Trump’s Next National Security Adviser Might Be His Worst Ally

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller may be up next for a new position in Donald Trump’s administration: Axios reported Friday that he’s a top candidate to replace Mike Waltz, Trump’s departing national security adviser.

Miller, the ghoulish white nationalist behind the president’s anti-immigrant crusade, is already serving as the president’s adviser on Homeland Security; reportedly he runs the Homeland Security Council “like clockwork.”

Miller has already been working with the National Security Council, running what The Atlantic reported was the “most active and well-staffed” section on homeland security, which at times operated entirely independently from the leadership office previously run by Waltz. It worked so well that Alex Wong, Waltz’s deputy, expressed concerns about the perceived split between the two factions.

It’s unlikely that Miller’s work as a homeland security adviser would stop him from taking on an additional role: Right now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has four. The secretary is also serving as the head of what remains of the United States Agency for International Development and the acting archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration—and in doing so, has found himself leading both an agency that has violated the Federal Records Act and the one that is meant to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Two White House sources told Axios that Miller’s work with Rubio made him well suited for the role. Another said that the fiery advocate had already expressed his interest in taking on the job, and another said that “if Stephen wants the job, it’s hard to see why Trump wouldn’t say yes.”

In recent weeks, Miller has been a fierce advocate for the Trump administration’s immigration policies—sometimes too fierce—and has set off on unhinged rants during multiple television interviews and addresses.

Conscience, a Freedom Flotilla aid ship aiming to break Israel’s two-month siege on Gaza, was struck by drones off the coast of Malta in the early hours of Friday. There were no casualties as a nearby tugboat helped put out the fire.

Footage shows smoke, flames, and massive, gaping holes in the ship’s hull. “Conscience has been bombed two times [just] a few minutes ago in 14 miles to the Maltese port,” one of the flotilla workers said through coughs as smoke filled his lungs.

“Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement. And while the coalition stopped short of directly blaming Israel, they demanded that “Israeli ambassadors be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters.”

“Our Flotilla is challenging not only that blockade that has kept all of the food and water and everything out of Gaza now for almost a month and a half, on the genocide that the U.S. is complicit [in]. The Israeli genocide of at least 55–60,000 Palestinians in Gaza,” said Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and diplomat who now works for the Freedom Flotilla. “Right here, we are in Malta dealing with a brutal attack on an innocent ship, a ship that was anchored or outside of territorial waters, waiting for us, the activists to come on board so that we could then head toward Gaza to say to the world, ‘Here are some citizens who are willing to take action where our government has failed to act.’ … While we cannot yet identify the source of the drones, there is no doubt in my mind that there’s a history of violence that has been directed toward the flotillas from the state of Israel.”

In 2010, Israel raided six Freedom Flotilla ships in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 10 people and wounding dozens.

Donald Trump, who saw an increase in support from rural voters in the 2024 election, is now seeing huge defections, according to a new PBS/NPR/Marist poll.

The poll taken last week found that only 40 percent of rural voters approve of Trump’s job performance, down from 59 percent in February, according to Newsweek. Forty-five percent of respondents said they disapproved of Trump’s performance in April, which is up from 37 percent who said they disapproved in February.

In the weeks between polls, Trump has unveiled a slate of policy directives that threaten the livelihoods of rural voters, including his sweeping “reciprocal tariff” policy that has undermined essential trade with America’s top trading partners.

Last month, the European Commission agreed to levy tariffs of up to 25 percent on cigarettes from Florida, beef from Kansas and Nebraska, chicken from Louisiana, car parts from Michigan, and most importantly, soybeans—of which the European Union bought $2.43 billion’s worth in 2024. Trump responded with his own insipid optimism, counseling everyone to “BE COOL!”

Farmers were also hurt by Trump’s dismantling of USAID, which lost them $2 billion, and the administration’s upending of programs for farms to provide produce for schools and food banks lost them at least another $1 billion.

Farmers aren’t the only rural residents hurt by Trump—workers and small businesses have also been impacted by shrinking consumer confidence and fears about an impending economic recession caused by roiling markets. Some believe it’s already begun.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The president’s massive cuts to disaster preparedness programs threaten vulnerable rural regions that could be hit by the oncoming hurricane season. After Trump floated eliminating FEMA altogether, the agency stopped paying for temporary housing for more than 1,200 families displaced by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

As recently as Friday, Trump’s directive to slash federal funding at NPR and PBS would also disproportionately impact rural areas, which receive the most of the sliver of money granted by the government for educational and cultural programming.

The only group of voters, between those in urban, suburban, and rural areas who reported an increase in support for the president, were small-town voters, with 53 percent approving of his job performance, in an increase from 46 percent in February.

