Breaking News
Breaking News
from Washington and beyond

Trump’s Insult to Tim Walz Costs Him Key Ally in Redistricting Scheme

Donald Trump called Minnesota Governor Tim Walz the r-word.

Donald Trump frowns while standing in front of reporters on Air Force One
Jim WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

The president’s crass mouth is losing him Republican support in Indiana.

State Senator Michael Bohacek announced Friday that he would no longer support Donald Trump’s efforts to redistrict the Hoosier State, claiming that the president’s recent decision to call Minnesota Governor Tim Walz “seriously retarded” had put him off the MAGA leader’s plan.

“I have been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities since the birth of my second daughter,” Bohacek said in a statement. “Those of you that don’t know me or my family might not know that my daughter has Down Syndrome.

“This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references and his choices of words have consequences,” he continued. “I will be voting NO on redistricting, perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority.”

Anxious about the 2026 midterms, Trump has issued directives to several red states, including Indiana, to redraw their congressional maps in order to bolster Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House.

The unprecedented long-shot effort would win Indiana just two more seats in the U.S. House—but state senators have already signaled that they have no intentions of reshaping the state to aid the president’s ambitions.

Indiana’s Senate announced late last month that it would not meet until January, indicating that redistricting will not be on the state’s legislative agenda this year.

Public GOP opposition to Trump’s offensive nature could be an indicator that his white-knuckled grip on the caucus is slipping. Trump has issued a litany of repugnant statements about women, people of color, and those with disabilities, though none of that seemed to seriously sway Republicans away from the MAGA politician before.

Trump infamously mocked a reporter with a disability while on the campaign trail in 2015, imitating the sporadic arm movements of Serge Kovaleski, an investigative reporter with The New York Times who suffers from a congenital joint condition.

Kash Patel Meltdown Over FBI Jacket Derailed Major Investigation

The meltdown ended with the FBI director taking a woman’s jacket.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox speaks at a press conference flanked by FBI director Kash Patel, Lieutenant Governor of Utah Deidre Henderson, and Commissioner Beau Mason.
Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
Utah Governor Spencer Cox speaks at a press conference, flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel, Utah Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, and Commissioner Beau Mason.

FBI Director Kash Patel is so obsessed with maintaining the facade of power and authority that he wouldn’t even get off a plane to investigate the murder of his friend Charlie Kirk until someone got him a special FBI raid jacket—his specific size, and with all the right patches on it. 

A new report from a “National Alliance of Retired and Active Duty FBI Special Agents and Analysts” has revealed that Patel—just a day after Kirk had been killed—landed in Utah and refused to exit the plane until someone got him a medium-size FBI raid jacket. He ended up taking a female agent’s jacket. He then began to complain that that jacket didn’t have the proper patches on it, and he refused to leave the plane once again until SWAT team members gave him their patches. 

This report, which has yet to be independently corroborated, comes from someone the group calls ALPHA99, a “reliable, trustworthy, and competent” source. 

The FBI director had just landed at the scene of the murder of someone he claimed was a close friend, and he chose to throw a tantrum because he didn’t have the exact right jacket with the exact right patches, rather than just get off the plane and do his job. 

This is just one of many examples of the floundering FBI head’s misplaced priorities. Just last week, it was reported that President Trump was weighing firing Patel in the wake of his premature social media posts during ongoing cases, his use of a government jet for a date with his 27-year-old girlfriend, and giving said 27-year-old girlfriend a SWAT team for her security detail. 

These sound like things a politician’s teenage son would do, not the head of the FBI. That, and this meltdown over a jacket in the midst of a high-profile assassination–with a suspect who had yet to be charged—only beg more questions about the fitness of the least qualified FBI director in U.S. history.  

Read the full report here.

Trump Goes One Step Further With Attack on Naturalized Citizens

Donald Trump’s assault on immigrants keeps getting worse following the shooting of two National Guard members.

Donald and Melania Trump walk on the White House lawn hand in hand. Trump raises a hand for the camera.
Peter W. Stevenson/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, a naturalized citizen

Donald Trump wants to take U.S. citizenship away from people he deems “criminals.”

Trump told reporters on Air Force One Sunday that “we have criminals that came into our country and they were naturalized maybe through Biden or somebody that didn’t know what they were doing.

“If I have the power to do it, I’m not sure that I do, but if I do, I would denaturalize, absolutely,” Trump said. In a follow-up question, a reporter asked Trump what he meant when he posted in support of “reverse migration” on Truth Social on Thursday.

“It means ‘Get people out that are in our country, get ’em out of here. I want to get ’em out,’” Trump said.

Since the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan refugee on Wednesday, Trump has gone on an anti-immigration tirade, pausing all asylum decisions and saying that he wants to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” on Truth Social.

In another post, Trump falsely claimed that “most” foreign-born U.S. residents “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels.” Data from 2022 indicates that immigrants per capita consume 21 percent less in public assistance than native-born Americans.

