President Donald Trump is pushing Republicans to hold a midterm election convention, and Politics USA founder Jason Easley says Democrats could not hope for better timing.

“Donald Trump is the least popular president in the history of polling. Republicans who are running for House and Senate seats need to be getting as far away from this orange anchor as they can,” Easley wrote. “[But] no matter how much Republicans think that they can hold an election where Donald Trump is not the issue in their states and districts, the president continues to hijack the midterm election and make it all about himself.”

Trump unleashed his latest idea coming off of the failed Great American State Fair with its low turnout, posting on Truth Social: “BIG NEWS! For the first time ever, the Republican Party will hold a MIDTERM CONVENTION. It will be in Dallas, Texas — One of my favorite places in the World. It will be fantastic!”

Trump further promised the event will be “a truly Historic Event” to celebrate “the GREAT AMERICAN COMEBACK.”

But Easley said Trump will likely ‘rub his stink of failure all over” Republican candidates from coast to coast by holding the convention, and the president’s claimed success on “no tax on tips” and “stronger borders” won’t gather much interest among the U.S. voters watching the convention. Furthermore, Trump’s stated claim to “lower costs and real affordability” will likely draw confused looks or outright anger among Americans who are facing rising inflation costs leading into the November midterms.

But this, like many things, said Easley, comes down to appeasing Trump’s ego.

“Trump is going to hold a convention so that he can be the center of attention,” said Easley. “Trump is apparently also going to try to play concert promoter again after the Great American State Fair debacle, so prepare yourself for multiple performances of Proud To Be An American by Lee Greenwood. … Just in case you were curious, Trump is dedicating two nights to sinking Republican chances in the midterm election”

Recent polling reveals Trump’s numbers are about as flat as they can fall, even with MAGA diehards sticking to him regardless of economics. And Republicans themselves are terrified of the upcoming November elections, and the likely drumming it will bring as voters work to reign in Trump’s various power grabs.

“Trump wants every American to know that he is on the ballot in November,” said Easley, adding that the idea of a Republican midterm election starring Trump will be “a dream come true for Democrats.”

“The midterm convention will be a fiasco, and it will give Democrats what they want,” he said. “Donald Trump will be front and center in voters' minds before the election in November.”

In 2020, when MAGA candidate Tommy Tuberville was running for the U.S. Senate, he said he would “donate every dime” he made in Washington to Alabama veterans. Six years later, as he runs for Alabama governor, he won’t confirm to state reporters if he kept that promise.

“Tuberville’s office declined to answer questions from AL.com this week about whether he has donated his $174,000 Senate salary to charity,” the paper reports, adding the closes Tuberville came to addressing the issue was admitting that he made the promise.

“Yes, I said that in 2020. My dad was a veteran who served in World War II and died while on active duty at age 53. That’s why I have a foundation that supports veterans,” Tuberville said in an email statement to AL.com on Monday.”

The Tommy Tuberville Foundation was initially set up in 2014 to support veterans, but AL.com reports The Lagniappe Daily newspaper in Mobile reported that the foundation’s treasurer said he had received a personal promise from Tuberville that he would donate his salary, but that he didn’t know if that promise has been carried out.

“Coach has to live with that himself, I know what he said and I know what he promised -- me and the people heard that,” Chester McKinney told Lagniappe. “I’m not trying to cover for him.”

Additionally, AL.com reports Tuberville’s foundation appears dormant.

“Its website domain is unused. A Facebook page is inactive. An email address listed for the nonprofit bounced back this week,” the AL.com reports. “In its most recent tax filing, the foundation reported $23,950 in revenue in 2024, according to publicly available documents. It reported spending $81,775 in grants and other expenses, drawing down on its assets.”

In 2024, AL.com reports the organization gave grants to some veterans groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Alabama, Three Hots and a Cot and Still Serving Veterans. It also gave $15,000 to Dovetail Landing, a project that aimed to build a residential community for veterans but was disbanded in 2025.

