Trump Has Turned House Freedom Caucus Into a Total Laughingstock

Since Donald Trump entered the White House, the supposedly hardline fiscal conservatives of the House Freedom Caucus appear to have softened that line to a malleable putty—and everyone on Capitol Hill knows it.

The Bulwark reported Wednesday that as members of the HFC left for summer break, they were “all over the place” following a series of toothless concessions to the president’s sweeping spending agenda. Now, the House Freedom Caucus has even earned a new nickname among reporters and lawmakers: the House Folding Caucus.

Although they had initially criticized the Senate’s version of Trump’s behemoth budget bill at the beginning of July, HFC members ultimately fell in line to support the president’s bill that would explode the national deficit by trillions of dollars. A few weeks later, they momentarily stalled Trump’s GENIUS Act, arguing that the cryptobill went against an executive order banning central bank currency. But once again, they conceded to the president’s demands after the GOP leadership promised to tie the ban into the Pentagon’s policy bill later this year.

HFC Chairman Andy Harris said that the group should start working on a one-year continuing resolution that would allow them to freeze federal funding, but the group’s position remains unclear. Four members are currently staging their exits from Congress, with Representatives Ralph Norman, Byron Donalds, and Andy Biggs all preparing gubernatorial campaigns in their respective states, and Representative Mike Collins launching a Senate bid in his state.

With a president who just does whatever he wants regardless of what Congress thinks, a far-right attack dog is no longer required—and has been left neutered and freezing in the doghouse.

Texas Republicans are moving forward with their gerrymandering plan that will essentially create new pro-Trump districts in a state that already has an overwhelming GOP majority.

The new map, revealed Wednesday, will create five new GOP-skewed districts, which could very well help Republicans grow their majority in the House in 2026. The map puts districts currently held by Democratic Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez at risk of becoming more red, while isolating blue districts to create even more Republican-leaning ones.

The map’s new districts will contain three regions that Trump carried by 10 to 15 percentage points last election, shamelessly rigging the game to seize power in a thinly divided Congress. It will also create six districts without incumbents—making 2026 an even more critical race.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is reportedly headed to Texas on Wednesday for a sit-down with Democratic leaders, while the map is set for final approval in a committee hearing on Friday.

On Wednesday, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said he was “offended” by Donald Trump’s “personal attacks,” as the president wages war on the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition.

Traditionally, when the president nominates someone for a federal judgeship, the Senate Judiciary Committee chair (currently Grassley) sends so-called blue slips to the nominee’s home-state senators. If both return the slips, the nomination proceeds; if at least one holds off, it’s effectively vetoed.

In giving the minority party significant influence over the confirmation process, the tradition restricts Trump’s ongoing effort to mold the judiciary in his image. The president has thus been applying pressure on Grassley to abandon it.

On Tuesday evening, Trump said, in a Truth Social post, that the tradition is a “probably Unconstitutional” “hoax” and “SCAM” that would force him to appoint Democratic or “weak” Republicans rather than “Highly Qualified” (read: MAGA) judges.

He urged Grassley to find the “Courage” to abandon the tradition “IMMEDIATELY,” so as to “not let the Democrats laugh at him and the Republican Party for being weak and ineffective.” The president also made a point to take full credit for Grassley’s 2022 reelection to the Senate “when he was down, by a lot,” Trump said.

The president also shared a number of other users’ posts opposing blue slips, some of which took pot shots at Grassley. One called Grassley a “sneaky” “RINO,” short for Republican in name only. One accused the senator of “standing in the way” of Trump’s agenda. Another post shared by Trump suggested that certain elected officials, including Grassley, have been in office too long and ought to be “dethrone[d]” via term limits.

On Tuesday night, Grassley indicated that he would not do away with the tradition. The senator then hit back at Trump during his opening remarks at a Wednesday Senate Judiciary hearing.

“Last night, I was surprised to see President Trump on Truth Social go after me and Senate Republicans over what we call the ‘blue slip,’” Grassley said, before giving a brief explanation of the tradition for “people in the Real America” rather than the “island surrounded by reality” that is Washington, D.C.

“I was offended by what the president said, and I’m disappointed that it would result in personal insults,” Grassley continued.