But that’s not of interest to Trump, or his adviser Stephen Miller, a racist and anti-immigration hawk whose fingerprints are all over these new policies and Truth Social posts. It’s clear that the Trump administration just wants fewer immigrants in the U.S. and is willing to challenge long-standing laws and the Constitution to make that happen.

Trump Whips MAGA Into a Frenzy With Bizarre Post on Military Loyalty

Donald Trump’s followers think he is attacking a specific Democratic senator.

Donald Trump speaks to reporters on Air Force One
Pete Marovich/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s fanboys are foaming at the mouth for the arrests of Democratic lawmakers following the president’s latest direction to “DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE!”

In the wee hours of Monday morning, Trump posted yet another screed not so subtly targeting a group of Democratic lawmakers who’d published a video urging members of the U.S. military and intelligence community not to follow illegal orders. His initial attempt was laden with typos, with Trump writing, “Ther [sic] are laws that affect our nation” before deleting, and then trying again.

“There are laws that impact our Nation,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Read Title 18, Chapter 115, Section 2387, ‘Whoever with the intent to interfere, impair, influence the loyalty, moral or discipline of the military and Naval Forces, … to be fined or imprisoned up to 10 years.’ Commander Kirk Lippold, U.S. Navy, Ret. This is right on point. DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE!!!”

During an appearance on Fox 5 Sunday morning, Lippold clarified that there was no legal basis to recall Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, despite Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatening to do so. Lippold also stated that the president’s claim that the lawmakers had committed sedition was unfounded because they had not advocated for or used violence. Instead, Lippold cited federal law targeting those who act with the “intent to interfere with, impair, or influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military or naval forces.”

“And that is something the Department of Justice should be looking into,” he said.

It seems Trump intends to make his government do just that, and MAGA was overjoyed that the president was preparing to take action against his perceived political enemies.

“Arrest Mark Kelly!” wrote David Freeman, a right-wing commentator who goes by the name “Gunther Eagleman” on X.

Eric Daugherty, a right-wing commentator, wrote on X that Trump had “posted the exact US law that seditious Sen. Mark Kelly, and other Congressional Democrats, likely violated.”

“Make an example or it happens AGAIN,” he added.

ICE Barbie Panics When Asked About Vetting Alleged Guard Shooter

The man who allegedly shot two National Guard members, one of whom has died, was granted asylum in April.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem looks to the side while standing in the Oval Office
Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Trumpworld is flailing as it tries to redirect blame for last week’s National Guard shooting onto the previous presidential administration.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem insisted Sunday that the suspected shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was vetted for asylum by the Biden administration—despite the fact that it was her department that granted the asylum request in April.

“I want to be very clear about this, because his asylum was approved in April of this year on the Trump administration’s watch,” said NBC News’s Kristen Welker. “Was there a vetting process in place to approve that asylum request?”

“The vetting process all happened under Joe Biden’s administration,” said Noem.

“But was he vetted when he was granted asylum? Are you saying he wasn’t vetted when he was granted asylum?” pressed Welker.

“Vetting is happening when they come into the country and that was completely abandoned under Joe Biden’s administration. That’s the irresponsibility that has completely devastated our country, Kristen, put us in such a dangerous position,” Noem continued.

“I don’t think people realized when Joe Biden was in the White House exactly how he was allowing our country to be infiltrated with people that we didn’t know who they were, some of them, we did know were dangerous and went after as soon as they came into this country, but under this program we could have up to 100,000 people that came in from Afghanistan that may be here to do us harm,” the Homeland Security secretary added.

Lakanwal, however, wasn’t just a known entity to U.S. officials—he was a foreign partner with U.S. intelligence services. He worked with the CIA as a partner in Afghanistan for more than a decade before U.S. troops withdrew from the region. Lakanwal, who entered the U.S. in 2021, always struggled with PTSD, his family told CNN.

He allegedly shot two members of West Virginia’s National Guard on the eve of Thanksgiving. U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries. The other victim, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, is reportedly in “very serious condition,” according to West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey.

Lakanwal is currently hospitalized and in custody.

Of course, West Virginia’s National Guard never would have been in Washington to begin with if Donald Trump hadn’t ordered them to occupy the city on false pretenses.

Trump ordered some 2,000 members of the National Guard to Washington earlier this year, blaming rising crime rates, immigrant populations, and homelessness—though the figures he used were actually from 2023.

The cherry-picked statistics misrepresented the state of crime in the nation’s capital, which, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department that was touted by Trump’s own FBI, had actually fallen last year by 35 percent.

Mere days before the shooting, a U.S. district judge ruled that Trump’s order “exceeded the bounds” of the Pentagon’s authority since the troops were being utilized for “non-military, crime-deterrence missions” without the express permission of the city’s leadership.