Tuberville may have donated money to other charities, but his staff declined to name them.

AL.com reports the controversial Tuberville shared redacted versions of his Alabama tax returns with the state Republican party earlier this year, showing that in addition to his $173k Senate salary, Tuberville has also reported income from stock and investment holdings, putting his net worth has been around $4.5 million, according to estimates.

Tuberville will face former Sen. Doug Jones on the ballot in November.

MS NOW analyst Steve Benen said if there’s any kind of phrase for the overpriced corruption plaguing DC under the second Trump administration it would probably contain the words “no bid.”

“Those looking for a simple phrase to help summarize Donald Trump’s second term could do worse than ‘no-bid contract.’ Indeed, it has been difficult to keep up on all of the assorted projects championed by the president that have bypassed the normal bidding process the federal government has relied on for many years,” said Benen. “Reflecting Pool renovations? No-bid contract. Applying gold-toned coating to horse statues by the Lincoln Memorial? No-bid contract. Repairing ornamental fountains in Lafayette Park? No-bid contract.

And now comes Trump’s White House ballroom project — formerly a $200 million project allegedly funded by Trump’s allies and financiers but now but now creeping up to a $500 million hulk.

That, too, is now a no-bid contract, said Benen, even as its price keeps growing, according to a report from The Washington Post. The confidential contract went to Maryland-based Clark Construction, the same company Benen said Trump also awarded a no-bid contract to for the Lafayette Park project.

According to the Post, Trump was “directly involved” in negotiating project details, using the White House budget for Office of the Executive Residence, which Benen said typically covers spending on things like furniture and routine repairs. But according to the documents obtained by the Post, Trump routed a massive no-bid contract for the president’s ballroom through this office, which appears to exempt it from rules “that require federal agencies to solicit competitive bids and disclose details to the public.”

“So let’s take stock,” said Benen. “Trump destroyed the East Wing after saying he wouldn’t. He said the ballroom would cost $200 million and taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay a dime, only to have the price tag balloon, with evidence showing taxpayers on the hook for more than half the project’s costs. It’s against this backdrop that the Post reported that Trump also personally helped negotiate the terms of a no-bid contract for a business he likes, running it through an office that allowed him to circumvent competitive contract rules.”

Benen cited a New Republic argument that, “The lack of a bidding process means that the government, and by extension, taxpayers, could easily be overcharged by contractors, and the rushed projects mean that the work could be shoddy and cause permanent damage to important landmarks in the nation’s capital.”

Reporters say Republicans are cringing privately when asked their response on President Donald Trump’s effort to upset the November midterms.

Semafor reporter Dave Weigel and New York Times reporter Tyler Pager stell MS NOW anchor Katy Tur that Republicans know Trump’s behavior is wrecking their chances in November, but they are powerless to either stop him or distance themselves from him, despite how much damage he does to them in the general election.

The problem for Republicans are more centrist voters facing them in the general elections, which are utterly unlike the hyper-conservative minority that delivered them through the Republican primaries.

Trump’s most recent example of publicly trashing his own reputation with independent November voters includes his sleepy rejection of the highly popular housing bill, which he has blocked to force a vote on his hyper-partisan SAVE Act, which will impose onerous new restrictions on voters.

“I don't know. I think it's so unimportant, when compared to the SAVE America Act,” said Trump in an Oval Office interview. “Compared to the SAVE America Act just about everything is a big yawn.”

“Republicans who would hope that President Trump would give them something to run with ahead of the midterms, are starting to realize it's not going to happen, and it isn't just Trump calling the largest affordable housing bill in a generation ‘a big yawn’. It's his insistence that affordability is a ‘Democratic hoax,’ or his declaration that he loves inflation. It's his admission that he doesn't consider Americans' financial situation as a factor in reaching a deal with Iran,” said Tur. “As the New York Times reports, for the GOP, a creeping panic is starting to set in.”