In the 2024 presidential election, a whopping 62 percent of rural voters supported Trump, while only 36 percent backed Kamala Harris, according to AP VoteCast. This demonstrated a 4 percent increase in rural support for Trump compared to 2020.

CBS’s flagship news magazine show 60 Minutes is upping the ante in its fight against Donald Trump. The show’s upcoming Sunday segment will focus on how the Trump administration has targeted law firms in an apparent quest to punish those who dared to challenge him when he was out of office, according to an online listing for the episode.

“On the campaign trail, President Trump vowed to wield the power of the presidency to go after his perceived enemies,” the listing reads. “Now in the White House, Trump is using executive orders to target some of the biggest law firms in the country that he accuses of ‘weaponizing’ the justice system against him.”

The show has had a tumultuous year covering the MAGA leader, who has continued to dedicate significant attention to a sit-down interview that aired on 60 Minutes prior to Election Day with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump has repeatedly argued that a version of Harris’s answer regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the broadcast had essentially “defrauded” the American public, since two of the network’s shows—60 Minutes and Face the Nation—cut and aired different portions of her 21-second answer on different days.

Trump sued CBS for $20 billion after the interview, claiming that the different clips amounted to “election interference” and that Harris should drop out of the presidential race over the GOP-baked scandal.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg: Trump and his allies have also insisted that CBS should lose its broadcasting license for what they view as selectively editing Harris’s answer. And on Wednesday, the president attempted to rope The New York Times into the affair, protesting online that the newspaper’s decision to quote individuals who described the case as “baseless” is tantamount to “tortious interference.”

An independent review by the Federal Communications Commission showed that the two answers were in fact cut from the same longer response. Editing answers for time is considered general practice in television news and regularly happens.

The mounting pressure from the lawsuit forced out the show’s chief producer, Bill Owens, last week, shocking employees who described the 24-year show runner’s exit as akin to pulling a “pin from his last grenade.” Owens had refused to apologize or admit wrongdoing in handling Harris’s interview. CBS’s parent company, Paramount, is reportedly moving to settle the lawsuit.

“It’s clear now, in a quest to sell the company, Shari Redstone and others will bow to presidential pressure,” one unidentified 60 Minutes employee told CNN, referring to the non-executive chairwoman of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global. “60 Minutes is one of the crown jewels of American broadcast journalism, and they have no problem crushing it in their race to make a deal and make themselves richer.”

But regardless of Trump or executive perspectives, the media industry has continued to recognize the value of 60 Minutes’ programming. On Thursday, the show’s controversial Harris segment was nominated for an Emmy.

Senator John Fetterman isn’t in good shape—and could be a danger to himself and those around him.

New York magazine reports that Fetterman, who suffered a stroke in 2022 one month before being elected to the Senate, is unrecognizable to his past and present staff, prone to “conspiratorial thinking” and “megalomania.” His former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, wrote his concerns in a May 2024 letter to Dr. David Williamson, the neuropsychiatrist who oversaw Fetterman’s treatment at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.

“We do not know if he is taking his meds and his behavior frequently suggests he is not,” Jentleson wrote, adding that Fetterman was avoiding the recommended regular checkups with his doctors. He also wrote that the senator was driving his car recklessly, often speeding while texting, making FaceTime calls, and reading entire news articles behind the wheel.

One month after the letter, Fetterman got into a car accident, driving home from the airport after an early morning flight well over the 70-mph speed limit on I-70. His wife in the back seat suffered a pulmonary contusion and spinal fractures, and Fetterman told one of his staffers that he had fallen asleep while driving.

In an incident earlier this year, Fetterman was filmed on a flight to Pittsburgh arguing with the pilot about wearing his seat belt correctly.

“If you want to go to Pittsburgh, it’s simple,” the pilot told him. “You’re going to have to follow our instructions or be asked to get off the airplane.”

In another instance in 2023, one of his staffers reported hearing from a journalist that Fetterman had walked into the street and was nearly hit by a car. A short time later, a Senate doctor called Fetterman’s office to report that the senator walked into a group of people and nearly knocked them over near the underground trolleys running between the Capitol and congressional office buildings.

Fetterman insists that he is in good health, despite these reports, and chalks up the disturbing reports to disgruntled staffers. But other accounts show increased black-and-white thinking on issues such Israel’s massacre of Gaza, which has alienated many of his staffers, and an inexplicable show of support for certain Trump administration polices, drawing a backlash from liberal supporters. It seems that Fetterman’s health is raising the question of if he’s fit to continue serving in politics.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has had enough of the Trump administration’s unchecked bullying of the nation’s judicial branch.

