D.C. Mayor Bowser Finally Says She Won’t Run Again. It’s About Time.

After a tumultuous year in which her city became ground zero for President Donald Trump’s draconian military crackdown on crime and immigration, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has announced that she will not seek a second term.

“It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do to walk away from a job that I love. I believe I could win,” Bowser told NBC Washington’s Mark Seagraves on Tuesday.

Bowser served as mayor of the nation’s capital for over 10 years.

“It has been the honor of my life to be your Mayor. Together, we have built a legacy of success of which I am intensely proud,” she said in a later statement posted on X. “With a grateful heart, I am announcing that I will not seek a fourth term. For the next 12 months, let’s run through the tape and keep winning for DC.”

Reactions to Bowser’s announcement were mixed. 

“Thank you, Mayor. You led our city through tough times, delivered some huge wins, and consistently stood on the right side of public safety issues … including rejecting calls to defund the DC police,” one user wrote. “Wishing you the best as a private citizen.”

“The city has been unfortunate to have you serve as corruptor in chief. Tens of thousands displaced, wealth inequality exploded, tenants rights decayed and ballot initiatives overturned,” said another. “You have done nothing for this city except spread elite bloat. My advice: resign early.”

Bowser’s tenure has been defined by large deals with developers and businesses to build stadiums, as plans to address problems of housing, affordability, crime, and police brutality often fell short. From tearing up her already materially meaningless “Black Lives Matter Plaza” to caving to Trump’s federal takeover, Bowser left much to be desired. 

The next mayoral election will be in November 2026. 

“I’m not running because we’ve accomplished what we set out to accomplish,” Bowser said. “And it’s time. People don’t run for a fourth term.”  

This story has been updated.

Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell is suing the Trump official who referred him to the Department of Justice alleging mortgage and tax fraud. 

Swallwell sued Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday for violating his privacy and First Amendment rights. Earlier this month, Pulte referred Swalwell to the DOJ, claiming that the California congressman may have made false or misleading statements in loan applications. 

In his lawsuit, Swalwell claims he is being targeted for his “political views and expression” and that Pulte improperly used information from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in his referral letter to the DOJ. Swalwell alleges that Pulte invaded his privacy by digging into his financial records and violating the Privacy Act, calling his actions “a gross abuse of power that violated the law.”

The lawsuit further claims that the same day Pulte sent the letter, detailed allegations against Swalwell showed up in news reports and right-wing social media accounts in what looked like a coordinated leak by Pulte and the FHFA. 

“Since Pulte took office in March 2025, FHFA has never issued a criminal referral to DOJ alleging mortgage fraud by anyone who supports President Trump but has referred four of President Trump’s political foes,” the lawsuit notes.

The Trump administration has repeatedly attempted to use mortgage fraud to prosecute the president’s enemies. New York Attorney General Letita James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and Senator Adam Schiff have all been targeted with similar allegations. James’s case was thrown out on Monday after the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was found to have been improperly appointed.  

Swalwell’s lawsuit now puts Pulte and Trump on the defensive, and may also help his own campaign for governor of California. Will it also thwart Trump’s attempts at revenge? 

Child trafficking arrests have hit their lowest point in five years since Homeland Security aggressively reoriented its attention toward immigration arrests.

Fewer kids have been rescued from exploitation and trafficking this past year than at any point since the pandemic, reported The New York Times Tuesday.

The number of indictments for child exploitation crimes fell by 28 percent compared to last year, according to the Times, which noted that agents that have historically participated in child exploitation investigations have resorted to working those cases in their personal time.

Fewer victims have been assisted, as well. Homeland Security agents “identified or rescued roughly 300 fewer child victims, a 17 percent drop,” according to an internal report by Homeland Security Investigations.

The data is a peek behind the curtain of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda, which has apparently prioritized political results over pressing public safety concerns: For months, Attorney General Pam Bondi has impressed that the administration’s immigration sweeps would target violent criminals and child molesters—but the numbers show that hasn’t been true.

The latest data report from ICE revealed that 40 percent of immigrants detained at the agency’s facilities have no criminal record at all. Meanwhile, actual child exploitation cases are apparently falling by the wayside.

Although President Donald Trump has heaped endless praise on the federal deportation agency, ICE agents have reportedly never been so miserable, forced to primarily detain noncriminal immigrants in order to meet their quota: 3,000 arrests per day, per Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller’s demands.

The digits come at a particularly bad time for Trump, who is in the throes of a national fixation on the most damning scandal of his political career: his cozy relationship with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The White House axed 1,353 positions from the State Department in July, gutting parts of the agency that failed to align with MAGA values. Those included offices focused on promoting democracy, ending genocide, quelling political extremism, and combating human trafficking.