“This is not a new phenomenon that Republicans are concerned about the President and his impact on their electability. They feel that they're often caught because of how popular he is among the Republican base,” Pager told Tur. “They need his support and his endorsement to win their primaries and turn out their voters, but they're also concerned that he hurts them with independent voters, and particularly at this moment. I think it's best encapsulated by the housing bill.”

“This was a bill that members of Congress were standing on a stage bragging about, saying that this was their effort to tackle the affordability crisis that both parties are talking about,” Pager added. “Trump, as that press conference is going on, waiting for him to arrive, cancels it and says ‘you are not passing the SAVE America Act legislation’… so I'm not signing this housing bill. And then we see these images of them literally taking apart the stage that this press conference and signing ceremony was supposed to be held on.”

“This is a dynamic I've seen when I've talked to Republicans who are closer to the grassroots, is that it's not effective to run the election on ‘look at these amazing things we did for you in 2025,” said Weigel.

Rather than touting his victories, Weigel said Trump is harassing Republicans to fight harder for his failures, like the SAVE American Act, and in the process, he’s discouraging Republican voters from being enthusiastic about their own party leaders.

“[They don’t need to hear] that you are not working things that Trump wants you to work on. Why aren't you not working on it? That's what you start to hear from the kind of people they need to go knock on doors to donate money to,” said Weigel.

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MS NOW anchor Katy Tur finished off her “Moment with Katy Tur” Tuesday segment with a hearty laugh at Fox News and other Republican propaganda outlets struggling to sell the success of President Donald Trump’s 250^th celebration with its empty grass lawns and unpopulated stalls.

“One more thing before we go, [these are] moments that ask who are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?” Tur said, before unleashing a devastating supercut of the propaganda outlets lying to their viewers’ faces.

“We are celebrating already at the great American State Fair! Man, we've got thousands of people celebrating this birthday with us, Tommy” said one Fox on-the-ground anchor describing “thousands” of audience members who appeared nowhere in sight.

“As you've seen yourself, there is a big energy here on the National Mall,” said another Fox News reporter, describing “big energy” that clearly wasn’t. “The crowd sizes were smaller in the morning but it has picked up quite a bit.”

It hadn’t, according to footage directly behind the reporter.

“The State Fair is generating a lot of headlines and we have seen more people come to see it for themselves, including right to the Ferris wheel. You will zoom in here and see the crowds that are lined up for a chance to see Washington unlike any other way,” he insisted, gesturing to “crowds” positioned too far away from the camera to immediately discern as paltry.

“Well, it’s a great day, Larry. Good afternoon. Perhaps now the closing bell is here we're going to get more people coming out here now that work is done,” said another reporter, likely hoping beyond reason for a crowd surge unlikely to happen on the clean, empty grass field.

“Such a fabulous setting and on such a grand occasion it really is great,” said another anchor, discussing the setting — which was true: It was a great setting, just with no people in it.

“It really is great. People are having a great time here,” said his the co-host, referring to nobody in particular, according to footage on the screen.

“As you've seen here, people are there, they are showing up, they are here,” said Tur, mockingly. “They're just wearing their invisibility cloaks.”

The Great American State Fair kicked off on Wednesday night, June 24 with a speech by President Donald Trump on the National Mall in Washington, DC. However, attendance at the event has been sizably low.

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Christian conservatives are cheering last week’s announcement by the Texas Board of Education mandating readings from the Bible in the state’s K-12 literature curriculum starting in 2030, but a curriculum studies scholar says they appear to be forgetting that this puts Bible myths under a microscope.

Kids will be dissecting it like a tadpole, and squaring that with the reality that snakes don’t, in fact, talk. Nor do they hand out apples.

“The decision might not be the victory they think it is,” Nicholas Mitchell tells MS NOW. “If such stories from the Bible are appropriately taught as literature, then students will be encouraged to question and challenge Christianity’s holy text, not accept it and believe it without question.”

