Republicans Forced to Remove Gun Deregulation From Budget Bill

The Senate parliamentarian has shot down another batch of provisions in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”—this time including one that would’ve deregulated gun silencers and certain firearms.

Being a budget reconciliation, the Senate GOP’s bill can pass with a simple majority and elude a filibuster. However, it cannot contain non-budgetary provisions, and Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has in recent days been trimming away measures that run afoul of this rule.

According to a Friday press release from Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley, newly nixed provisions include one that would have eliminated a $200 tax—as well as certain background checks—to acquire gun silencers.

The provision also appeared in the version of the bill that passed the House in May, thanks to the efforts of Republican Representative Andrew Clyde, who owns a Georgia gun shop. But the Senate’s version went further than the House’s, as it would have eliminated the abovementioned hurdles for those purchasing sawed-off rifles and shotguns as well.

Now, in order for this and other rejected provisions to pass as written, the Senate would have to accomplish the unthinkable task of overcoming the 60-vote hurdle to overcome a filibuster.

MacDonough has dealt some significant blows to the Trump agenda in recent days, as GOP lawmakers are under the gun—with their self-imposed July 4 deadline to pass Trump’s tax and spending plan fast approaching. The parliamentarian’s cuts have rankled Republicans so much that some are calling for Senate Majority Leader John Thune to overrule or fire her, though Thune has expressed no interest in doing so.

The Trump administration has been covertly seeking ways to bring Iran back to the negotiating table after Donald Trump issued airstrikes on three of the country’s nuclear facilities, pitching wildly expensive solutions to the geopolitical conflict.

A group of U.S. officials, led by special envoy Steve Witkoff, have so far suggested that the U.S. could invest $20 to $30 billion in a civilian non-enrichment nuclear program for Iran, or lift some $6 billion in sanctions against the country.

Iranian officials had previously made it clear that they were no longer interested in negotiating with U.S. leadership, citing the nation’s deception ahead of prearranged talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program that were scheduled to take place earlier this month. But Iranian leadership has apparently been in talks with the Trump administration since a ceasefire deal was struck earlier this week, reported CNN.

“The U.S. is willing to lead these talks” with Iran, the Trump administration official told CNN. “And someone is going to need to pay for the nuclear program to be built, but we will not make that commitment.”

The president’s attack, conducted Saturday without the express approval of Congress, damaged facilities in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. A battle damage assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm determined that the missile barrage only set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months, rather than the “years” that Trump had advertised, CNN reported earlier this week. One of the other ideas floated last week was to have U.S.-backed allies in the Gulf pay to replace the damaged Fordo facility, though it wasn’t clear if that would hand ownership of the facility over to another nation, according to CNN.

Witkoff told CNBC Wednesday that the U.S. is seeking a “comprehensive peace agreement” with Iran, but at least one Trump official told CNN anonymously that it is “entirely uncertain what will happen.”

At least 627 people have been killed in Iran since Israel first attacked on June 13, according to Iran’s health ministry. Approximately 107 people died on Monday alone, making it the deadliest single day of the conflict.

Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is so wildly unpopular that even Fox anchors have started bashing it.

Fox Business host Liz Claman highlighted some particularly unfavorable polling during an interview with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins Thursday afternoon. “These are all showing that few people favor this thing,” said Claman.

A Fox News poll taken between June 13 and June 16 found that only 38 percent of registered voters support the gargantuan spending bill, while a whopping 59 percent oppose it. Another poll from Quinnipiac earlier this month found that only 27 percent of respondents supported the bill, and 57 percent opposed it. A Pew Research poll found that only 29 percent of respondents supported it, while 49 percent opposed it.

“Here’s the thing, a lot of Americans don’t like this, even some people who voted for President Trump,” Claman said. “For this reason, Madam Secretary, they don’t understand why cuts have to come from programs like SNAP, like food stamps for the poor, and like Medicare for the poor. That is the problem. So can you make a connection between why that should be OK?”

“Well, I think it’s really important to note that the entire media apparatus has been against this bill from the beginning, but here is what President Trump was elected to do,” Rollins replied.

Rollins insisted that under Joe Biden, federal spending on food stamps had grown “unsustainable” and that the cuts were necessary to keep the program running.