The cuts reduced the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to about 35 people—a third of its staffing levels from seven months prior, thanks in large part to State Secretary Marco Rubio’s plan and Elon Musk’s deferred resignation program. Those who were not laid off were informed that they would be reassigned and given a pay cut, Mother Jones reported at the time.

Twenty states are suing the Trump administration over cuts made to funding for housing the homeless.

A coalition of 19 attorneys general and two governors made the move Tuesday to seek a court order that would block “cuts and illegal new conditions” to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care program, which works with local organizations to connect unhoused people with resources and housing.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that more than half of the program’s 2026 funding for permanent housing will be cut and reallocated to temporary transitional housing with work or service requirements. The new conditions will also allow HUD to deny funding to any organizations that acknowledge transgender or nonbinary people.

This month, HUD instituted a cap on the amount of its program funds that can go to permanent housing at 30 percent. Previously, no cap existed, and 90 percent of its funds supported permanent housing.

The lawsuit argues that the conditions placed on the program are “unlawful and unconstitutional” because the funds were mandated by Congress to be distributed based on need. New York Attorney General Letitia James, the coalition’s leader, said in a press release that “communities across the country depend on Continuum of Care funds to provide housing and other resources to our most vulnerable neighbors.”

“These funds help keep tens of thousands of people from sleeping on the streets every night. I will not allow this administration to cut off these funds and put vital housing and support services at risk,” James said.

At a time when the country is in the midst of a housing crisis exacerbated by the Trump administration, these cuts will make things even worse if they are allowed to stand. Americans who end up losing their homes already have a tough time getting assistance. If this lawsuit doesn’t stop or slow the administration’s cuts, Americans without homes will get even less from the government.

Kash Patel’s days as FBI director may be numbered. 

MS NOW reported Tuesday that President Trump is considering firing the embattled director as his errors pile up. Three anonymous sources told MS NOW that Patel had drawn Trump’s ire for his presumptuous social media posts during ongoing cases, using a government jet for a date night with his 27-year-old girlfriend, and assigning a SWAT team for her security detail. 

Andrew Bailey, the FBI co–deputy director, is reportedly Trump’s top choice to replace Patel.  

The White House responded to the reports. “President Trump has assembled the most talented and impressive Administration in history and they are doing an excellent job carrying out the President’s agenda,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. “FBI Director Patel is a critical member of the President’s team and he is working tirelessly to restore integrity to the FBI.”  

This isn’t the first time Patel’s FBI has witnessed rumors of internal upheaval. Just last month, Patel reportedly angered FBI leadership when he fired at least 30 bureau agents for being hostile to conservatism or Trump. And in October, he pissed off Trump and Justice Department officials by posting that the “FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack” on Halloween, despite the fact that no charges had been filed and local police didn’t have any details. 

Back in July, deputy director and former MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino was so upset with how Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi handled the release of the Epstein files—from Bondi claiming that she had them on her desk to her then claiming the case was closed—that he skipped work, no call no show. 

It seems clear that Patel is working on borrowed time. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that one of the most underqualified FBI leads in recent memory can’t seem to avoid these screw-ups.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump is already making light of his administration wrongfully deporting immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Speaking from the newly paved Rose Garden Tuesday, Trump delivered a ghastly joke while he passed out pardons to two turkeys, Gobble and Waddle.

“Instead of pardons, some of my more enthusiastic staffers were already drafting the paperwork straight to the terrorist confinement center in El Salvador,” Trump said. “And even those birds don’t want to be there, you know what I mean.”

Unlike his many other groan-worthy jokes, this one didn’t seem to elicit the slightest laugh from the White House audience.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration deported 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador’s CECOT, which is notorious for human rights abuses, even though the vast majority of those immigrants did not have criminal records. Despite the administration’s claims that the deportees were brutal gang members and “the worst of the worst,” only 32 of the deportees had actually been convicted of crimes, most of which were minor offenses such as traffic violations. The Trump administration has continued to refer to CECOT as part of a barbaric propaganda campaign to scare immigrants.

Since that scandal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has only continued its trend of targeting immigrants who aren’t criminals. The latest disclosure from ICE revealed that 40 percent of immigrants detained at agency facilities had no criminal record at all.

Trump also cracked multiple jokes about presidential pardons, saying former President Joe Biden had “used an autopen last year for the turkey’s pardon.”

“So I have the official duty to determine, and I have determined, that last year’s turkey pardons are totally invalid,” Trump continued.

He also claimed he’d wanted to call the birds Chuck and Nancy, after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “But then I realized I wouldn’t be pardoning them, I would never pardon those two people,” Trump said.

It seems that Gobble and Waddle should count themselves lucky. They’re probably the first recipients of Trump’s presidential pardons who didn’t have to help make him rich.