“As a curriculum studies scholar, I can see that the education board’s decision will create a predicament for schools and teachers that they will not be able to avoid: the inevitable outrage from Christian fundamentalists when the Bible is taught as something other than truth, that is, something other than religious instruction.”

Mitchell said some parents and politicians may be cheering this mandate now and he said he’s doubtful they’ll be as “gleeful when classroom implementation begins and teachers are made to treat the Bible not as a divine text but as a book.” And teaching the Bible as literature, rather than settled fact, will open it up to being analyzed the way any other book gets analyzed — complete with hard scrutiny of its philosophy, contradictions and shortcomings.

“Consider the Texas teacher in 2030 who is teaching high school sophomores excerpts from the Book of Job,” said Mitchell. “According to that story from the Hebrew Scriptures, Satan bets God that if God lets him inflict immense suffering on an innocent man named Job, then Job will curse God. A person teaching Job as literature would prompt students to think about what accepting that wager say about God’s character and Satan’s character? How does the story attempt to make sense of human suffering? A good literature teacher would also push students to think about why this character, God, let such awful things happen to a person as good as Job and then scolded him when he complained. A teacher who does that is likely to offend some people’s religious sensibilities.”

Some fundamentalist students and parents will inevitably see critical analysis of the biblical text as “tantamount to blasphemy,” said Mitchell because such engagement would challenge their belief that the Bible is “a flawless sacred text that leads to salvation.”

“Thus, the people who seem to be clamoring the most to bring the Bible into schools may be the least pleased if it’s taught in accordance with the law,” Mitchell said.

President Donald Trump has a plan to steal the midterm elections, argues The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Will Bunch, and he’s “screaming it out loud.”

Bunch writes that “nothing is scarier than when the 47th president speaks the truth about what’s really on his mind. Because the only thing that’s in Trump’s brain right now is stealing the November midterm election, by changing the rules in his favor…or worse.”

It should not have been surprising that Trump called the bipartisan housing bill he is now refusing to sign a “big yawn,” before he embarked on promoting his SAVE America Act legislation, which critics call a voter suppression bill.

Trump has made clear that that bill is his top priority, and has said so repeatedly. He’s even declared that if the SAVE America Act becomes law, Republicans will not lose an election for the next 50 years.

On top of the SAVE America Act are Trump’s executive orders, Bunch notes, which include effectively ordering an end to most mail-in voting.

“That effort suffered a bit of a setback Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can continue to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked before Election Day but arrive after the polls have closed,” writes Bunch. “But that will not stop the Trump regime from politicizing the U.S. Postal Service ahead of November.”

“Last week, Postmaster General David Steiner told Congress that USPS plans to not deliver mail-in ballots in states that don’t turn their voter rolls over to the Trump regime, a demand that many governors have resisted so far.”

Then there is Trump’s use of the Intelligence Community.

“The Trump regime has been signaling for months that it sees the U.S. intelligence community — spy agencies like the CIA — not as a tool for finding out what comes next in the Persian Gulf, or if or when China is invading Taiwan, or when Vladimir Putin’s Russian empire will fall,” says Bunch. “No, Trump wants secret agents who can creatively invent theories of foreign-born election fraud that would demand a strongman response.”

Bunch points to then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s appearance in Fulton County, Georgia, “to oversee an FBI raid of voting materials from the 2020 election that Trump, with no evidence, continues to dispute. That link made clear that the regime is looking to create links to foreign actors.”

Gabbard’s replacement, Bunch notes, is Bill Pulte, who has no requisite experience for the job. Pulte “showed up Monday and immediately began firing current staffers, with a rumored list of hundreds. The steep reduction in eyeballs on the world’s trouble spots is disturbing, but what’s even more alarming is the one person Pulte has hired.”

Bunch points to the newsletter SpyTalk, which describes Pulte’s new chief of staff, Christina Norton, as “a party-loving MAGA activist with no background in national security issues” who previously ran what she called “the largest election integrity operation the Republican Party has ever seen.”