In fact, the bill directs nearly $300 billion to be cut from SNAP through 2034 to help fund tax cuts skewed for the very rich. By slashing federal assistance, states will then have to decide how to close the gaps to keep the programs running. The bill also proposes expanding SNAP’s work requirement, making it more difficult for low-income families to be eligible for benefits, and locks out lawful immigrants from using the program. In an average month in 2024, SNAP helped more than 41 million people achieve a nutritional diet.

President Trump promised “no taxes” on Social Security in his stump speech for his One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The bill contains the exact opposite, and Trump’s approach to the Social Security Administration at large is only further damaging the floundering program.

“We will make the Trump tax cuts permanent, and expand the child tax credit, and deliver no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security for our great seniors,” Trump said with a collection of working-class American citizens standing behind him.

It would do the president well to be transparent about taxes on Social Security and the impact they’ll have on the elderly, especially in relation to the most significant piece of legislation of his second term.

“They couldn’t remove tax on Social Security in reconciliation, so they added a short-term standard deduction boost for seniors,” David Dayen of The American Prospect wrote on X. “People on Social Security will not get the deduction (which starts at age 65) and people not on SS will get it.”

Tens of millions of people, including many of Trump’s supporters, rely on monthly retirement, survivor, and disability checks from the Social Security Administration. Not only is the SSA predicted to run out of money a year earlier than previously thought, Trump’s policies like mass deportation are crippling the workforce that is currently paying into the program.

Trump and Elon Musk have also spread unsubstantiated claims about rampant “waste, fraud, and abuse” within the SSA, and they’re still aiming to levy massive cuts to the program while raising the retirement age and reducing benefits for high earners.

Only time will tell how much Trump’s “for the people” schtick will resonate with his supporters, especially when the current iteration of Trump’s bill further endangers the SSA while giving them nothing but crumbs.

During Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Event,” an attempt by the president to win over holdouts in the Senate and push through his tax and spending plan, his remarks meandered briefly into an alternate history of the paper clip.

Trump’s speech touted the bill, in typical Trump fashion, as “one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of our country.”

It also briefly touched on one provision that would make interest on auto loans for American-made cars tax deductible, an idea Trump suggested he thought up himself—and which, MarketWatch reports, “you probably won’t notice … once you factor in tariffs.”

“What a great idea,” Trump said “people” told him. “It’s like the paper clip.” Trump used the same analogy when announcing the proposal in October 2024.

Here, the 79-year-old president strayed from his monotonously delivered prepared remarks to edify us with a made-up factoid: “Somebody came up with the idea of the paper clip many years ago. 1817. And he became a very rich person, and everybody looked at it and said, ‘Why the hell didn’t I think of that?’”

Trump’s guess was a little bit off, as paper clips didn’t appear in their familiar modern form until around 1892, and the invention was never patented, according to Scientific American.

But a more significant falsehood followed, as Trump went on to claim that his supposedly automaker-friendly policies accounted for his past electoral successes in Michigan, falsely stating, “I actually think we won it three times in a row” because of them. Trump lost Michigan in 2020 against Joe Biden by more than 150,000 votes.

The Trump administration is once again planning to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, this time as he waits in custody for the trial for his first wrongful deportation. This comes as its efforts to criminally prosecute him for being a gang member and drug smuggler fizzle out in court.

This time the administration is looking to send Abrego Garcia to an “unnamed” third country before he gets to have the fair trial he deserves in the United States. Trump maintains that Abrego Garcia is a dangerous criminal, part of the notorious MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia has vehemently denied this, and even federal judges are having a hard time believing that story.

“The government cannot simply rely on the general reputation of a particular street gang to satisfy its burden,” U.S. Magistrate Barbara D. Holmes wrote as she ordered Abrego Garcia released on bail. “The government’s evidence that Abrego is a member of MS-13 consists of general statements, all double hearsay.… The government’s evidence of Abrego’s alleged gang membership is simply insufficient.”

Abrego Garcia was accidentally deported to El Salvador, sat in the CECOT megaprison, came back to the United States, was charged with crimes he very well may have never committed, and is now being deported to another random country before he can be put on trial for those alleged crimes. This feels like an administration trying to cover for the obvious, brutal mistake that it made by doubling down on Abrego Garcia’s alleged criminality and folding him into the countless other detainments and deportations that have been devoid of due process.