The Supreme Court’s most junior justice condemned Donald Trump’s attacks on the country’s judges Thursday night, decrying the hostility from the executive branch as a threat to democracy.

“Across the nation, judges are facing increased threats of not only physical violence, but also professional retaliation just for doing our jobs,” Jackson said at a judge’s conference in Puerto Rico, according to Politico. “And the attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity.”

Jackson, who joined the nation’s highest bench in 2022 after she was appointed by former President Joe Biden, did not mention Trump by name but instead referred to the president as the “elephant in the room.”

Jackson further noted that Trump’s attacks are “not isolated incidents,” arguing that they “impact more than just individual judges who are being targeted.”

“The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law,” Jackson said. “I urge you to keep going, keep doing what is right for our country, and I do believe that history will vindicate your service.”

She added that the judiciary had faced similar challenges during the Civil Rights Movement and the Watergate scandal, when the branch of government was again in the public hot seat.

“Other judges have faced challenges like the ones we face today, and have prevailed,” Jackson said.

The sharp rebuke earned her a standing ovation at the conference, reported The Daily Beast. It’s the second such instance in which a Supreme Court justice has critiqued Trump’s attempts to coerce America’s courtrooms. In March, Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back against the president’s demands to impeach a federal judge who dared to rule against his deportation plans.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said of Trump’s threats against U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg at the time.

But Baosberg isn’t the only judge Trump has threatened. Dozens of judges have ruled against Trump—and faced the wrath of his allies and his base for doing so.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a formerly progressive Democrat who has decidedly shifted right in recent years, delivered a hard-line—and honestly bloodthirsty—stance in opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza during a meeting with pro-Israel group J Street’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami in February.

“Let’s get back to killing,” Fetterman said, referring to Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians. A person who heard the conversation told New York magazine that Fetterman, a staunch supporter of Israel’s military campaign, advocated to “kill them all.”

Fetterman denied this account and insisted that if he’d advocated for slaughter, he was speaking solely about members of Hamas. “I do support the destruction of that organization, down to its last member,” he said.

These statements and others are part of what current and former staffers believe is a trend of troubling, erratic behavior from Fetterman, detailed in the sweeping report that was published Friday.

The senator’s unsettling behavior and “I’m not progressive” flip has driven out multiple staffers, including three of his top spokespeople and his legislative director. Adam Jentleson, his former chief of staff, was so concerned by Fetterman’s erratic behavior that he stepped down from his position in April 2024.

Shortly afterward, Jentleson wrote a lengthy email to David Williamson, the medical director of the traumatic brain injury and neuropsychiatry unit at Walter Reed Medical Center, detailing the radical changes he’d seen in his boss, believing that he may be severely struggling with his mental health following a stroke in 2022.

Among other serious concerns, like doubts that his boss was taking his medications, obvious lying, and the purchase of a firearm, Jentleson said that Fetterman was demonstrating “conspiratorial thinking” and “megalomania.”

Fetterman “claims to be the most knowledgeable source on Israel and Gaza around but his sources are just what he reads in the news—he declines most briefings and never reads memos,” Jentleson wrote. During his meeting with Ben-Ami, Fetterman had claimed that he had never met an Arab person who would condemn Hamas, but the notes from the meeting stated that only a “single Arab he has met with that staff was present for wouldn’t outright condemn Hamas.”

Speaking about Palestinians, Fetterman said, “You can’t reform a carton of sour milk.”

After Israel set off on its genocidal campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 52,000 people, following Hamas’s attack on October 7, Fetterman’s controversial social media posts alarmed staff members and constituents alike. Fetterman’s increasingly callous rhetoric about Palestine has manifested a sharp rift between him and the progressive staffers who saw him elected to the Senate in 2022.

Fetterman’s behavior is so concerning, it’s not clear if he’ll be able to continue in the Senate–let alone run for reelection in 2028, when his term ends.

Fetterman was also the first Democratic senator to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January, earning him praise from the far-right president. “I couldn’t be more impressed,” Trump said at the time.

It’s not clear how much of Fetterman’s turn to the right is related to his health issues, and Jentleson was more concerned for his former boss’s well-being than his political transformation.

“I believed in John’s ability to work through struggles that lots of Americans share,” he said. “He’s not locked into a downward trajectory; he could get back in treatment at any time, and for a long time I held out hope that he would. But it’s just been too long now, and things keep getting worse.

“Part of the tragedy here is that this is a man who could be leading Democrats out of the wilderness,” Jentleson said. “But I also think he’s struggling in a way that shouldn’t be hidden from the public.”

The Department of Health and Human Services plans to end research into how to improve child welfare programs like Head Start, according to an email mistakenly sent by an HHS employee to grant recipients. 

