The GOP Has a New Public Enemy Number One

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has struck some notable provisions from President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” leading a growing chorus of GOP lawmakers to call on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to overrule or fire her.

Being a reconciliation bill—which can pass with a simple majority, rather than the 60-vote threshold required to overcome a filibuster—the legislation cannot contain provisions unrelated to the budget. Currently, MacDonough is tasked with whittling away “extraneous” measures that run afoul of that rule.

In doing so, she has incensed some MAGA hard-liners, most recently pushing some over the edge by lopping off a number of Medicaid cuts on Thursday morning.

Reacting to the news, Senator Tommy Tuberville on X accused MacDonough of advancing “a woke agenda,” writing, “THE SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN SHOULD BE FIRED ASAP.”

Senator Roger Marshall joined Tuberville, citing the firing of Parliamentarian Robert Dove in 2001 and declaring that “we need to again fire the Senate Parliamentarian.”

The calls are coming from inside the House, as well.

Representative Dan Crenshaw—who was particularly upset about the removal of his proposal to ban federal Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care—said MacDonough “has shown clear political bias, applying ideology and not the rules of the Senate.”

Also pushing to remove or override MacDonough are Representatives Greg Steube, Keith Self, and Jeff Van Drew.

As the majority leader, Thune could theoretically call for a vote to overrule MacDonough, or fire and replace her. But the South Dakota senator seemingly has no intention of doing so, telling reporters on Thursday that overruling her “would not be a good option for getting a bill done”—echoing his previous comments.

“These are … short-term setbacks,” Thune said, according to The Hill. “Speed bumps, if you will.” GOP lawmakers endure these speed bumps as they race toward Trump’s July 4 deadline to pass the bill.

On Thursday Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is still set on removing fluoride from drinking water even after admitting that it did help prevent cavities and tooth decay in children. 

“What has been the response from dentists in America who may be concerned that some children in lower incomes in particular don’t get those regular dental, preventative-type situations where they can go in and get their teeth more indemnified and treated against cavities?” Fox News’s Harris Faulkner asked Kennedy Jr. as he sat next to Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt. 

“Well, people will still get indemnified for it to the extent that they’re already indemnified. But you know, it is an issue. It’s a balance. You’re gonna see, probably, slightly more cavities. Although in Europe where they banned fluoride they did not see an uptick in cavities. The issue is, parents need to decide. Science is very clear on fluoride.” 

Europe has not “banned” fluoride, they just don’t add it to their public water supplies like we do here. Europeans still receive fluoride at the dentist. Even still, Kennedy has had his mind set on this fluoride ban for some time now.  

“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S​. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” he wrote in November. “Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease. President ​Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump want to Make America Healthy Again.​”

Dental professionals nationwide are troubled by this development.

“The growing distrust of credible, time-tested, evidence-based science is disheartening. The myths that fluoridated water is harmful and no longer necessary to prevent dental disease is troublesome and reminds me of fictional plots from old movies like Dr. Strangelove,” said American Dental Association President Brett Kessler. “When government officials, like Secretary Kennedy, stand behind the commentary of misinformation and distrust peer-reviewed research it is injurious to public health.” 

Forget “Make America Great Again”—Donald Trump won’t even manufacture his own phone in the United States.

The Trump-branded cell phone, which launched mere days ago, has already scrubbed all language from its website that indicates the product is made in America. Instead, the phone is “designed with American values in mind,” with strange marketing promises that there are “American hands behind every device,” per the Trump Mobile website. That could, of course, mean anything.

The website also features a poorly photoshopped mock-up of the new Trump phone, which looks not too dissimilar to an iPhone save for its three copy-pasted cameras. The cell has a matte gold finish, along with a laser-engraved American flag and “T1” on the back.

A review of the site by The Verge found that the move away from American production wasn’t the only change made since the phone previewed last week. The advertised screen size of the Trump phone has also dropped significantly, changing from a 6.78-inch screen to 6.25 inches.

The site used to list the phone as having 12 gigabytes of RAM—now there are no RAM specifications whatsoever.

Further, the site had previously promised that the gimmicky gadget would ship in September, but that language no longer exists in marketing materials. Instead, the company is offering that it will be available “later this year.”

