Trump to Recite Eyebrow-Raising Scripture at Bible Reading Event

President Trump is not exactly known for his piousness, but one Bible verse seems to have struck his fancy—probably because it was used by evangelical Christians to sing his praises while they tried to overthrow the government on January 6, 2021.

In the Old Testament, 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 consists of God responding to a prayer from Solomon, a king of ancient Israel. God promises Solomon he will bless his temple as long as he and his people are not idolaters. As is common in the Old Testament, God’s message rings with both love and fury. But verse 14, the most famous bit of the passage, is positive: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

As part of a weeklong “America Reads the Bible” event organized by the White House and the election-denying evangelical group Christians Engaged, a prerecorded video of Trump reading 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 will air at 6 p.m. E.T. Tuesday evening. Remember the separation of church and state? That was nice.

Trump reading the passage will thrill what’s left of the January 6-ers. During the Capitol riot, Couy Griffin—the founder of “Cowboys for Trump,” a fan club that rode on horseback to Trump’s political events—recited verse 14 over the crowd.

According to the Christian Post, Trump’s association with the passage goes back even further, to 2016. After his unlikely election win, evangelist Anne Graham Lotz—Billy Graham’s daughter—used the verse to claim that God had responded to America’s prayers.

MS NOW opinion writer Ja’han Jones called it “predictably Trumpian” that the president is reciting a passage that his supporters have used to heap praise on him. As the passage is over 400 words long, The New Republic would also like to note that it will be interesting to see whether Trump gets bored halfway though and starts talking about something else.

The Southern Poverty Law Center revealed Tuesday that it’s under criminal investigation by the Justice Department for previously using paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.

The nonprofit public interest group announced that the Trump administration appears to be preparing a case against the organization or some of its employees.

“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press.

Fair said that the SPLC had used informants to monitor the threat of violence inside extremist organizations, and had frequently shared its findings with local and federal law enforcement.

“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”

Fair said the organization “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.”

The Montgomery-based SPLC was founded in 1971 in order to combat white supremacist groups after the Civil Rights Movement. Yet the nonprofit’s purview has been nationally perceived (at least on the right) as less and less acceptable, in the decades since. Conservative politicians and personalities have railed against the advocacy group, claiming that its work—which includes tracking extremist groups, promoting tolerance, and kneecapping bigotry through litigation—is inherently partisan and overly leftist.

FBI Director Kash Patel announced last year that his agency would sever ties with the SPLC, ending a long-standing research arrangement between the nonprofit and the federal government.

The investigation has reignited concerns that Donald Trump is trying to weaponize the Justice Department during his second term, morphing the agency into his personal law firm in order to harm or attack his dissidents and critics.

The Department of Homeland Security is developing smart glasses that would allow federal agents to identify people using biometric data in real time.

Journalist Ken Klippenstein, citing a budget request from DHS, reports that these devices, slated to be released by September 2027, build on existing smart glasses that include video cameras and heads-up data displays. They would be able to pull from the federal government’s archives of biometric data, including facial recognition, walking gait, and iris patterns.

“The project will deliver innovative hardware, such as operational prototypes of smart glasses, to equip agents with real-time access to information and biometric identification capabilities in the field,” the document states. The project is under the DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate, the agency’s research and development division.

While the budget request says the glasses are necessary for immigration enforcement, a DHS attorney anonymously told Klippenstein that “it might be portrayed as seeking to identify illegal aliens on the streets, but the reality is that a push in this direction affects all Americans, particularly protestors,” adding that the technology behind the glasses has applications for general government surveillance in addition to immigration.

These glasses would give federal agents the Orwellian ability to identify anyone within their line of sight, especially if people are on any of DHS’s many watchlists. The glasses would be only one more addition to the rapidly expanding surveillance state under the Trump administration, which is collecting massive amounts of data on people and organizations in the U.S.

The federal government is gathering this data with the help of contractors like Palantir, a company with a disdainful view of democracy whose apps help Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents map out deportation targets and utilize AI to find them. ICE itself is also putting together a team focused on monitoring social media to find people to deport. Will Congress rein in this infringement on basic freedoms and liberties, or will they remain mostly silent?

President Donald Trump doesn’t sound particularly optimistic ahead of peace talks with Iran.

Speaking on the phone to Joe Kernan of CNBC’s Squawk Box Tuesday morning, Trump signaled that the U.S. was ready to resume attacks if negotiations with Iran were unsuccessful.

“Well, I expect to be bombing, because I think that’s a better attitude to go in with, but we’re ready to go. I mean the military is raring to go,” Trump said.

Asked if he planned to extend the ceasefire if talks were unsuccessful, Trump replied: “I don’t want to do that. We don’t have that much time.”