“We have said it for months and it remains true to this day,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said to Axios. “He will never go free on American soil.”

The Justice Department has said there is no timeline for Abrego Garcia’s deportation, and that it is not “imminent.”

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is getting exactly what he wants: One in seven people arrested as part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s sweeping raids in Los Angeles earlier this month had no criminal convictions, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

Between June 1 and June 10, ICE arrested 722 individuals across the greater Los Angeles area. But 69 percent of those arrested had no criminal conviction, and 58 percent had never even been charged with a crime, according to a Times analysis published Tuesday of data from UC Berkeley Law’s Data Deportation Project. 

Despite the Trump administration’s hollow assurances that ICE would target criminals, the reality of the government’s massive deportation scheme has targeted average upstanding individuals, ripping family members, friends, and neighbors out of their communities. 

But to Miller, who is on a campaign to ethnically cleanse the country, that must be music to his ears. 

As ICE’s sweep of Los Angeles began at the beginning of June, Miller was reportedly furious when he heard that ICE officers had narrowed their field to undocumented immigrants with criminal records. 

“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?’” one official recalled after a tense meeting between the ghoulish homeland security adviser and officials from ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.  

But DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin insisted to the Times that ICE arrests were “highly targeted.” 

“We know who we are targeting ahead of time. If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability,” McLaughlin said. But reports of other arrests suggest that ICE will detain someone even if they know they’re not the target. 

Wall Street was right about the president: Trump always chickens out.

Despite spending weeks fuming about the fact that investors had clocked him for repeatedly reneging on his tariff plan, Donald Trump has once again decided to extend the deadline to implement them.

The White House said Thursday that the deadline for countries to strike trade deals with the United States may be extended past July 9, a deadline that press secretary Karoline Leavitt described as “not critical.”

“The president can simply provide these countries with a deal if they refuse to make us one by the deadline,” Leavitt said during a press briefing. “And that means the president can pick a reciprocal tariff rate that he believes is advantageous for the United States and for the American worker.”

Ultimately, it’s a “decision for the president to make,” Leavitt noted.

The TACO theory was coined in early May by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong, who added a catchy acronym to the practice of loading up on stocks when Trump first announces tariffs and then selling when he ultimately backtracks on enforcing them.

So far, that’s been true for enacting additional tariffs on Mexico and Canada, postponing his “reciprocal” tariff plan on dozens of countries after his April “Liberation Day” announcement went south, delaying a tariff on imports from the European Union, and smashing his plan to fine China, decreasing tariffs on Chinese products to 55 percent from 145 percent.

At the end of last month, Trump threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on the European Union but quickly delayed the penalty to July after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed to negotiate.

The extension for implementing practically all of Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, however, is set to expire July 8.

Trump’s tariff proposals haven’t won the U.S. too much negotiating ground. Instead, countries around the world began observing that—rather than playing the waiting game to meet with the White House over potential trade relief—China’s tough negotiating strategy with the former real estate mogul had actually gotten the Eastern powerhouse a significantly better deal.

In the end, it will be the U.S. that pays the price when the Trump administration runs out of time on its “90 deals in 90 days” promise. On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the central bank would wait to see the residual impacts of the country’s new tariff plan before reducing its key interest rate, as companies have already decided to increase product prices this year in reaction to hampered global supply chains.

The White House is embracing Donald Trump’s “Daddy” nickname in a pretty intense way for a guy whose name was in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The White House communications office released an eye roll–inducing supercut video Thursday about Trump’s trip to the NATO summit, declaring “Daddy’s Home,” using Usher’s song “Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home).”

The video referred to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s cringeworthy comment during a press conference Wednesday about Trump’s surprise military strike in Iran.

“They’ve had it, they’ve had a big fight like two kids in a schoolyard,” Trump said of Israel and Iran, revealing just how elementary his understanding of the conflict actually was. “You know they fight like hell, you can’t stop ’em. Let ’em fight for about two to three minutes. Then it’s easy to stop ’em.”