The Verge reported that the differences could mean that the Trump Organization had switched suppliers for the T1 phone.

The cell phone appears to be just another example in a long line of money-grabbing grifts for the president. Trump’s long list of election-year hustles included launching a remarkably ugly sneaker and a limited-edition $60 God Bless the USA Bible co-promoted by “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood.

Trump also took the parent company of his social media platform Truth Social public and stamped his name on a new cryptocurrency platform headed by his two sons, Eric and Don Jr., that even the president’s allies have criticized as a “huge mistake.” He and his wife also started their own cryptocurrencies, which critics have accused of being a method for wealthy foreigners to buy time and influence with the president.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the Supreme Court was “stymying one of the country’s great civil rights laws” after it ruled 6–3 that states could defund Planned Parenthood on the grounds that Medicaid does not give patients a right to choose their provider.

Jackson offered a biting dissent, essentially calling the court’s decision a bastardization of the first section of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which bolstered laws against white supremacist terrorism.

“A century and a half later, the project of stymying one of the country’s great civil rights laws continues. In this latest chapter, South Carolina urges our Court to adopt a narrow and ahistorical reading of the 1871 Act’s first section.… That venerable provision permits any citizen to obtain redress in federal court for ‘the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States,’” Jackson wrote. “South Carolina asks us to hollow out that provision so that the State can evade liability for violating the rights of its Medicaid recipients to choose their own doctors. The Court abides South Carolina’s request. I would not. For that reason, I respectfully dissent.”

This ruling makes Planned Parenthood incredibly vulnerable to conservative attacks, as states can now nakedly use anti-abortion activism to deprive it of funds. Though all they’re really attacking is the contraception, cancer screenings, pregnancy testing, and other basic medical care that Planned Parenthood provides as an organization that accepts publicly funded insurance, like Medicaid. The Hyde Amendment already restricts public funding from being used for abortions. And Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of contraceptives and birth control in the country. Its absence will almost certainly lead to more accidental pregnancies—and more abortions, legal or illegal.

“At a minimum, it will deprive Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their only meaningful way of enforcing a right that Congress has expressly granted to them,” Jackson concluded in her dissent. “And, more concretely, it will strip those South Carolinians—and countless other Medicaid recipients around the country—of a deeply personal freedom: the ‘ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable.’”

A new bill introduced by U.S. Representatives Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat would seek to address the scourge of unidentified, masked and plainclothed agents abducting people off the streets in executing President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign.

The bill, dubbed “No Secret Police Act of 2025,” would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2022 to prohibit federal immigration from wearing masks. According to Goldman, it would “get rid of masks, would require all agents to show their identification and insignia, and ensure accountability for these horrible, horrible policies.”

The legislation comes as Trump administration officials defend Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ ability to act with anonymity. In a recent Washington Post letter to the editor, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons wrote that “officers wear masks for personal protection and to prevent doxing.”

But this purported right for agents of the state—who are empowered to use force in carrying out their duties—to shield their identities has, as Goldman put it, led to the use of “authoritarian tactics that resemble Soviet Russia more than they resemble a democratic United States.”

Indeed, one could be forgiven for mistaking footage of ICE arrests in recent months for kidnappings.

When a Tufts graduate student was seized by masked men in March (seemingly for merely having written a pro-Palestinian op-ed), a witness chided the agents, asking, “You want to take those masks off? Is this a kidnapping? Can I see some faces here? How do I know this is the police?”

In April, a woman who recorded ICE agents detaining three men outside of a Georgia courthouse (one of whom was reportedly released after proving he was a U.S. citizen), told a local news station, “I would have literally thought that they were kidnapping these three men.”

Goldman and Espaillat’s legislation resembles a bill introduced earlier this month by Representative Nydia Velázquez addressing the same issue, as well as state-level proposals like California’s recently introduced “No Secret Police Act” and “No Vigilantes Act.”

The Supreme Court just defined the tight window under which noncitizens can challenge their deportation for fear of torture.

The case of Riley v. Bondi began long before Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. In January 2021, an immigration judge blocked the final administrative review order, or FARO, to remove Pierre Riley, a Jamaican immigrant who overstayed a tourist visa, on the grounds that he feared gang violence in Jamaica.

