Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist with zero national security experience, is now Acting Director of National Intelligence. And it is going about as badly as you would expect.
Trump handed Pulte control of our entire intelligence apparatus in the middle of a foreign war and directed him to start firing personnel, telling the Wall Street Journal he wanted Pulte to move without worrying about the “shackles” of congressional oversight.
Days into the job, Pulte ordered staff to identify roughly 400 employees to cut from our National Counterterrorism Center. That is the office our government built after 9/11 to track terrorist threats and share warnings across federal agencies before an attack can happen.
Former intelligence officials are already saying what should be obvious to anyone. Gutting the National Counterterrorism Center weakens our ability to detect and stop terrorist plots before they reach American soil.
In my eight years in Congress, I have not seen such incompetence or recklessness.
Pulte is sidelining national security and waving off expert warnings because the President told him to. That is an unforgivable gamble with the safety of American families.
And where in the hell are my Republican colleagues?
They took the same oath I did.
Their silence right now is its own kind of betrayal.
https://t.co/YNuiWo3yuS
REPUBLICAN SEN. TILLIS: “What Freakin’ parallel universe did I wake up in? You’re telling me — if it’s true — damaging the reflecting pool lining is something Pirro wants to prosecute… yet they’re releasing people who pled guilty to assaulting officers?”
Trump claims the US will release frozen Iranian assets to buy U.S. corn, wheat, soybeans, and other agricultural products.
Iran has already contradicted Trump, saying there is no deal requiring the money to be spent on American products. Trump is lying, per usual
I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I'd take away from what happened in NY yesterday.
1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away.
2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark.
3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost.
4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper.
5. The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something.
6. Don't fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won.
7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field.
The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.
BREAKING: Congress passed a bipartisan bill designed to make homeownership more affordable and expand access to housing.
President Trump has now canceled the signing ceremony and is refusing to sign it.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to lower costs for working Americans.
When a bipartisan housing bill reached his desk, he walked away from it.
Actions speak louder than slogans.
At noon I will be on the Senate floor giving a comprehensive speech outlining the last 500 days of Trump's dizzying, unprecedented campaign of corruption.
We cannot normalize what he is doing. He is stealing from us.
So let me get this straight: Pulling a chunk of paint out of the Reflecting Pool gets you arrested for vandalism, but trump’s terrorists who attacked the Capitol, killed cops, broke windows, stole shit, and smeared their feces on the walls get to go free?
To any conservative woman who is fine giving up her right to vote to her husband, you go right ahead and do that, but I’ll be damned if I ever let a man speak for me and steal my vote.
Turner: If there is an opportunity, as the vice president has laid out, for Iran to make a change, we have to take that opportunity.
Collins: It’s the same leadership. Does that seem like that's changing to you?
Turner: They made a declaration in the beginning of this conflict that they would never state that they would walk away from their nuclear ambitions. They just did.
Collins: They’ve said that before.
Turner: This is not the same situation. In midnight hammer, they just lost their underground nuclear enrichment.
Collins: Then why was the war necessary?
Zelensky tells the Belarusian dictator that he has one week to remove the missile guidance systems that he allows Russia to use for targeting Ukrainian cities or "we will remove them ourselves".
🚨MAJOR BREAKING: Democrat Scott Colom trails incumbent Republican senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by just three points.
That’s within the poll’s margin of error.
Mississippi is now in play. This is historic.
🚨UNBELIEVABLE: As millions of Americans are STRUGGLING, Trump has the audacity to brag about how luxurious his PLANE is:
“This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody's ever seen before.”
This is a winning midterm ad for Democrats.
🚨BREAKING: President Obama breaks his silence after Trump signed the MOU surrender with Iran.
Obama says that under the JCPOA he negotiated, "Iran had agreed not to develop nuclear weapons," and Trump pulling out of it "caused Iran to develop more nuclear capacity."
Obama questioned Trump's rationale for his war, saying we're likely worse off now:
"We’ve now fought a war, spent billions and billions of dollars, put an enormous strain on our military; a lot of people have died, and it feels like we are back where we were before we started the war, except maybe a little worse off."
This MIC DROP from Obama is guaranteed to drive Trump NUTS.
BREAKING: Italy's deputy PM and foreign minister Antonio Tajani just CANCELLED his planned diplomatic trip to Washington on monday, declaring that Trump's "serious and offensive words" directed at the prime minister "offend all of Italy."
This comes after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni TORCHED Donald Trump after he claimed she “begged” him for a photo at the G7 and that he only took it because he “felt sorry for her.”
The Italian PM was wondering.
"I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves this way with his own allies; it’s not the first time this happens."
She went on saying, "I can only say that I’m sorry he doesn’t show the same determination with the enemies of the West, with the enemies of the United States, whose leaders he instead shows himself to be much more accommodating towards."
Italy's prime minister is a boss lady.
Here’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in April announcing the end of the military’s mandatory annual flu vaccine requirement, calling it “Not rational.”
Holy shit. This video of a Trump advisor saying on CNN that the White House is “not afraid” to cut Medicaid and says “everything” is “on the table” including cuts on Social Security.
MAGA is about to lose their health care. #HandsOffOurSocialSecurity