ever been. It was good in my first four years, but I think now it’s probably even better than that, if that’s possible.”

a confused Trump has difficulty understanding a question from a reporter:

Q: There are concerns about the Russian missile defense system. Do you have those concerns about this system?

TRUMP: I have no concerns about anything pic.twitter.com/HtuaeLp7WH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 7, 2026

One can only imagine the right-wing reaction if former President Joe Biden had delivered such an unintelligible response.

Turkey was barred from America’s F-35 program in 2020 after it purchased an advanced missile defense system from Russia. The sale sparked concerns in Washington that Turkey would train the system on newly provided F-35 jets, allowing Russia to learn how to respond to U.S. military capabilities.

In order to move forward with the sale, Turkey could potentially hand off its missile defense system to a third party, one Trump administration official told The New York Times. But on Tuesday, Trump was evidently unbothered by Turkey’s Russian-made missile defense system, and even suggested he would lift sanctions preventing the sale of the F-35.

“We’re going to be taking the sanctions off,” Trump told reporters. “We don’t want to sanction friends.”

One little problem: The sanctions were put into law by Congress, so in order to approve the sale, Trump would have to convince lawmakers to back him up. The president is going to have to come up with a better argument than I don’t care about the Russian military threat because the roads in Turkey are so beautiful.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to take a swing at Democrats over Graham Platner’s latest controversy, only to whiff so hard that he ended up calling out Republicans in the process.

A damning new rape allegation emerged against Platner Monday evening, marring the Maine oyster farmer’s candidacy and prompting a slew of progressive lawmakers to revoke their endorsements of the Democratic firebrand.

It was a swing and a miss on Fox News shortly after the news broke, when McCarthy attempted to use the dark moment to back-pat the Republican Party by claiming that conservatives always turn away from a “very bad candidate.” But the attempted roast only highlighted just how ignorant the GOP is, considering the orange-toned sexual abuser currently sitting in the White House.

“The one thing I know about Republicans: When we had a very bad candidate and found out, we didn’t vote for that person. We walked away,” McCarthy told the network.

Kevin McCarthy on Platner Allegations: That one thing I know about Republicans is when we had a very bad candidate, we didn't vote for that person. We walked away. pic.twitter.com/wkm65CCGHb

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 7, 2026

But that’s not what Republicans did in 2016 (or 2020, or 2024). By the time the presidential election rolled around that year, more than a dozen women had accused Trump of sexual misconduct, and a viral Access Hollywood tape had publicized Trump’s gross beliefs about consent in his own words. Nonetheless, conservatives across the country voted for him for president.

Years later, in 2023, Trump was found liable by a jury for sexually abusing columnist E. Jean Carroll. At the time, the judge in the case went out of his way to explain that Trump could be considered a rapist based on the common definition of the word.

Online commenters were quick to point out McCarthy’s blatant hypocrisy, flaming the former politico for his thoughtless comparison.

“You can grab ’em by the pussy,” wrote one X user, quoting Trump’s Access Hollywood hot mic moment.

“What the f***, man?” commented a self-identified Republican turned Democrat. “You literally voted for a pedo grapist and Jeffrey Epstein’s best friend!”

But even disregarding Trump, the Republican Party has a long history of fervently backing highly controversial candidates. In recent years, the party has put its weight behind Herschel Walker, the 2022 Georgia Senate candidate who faced alarming domestic violence allegations; and George Santos, the New York lawmaker who fabricated practically everything he shared about himself and was later ousted from Congress and sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud. Trump prematurely commuted his sentence via an unprecedented presidential pardon.

The GOP also remained behind Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, who pleaded guilty to physically assaulting a journalist; Rick Scott, who was tied to a massive Medicaid and Medicare fraud scandal in the late 1990s; and former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, despite a House Ethics investigation that found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had violated House rules prohibiting “prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement came to his doorstep and waited outside of his hotel after he criticized them—now David Streever is suing. Streever, with the help of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, is coming for ICE officials for impeding on his First Amendment rights in a lawsuit filed July 6. Simply put, JT Morris, the deputy director of litigation at FIRE…

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President Trump said in a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Tuesday that he plans to lift sanctions to allow the country to buy F-35 fighter jets. 

“We’re going to be taking the sanctions off, OK? I don’t want him to waste his time answering that question,” Trump said to reporters while gesturing to Erdoğan at a NATO summit in the country’s capital, Ankara.