That judge then sent Riley to what’s known as a “withholding-only” proceeding, where the only issue is whether a noncitizen can be removed from the United States. At this proceeding, Riley’s removal was deferred under the U.N. Convention Against Torture, or CAT, which prevents immigrants from being removed to countries where they may be subjected to physical harm or imprisonment.

The DHS then appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, or BIA, which decided he could be removed and to enforce the FARO for his removal. Three days later, Riley filed a petition to appeal the FARO with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the court found that he had failed to do so within the 30-day deadline after the FARO was first issued, dismissing his petition and claiming that the deadline was “jurisdictional,” meaning that it must be strictly enforced.

The Supreme Court was charged with determining whether Riley’s challenge came too late, and whether the deadline was “jurisdictional.”

In a 5–4 decision Thursday, the high court found that Riley had in fact missed his window to challenge his removal. In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito held “that a BIA order in a withholding-only proceeding is not a ‘final order of removal,’ and therefore the 30-day filing deadline cannot be satisfied by filing a petition for review within 30 days of the BIA’s withholding-only order.”

The “FARO is the final order of removal in this case, and withholding-only proceedings do not disturb the finality of an otherwise final order of removal,” Alito wrote. He was joined in full by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, challenged the majority’s logic, finding that the removal order only became final when the board denied his appeal under CAT.

“Should Riley have appealed the Board’s order denying deferral of removal before the Board issued it? The answer ought to be easy. Yet the majority today renders the statute incoherent, holding that Riley should have appealed the order one year and three months before the Board entered it,” she wrote.

“One should not be required to appeal an order before it exists,” she wrote. “Incomprehensibly, the Court disagrees.”

“Time will tell whether the Court will extend its illogic beyond politically disfavored noncitizens,” Sotomayor wrote, adding later, “Today’s decision is the rare holding that benefits no one.”

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch also joined the dissent, except for one section outlining the “untold damage to basic principles of finality and judicial review.”

The court also determined that the 30-day filing deadline was merely a mandatory claims-processing rule, not “jurisdictional,” and vacated the Fourth Circuit’s ruling and remanded it back to the lower court.

Thursday’s ruling could come in handy to Trump, who has worked to deport as many people as possible as fast as he can—regardless of what circumstances await them in their destination.

The GOP’s new Homeland Security funding bill would require “all non-detained migrants” to wear GPS tracking devices, a demoralizing “alternative to detention” that is part of the Trump administration’s continuing immigration crackdown, according to Migrant Insider.

“Non-detained” includes asylum-seekers and even students. Tracking millions of innocent people like endangered animals will be a tall task, a challenge that will likely go to another seedy private surveillance corporation.

This is not the first time DHS and ICE have used tracking devices on nondetained immigrants. Last year, ICE issued 3,000 wrist-worn “Veri-Watches” to keep constant tabs on asylum-seekers.

“These wrist-worn GPS monitoring devices would supplement existing [alternative-to-detention] capabilities for noncitizens who qualify for the non-detained docket in a less obtrusive manner, increasing compliance for participants moving through the immigration process,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations executive associate director Corey Price said in 2023 when announcing the tracking program.

Those wrist-worn trackers resembled smart watches without any personal use capabilities. ICE agents could perform live location monitoring, facial recognition, and messaging. It’s likely that this most recent development will use similar technologies, if not the same.

This draconian, dehumanizing invasion of privacy isn’t the only alarming development in this funding cycle. The appropriations bill will also include yet another ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion funding at DHS and $4.4 billion for ICE custody operations, and it bans local law enforcement from decreasing their 287(g) agreements with ICE. This bill is a dream come true for the likes of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and border czar Tom Homan. It is expected to pass through the House and the Senate.

Just eight days out from the Senate GOP’s self-imposed (read: Donald Trump–imposed) July 4 deadline to pass the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Senate parliamentarian has dealt a blow to the sweeping plan, which cuts taxes for corporations and the rich and pays for it with massive slashes to entitlement programs, most notably Medicaid.

As Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough gives the proposed budget reconciliation a “Byrd bath”—so called because it winnows out nonbudgetary provisions, under what’s known as the Byrd Rule—she has scrubbed the bill of some of its grime.

According to a Thursday morning press release from the Senate Budget Committee ranking member and Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, the Senate parliamentarian has spiked numerous provisions, which will now have to surmount a 60-vote hurdle in order to remain in the bill as written—something that has zero chance of happening.

These nixed provisions would have significantly restricted health care access for individuals who are not citizens and limited states’ ability to administer Medicaid. They included bans on federal funding for Medicaid for certain groups—such as for those whose citizenship status was not immediately verified and people seeking gender-affirming care. Others would have limited states’ ability to tax health care providers to fund Medicaid and revoked Medicare eligibility for refugees, asylum-seekers, and people with temporary protected status.

With these provisions and others having gotten the chopping block—and more potentially on the way—Republican lawmakers are none too pleased.

“How is it that an unelected swamp bureaucrat, who was appointed by Harry Reid over a decade ago, gets to decide what can and cannot go in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill?” tweeted Representative Greg Steube, who advocated for Vice President JD Vance to overrule MacDonough in a message retweeted by fellow GOP Representative Andy Biggs. Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville decried “the WOKE Senate Parliamentarian” along similar lines.

Yesterday, Republican Representative Jeff Van Drew, lamenting that MacDonough “has already blocked major parts of House Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill,” tweeted, “It doesn’t have to be this way. The Republicans senators are not required to adhere to anything she says.”

Democrats, on the other hand, are applauding the setback to Trump’s agenda. “Republicans are scrambling to rewrite parts of this bill to continue advancing their families lose, and billionaires win agenda,” said Merkley, “but Democrats stand ready to fully scrutinize any changes and ensure the Byrd Rule is enforced.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday continued his massive public meltdown about the leaked Pentagon report that undermined Donald Trump’s claims about the strikes on Iran.

Hegseth opened the press conference by accusing reporters of “hunting for scandals,” causing them to “miss historic moments.”

“How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don’t know, fly a plane for 36 hours? Has MSNBC done that story? Has Fox?” Hegseth demanded.

He later sniped at reporters that “it’s like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump.” “Let’s take half-truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it, spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate the public mind,” he ranted.

While taking questions, Hegseth snapped at Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin while struggling to dodge a question about Fordo, one of Iran’s most important nuclear enrichment sites, which Hegseth claimed had been completely destroyed by the U.S. strike last week.

“Do you have certainty that all of the highly enriched uranium was inside the Fordo mountain?” asked Griffin. “Because there were satellite photos that showed more than a dozen trucks there two days in advance. Are you certain that none of the highly enriched uranium was moved?”

CNN reported that two sources familiar with the Defense Intelligence Agency’s early assessment said that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium had not been destroyed, and another source said that it had been moved out of the sites ahead of the U.S. strikes.

“Of course we’re watching every single aspect,” Hegseth said. “But Jennifer, you’ve been about the worst. The one who misrepresents the most intentionally.”

Griffin, who is Fox’s chief national security correspondent at the Pentagon, looked taken aback. She explained that she’d been at the Pentagon Saturday night, where she’d accurately reported on the B-2 bombers and the ventilation shaft, which had been likely an entrance for a “bunker buster” bomb at Fordo.

“So I take issue with that,” Griffin concluded.

Hegseth attacked another reporter who asked about CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s statement Wednesday that “new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”

“Don’t you think we need to see that?” asked the second reporter.

“Do you have a top secret clearance, sir?” Hegseth snipped.

“Eventually, the American public is going to want to see it,” the reporter replied.

Hegseth practically begged reporters to stop covering the leaked assessment, arguing that there were more patriotic things to be doing.

“We’re urging caution about premising entire stories on biased leaks to biased publications trying to make something look bad. How about we take a beat? Recognize first the success of our warriors, hold them up, tell their stories, celebrate that. Wave an American flag. Be proud of what we accomplished,” he said.

Trump applauded Hegseth in a post on Truth Social. “One of the greatest, most professional, and most ‘confirming’ News Conferences I have ever seen! The Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologize to our great warriors, and everyone else!” Trump wrote.