Politico reports that Grassley’s decision to hold firm has the support of party leaders on both sides of the aisle.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has decided to pretend that the health risks caused by greenhouse gases don’t exist—but the Fox News chyron beneath him told a different story.

“EPA is proposing to rescind the 2009 Obama EPA Endangerment Finding to eliminate all of the greenhouse gas emissions regulations that followed,” Zeldin said during an interview on Fox News Tuesday, “including electric vehicle mandates, which amounts to a trillion dollars’ worth of savings.”

In December 2009, the EPA published an Endangerment Finding that stated that the current and projected concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” Greenhouse gases trap outgoing infrared heat within the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in global warming.

Just a few months ago, Zeldin couldn’t even say whether carbon was a pollutant (spoiler alert, it is). Now he is primed to remove the finding that set the standard for multiple industries to limit their greenhouse gas emissions.

But as independent journalist Aaron Rupar pointed out on X, Zeldin’s announcement was rendered immediately ridiculous by the chyron just beneath him.

As the anti-science flunkie in charge of the EPA happily announced his plan to strip greenhouse gas regulations, an “Extreme Heat” warning appeared in the bottom right corner. The chyron below him displayed the “Hottest Temps Now” from different cities across the country: 102 degrees in Arizona; 100 degrees in Florida; 100 degrees in Georgia; 99 degrees in California.

This week, a record-breaking heat wave struck the eastern United States, with excessive heat advisories being issued everywhere from Florida to New York. Over the last decade, heat-related deaths have doubled in the U.S.

The Obama-era Endangerment Finding that Zeldin would like to repeal directly linked greenhouse gas emissions to widespread changes in extreme temperatures around the world—adding that rising temperatures would likely turn deadly.

“The impact on mortality and morbidity associated with increases in average temperatures, which increase the likelihood of heat waves, also provides support for a public health endangerment finding,” the report stated, noting that “heat is already the leading cause of weather related deaths in the United States.”

The Trump administration just dashed any chance of a new trade deal with India, imposing a 25 percent tariff on the country Wednesday along with a penalty for buying military equipment and energy from Russia.

The world’s most populous nation has held off on offering new concessions to the U.S., announcing on Tuesday that it was prepared to accept tariffs as high as 25 percent on its exports to American consumers.

But with just two days on the clock to finalize the deal, it doesn’t seem that Donald Trump has a firm handle on India’s jaded approach to the negotiations.

“WE HAVE A MASSIVE TRADE DEFICIT WITH INDIA!!!” he exclaimed on Truth Social Wednesday.

The U.S. imports more goods and services from India than it sells. In 2024, the country’s trade deficit with India was $45.7 billion—a 5.4 percent increase over the prior year, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

“Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country,” Trump wrote in an earlier post.

“Also, they have always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE—ALL THINGS NOT GOOD!” he continued. “INDIA WILL THEREFORE BE PAYING A TARIFF OF 25 PERCENT, PLUS A PENALTY FOR THE ABOVE, STARTING ON AUGUST FIRST. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. MAGA!”

Historically, it takes U.S. officials roughly 18 months to negotiate a new trade agreement with another country. That boils down to exhaustive reviews of the country’s prior trade, sorting through thousands of line items of products, and analyzing the complex minutiae of local import and export laws.

Despite the fact that India was one of the first countries to open up new trade negotiations with the U.S. in February, even Trump administration officials have acknowledged that the deal with India is still half-baked. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC Monday that India has “strong interest in opening portions of its market” to U.S. products but that the talks require more time. Last week, India’s Trade Minister Piyush Goyal told Reuters that India was making “great progress” with the Trump administration.

But blowing past traditional expectations in favor of baseless projections has not proven to be a strong success strategy for the second Trump administration. Instead, choosing to throw the country into a trading blitz with dozens of its biggest trading partners has effectively forced the U.S. into a regrettable losing position, with American officials constantly having to hedge on what were supposed to be adamant deadlines.

If Trump is to be believed, however, then Friday could be the exception.

“THE AUGUST FIRST DEADLINE IS THE AUGUST FIRST DEADLINE—IT STANDS STRONG, AND WILL NOT BE EXTENDED,” Trump wrote earlier on Wednesday. “A BIG DAY FOR AMERICA!!!”