None of this sounds like what someone who is expecting a deal would say. And Trump’s vow for more violence comes after administration officials revealed that the president’s comments have hurt negotiations with Iran.

The U.S. nearly upended peace talks Monday after it seized a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has demanded the immediate release of the cargo ship and vowed retaliation. Iran has reportedly told regional mediators that it still plans to send a team of negotiators to Islamabad Tuesday, but Tehran has refused to publicly confirm that the country will come to the table.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned Monday night that Iran was also ready to resume fighting. “We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats, and in the past two weeks, we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield,” he wrote on X.

Donald Trump appears to have finally lost one of his most influential supporters.

Ex–Fox News host Tucker Carlson disavowed the president Monday night during an interview with his brother, Republican operative and speechwriter Buckley Carlson, telling his audience that he was “sorry for misleading people” and that he regretted supporting the MAGA leader over the last decade.

“You wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him. I mean, we’re implicated in this, for sure,” Carlson said to his brother on The Tucker Carlson Show. “It’s not enough to say, ‘Well I changed my mind,’ or like, ‘Oh this is bad, I’m out.’ It’s like in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now.

“So I do think it’s like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be, and I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people, and it was not intentional. That’s all I’ll say.”

Carlson was once the largest figure in conservative media, ranking head and shoulders above his competitors during his primetime evening slot at Fox. But his sympathies for Trump after the 2020 election—and his penchant for demeaning women and minorities—cost him his throne. Carlson was fired by the network in 2023, shortly after Fox settled a historic $787.5 million lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for spreading baseless conspiracies that the company had rigged the election in favor of Joe Biden.

Trump has broken up with several major MAGA acolytes in recent weeks over their unfavorable responses to the Iran war, including Alex Jones, Candace Owens, and another famous former Fox News host, Megyn Kelly.

The president boosted a video on his Truth Social account over the weekend that urged viewers to stop questioning his decisions. His disavowed media supporters—Carlson included—were plastered all over the clip, framed as individuals that need to “shut the fuck up.” It was the second time that Trump had shared the video; he previously posted it to his account in January. Nonetheless, it has taken months of repeat public abuse for his supporters to question their loyalties.

President Donald Trump’s addiction to social media posting is hurting negotiations with Iran.

Talks last weekend seemed to be going well, with a deal close to being reached. But then, Trump went online and claimed that Iran had agreed to specific provisions, such as handing over all of its enriched uranium, making similar comments to reporters over the phone. Iranian negotiators then publicly denied those claims and announced they weren’t preparing for more talks, saying that the U.S. was unserious.

Unnamed Trump administration officials told CNN that Trump’s posts and statements to the media have had a negative effect on efforts to end the war with Iran, fueling mistrust from the Iranian negotiators.

“The Iranians didn’t appreciate POTUS negotiating through social media and making it appear as if they had signed off on issues they hadn’t yet agreed to, and ones that aren’t popular with their people back home,” one person who was familiar with the negotiations told the news outlet.

Trump’s remarks in the press didn’t help, either. To Bloomberg, he claimed that Iran had agreed to an “unlimited” suspension of its nuclear program, and he told CBS News that Iran had “agreed to everything” and would remove its enriched uranium with help from the U.S. In an interview with Axios, he said, “I think we will get a deal in the next day or two,” with another meeting “probably” coming on the weekend.

Whether any of these details were true or not, airing them out in public before an agreement was reached was not wise, and probably gave the Iranian government less of a reason to take the U.S. in good faith. But don’t expect the president to change anytime soon. On Tuesday, he threatened to resume bombing Iran, just as Vice President JD Vance was expected to leave for peace talks in Pakistan.

“I expect to be bombing. The military is raring to go,” Trump said on CNBC, setting a deadline for a peace deal to be reached in the next 24 hours.

Donald Trump’s scandal-plagued labor secretary resigned Monday, the White House announced.

“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the Administration to take a position in the private sector. She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives,” White House spokesman Steven Cheung said on X.

Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling will take over as acting department head, according to Cheung.

Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure was brief but tumultuous. The secretary was accused of having an affair with a member of her security detail, asking staffers to buy her alcohol at all hours of the day, and misusing government funds—including to throw herself a birthday party.

Chavez-DeRemer also reportedly specifically asked younger female staffers to keep in touch with her husband and father. People familiar with an investigation by the department’s inspector general told The New York Times that Chavez-DeRemer told the young women to “pay attention” to the men.

Her husband was banned from Labor Department grounds after he allegedly assaulted two female staffers.

The writing may have been on the wall for Chavez-DeRemer. After unceremoniously firing ex–Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump was apparently on the warpath against his own Cabinet. An administration official anonymously told Politico at the start of the month that Trump was “very angry” with his advisers and was looking to move some of them around or even ax them entirely.

Chavez-DeRemer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were at risk of losing their jobs “imminently,” three anonymous sources told Politico at the time.

