MAGA Rep. Threatened to Call Pam Bondi to Block His Own Arrest

Florida Representative Cory Mills threatened to call then-Attorney General Pam Bondi while he was being questioned by Washington police about an alleged assault.

Police body camera footage released to The Washington Post showed officers responding to a call from a woman accusing the MAGA lawmaker of physically assaulting her on February 19, 2025.

In the video, officers spoke to her in a hotel bar, where she appeared to be drinking. She tearfully showed the officer bruises on her arms and marks on her face. Then she appeared to receive a phone call from Mills before telling the officer, “He wants me to say” the marks on her body “were from our vacation and that I bruise easily.”

The video footage released to the Post also showed that when the police interviewed Mills about the incident, the lawmaker said he wanted to call Bondi and reached for his phone.

“I stepped toward you once; if I do it again it will be to put you in handcuffs,” said Richard Mazloom, the officer at the scene. “If I say don’t make a call, just don’t do it.”

At one point, Mills had said he feared the allegations would be “politicized because of my party,” according to footage and an affidavit seeking an arrest warrant. “It will be weaponized,” he said. “This is going to drag me through a quagmire.”

As the police continued to speak with Mills, the woman returned, claiming she had been mistaken about the assault. The top-ranking officer on the scene moved to classify the incident as a domestic disturbance.

This incident is the subject of a sweeping House Ethics Committee investigation into Mills that began in November, after his ex-girlfriend alleged that he had threatened to blackmail her using sexually explicit images of her and to commit violence against her future romantic partners. The Post did not identify the woman in the video, so it is unclear if she the same woman who accused Mills of blackmail.

The Post’s reporting also comes as Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell and Republican Representative Tony Gonzalez have both resigned after facing House investigations into sexual assault allegations against them.

Iran says it won’t be participating in negotiations with the U.S. after it seized an Iranian cargo ship near the Strait of Hormuz.

“While claiming diplomacy and readiness for negotiations, the U.S. is carrying out behaviors that do not in any way indicate seriousness in pursuing a diplomatic process,” said Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, on Monday, saying that the U.S. “violated the ceasefire from the beginning of its implementation.”

President Trump bragged on Truth Social Sunday that the Navy destroyer USS Spruance intercepted the Iranian cargo ship Touska in the Gulf of Oman, claiming that the U.S. “stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engine room.” The ship has been captured by the Marines, and Trump said it is under Treasury sanctions for “illegal activity.”

The two-week ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. is set to expire on Wednesday, and a senior Iranian source told Reuters that the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports was undermining the prospect of negotiations, and that Iran’s “defensive capabilities,” including missiles, were not open for discussion.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is sending a delegation to Islamabad, Pakistan, including Vice President JD Vance, envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Pakistan is deploying 20,000 police, paramilitary, and army personnel to secure the talks, but it could all be for nought if the ceasefire collapses and Iran refuses to take part in talks.

President Donald Trump is snubbing the Republican congressman who used to be his personal physician by not attending his birthday party at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump posted on Truth Social Friday afternoon that he will not be attending Representative Ronny Jackson’s birthday party in the evening, as he is speaking at a Turning Point USA event in Arizona instead. Trump insisted that the move was not personal, praising Jackson as a politician and a doctor.

“He is a good friend, 100% MAGA, and one of the most talented Medical Doctors and Politicians in our Country. HAPPY BIRTHDAY RONNY!” Trump posted, concluding the long post by saying, “Ronny Jackson is a fighter and WINNER, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election. HE IS ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITES, AND WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

It’s funny that Jackson, who has quite a close relationship with the president, went through all the trouble of celebrating his birthday at Trump’s personal estate, only for him not to even show up.

A series of scandals during Trump’s first term, including giving White House staffers easy access to pills, eventually cost Jackson his job as Trump’s doctor and a Cabinet nomination to be secretary of veterans affairs. But he then got a lifeline when Trump created a new position just for him in the White House: assistant to the president and chief medical adviser. Jackson used his proximity to Trump to run for Congress and win in 2020, but now he can’t even get Trump to show up to his birthday party at Trump’s own home.

Israel has technically already violated the 10-day ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, killing someone with a drone on Friday minutes after President Trump declared they were “PROHIBITED” from bombing Lebanon.

“The Hezboolah situation in an appropriate manner. Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday morning. “They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!! Thank you!”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team were shocked by the language in the post, Axios reported, believing it violated the ceasefire agreement. The text of that deal allows Israel to take military action “in self-defense, at any time, against planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks.”