BREAKING: Trump says he’ll remove CAATSA sanctions on Türkiye. pic.twitter.com/uPH3hjTBeP

— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 7, 2026

The move would end a ban that was imposed on Turkey in Trump’s first term after the country accepted a Russian S-400 air and missile defense system against U.S. warnings. Congress passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act in 2017 to punish any country that does business with Russia’s defense and intelligence agencies, and reinforced that restriction in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.  

That bill contains a prohibition on transferring the fighter jets to Turkey unless it “no longer possesses” the Russian missile system, its materials, or anything associated with it. Trump didn’t make clear whether the sanctions would be lifted only on Turkey, or on all countries that possess Russian military articles.

Regardless, Trump’s plan faces opposition from Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Last week, six Republican and four Democratic members of Congress wrote a letter to Trump opposing the sale of F-35s to Turkey. 

“With President Erdoğan’s continued aggression toward our greatest partners along with his troubling defense partnerships with our adversaries, it is not in the best interest of our country to sell them F-35s,” wrote Republican Representatives Mike Lawler, Nicole Malliotakis, Gus Bilirakis, Jeff Hurd, Max Miller, and Young Kim, in addition to Democratic Representatives Stephen Lynch, Gabe Amo, Jared Moskowitz, and Brad Sherman.

Israel also opposes the sale of F-35s to Turkey amid worsening ties with the country and Turkish criticism of Israel following its massacre of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News on Monday that he didn’t think Turkey should get the jets or F110 jet engines “because that’ll upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority, and also by, I think … America’s posture in the Middle East.”

Under Trump, the U.S. has already said it would allow the sale of F110 fighter jet engines to Turkey for use in developing its own fighter jet. The administration also wrapped up a lawsuit against Turkish bank Halkbank for failing to comply with U.S. sanctions against Iran, weakening punishments against the financial institution. Now it seems that Trump wants to appease the country and Erdoğan at the expense of U.S. national security. 

President Trump was on Truth Social at 12:58 a.m. on Tuesday morning demanding that Congress gift the military another $350 billion in defense spending in addition to passing his controversial SAVE America Act.

“The United States Military has never been stronger, or more powerful. No other Nation can do what we do (It’s not even close!). This year we set even more Historic Recruiting Records, months ahead of schedule. Morale has never been higher. Our Military’s unmatched POWER was on full display during our Celebration of 250 Years of American Independence and, like our Country, the WAR DEPARTMENT has never been ‘HOTTER,’” Trump wrote. “We need to keep it that way, which is why, when Congress returns, we must pass Reconciliation 3.0, with 350 Billion Dollars for Defense, plus THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!

“I am calling on House and Senate Leadership to make this their Number One Priority, and ensure that 350 Billion Dollars in Recon 3.0 moves out of the Budget Committee as soon as Congress is back in session. The SAVE AMERICA ACT, which everyone is asking for, paired with the full funding of our Great Department of War, can be passed very quickly, ensuring that the United States of America stays FREE for Generations to come.”

The only person, Democrat or Republican, “asking for” the SAVE America Act may be Speaker Mike Johnson. The blatant voter suppression bill still lacks the votes in the Senate, putting Trump’s third massive spending package of his second term in jeopardy. Trump had originally requested $67 billion for the Pentagon be added to the supplemental appropriations bill.

To add hundreds of billions more to that and force through voter ID requirements and mail-in ballot bans is a gargantuan task, regardless of how much the president posts.

The United States spent over $900 billion on defense last year alone.

Is President Donald Trump a sports jinx or just a corrupt fool?

Trump is once again an international laughingstock after the U.S. Men’s National Team crashed out of the World Cup despite the president’s meddling.

Trump had urged FIFA president Gianni Infantino over the weekend to overturn a red card that would’ve kept the U.S. team’s top scorer from playing against Belgium Monday night. For the first time in half a century, FIFA overturned the decision, but even that couldn’t save the U.S. Men’s Soccer team from being handily defeated 4-1. (And the player in question, Folarin Balogun, didn’t even score America’s lone goal of the night.)

“Overturn this,” the Belgian Red Devils, Belgium’s national team, wrote in a post on X after the game.

As if losing wasn’t humiliating enough, a handful of players on the Belgian team were spotted doing Trump’s iconic dance to celebrate one of their goals.