“Daddy has to sometimes use strong language,” Rutte joked. It seems that “Daddy” liked his new nickname. Now he’s even selling ugly orange T-shirts that say it, complete with his glowering mug shot.

When asked about Rutte’s comment and whether Trump viewed his NATO allies as his children, Trump seemed to love the idea. “He likes me, I think he likes me. If he doesn’t, I’ll come back and I’ll hit him hard, OK?” Trump told reporters during a press conference Wednesday. “He did it very affectionately. ‘Daddy, you’re my daddy!’”

Of course, Trump’s not the only one with a daddy kink: MAGA has been quick to embrace the new nickname, as well. Fox News anchor Jesse Watters gushed about his newfound father figure, applauding Trump for not abandoning NATO.

“The media said Daddy was gonna leave the family, but look at him front and center in the family photo,” Watters said of a photograph of Trump posing with leaders at the summit.

The MAGA mouthpiece joined in on the administration’s complaining about a leaked Pentagon report that had undermined Trump’s claims about the strikes in Iran being successful. “If you stab Daddy in the back, you’re getting more than a spanking,” Watters said. “The punishment for treason: the death penalty.”

And former Fox News host Tucker Carlson—who has since split with Trump over the conflict in Iran—referred to the president as “Daddy” on the campaign trail.

“When Dad gets home, you know what he says? ‘You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now,” Carlson said at a Trump event in October, comparing the U.S. to a teenage girl.

Trump’s new embrace of the nickname seems particularly disgusting considering the president’s alleged involvement in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who faced allegations of trafficking minors.

Trump’s name already popped up in files released by his own government earlier this year. But one of his closest allies, Elon Musk, implied earlier this month that Trump could be more intimately involved in Epstein’s criminal activities, which explained why his administration was soft-footing the release of documents that it had previously promised to unveil.

The Trump administration is going full throttle against a CNN journalist.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lost it on Natasha Bertand during a Thursday press conference, lashing the Pentagon correspondent for daring to report on Donald Trump and his aides.

Earlier this week, Bertrand really got under Trump’s skin when she reported on air that a leaked preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment of Saturday’s airstrike on three Iranian nuclear targets suggested it had not been as successful as the president had advertised, and had only set the country’s nuclear development back by some months, rather than by several years.

When asked about Bertrand’s report, Leavitt used the opportunity to bring up every story Bertrand has written that Trump doesn’t like. For more than two straight minutes, Leavitt flamed Bertrand for reporting that the Hunter Biden laptop controversy was “Russian disinformation” (the New York Post, which ran the original story on its front page, said in the aftermath of the report that the contents of the laptop were mixed with fake material and that most of the data could not be verified), while urging the crowd to agree that the story was a “lie” from the intelligence community.

She further claimed that Bertand had inaccurately reported on the origin of the Covid-19 virus, had taken Trump’s “suckers and losers” comment out of context, and had wrongly accused CIA Director John Ratcliffe of speaking “without any evidence” with regard to Iranian meddling in Trump’s presidential campaign.

“She should be ashamed of herself,” Leavitt said. “And that’s not what reporting is. Journalism is trying to find the facts and the truth, and this week we saw this same reporter being used to push a fake narrative to try to undermine the president of the United States, and more importantly, the brave fighter pilots who conducted one of the most successful operations in United States history.

“I think the American people fully know that this operation was a complete and total success,” Leavitt added.

Leavitt’s rant followed several days’ worth of anti-Bertrand comments by the president, who urged CNN to reprimand Bertrand and throw her out “like a dog.”

“It’s people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great Network,” Trump wrote. “Her slant was so obviously negative, besides, she doesn’t have what it takes to be an on-camera correspondent, not even close. FIRE NATASHA!”

CNN released a statement defending Bertrand Wednesday, declaring that they stand “100 percent” behind her journalism, specifically including her and her colleague’s reporting on Trump’s attack on Iran.

“CNN’s reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence,” the network said. “However, we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.”

The White House has rejected the Iran strikes report, rebuffing the whistleblower Tuesday as a “low-level loser,” though it still acknowledged that the report had been classified as “top secret.” On Wednesday, the administration had apparently thrown the U.S. intelligence out the window altogether, siding instead with a narrative pushed by the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission that the attacks had “rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.”