He surmises that Pulte and Norton “will have one job: investigating fantastical ‘foreign election plots’ that will be cited to justify radical measures like sending troops to polling places, seizing voting machines, or worse.”

“Now Trump is not only staging another coup, but he is yelling about it, in your face,” Bunch concludes, writing that there is nothing Trump will not do to prevent Democrats from “investigating how he and his family have made billions of dollars off the American presidency.”

A Democratic strategist is warning Democratic voters against complacency, arguing that the “blowout” midterm many are expecting could vanish — and the fix rests with one key demographic.

Writing at The Hill, Celinda Lake says that Republicans still have a massive war chest, Trump loyalists are still winning big, and redistricting efforts are likely to benefit the GOP.

“Democrats should be worried,” says Lake. “Although President Trump’s approval ratings have been in the doldrums and inflation is angering MAGA voters, the fragile agreement with Iran might help Trump’s numbers and revive Republicans’ chances in November.”

Lake says that Democrats should not rely on Trump administration “missteps” to take back control of Congress in November, but rather must “swell” their turnout at the ballot box.

That turnout relies on women voters — and specifically, those women she calls “skippers” and “flippers.”

Skippers are Democratic voters who did not turn out in 2024. Flippers are disaffected Republicans who could choose to vote Democratic.

“Trump has a serious problem when it comes to women’s votes,” says Lake. Citing a recent New York Times-Siena poll, she notes that nearly two-thirds (66 percent) of women disapprove of Trump’s performance. Another poll showed Democrats with a 21-point lead among women over Republicans. And 60 percent of young women disapprove of Trump as well.

There were millions of Democratic skippers, says Lake. And even convincing a small percentage of flippers to vote Democratic could “swing the outcome” of the election, as they’re not just adding one Democratic vote but reducing one Republican vote.

“My team’s analysis of 2024 exit polls showed that if less than 2 percent of Trump’s White non-college educated voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had gone for Harris, she would have won the election,” Lake writes. “It’s likely that flipping a similarly small percentage of women would make the difference this year, even in newly-minted Republican districts.”

Other polls show “a majority of non-college-educated White Americans now disapprove of Trump’s performance.”

Lake warns that while Republicans ought to be frightened by these numbers, bad polling numbers do not automatically translate into votes for Democrats.

“We need to reach and persuade these women to turn out, especially if the Iran war actually ends and gas prices fall,” she writes. “Democrats must do the work to mobilize skippers and create flippers. If we want to lock up a victory in November, these women hold the keys.”

Acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli, attacked a CNN host live on air after she fact-checked him before closing his laptop to the interview.

"Boy! You're a left-wing hack!" Cuccinelli yelled at host Erica Hill when she nailed him on the myth of "birth tourism" by immigrants.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution upholds birthright citizenship, effectively striking down a key executive order issued by President Donald Trump in the first months of his second administration. Arguing before the court, the Justice Department used a similar talking point that people come from all over the world to the U.S. to have their children so that they will be American citizens.

Cuccinelli claimed that it's "a full-blown industry in this country."

A study by the Immigration Policy Institute using data from the U.S. Census showed that approximately 0.7 percent of births in the U.S. "could be attributed to birth tourism." They aren't certain whether or not they are, but that is the maximum amount it could be.

Hill said as much as she spoke over Cuccinelli, attempting to interrupt her.

"There aren't concerns about it," Hill explained before also cutting in that a constitutional amendment would require a heavy lift and that the American people overwhelmingly support birthright citizenship.

"We appreciate you taking the time to join us," she said with a smile.

That's when Cuccinelli yelled, "Boy, you are a left-wing hack."

Not missing a beat, Hill replied, "Wow, it's unfortunate that you felt the need to say that. I appreciate you coming on to answer fair questions."

A previous conversation between former CNN host Jim Acosta and political commentator Wajahat Ali mentioned that far-right personalities who appear on the network often get angry when they're fact-checked or someone pushes back against them. His infamous example was Scott Jennings, who Ali recalled whining to the network, "because I was too mean."