India isn’t the only country holding out on U.S. trade negotiations. China, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, Switzerland, and Thailand have also not finalized their arrangements with the Trump administration, though not all of them face the August 1 cutoff.

Continuing its 4Chanified social media strategy, the White House’s official X account on Tuesday put an appalling twist on the “Jet2 holiday” internet trend.

The trend consists of viral posts in which chaotic video footage is accompanied by an upbeat song and cheerful voiceover, taken from an advertisement for British airline Jet2, which begins: “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday!”

In the White House’s attempt, the lighthearted audio plays over video clips depicting immigrants being loaded onto a plane for deportation. The immigrants are shown being ushered from vans, walking with shackled hands and feet, holding identification documents, and boarding a plane. Their faces are clearly visible on several occasions, while the faces of all law enforcement agents are blurred out.

It’s the latest example of the White House’s callous digital strategy, which has previously included an ASMR video of shackled immigrants and an AI-generated image of an immigration agent detaining a sobbing woman in the style of Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli. This social media approach, under Trump staffer Kaelan Dorr, seems guided by a commitment to sharing “banger memes” (in the White House X account’s own eyeroll-inducing words) that are just edgy enough to elicit surprise that they’re actually being posted by the White House.

But such posts, from an increasingly unpopular administration whose immigration agenda faces increasing scrutiny for prioritizing deporting noncriminals, gives one the impression that the Trump White House is guided by sadism rather than a desire to better the country—and cares more about catering to right-wing internet trolls than satisfying the American electorate.

In the replies to the “Jet2” meme, for instance, many right-wingers were relishing the cruelty, while others were put off. “You are not Christians,” wrote one user. Even a self-described supporter of deportation said the meme “is gross” and “feels yuck.”

Others took to counter-trolling, bringing up an inescapable sore subject for the Trump administration: Congressional candidate TJ Adams-Falconer posted a GIF depicting Donald Trump beside notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, with the text, “Fell for it again.” “Nothing beats releasing the files,” wrote another user.

Oklahoma state Superintendent Ryan Walters wants the board members who say they caught him watching porn to “resign in disgrace.”

Last week, two school board members told the press they’d seen Walters displaying a pornographic video on a TV in his office during the closed-door portion of a Board of Education meeting at the time. 

In a video statement shared to X Tuesday night, the Trump fanboy attempting to reshape the Oklahoma school system went on the offensive, claiming the allegations were a “political attack.”

“These are lies by board members, by a corrupt news media, and perpetuated by the teachers union to try and stop the will of Oklahoma voters, and the Oklahoma parents,” Walters said. “What we are going to continue to do is move this education reform for the families of Oklahoma.”

“These board members should resign immediately in disgrace over the lies that they have pushed about me to try to destroy my character.” 

The Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) had opened an investigation into Walters’s actions Friday, and on Monday asked the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) to begin a criminal investigation, according to News4. 

When he’s not going after board members or the media or teachers, Walters’s other tactic seems to be straight up lying about what happened. Earlier on Tuesday, Walters claimed that he’d had his name cleared by both OMES and the sheriff’s office—but that wasn’t true at all. 

“That simply isn’t the case,” OSCO spokesperson Aaron Brilbeck told News4. “Our investigation is still ongoing. In fact, I would categorize it as being in its infancy. This is going to be a very thorough investigation. And once the investigation is complete, we’re going to be very transparent with our findings.”

In his video statement Tuesday night, Walters again claimed that he’d already had “two independent groups come in and prove there was no wrongdoing going on,” but he offered no further details.  

Ryan Deatherage and Becky Carson, the two school board members who’d spoken to the press about the incident, released a joint statement Tuesday. “No board member has accused Superintendent Walters of anything, we only brought attention to inappropriate content on a TV—content that would cause a teacher in our state to lose their license. As the investigation continues, we urge Superintendent Walters to cooperate with law enforcement and refrain from smearing the names, characters and reputations of board members,” they said.

Donald Trump might have thrown himself into hot water by admitting that he knew Virginia Giuffre.

Speaking with reporters on Air Force One Tuesday, Trump said that he had confronted Jeffrey Epstein in the early 2000s about abducting underage girls who were on his payroll at Mar-a-Lago, including one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers.

