Trump Threatens to Defund States That Don’t Make His Election Changes

The Trump administration is holding millions of dollars of Homeland Security funds hostage unless states agree to stop using electronic ballots and prove voters are citizens before they vote, CNN reports.

Trump is demanding that states carry out manual election audits at the administration’s direction, use their preferred system to verify citizenship, and promise to gradually end the use of electronic ballots—all things that could lead to actual voter fraud. States that rebuff Trump would lose 20 percent of their grants, which could be millions of dollars in security funds.

These grants help states prevent terrorist attacks, support infrastructure, and ready themselves for natural disasters. DHS has granted this funding to states for years, no questions asked.

But now, as the president approaches a potentially disastrous midterm, this funding is contingent on state governments completely changing their election apparatuses so that Trump can continue to delegitimize factual polling and push his baseless claims of voter fraud. This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has dangled funding above states’ heads to make them capitulate to its agenda, and it likely won’t be the last.

“I expect [the new requirements] will be blocked in the courts,” former Justice Department lawyer David Becker told CNN.

Former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard may have been taking orders on political decisions from Chris Butler, the leader of a group many former members have called a cult, according to a new investigation from The Washington Post.

So far, Gabbard’s allies in the Trump administration have been largely silent about the report that the person they placed in charge of the CIA, FBI, and NSA may have been taking directives from a man many former followers view as a cult leader.

As Gabbard is no longer a part of the Trump administration, perhaps her former colleagues feel no pressure to weigh in. But conservative commentator Meghan McCain defended Gabbard on X Sunday afternoon.

“What absolute unpatriotic vile trash this attack on @TulsiGabbard is. They wont cover her releases on Fauci or bio labs—both things that threaten the safety and wellbeing of the American people, but spend time and space vomiting this washed up nonsense anti-Hindu bigoted crap,” McCain wrote, referring to Gabbard’s release of documents “exposing” Dr. Anthony Fauci for supposed actions taken during the Covid-19 pandemic on Friday, her last day on the job.

Reporter Jon Swaine gained access to a trove of emails that appeared to show memos from someone within the Science of Identity Foundation, or SIF, directing Gabbard during her time in Congress. When Swaine compared the directives to Tulsi’s voting record, legislative proposals, and media statements, he found “unmistakable parallels.”

Butler’s followers practice a form of Hinduism known as Hare Krishna, and his politics when he founded SIF did not belong squarely in one political camp: “He inveighed against Muslims, homosexuality, gun control and public schools, but also promoted environmentalism and anti-capitalism,” the Post reported.

After two months with no answers from Gabbard’s office, Swaine informed Gabbard that he would be proceeding with the story. Two days later, Fox News reported that Gabbard would be stepping down from her position as director of national intelligence.

On her last days in office, a spokesperson gave a statement: “The attacks on Director Gabbard’s faith and loyalty are not only false—they are a blatant example of anti-Hindu bigotry.”

Anyone caught tampering with Donald Trump’s Washington-area restoration projects could be on the hook for significant prison time.

The president warned against vandalizing the monuments and statues that his administration has been trying to clean ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. In a Truth Social post, Trump pledged that anyone caught will face up to 10 years in prison.

“Please remember that there is a 10 year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things—Which will be fully enforced!” Trump wrote Monday.

Federal law already stipulates that damage to federal property exceeding $1,000 is classified as a felony. As such, the penalties are steep, possibly including a significant fine, a prison sentence of up to 10 years, or both. Those charged with damaging federal property to the tune of less than $1,000 could face a misdemeanor and a one-year prison sentence.

At least five people have been arrested for allegedly vandalizing the pool as of Saturday night, a Trump administration official told CBS News. Five citations were also issued, bringing the grand total of post-renovation citations issued at the site to 14.

In the same message, Trump claimed that the lining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool had suffered a “300 foot long gash”—an inexplicable jump from the 250-foot-long damage he described Saturday.

He added that “chemicals have been illegally placed in the water” and complained about the “8647” etched into the National Mall. He further suggested that the damage was “probably inspired by Dirty Cop, James Comey,” who was indicted by a federal grand jury in April for sharing a photo of seashells to his Instagram account that similarly spelled out “8647,” a tagline that Trump and his allies have claimed insinuates a desire for Trump’s death.

Trump’s Treasury Department says that Iran can now sell oil, stripping decades of U.S. sanctions policy in one fell swoop—and it’s not clear that the United States is getting anything in return.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Monday that the U.S. had issued a “temporary 60-day general license authorizing the production, delivery, and sale of Iranian oil,” in return for the country’s commitments to maintaining “free and open transit” in the Strait of Hormuz and admitting inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The sanctions waiver allows Iran to sell its oil at market rate, after decades of having to sell it at a reduced price to buyers willing to dodge U.S. sanctions. Shockingly, the license also allows U.S. refineries to import Iranian oil—reversing more than 40 years of strict sanctions, and giving Iran’s economy a much-needed boost.

Sanctions relief is a key component in the 14-point memorandum of understanding between the two countries. Iran has yet to actually deliver on any of its promises, however.

Over the weekend, the Iranian military briefly shuttered trade through the Strait of Hormuz, citing Israel’s continued ceasefire violations in Lebanon. While Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that mediators delivered “major progress” to end the fighting in Lebanon, neither Hezbollah nor Israel is an actual signatory to the U.S.-Iran peace deal. It’s still unclear how that conflict will resolve, meaning the future of the entire agreement, and the strait, remains unclear.

As for visits from IAEA inspectors, the memorandum of understanding asserts that Iran will commit to “down-blending” its enriched nuclear material under the agency’s supervision, but details on that process have been scarce. Notably, the supposedly major milestone is something the U.S. had already won—and then lost under Trump.

Outbound Senator John Cornyn is getting candid about Donald Trump.

The former GOP whip described the instability fueled by the White House in a Semafor interview published Monday, lamenting about how talking with the president isn’t “particularly useful” because “he can and will” flip his opinion depending on whoever he last spoke to.

“The president seems to revel in chaos, which is so different from any other leader that I’ve ever seen. I don’t know about you, but I like to minimize the chaos in my life,” Cornyn told Semafor. “He just seems to revel in it. We’ve seen even recent evidence of it on the [Director of National Intelligence].”

Cornyn was referring to Trump’s sudden cancellation of a Senate confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton—the president’s pick to run the Office of National Intelligence—via a Truth Social post mere hours before the hearing was set to take place last week.

Trump tapped Clayton earlier this month as DNI in place of acting Director Bill Pulte.

Pulte’s leadership had sparked a maelstrom in Congress. Democrats refused to renew FISA Section 702, a federal spy bill, until Pulte was replaced by someone with legitimate national security experience, as the position requires by law.

Clayton, unfortunately, does not satisfy that requirement either. The former law professor and corporate crisis management counsel has no national security experience to bring to the role.

Yet rather than quell the furor, Trump opted to make the stalemate even more difficult for his congressional allies by tacking his dead-in-the-water voter ID bill, the Save America Act, onto negotiations over the lapsed spy statute.

Cornyn has become a more vocal critic of the president since he lost his primary runoff last month to Trump’s preferred candidate, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Cornyn’s race was a gamble and a loss for the GOP: One of the party’s most prolific fundraisers, Cornyn had done much to support other Republican candidates over the course of his 24-year legislative career, bringing in more than $400 million for auxiliary races. The lost cash flow, paired with Trump’s waning popularity and dismal economic offerings, could bode poorly for the Republican Party come November.