Belgium’s team celebrated their victory over the US by mocking Trump’s signature double jerk off dance move. pic.twitter.com/emvy5tK6Xr

— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) July 7, 2026

Online, people speculated that Trump might even be a sports curse.

Last month, Trump made an appearance at Madison Square Garden for the NBA Finals. The president was loudly booed, fell asleep—and the Knicks broke their winning steak.

In 2025, Trump attended the Super Bowl, fled the stadium during a very political halftime performance by Kendrick Lamar, and backed the Kansas City Chiefs—who lost. Trump skipped this year’s Super Bowl after being warned that he’d be drowned in a sea of 69,000 boos, and the New England Patriots, his friend Robert Kraft’s team, still lost.

Trump also attended the 2025 Ryder Cup, where team Europe beat the United States.

Were you hoping that the surprise helicopter landing pad being built on White House grounds could be even more corrupt and stupid? You’re in luck! The Washington Post is reporting that the White House is speeding up the construction of the helipad, a thing we only learned was being built less than a week ago, because that’s how things go these days. The accelerated timeline means this…

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MAGA world is not satisfied with the excuses from Senator Mitch McConnell’s office over his sudden disappearance, and are now demanding proof that the former Senate majority leader is still alive.

McConnell was admitted to the hospital last month, sparking grave concerns about the Kentucky Republican’s health. The worries were only stoked by vague and repetitive statements from McConnell’s aides that failed to elaborate on the senator’s condition or why he was receiving care.

But rumors about McConnell’s health spiked late Monday, when far-right influencer Laura Loomer claimed on X that an unnamed “high level source close to the White House” told her that “Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead.” In a separate post, Loomer elaborated that “McConnell is in organ failure,” and that the White House had been told “McConnell isn’t ever coming back.”

Shortly afterward, the reporter that first broke the story about McConnell’s cardiac arrest—Desirée Townsend—said that her sources had shared the same information.

By Tuesday morning, a slew of MAGA-aligned figures were demanding answers from McConnell’s office.

“McConnell’s staff should produce proof of the senator’s condition one way or another right now,” posted Matthew Boyle, the Washington bureau chief for the far-right commentary website Breitbart.

MAGA influencer Catturd posed the obvious question to his 4 million followers on X: “It’s really easy for Mitch McConnell’s team to prove he’s still alive and well. Just do a video from the hospital. Why won’t they do it?”

Steve Bannon has also speculated about McConnell’s condition, promoting claims online that the senator’s office is trying to “avoid triggering a special election that could allow Thomas Massie to run as an independent.”

The 84-year-old Republican has represented Kentucky in the U.S. Senate since 1985. He also served as the majority leader of the upper chamber from 2015 to 2021.

These are supposed to be McConnell’s final months in office—he is currently set to retire in January, at the end of his seventh term.

But his determination to remain in play on Capitol Hill has also forced him into the limelight due to several critical health scares since 2023. In March of that year, McConnell fell at a dinner event at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, fracturing his rib and suffering a concussion in the process. He fell again that July. He also froze mid-sentence twice that year, dissociating for 20 to 30 seconds each time, sparking concerns that the aging lawmaker had suffered a stroke.

In December 2024, McConnell fell for a third time in a public setting, and again in October 2025 while on his way to vote in the Capitol. He has since been transported via wheelchair by his aides as a health precaution.

In February, McConnell’s staffers shared that the lawmaker had spent roughly eight days in the hospital for “flu-like symptoms.”

The university has been fighting attempts at union organizing for years. Now it’s seeking help from an employer-friendly labor board. By Mark Kreidler for Capital & Main When a faculty group at the University of Southern California voted overwhelmingly to unionize in June, the university cloaked its decision to appeal the result of the election in the most gentle language imaginable…

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A cartoon by David Horsey. Related | Trump fails miserably to throw America a birthday party…

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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Donald Trump has blamed everything—from “national security” issues, the deaths of birds and whales, and cancer—in his decades-long campaign against windfarms. But as the Trump administration continues to undermine the industry, what worries workers most are their jobs.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has issued an executive order aiming to halt all wind-energy leases and permits, attempted to issue stop-work orders on wind projects under construction, and paid more than $2.6 billion in settlements to buy out wind energy leases. And hundreds of workers have been affected.

Thomas Kilday, a furnace electrician with IBEW local 99 in Providence, Rhode Island, was in the midst of a four-week shift onboard a vessel off the Atlantic coast working on the Revolution Wind Project in August last year when the Trump administration issued a stop-work order on the project.

