Mitch McConnell Shares Second Photo, Says He’s Skipping Picnic

Senator Mitch McConnell’s office has finally addressed the lawmaker’s ongoing absence—insofar as it relates to his ability to chow down on some red meat at Kentucky’s annual Fancy Farm picnic.

“There’s no place I’d rather be on the first Saturday in August than with the good people of western Kentucky, feasting on pork and mutton,” his office wrote in a statement Monday to the Bluegrass State’s Hellbender Newsroom. “When I first attended forty-two years ago, Fancy Farm was a pretty lonely place to be a Republican. But, my, how times have changed. Today, western Kentucky is a conservative Republican sea of red.

“So I hate that I’ll miss the fun this year, but I’m sending my best wishes to the St. Jerome community for a successful picnic,” the message ended.

His team also released a new photo of McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao.

The Kentucky senator has been missing in action for more than a month after he was found unconscious in his Washington residence and rushed to the hospital on June 14. For weeks, McConnell’s office has refused to explain his extended hospitalization or elaborate on his eventual return to Capitol Hill.

The media blackout briefly ended on July 12, when the senator’s office shared a photo of McConnell sitting upright in a chair beside his wife, holding a copy of that day’s Washington Post sports section in his lap.

A statement released by his office alongside the image, written in the first person so as to suggest it was penned by McConnell himself, specified that while the 84-year-old had not broken bones, suffered a concussion, or had a heart attack or stroke, he had dealt with a “mild case of pneumonia” during his time in the hospital.

He did not offer a projection for when he might return to work, noting that he moved to a rehabilitation facility and is still “working closely” with legislative staff.

McConnell’s team has not provided any further explanation or evidence supporting McConnell’s improving health condition in the weeks since, despite demands from his constituents and local lawmakers.

On Saturday, West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito told independent journalist Nicholas Ballasy that she had spoken to someone the day before who visited McConnell and said that “he’s clear-minded, and he just needs to get stronger.”

President Donald Trump’s administration has found a new way to gut due process and fast-track deportation for asylum applicants.

U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, or USCIS, the agency that manages visas, green cards, naturalizations, and other aspects of the legal immigration process, published a new regulation Monday allowing officers to refer hundreds of thousands of asylum applicants directly to deportation proceedings without interviewing them.

The rule would scrap USCIS’s long-standing practice of offering interviews to asylum applicants already in the United States. The agency claimed that it had previously offered interviews despite there being “no statutory right to an interview or requirement to conduct one.” The rule would also remove references in Department of Homeland Security materials to a “right” to an interview and language asserting that asylum officers would review cases “in an interview.”

“This means many people will never get a chance to argue their case,” Aaron Reichlin-Melchick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on X Monday. In order to receive asylum, applicants must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country.

The filing states that the new rule will “more quickly place certain aliens into removal proceedings” with immigration judges at the Executive Office of Immigration Review, or EOIR. Once asylum applicants are passed to the EOIR, the cases that are deemed “legally deficient” may be pretermitted, meaning those applicants can be deported without a hearing.

No interview and no hearing? That sounds like a clear violation of due process—which the Trump administration has been angling to obliterate for more than a year.

In addition, the new rule would allow asylum officers to “determine that the alien does not merit a grant [of asylum] as a matter of discretion without first making an eligibility determination,” and would also stop requiring a letter communicating that the basis for referral of asylum should include an assessment of the applicant’s credibility.

The rule was published Monday, to be implemented Tuesday without prior warning or public comment period—and will likely invite a slew of legal challenges under the Administrative Procedures Act.

At least one American was cheering when the White House decided to drop bombs on Iran.

Previously unreleased documentary footage has put late South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham’s warmongering on full display, exposing just how gleeful he was when the country ignited the Iran war.

“Look what we’ve done here. I almost cried,” Graham says in one video clip, practically giddy.

“I talked to [Donald] Trump this morning, he’s jacked, he said, ‘Best thing I have ever done.’ He loves blowing stuff up,” the conservative lawmaker said at the time. “I mean, how long have we been pushing this?

“There were a lot of people inside that didn’t want to do it, so I had my challenges,” he added.