As of publication, Chavez-DeRemer has not commented on her resignation. She is now the third woman to hit Trump’s chopping block, after Bondi and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Chavez-DeRemer was also one of the few people of color in Trump’s Cabinet.

Both Bondi and Noem were replaced by men: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has taken over the Justice Department for the time being, and former Senator Markwayne Mullin was sworn in as the Homeland Security chief in March.

This story has been updated.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles summoned dozens of Republican political consultants from across the country for a meeting Monday at the Waldorf Astoria, a person familiar with the plan told Politico’s Playbook.

The gathering of Republican operatives comes as the White House is developing its strategy and aligning the broader party apparatus to face November’s midterm elections amid Donald Trump’s rather unpopular “excursion” to the Middle East.

Former deputy chief of staff James Blair, who departed the White House earlier this month in order to run the president’s political operation, was also involved in organizing the meeting at the Waldorf.

“Taken together, the sessions underscore growing urgency inside the White House about the midterms and concerns around energy prices and cost of living exacerbated by the Iran war,” Politico reported.

Trump’s overall approval rating has hit a new low of just 37 percent, according to an NBC News poll Monday. Two-thirds of Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of inflation and the Iran conflict, which has upended global trade and sent energy prices skyrocketing.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright admitted Sunday that gas prices may not come back down until next year, leaving Republicans in a tough spot when it comes to seeking reelection in November. It seems that strategists in the White House are aware that there’s only so much spin they can do.

“The rhetoric around this stuff matters way less than the reality,” one person close to the White House told Politico’s Dasha Burns Monday. “It either will be or it won’t be. If we don’t see the $3 gallon of gas, we’re gonna get killed.”

Republicans are fighting over expelling some of their own members of Congress.

Representative Cory Mills, under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over allegations of assaulting women, soliciting sex workers, lying about his military service, and profiting from federal contracts as a member of Congress, has drafted a resolution to expel his colleague, Representative Nancy Mace, from Congress after she tried to expel him and three other members of Congress last week.

A source told NOTUS, which first reported the news, that the resolution would highlight an incident at Charleston International Airport in South Carolina, last year, in which Mace yelled at TSA agents and security officers, calling them “fucking incompetent.”

The resolution could bring up any other number of Mace’s scandals. The South Carolina representative is also facing her own House Ethics Committee investigation over allegations that she collected $12,000 in congressional reimbursement funds that she wasn’t eligible for, and ordered her staff to buy her alcohol late at night, clean her house, and promote her on forums as one of the “hottest women in Congress.”

The congresswoman took to X after news of Mills’s resolution broke, posting that he “lied about his military service, has been accused of beating women, has a restraining order against him, and has allegedly been stuffing his own pockets with federal contracts while sitting in Congress. As a survivor, I will always stand up and right the wrongs of others. He is only coming after me because he knows he’s next.”

Mace last week also targeted Democrat Eric Swalwell and Republican Tony Gonzalez, who ended up resigning rather than face expulsion resolutions from Congress. Swalwell faced numerous allegations of sexual assault and misconduct, while Gonzalez sent sexually explicit messages to two aides and had an affair with one who later committed suicide.

The fourth representative in Mace’s crosshairs is Democratic Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who faces an expulsion vote this week over allegedly misusing Federal Emergency Management Agency funds.

For now, the infighting in the Republican caucus undermines their already razor-thin control of the House and makes it appear that petty squabbling is taking precedence over serious ethical issues.

The man who just committed the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. in the past two years had a previous weapons conviction—so how did he get his hands on another gun?

Shamar Elkins, a 31-year-old father, shot and killed his seven children and their cousin Sunday in Shreveport, Louisiana. The victims’ ages ranged from three to 11, CNN reported. He also critically injured two women: his wife and the mother of the eighth child.

But in March 2019, three years after he finished a seven-year stint in the Louisiana Army National Guard, Elkins was arrested for firing a 9-millimeter handgun 300 feet away from the fence line of a school where children were playing outside, KTBS reported.

Elkins was charged with illegal use of weapons and carrying a firearm on school property. He pleaded guilty to the illegal weapons charge, and the second, more serious charge was dismissed. Elkins was placed on probation for 18 months but walked away without a permanent firearms ban.

Elkins was also charged with driving while intoxicated in 2016, CNN reported.

The state of Louisiana has a 10-year ban on firearm possession after certain felonies—crimes of violence, sex crimes, drug crimes, burglaries, for example—but not all felonies. The crime to which Elkins pleaded guilty sat beneath this legal threshold.

Because Elkins’s 2019 conviction for illegal weapons use only resulted in probation, his record fell short of the legal threshold for a permanent firearms ban under U.S. federal law, according to the International Business Times. Elkins was able to legally own a firearm again after his probation ended.