John Thune Admits Trump Tariffs Are Screwing American Farmers

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune admitted that American farmers will need a bailout from President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Speaking on NBC News Sunday, the top Republican said that farmers would need support in the face of markets that were “not open to some of our commodities,” referring to foreign tariffs on U.S. goods that had resulted in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on nearly every country in the world.

“As a consequence of that, we’ve got a big harvest coming in here in South Dakota, corn and soybeans, and no place to go with it. So, what the president has said is, ‘I’m gonna support and I’m gonna help our farmers,’” Thune said. “And so we are looking at—I’m a member of the [Agriculture Committee] and have been for some time—we are looking at potential solutions to make sure that we can help support farmers until some of those markets come back.”

“They are anxious, they want to see markets open up,” he noted.

Thune said that he believed Trump wanted to establish “reciprocity” with other countries—but it’s not clear that is even the president’s objective. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick previously said that the U.S. accepting a reciprocal zero-percent tariff deal with a country was “the silliest thing we could do.”

Meanwhile, foreign countries are reportedly already filling the gap left by missing American goods. For example, China, the largest buyer of U.S. soybeans, has not purchased any American soybeans since May, pivoting to suppliers in Latin America as Trump struggles to land an actual deal with Beijing.

Last week, Trump debuted his new plan to give farmers a cut of his “tariff money,” but recklessly mixed up “billions” and “millions” when talking about how much money would actually be available.

The state of Oregon is taking the president to court for sending the troops to its door.

One day after Donald Trump said he would issue the national guard to Portland, the Beaver State filed a 41-page legal complaint accusing the country’s leader of having “trampled” the U.S. Constitution by federalizing Portland’s law enforcement. The city of Portland also joined the lawsuit.

“Our nation’s founders recognized that military rule—particularly by a remote authority indifferent to local needs—was incompatible with liberty and democracy,” the lawsuit said. “Foundational principles of American law therefore limit the president’s authority to involve the military in domestic affairs.”

The lawsuit further condemned Trump’s “provocative and arbitrary actions,” which it argued legitimately threaten Portland’s peace by “inciting a public outcry.”

Rather than rely on data before commanding the National Guard across the country, Trump decided earlier this month to target Rose City after he claimed he witnessed its “destruction” when he “watched television.” On Saturday, he directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland” in order to defend ICE. He also supported their use of “full force.”

Hours later, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek publicly undercut the White House’s rhetoric, insisting there was no need to invite the military to solve the state’s problems.

“The president does not have the authority to deploy federal troops on state soil,” Kotek said. “There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security, and there is no need for military troops in our major city.”

Kotek further emphasized that the National Guard’s needless deployment sullied their commitment to national defense, and that they would be a wasted resource in Portland.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said that Trump’s solution to the fictional threat of violence was unpresidential and would never serve to solve any legitimate problems facing communities across America.

“If you really wanted public safety, you wouldn’t threaten to send the United States military into any city,” Rayfield said in a video statement Sunday. “I know for a fact, from talking to cities across Oregon and across the country, that if you pick up the phone and ask, ‘What do you need? What could be helpful?’ the answer would not be the United States military.”

After failing to correctly read and understand a batch of documents, Republicans have revived an old conspiracy theory that the so-called “deep state” staged the January 6 insurrection.

The GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on January 6 announced on X Friday that the FBI had “finally” revealed that it deployed 276 agents to the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A closer look at the document revealed that the agents were responding to the rioters, not inciting them. “This number includes agents that responded to the Capitol grounds as well as inside the Capitol, the pipe bombs, and the red truck that was believed to contain explosive devices as well as CDCs/ADCs.”

Crucially, Republicans have still provided no evidence that those working with law enforcement were involved in planning the deadly riot or instigating violence that day.

Not only is this not a bombshell—it’s not even new. The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General already reported in December 2024 that the FBI had deployed agents to the Capitol as part of a review of its handling of the incident.

“After the Capitol had been breached on January 6 by rioters, and in response to a request from the USCP, the FBI deployed several hundred Special Agents and employees to the U.S. Capitol and the surrounding area,” the report said.