Israel claims that their bombing was defensive, making it within the realm of the ceasefire that was struck on Thursday, and came after six weeks of war in which Israel killed over 2,000 Lebanese civilians and displaced over one million. Israel is no stranger to breaking ceasefire agreements, as they have killed at least 766 Palestinians and injured over 2,000 in the Gaza Strip since that ceasefire was declared in October.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a callous and wildly inaccurate response to a question about millions of Americans losing their health insurance at a congressional hearing Friday.

The secretary of health and human services was testifying before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and was asked by Democratic Representative Greg Casar if he had “met with any of the 1.4 million people who have lost their health insurance just this last year from dropping off of Obamacare.”

Kennedy was unmoved by the question.

“They’re almost all illegal immigrants,” Kennedy responded. Casar pressed further, saying it sounded like Kennedy hadn’t met with anyone, referring to one person in his congressional district who lost insurance. Kennedy cut in.

“We found 1.5 million illegal immigrants illegally collecting Medicaid,” Kennedy said, before Casar interjected and noted that people in his district saw their monthly health insurance costs skyrocket by hundreds of dollars, including mothers and kids. He again asked Kennedy whether he had spoken to anyone who had lost their insurance, and Kennedy tried to claim that Affordable Care Act costs are lower for many Americans. Casar’s time for questioning then ran out.

“Chairman, it sounds like he’s met with nobody and been able to explain to them why it’s OK that this policy kicks them off their healthcare,” Casar concluded, addressing Tim Wahlberg, the committee chair.

Undocumented immigrants have never been eligible for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act. In January, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which RFK Jr. oversees as health secretary, reported that 1.4 million fewer Americans had signed up for ACA plans because prices had gotten too high. That’s all thanks to Republicans and the Trump administration letting ACA subsidies expire. Kennedy doesn’t seem to care.

A top Department of Justice official was removed Friday from an investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan after she reportedly expressed doubts about the probe.

Maria Medetis Long, chief of the national security section for the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami, notified attorneys working on the probe that she would no longer handle the case moving forward, people familiar with the matter told CNN.

Two sources told ABC News that Medetis Long had expressed doubts about the investigation. The prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida are looking into allegations that Brennan lied to Congress about his role in crafting an intelligence assessment about Russian efforts to interfere on behalf of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

Some attorneys were surprised by the news, sources said, because there were additional interviews scheduled in the coming days as the department weighed whether to bring charges against Brennan.

The U.S. attorney’s office in southern Florida issued 30 subpoenas to individuals, including Brennan and other former intelligence officials, as part of a sprawling conspiracy investigation into Trump’s perceived political enemies. Those cases are set to land on the desk of the same judge who handed the president his get-out-of-jail-free card back in July 2024: Aileen Cannon.

Asked about the move, a Justice Department spokesperson said, “As a matter of routine practice, attorneys are moved around on cases so offices can most effectively allocate resources. It is completely healthy and normal to change members of legal teams.”

Caitlyn Jenner, perhaps the most prominent transgender Trump supporter around, made a public appeal to President Trump, begging him to reconsider his executive order requiring passports to only offer options for male and female—and match the gender the passport holder was assigned at birth.

Jenner lamented her status earlier this month on the Tomi Lahren is Fearless podcast.

“I love President Trump. And I think he signed this executive order.... I don’t know who underneath him was putting this thing together—that all federal documents, it has to be your biological sex at birth,” Jenner said, absolving the president. “Recently I had my passport, I had to get it renewed. I sent it back. [It] comes back, gender marker ‘M.’ Screws everything up.”

She went on to note that she tried multiple different avenues to remedy the situation, even sending in her female birth certificate, but to no avail.

“This is a safety factor, OK? I can’t travel internationally anymore.... I don’t blame President Trump, I love him. But for a lot of people this is a huge issue.... I don’t know what’s gonna happen because I don’t think this was really thought out, what this means—not just for the males-to-females.”

Jenner said she left a note for Trump with his Secret Service while visiting Mar-a-Lago two months ago, but still hasn’t heard back.

Trump signed the executive order in January 2025, and the Supreme Court upheld it in November, meaning many trans Americans are now dealing with the chaos.

Jenner is just the latest vocal Trump supporter to put her foot in her mouth. What exactly did she expect to happen when Trump made it clear more than a decade ago that the LGBTQ community would be a primary target? And how many trans rights organizations warned against the exact thing Jenner is now complaining about?