“No one really knew what was going on. We didn’t know what it meant for us. We just knew that everything was up in the air,” said Kilday. “You plan your whole life around being gone for 28 days, and to come out here and have it thrown up in the air, worrying what does this mean for me, for my pay for the next four weeks, what’s going to happen? There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

Construction on the project is done on shifts of 28 days on and 28 days off, with workers residing on a vessel on the ocean and taking helicopters to work on the turbines.

“What the Trump administration is doing is just throwing money away for the sake of their ideology.”

A federal court granted an injunction to block the stop-work order in September last year. In December, the Trump administration issued another 90-day stop-work order, citing national security, before a second judge issued an injunction in January.

When the second stop-work order was issued, Kilday was celebrating Christmas with his family and preparing for another four-week shift. “That was really difficult,” he said. “I just spent a bunch of money on Christmas gifts for my family, and it was not what I wanted to be thinking about. Six months out of the year we’re away from home, and for what little time we do have at home, not to be able to just focus all of that time and energy on our families, it’s tough. It’s not a great feeling to be worried about your job when you’re supposed to be home.”

“We’re proud of the work that we do out here, and we want to be able to continue to do it. We think it’s important work,” added Kilday. “When I’m at home, and I drive down my street, I look up at those power lines. I helped create the power that’s running through those power lines, and I’m proud of that.”

Revolution Wind announced in March that it began delivering power to New England, citing the work of more than 1,000 local union workers, and is expected to power more than 350,000 homes and businesses. The project’s construction is over 90 percent complete.

In June, the Trump administration abandoned an effort to try to halt all wind projects and leases across the US, giving up a challenge in court to a judge tossing Trump’s executive order to freeze all permitting and leasing for wind projects.

Instead, the Trump administration has opted to buy out wind project leases.

Trump’s Department of Interior has completed four deals so far to cancel wind project leases, paying energy corporations a sum of more than $2.6 billion, including paying $765 million to Invenergy to abandon four wind projects in California, New York, and Maine and nearly $900 million to Bluepoint Wind and Garden State Wind to cancel offshore wind leases in New York and California.

“I think it’s a foolish policy that the Trump administration is engaging in trying to buy out these leases,” Pat Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, told the Guardian. “These projects are not only helping to reduce our carbon emissions, they’re providing good-paying union jobs for thousands.”

Crowley said that workers would have had long-term job stability from working on these projects. He noted the Trump administration had lost in court in its attempts to issue stop-work orders on five wind projects in the Rhode Island area.

“It’s a personal vendetta… Good union jobs—we shouldn’t be trying to take those off the table. That just doesn’t make any kind of sense.”

“We’re five for five taking on the Trump administration,” he said. “What the Trump administration is doing is just throwing money away for the sake of their ideology.”

Will Gonzalez, a construction laborer with the Laborers’ local 385 in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, worked on the Vinyard Wind 1 project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, a project the Trump administration attempted to halt in January. The project is now completed and fully operational.

He criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to halt wind turbine projects, claiming the opposition from Trump stems from his experiences trying to stop a wind turbine project near his golf course in Scotland, losing an appeal in December 2015. “It’s a personal vendetta,” said Gonzalez. “Good union jobs—we shouldn’t be trying to take those off the table. That just doesn’t make any kind of sense. Families obviously need good jobs…Why take those jobs away?”

Gonzalez said he and his co-workers were leaving training and certifications unused because of the halting of wind power projects. “All of us that worked on that Vinyard Wind 1, obviously, we would have loved to segue right into another project,” he said. “We’re fully trained, ready to go, willing and able, so it directly affected us. But you move on. You [have] got to move on. You can’t sit and dwell on that, because that’s not going to pay the bills.”

The White House directed comment to the Department of Interior.

A spokesperson for the department denied the cancellation and stop-work orders of projects had had any impact on jobs, even on projects under construction when halted. The spokesperson did not respond to a question asking for clarification and did not comment on Trump’s prior animus toward wind turbine projects involving his golf courses.

“No jobs were eliminated because none of these leases were operational or supporting employment,” the spokesperson said. Rather than waiting years for the projects to materialize, they added, the Trump administration is prioritizing investments in existing infrastructure and functioning supply chains that can create jobs now and deliver economic benefits faster. “This approach puts more people to work more quickly, using proven, affordable, and reliable energy rather than relying on projects tied to leases that were not producing jobs in the first place.”