The footage was captured by British filmmaker Alex Holder, who had been granted remarkable access to film Graham since 2023. The footage is a part of an upcoming documentary that is currently titled “Lindsey’s Graham,” a reference to the senator’s personal perspective on his role in U.S. foreign policy.

“He would call what this was ‘a game,’” Holder told The Wall Street Journal, recalling that Graham had shared how bizarre he felt it was that a senator from South Carolina was closer with some Middle East leaders than most presidential administrations.

Graham reportedly agreed to the angle of the film, claiming that he wanted the public to understand his role in the Senate. Holder told the Journal that Graham had remarked how “cool this was.”

In another clip in which he expresses his joy with the interventionist strategy, Graham compared Trump to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Winston Churchill, likening the burgeoning Middle East conflict to World War II.

“President Trump, when he gets into the zone, he listens, he asks good questions, no tweeting. He … hasn’t tweeted much at all,” Graham said. “No drama, he’s been a great wartime president.

“I mean, they’re the right two guys to confront this evil,” Graham added.

In other recently released footage, Graham was captured phoning Netanyahu—whom he referred to as his “friend”—about a joint plan to lobby Trump to get involved in the conflict.

“We’re concentrating right now on Iran,” Netanyahu told Graham over speakerphone on a March 4 call. “If we tell Hezbollah that we’re going all the way, we threaten them, but if we actually do it, then they have no reason not to go all the way against us. And right now that’s not our interest.”

“That’s actually good counsel,” Graham responded from his Senate office, decorated with Trump merchandise. “I’ll put it out there as an idea; we can always go back to it.”

Yet the Iran war has done nothing good for America in the 21 weeks since it began. The conflict has so far killed at least 18 U.S. service members and wounded more than 600 others. It has also taken an enormous toll on daily life in the U.S., inflaming the cost of practically everything as shipping companies contend with rising oil costs.

Republicans are beginning to question the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as the Trump administration fails to achieve any of its stated goals in the growing war with Iran.

“I don’t have any confidence in him anymore. I think he’s all over the place—he’s accelerating the retirement or forcing out some of the most distinguished leaders in the DOD that we have,” frequent Trump administration critic and outgoing Senator Thom Tillis told The Hill. “I think he’s got a massive insecurity complex, he has a lack of experience in large organizations, he micromanages too much. He’s lost my confidence.”

Others spoke anonymously.

“I have heard out of the Pentagon that there’s a loss of confidence ... within the Pentagon. And of course then everyone here on the Hill hears those same concerns,” one Republican senator told The Hill.

“I think there’s a sense it’s taken longer than what we thought and that maybe our strategy didn’t factor in the Strait of Hormuz or [Iran’s] ability to be willing to hit their neighbors. I think there was some miscalculations maybe,” said another.

Others opined about the cost of the war, especially after Hegseth asked for $1.5 trillion for the DOD at a recent congressional hearing.

The entirety of Hegseth’s short tenure has been shrouded in internal strife and controversy. From his purging of top military leadership (which plenty of Republicans are still sour about), to his alcoholism, to his war on woke, the defense secretary has brought a frantic, aggressive approach to the Pentagon. This war will be a massive stain on any legacy that he has, and even Republicans seem to be realizing it.

President Donald Trump’s crusade to pass the SAVE Act just took a weird turn.

Trump took to Truth Social Monday to direct Senate Majority Leader John Thune to keep the chamber in session in order to pass a “full and deep throated SAVE AMERICA ACT.”

Sorry, a full and what now?

In his attempt to use an emphasized version of the term “full-throated,” Trump veered into an unintentional sexual innuendo (or possible Watergate reference).

What clearer indication is there that we live in a postliterate world than that the president of the United States doesn’t feel the need to be careful with his words?

Trump has repeatedly directed Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, but Thune has insisted that he doesn’t have the votes to pass the president’s signature voter suppression bill.

If passed, the SAVE Act would require people to present proof of citizenship to register to vote, as well as specific types of photo ID when voting, which could create barriers for married women, Native Americans, and anyone who has changed their name. It would also severely restrict mail-in voting and require states to submit their voter rolls to a federal database riddled with errors.

Thune is currently attempting to pass his third budget reconciliation bill that would contain $10 billion for election-related reforms, but Republicans remain divided.