The email contained a spreadsheet listing 150 research projects on HHS’s chopping block, including grants funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation. The office’s mission is to build “evidence to improve lives” by helping to examine programs helping low-income children and families. 

Other research grants under consideration for termination are related to childcare policy, child development, foster care, preventing child abuse, and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Over 50 universities were listed as having their grants terminated in the document, with state agencies and nonprofits also at risk of losing funding. 

The possible cancellation of these grants comes after HHS already made heavy cuts to its Administration for Children and Families, which is closing five regional offices and fired hundreds of employees last month. In January, the office had 2,400 employees, and now it’s down to just 1,500. 

Head Start, which provides preschool and other education services for low-income children, was one of the first programs to be hit by the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze in February, which later ran into legal trouble. The White House then weakened the program with mass layoffs, and earlier this month even suggested eliminating the program entirely.

Now, the news that research examining and supporting Head Start could be cut is an ominous sign. The Trump administration seems intent on cutting the program and everything connected to it, even though it has widespread support from the public. Already, Head Start offices have closed around the country.  What will fill the void for low-income families in America?

The version of Signal that recently ousted national security adviser Mike Waltz was caught checking during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday is an unofficial edition of the app meant to archive messages, according to 404 Media. The archiving capability suggests that the app may not use end-to-end encryption, making it less secure than the standard version of Signal.

In the images, published by Reuters on Thursday, there is a visible message at the bottom of Waltz’s screen asking him to verify his “TM SGNL PIN.” This is different from the standard version of Signal, where this notification just reads “Verify your Signal PIN.” Not only was Waltz using a private, insecure platform to discuss highly sensitive information, he was using the least secure version of that platform to do so. “TM SGNL” refers to a program from software company TeleMessage that captures and stores Signal messages for the user.

White House communications director Steven Cheung on Thursday said that “Signal is an approved app that is loaded onto our government phones.” It’s not clear if other Trump officials are using the far less secure TM SGNL as well.

The latest controversy comes as both Waltz and current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have made headlines for multiple Signal chats. On Thursday, Trump removed Waltz from his post as national security adviser and nominated him to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

At least one Republican is thinking about the millions of Americans that depend on Medicaid.

Representative David Valadao, a California dairy farmer, represents more Medicaid recipients in his district than anyone else in his party. He also appears to be one of the few Republicans working overtime to keep the fallout of his party’s Medicaid slashing spree to a minimum.

Valadao has spent weeks coordinating group chats with other concerned conservatives and lobbying leadership over the proposed cuts. He also led a letter protest signed by a dozen vulnerable Republicans opposing the bill, all in hope of steering the party’s cart in a different direction from the steep cuts.

“He’s got a very good sense of what Americans need out of their health care. I appreciate his leadership,” New York Representative Nick LaLota, another vulnerable Republican, told Politico Friday. The two, according to LaLota, are in constant communication. “He’s been clear in his communications: We shouldn’t be throwing people off Medicaid who are designed to be on the program.”

Pennsylvania Representative Rob Bresnahan, who similarly has a lot of Medicaid recipients in his district, described Valadao as a “total pillar” of the internal Medicaid debate. “He’s someone I immediately gravitated to,” Bresnahan told Politico. “Just a great sounding board.”

Republicans have spent months attempting to pencil out a $880 billion cut to the program in order to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for corporations and billionaires in an effort to make the tax cut’s estimated $6.8 trillion deficit hike more palatable to their base.

But Valadao, for his part, knows that his political future depends on keeping his constituents happy. The lawmaker was one of many House Republicans to lose his job in 2018 after he voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act—a failed effort that would have stripped health insurance from millions of Americans.

By 2020, Valadao was back in office with a better grip on the stakes of the job. But this time around, Valadao and his cohort are already facing aggressive counter campaigns, featuring provocative TV ads and town hills that oppose the Republican-led cuts.

“We’re going through this partisan exercise to do what is supposed to be a tax bill, and it’s becoming a health care bill, which is what we’re trying to avoid, on an issue that desperately needs reform to make it better,” Valadao told Politico.

One much-discussed solution to square the Medicaid cuts is to make the program more exclusive by way of adding returning work requirements, which House Speaker Mike Johnson said in April would encourage young men to “be at work instead of playing video games all day.”

Republican proposals to introduce a work requirement to Medicaid have thus far asked recipients to navigate work-reporting and verification systems on a monthly basis—a detail that would require significant federal funding. The plans would also negate coverage for individuals who find themselves temporarily unemployed, such as those who were recently fired or laid off.

A February report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that introducing work requirements to the insurance program could strip upwards of 36 million Americans of their health coverage—half of Medicaid’s 72 million enrollees.