The anecdote partially corroborated Giuffre’s account of being abducted in 2000 by Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago, where she worked at the time as a pool attendant. But admitting to knowing the characters of the chilling story could backfire on Trump in a court of law, according to New York University law professor Ryan Goodman.

“It’s that much of a significant statement,” Goodman told CNN host Erin Burnett Tuesday night. “If he had said he was aware of it from the court documents, then he’s OK in that regard. But I think that’s a very potentially bad situation for him to be in.”

Rather than release the Epstein files and provide the transparency so demanded by Trump’s base, the administration has decided to go in a different direction and accrue a new list of Epstein’s clients from Maxwell. Maxwell, in turn, has directly appealed to the president and the Supreme Court in pursuit of a pardon.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department notified Trump in May that his name appeared several times throughout the “truckload” of documents that are the Epstein files.

Trump has previously claimed he cut off contact with Epstein after the financier was indicted in 2006 for soliciting underage prostitutes, referring to Epstein as a “creep.” But if Trump is taken at his new word, then that means that Trump continued to maintain ties with the pedophilic sex trafficker years after he was aware of Epstein’s criminal activities. Several reporters at The Miami Herald found that Epstein was still on Mar-a-Lago’s membership logs until October 2007, when his account was labeled “closed,” as chronicled in their 2020 book The Grifters Club.

Earlier this month, the former president and chief operating officer of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, Jack O’Donnell, revealed that he had caught Trump and Epstein in the late 1980s shepherding underage girls into the establishment.

“They were pretty good buddies,” O’Donnell told CNN, recalling that he warned Trump against spending more time with Epstein.

After barely six months of leading the nation’s military, embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to hang it up and run for office.

NBC News sources have reported that Hegseth has privately considered running for governor in his home state of Tennessee next year.

While unconfirmed, Hegseth’s exit would be a fitting end to a tumultuous time as defense secretary, in which he somehow successfully endured a confirmation process that aired out allegations of rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, alcoholism, misogyny, and racism—only to enter immediate chaos and dysfunction in the Pentagon. If this is the end, Hegseth will be remembered for SignalGate, Defense Department infighting, and pausing aid to Ukraine without telling the president.

The DOD has vehemently denied any rumors of Hegseth’s exit

“Fake news NBC is so desperate for attention, they are shopping around a made up story … again,” Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. “Only two options exist: either the ‘sources’ are imaginary or these reporters are getting punked. Secretary Hegseth’s focus remains solely on serving under President Trump and advancing the America First mission at the Department of Defense.”

If the rumors are true, Hegseth would face a crowded field. Republican John Rose has already announced his gubernatorial campaign, and GOP firebrand Marsha Blackburn is expected to do the same next week.

The New York Times on Tuesday evening issued a statement announcing that it had updated its report on the starvation gripping Gaza—and particularly afflicting children—due to Israel restricting supplies.

The report touched, among other tragic stories, on that of Mohammed Zakaria Al Mutawaq, a 18-month-old suffering from severe malnutrition, whose photo has circulated widely as international attention turns increasingly to Gaza’s starvation crisis.

“We have since learned new information” about the child, the Times stated, “and have updated our story to add context about his preexisting health problems” and give “readers a greater understanding of his situation.”

The added paragraph is as follows:

Mohammed, according to his doctor, had pre-existing health problems affecting his brain and his muscle development. But his health deteriorated rapidly in recent months as it became increasingly difficult to find food and medical care, and the medical clinic that treated him said he suffers from severe malnutrition.

Contrary to those already claiming that this detail proves Israel is not culpable for the crisis unfolding in Gaza, Al Mutawaq is still being starved to death. (As Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs notes, “This actually makes it even more grotesque. Of course the first people to die have pre-existing health problems. Starvation is a eugenic policy which first kills off the weakest and sickest.”)

And the detail doesn’t change the enormity of the crisis in Gaza. Thousands of children are starving—and, it’s worth noting, a doctor cited elsewhere in the Times report observes that “many of the children he sees have no pre-existing medical conditions.” The Times’ description of scenes in Gaza’s strained hospitals—of “hollow-eyed, skeletal children” with “protruding ribs and shoulder blades, and emaciated limbs resembling brittle sticks”—is no less haunting, and no less the result of an Israeli blockade, than it was before.