President Donald Trump claimed Friday that Iran had finally agreed to hand over its nuclear stockpile—but Tehran said otherwise.

Speaking with CBS News, Trump claimed that Iran had “agreed to everything,” including working with the U.S. to remove the roughly 2,000 kilograms of enriched uranium that remains buried in underground facilities.

“Our people, together with the Iranians, are going to work together to go get it. And then we’ll take it to the United States,” Trump said. He clarified that by “our people,” he did not mean U.S. troops.

Trump claimed that the U.S. and Iran would continue to meet over the weekend to iron out the details, and that the U.S. military blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz would continue “until we get it done.”

But sources in Tehran have denied Trump’s claim that any progress has been made. “Contrary to Trump’s claim, no form of nuclear material transfer has been negotiated,” a source close to Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X. Another Iranian source called Trump’s claim “another lie.”

Trump’s seemingly unsubstantiated claim came shortly after Axios reported that the U.S. was considering releasing $20 billion in frozen Iranian assets in exchange for the country’s stockpile of enriched uranium—which Trump furiously denied earlier Friday. The two countries were reportedly discussing a three-page plan, and could send negotiators to Pakistan this weekend to try and finalize it. The talks would concern what specifically will happen to the uranium, and how many Iranian assets will be unfrozen.

Donald Trump is in “discussions” to settle a $10 billion lawsuit with the Internal Revenue Service over the release of his tax returns.

The president’s lawyers asked a judge Friday to extend key deadlines on the multibillion lawsuit against his presidential administration, but hidden within the pages of the legal filing was a profound detail: that the president has been in talks with his own government staffers to “avoid protracted litigation.”

“Good cause exists to grant an extension in this matter while the Parties engage in discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation,” Trump’s lawyers argued. “This limited pause will neither prejudice the Parties nor delay ultimate resolution. Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently.”

Any payment from Trump’s lawsuit against the government would be doled out to him via taxpayer funds.

The suit alleges that the IRS and Treasury Department during Trump’s first term did not do enough to thwart Charles Littlejohn, a former contractor for the IRS, from leaking the tax returns to the press. Littlejohn leaked 15 years of Trump’s tax returns to The New York Times in 2019. The documents were published by the paper of record the following year, in September 2020, two months before the presidential election.

Trump’s attorneys have argued that, despite the fact that Littlejohn was classed as a contractor, he acted as a “joint employee” of the two agencies. They further asserted that the government was liable for Littlejohn’s actions due to the IRS’s “extensive, detailed, day-to-day supervision” of his behavior.

The legal challenge has raised numerous ethical quandaries, chief among them the apparent conflict of interest in the case. Legal experts have questioned whether a president can sue his own administration to pocket taxpayer money, and have expressed doubts about whether Trump’s Justice Department can appropriately defend the financial institutions.

A group of former government officials filed an amicus brief in February that challenged the suit’s core claims. Those officials included former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and former National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson. Together, the cohort argued that Trump’s lawsuit contains “significant legal flaws” and risks becoming “collusive litigation.”

This story has been updated.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to claim Friday that vaping is healthier than smoking.

Speaking before the House Education and Workforce Committee, Kennedy tried to peddle some of his classic pseudoscience.

“There’s an argument for vapes,” Kennedy said. “Vapes reduce cigarette tobacco smoking—”

“No sir. That was an argument Juul made, and I’d be happy to have a further conversation,” California Representative Mark DeSaulnier interrupted.

“I’d love to have that conversation,” Kennedy said.

The Centers for Disease Control’s own website states: “E-cigarette aerosol generally contains fewer harmful chemicals than the deadly mix of 7,000 chemicals in smoke from cigarettes. However, this does not make e-cigarettes safe.”

The vape company Juul illegally tried to market its electronic cigarettes as a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes, earning it a strong admonishment from the Food and Drug Administration in 2019—another of the many health agencies which Kennedy now oversees.

No federally reviewed vaping product has been found to be less harmful than cigarettes. Studies have shown that vapes and e-cigarettes are just as dangerous—if not more so—than traditional cigarettes, because they can increase the risk of heart disease and limit blood flow to the heart. They also still contain nicotine, which is highly addictive.

While vapes may be considered preferable to cigarettes for adult smokers, that’s not who uses them: Children are, on average, nine times more likely to vape than adults, according to the World Health Organization.