"It's an egregious double standard for right-wing conservatives and [Donald] Trump supporters. And it's always been this way with corporate media. They've (conservatives) always worked the refs," said Ali at the time.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, striking down Trump's executive order that would have denied citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants or those on temporary visas.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, ratified in 1868, guarantees citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States." The Trump administration had argued the amendment was misunderstood for over a century and was intended only for freed slaves' children. However, the Court reaffirmed that birthright citizenship is a fundamental constitutional right. The narrow 5-4 margin alarmed legal experts, revealing how close the Court came to dismantling 156 years of established citizenship law.

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Former First Lady Michelle Obama is excluding actress Cheryl Hines, who is married to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from a new HBO sketch comedy series celebrating the United States' 250th anniversary. And according to SILive, Hines is really angry about it.

Obama, journalist Tom Wrobleski reports on SI Live, made it clear that she doesn't want Hines to have anything to do with "Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America" — which Michelle Obama is producing with former President Barack Obama and stars comedian Larry David, well-known his work on the popular sitcom "Seinfeld" (which he created) and HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." The show is marking

An insider on the program told the UK-based Daily Mail that Michelle Obama was adamant about excluding Hines, declaring, "We cannot and will not have that woman on this show. She is not one of us."

Wrobleski reports, "The ban stings hard because Hines played David's wife for a dozen years on the wildly successful HBO program 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' The insider said that Hollywood fears the clout of the Obamas and that Michelle Obama 'can be a b– – on wheels when she wants."

According to an insider, Hines, "felt terribly hurt and emotionally injured" by Michelle Obama's decision.

"Cheryl's dream was to work with Larry again and be part of the cast of the new show," the insider said. "She firmly believed that the staunch anti-Trumper could put aside his negative political views about MAGA and Kennedy. But banning Cheryl was a command from Michelle that Larry could not go against — even if he had wanted to, for old time's sake — and mend their past close ties."

The insider added, "He always respected her as an actress. But Michelle's the boss. And you don't cross the boss, especially a powerful anti-MAGA force like Michelle."

Like Michelle Obama, David is an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump. The former first lady, however, is not disdainful of conservatives in general; she has often spoke highly of former President George W. Bush, making it clear that despite their political differences, she considers him a "delightful" man and really likes him as a person.

Although MAGA Republican and conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. is a member of the Kennedy family and a former Democrat — his father was Robert F. Kennedy Sr., and President John F. Kennedy was his uncle — he is drawing a great deal of criticism from Democrats because of his controversial views on medicine, including a strong opposition to time-tested vaccines.

Today, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s Day One executive order canceling the right to birthright citizenship. Good. That executive order declared that children born in the U.S. would not be considered citizens if their parents were living in the country illegally or were visiting the country on temporary visas.

The executive order never took effect. It was quickly blocked by multiple lower courts because it appeared to directly conflict with the 14th Amendment, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

The Trump regime appealed the lower-court rulings, contending that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship provision had been misunderstood for more than a century. The administration argued that the drafters of the amendment were focused on guaranteeing citizenship for the children of former slaves—and that the amendment was never intended to extend citizenship to the children of people who weren’t living in the country legally.

Trump and his Solicitor General, who argued this case before the Court, also said that narrowing birthright citizenship was necessary to prevent “birth tourism”—the practice of immigrants coming to the U.S. to give birth here and obtain citizenship for their child.

Trump has been vowing to try to change the law since entering politics in 2015, arguing the 14th Amendment was written specifically to enshrine the rights of freed slaves. His critics have countered that it was always designed to apply to the children of immigrants too. A 1898 Supreme Court decision confirmed that U.S.-born children of immigrant parents are entitled to American citizenship.

Today, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the deeply-rooted understanding that virtually everyone born on American soil is automatically a U.S. citizen was enshrined in the Constitution with the passage of the 14th Amendment in in 1868: “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in this land. We keep that promise today.”