Kash Patel’s FBI is joining the hunt against the so-called “Seditious Six,” signaling the administration’s commitment to taking revenge on the six Democratic members of Congress who dared tell soldiers that they didn’t have to follow illegal orders.

The FBI has requested interviews with Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, and Representatives Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan—all military and intelligence veterans—for their participation in the now-infamous video in which they reminded the military that they swore an oath to be loyal to the U.S. Constitution, not President Trump. The Trump administration saw this as treasonous, called for them to be hanged, and is weighing court-martialing Kelly.

The six members of Congress have yet to respond to the potential FBI interview.

It’s unclear when the interviews will occur or what exactly they entail. An anonymous Justice Department official told Reuters that the interviews would be to see “if there’s any wrongdoing and then go from there.” The FBI has yet to comment on the interviews, but one can assume that it won’t be very amicable given the Trump administration’s rhetoric around the situation.

“The video made by the ‘Seditious Six’ was despicable, reckless, and false,” Hegseth wrote Monday on his personal X account. “Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their Commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline.’ Their foolish screed sows doubt and confusion—which only puts our warriors in danger.”

The Department of Government Efficiency is claiming that it is still operational, despite reports that the agency has disbanded. 

In a post on X Monday night, the account called a Reuters article reporting that the agency “doesn’t exist” with eight months remaining on its charter “fake news.” 

“As usual, this is fake news from @Reuters,” the post read. “President Trump was given a mandate by the American people to modernize the federal government and reduce waste, fraud and abuse. Just last week, DOGE terminated 78 wasteful contracts and saved taxpayers $335M.  We’ll be back in a few days with our regularly scheduled Friday update. 🇺🇸”

DOGE has not posted since then, or offered any proof of the cuts. It also didn’t refute a key piece of information in the Reuters article: that DOGE is no longer a “centralized entity.” Its acting administrator, Amy Gleason, is now an official adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services, even as she makes jokes on LinkedIn.

Many of DOGE’s functions have been taken over by the Office of Personnel Management, and many of its employees have moved to other agencies within the government. So what does the X post mean? Maybe DOGE is still a tool in the hands of Elon Musk and Russell Vought, or a scapegoat whenever the Trump administration wants to make massive cuts. 

Whatever the case, the massive damage DOGE caused to the federal bureaucracy will live on and probably continue for the rest of the Trump administration. Whether the name lives on is another story. 

A well-timed phone call from House Speaker Mike Johnson may have been the tipping point for the White House to call off releasing Donald Trump’s new health care plan.

Ahead of the decision Monday, Johnson cautioned Trump officials against including a two-year extension to Affordable Care Act subsidies as part of the president’s so-called “Healthcare Price Cuts Act,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Johnson reportedly told White House officials that Republicans just couldn’t get behind extending subsidies, after the speaker had spent more than a month railing against Democrats’ bid to save the subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year. Should those tax credits permanently lapse, an estimated 5.1 million Americans will lose their health coverage by 2034.

Johnson’s decision to throw a wrench in Trump’s rollout comes as insurance premiums are set to skyrocket starting in January, and premiums for individuals will increase by as much as double for millions of Americans.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is attacking the Scouts for not being nice enough to boys.

Hegseth plans to cut all military ties with Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts, on the grounds that they are attacking “boy-friendly spaces,” being too “genderless,” pushing “gender confusion,” and adopting diversity, equity, and inclusion, according to a draft memo to Congress reviewed by NPR.

“The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys,” Hegseth wrote in the memo.

“The Boy Scouts has been cratering itself for quite some time,” Hegseth said in a 2024 Fox interview. “This is an institution the left didn’t control. They didn’t want to improve it. They wanted to destroy it or dilute it into something that stood for nothing.”

Under the proposal, Scouts will no longer receive medical and logistical support for their massive “National Jamboree” and will no longer be allowed to visit military bases.

The proposal has not yet been sent to Congress but would bring an end to 100 years of support from the U.S. government.

“Scouting is and has always been a nonpartisan organization,” Scouting America said in a statement responding to the news. “Over more than a century, we’ve worked constructively with every U.S. presidential administration—Democratic and Republican—focusing on our common goal of building future leaders grounded in integrity, responsibility, and community service.”

Retired Army Staff Sergeant Kenny Green—who has three children who are scouts—was caught off guard by Hegseth’s proposal.

“It’s gonna be kind of harsh the way I say this.… It’s kind of like they don’t care about us more than they care about their perceived message. Scouting … it probably is not a perfect organization, but … I can’t even say how vast their benefits are, especially for military families.”

From fat-shaming troops to complaining that soldiers have been emasculated, this is par for the course for the defense secretary.