Still, Just the News, a conservative blog, reported that plainclothes agents had been “secretly” deployed, though the after-action report the it referenced said absolutely nothing about what they were wearing. President Donald Trump shared the article on Truth Social, writing “Wow: A Radical Left Democrat Scam!” And failed Arizona Republican Kari Lake shared Trump’s post on X, saying, “They staged a riot on January 6 to frame patriotic Americans and cover-up a stolen election. Justice is coming.”

But Republicans have never needed any proof to fuel this particular conspiracy theory. In July 2023, Trump shared a meme on Truth Social claiming, “JANUARY 6 WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE DAY THE GOVERNMENT STAGED A RIOT TO COVER UP THE FACT THAT THEY CERTIFIED A FRAUDULENT ELECTION.”

Superintendent Ian Roberts of Des Moines Public Schools was detained Friday by federal agents. The reason for his detention was not clear, according to the school district.

An email issued Friday afternoon by DMPS Board President Jackie Norris announced that Associate Superintendent Matt Smith would take over Roberts’s role effective “immediately” and “until further notice.”

“This action follows Dr. Ian Roberts being detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents this morning,” Norris wrote in an email obtained by Iowa Public Radio. “We have no confirmed information as to why Dr. Roberts is being detained or the next potential steps.”

Roberts’s whereabouts are also, alarmingly, unclear. A list of detainees on ICE’s website lists the educational administrator in the Pottawattamie County Jail in Council Bluffs, but an employee at the jail told Iowa Public Radio that Roberts was “not located there.”

The ICE website claims that Roberts was born in Guyana. Roberts’s district profile states that the educator’s parents were immigrants from Guyana and that he grew up in Brooklyn.

Roberts has been responsible for the largest public school district in Iowa since 2023. At the time of his hiring, Roberts’s “focus on creating equitable experience for students” was openly celebrated by then–school board Chair Teree Caldwell-Johnson. Roberts was named a top 100 education influencer by a K-12 magazine, District Administration, earlier this summer for his Reimagining Education program, a plan to modernize the district’s classrooms as requested by local residents.

It’s not the first instance of federal immigration officers throwing their weight around to neutralize their dissenters’ influence. In June, masked ICE agents detained New York City Comptroller Brad Lander after he tried to escort a defendant out of immigration court.

Justice Clarence Thomas cast doubt on the Supreme Court’s commitment to following legal precedent Thursday, as the high court gears up to revisit major rulings holding back Donald Trump’s sweeping policy agenda.

Speaking at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C., Thursday evening, Thomas said it was time to rethink a commitment to “stare decisis,” a legal principle that the court should stand by things decided previously.

“It’s not some sort of talismanic deal where you can just say ‘stare decisis’ and not think, turn off the brain, right?” Thomas said.

“We never go to the front, see who’s driving the train, where is it going. And you could go up there in the engine room, find it’s an orangutan driving the train, but you want to follow that just because it’s a train,” Thomas said, ostensibly comparing decades of previous decisions by justices sitting in his very same position to the attitudes of apes.

“I don’t think that I have the gospel,” Thomas said, “that any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel, and I do give perspective to the precedent. But ... the precedent should be respectful of our legal tradition, and our country, and our laws, and be based on something, not just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.”

If Thomas’s remarks are anything to go by, the conservative majority is set to flip major precedents during the upcoming session.

In December, the Supreme Court is expected to weigh the 1935 case Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, in which the court rejected Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s attempt to fire a conservative commissioner appointed by President Herbert Hoover overseeing FDR’s New Deal policies.

Earlier this week, Justice Elena Kagan slammed the Supreme Court’s conservative majority for approving Trump’s emergency request to remove Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. The court had previously allowed Trump to oust Gwynne Wilcox at the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris at the Merit Systems Protection Board—whose terms weren’t due to expire until 2029—as well as three Democratic appointees on the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Breaking with precedent on Humphrey will allow Trump to continue his unfettered campaign of firing Democratic appointees.

The Supreme Court is also set to consider whether to roll back anti-gerrymandering rules established by the 1986 case Thornburg v. Gingles, as part of Louisiana’s suit challenging the use of race in redistricting efforts. Trump’s Department of Justice filed an amicus brief Wednesday arguing that the Voting Rights Act does not provide “a compelling interest that can justify race-predominant districting” and urging the court to lay waste to the landmark decision.