In another era, this would have been a no-brainer. No constitutional lawyer I know thought the Court would decide otherwise. The lower federal courts had consistently and unanimously ruled against Trump.

Had Trump won, it would have probably caused panic among recent immigrants and their families. Although Trump has insisted his policy would apply only to future births, it was far from clear that the logic of any win for Trump wouldn’t apply retrospectively if a future president (JD Vance? perish the thought) wanted to go there.

What I find troubling is that the decision was 5 to 4 rather than unanimous or nearly so, as it should have been.

Only five of the nine justice ruled against Trump on constitutional grounds. Brett Kavanaugh dissented on statutory grounds; while agreeing that Trump’s executive order was unlawful, he argued that the court should have resolved the case under federal immigration law rather than the Constitution.

The Court’s three most conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito — dissented. Thomas wrote for the group: “The Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”

Pure and utter claptrap.

Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito are so far to the right of America that their views on this case and other matters should be presumed bonkers. Yet what’s particularly sobering is that Trump is only one justice away from having a Supreme Court majority that would have gone his way on this absurd reading of the 14th Amendment.

Clearly, the Supreme Court must be changed — either by expanding the number of justices or by invoking term limits on Supreme Court justices. The Constitution would permit both remedies.

Perhaps the best thing about today’s majority decision is that it’s such a direct repudiation of Tump, who has long taken a personal interest in the issue. During his 2024 campaign, he made curtailing birthright citizenship a key element of his immigration platform.

When the high court heard arguments on the case in April, Trump took the unprecedented step of showing up in person for the hearing, making him the first sitting president ever to attend a Supreme Court argument. For the Court to so directly reject his position today is surely a humiliation for Trump.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

President Donald Trump wants his name to go back on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and he's going to court to fight for it again with a brief some legal analysts are chuckling over.

Trump was forced to remove his name from the Kennedy Center after U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ruled that the statute establishing the building specified the name and enshrined it in law. While his name has been removed from the building, the giant tarp covering the front facade hasn't been removed. The judge made it clear that the tarp must be removed by June 31.

The court filing sings his own praises, saying that the trustee board, composed of his own members, decided that he has so much experience building things that his name should be on it.

"In addition, the President’s tremendous construction abilities would fix the building and restore it as the crown jewel of Washington D.C. and the envy of the World," it says at one point.

It touts his building talents again in the page that followed, saying, "[Trump] restored the Center’s financial future and donated his time, energy and unparallelled construction talents to save the Center. In recognition of these investments and his success in saving the declining facility, the Board voted overwhelmingly to recognize the president by naming the Center the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Lawfare legal analyst Roger Parloff highlighted the portion, noting the "brief [was] nominally signed by Asst. AG Shumate, but [sounds] markedly like Trump at points."

As former CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane recalled, the judge in one of the cases wants to see both parties in court on July 10

As Forbes reported on Tuesday, the filing also claims that removing Trump's name would result in the loss of millions of dollars. In fact, the Kennedy Center has already suffered significant losses.

"The financial harms caused by the injunction will never be recovered," the filing reads, "and the hundreds of millions in gifts will have to be immediately returned, or not received by the Center. A stay should therefore issue to protect the Center from financial ruin."

The reason Trump's administration gives is that the donations were raised under the name "The Trump-Kennedy Center," and now that the name is gone, the funding must be returned. The donors "were only willing to do so with the name 'Trump' on the Building."

The court filing also says that Trump was able to raise “$258 million from Congress” for the Kennedy Center and "hundreds of millions" more from private donors. Congress appropriated $257 million to the Kennedy Center.

The Kennedy Center is one of many places where Trump has attempted to put his name since his second term began. He sought to rename Dulles Airport after himself and successfully renamed the Institute of Peace to include his name. He has also put a photo of himself on special edition U.S. passports and 2026 national park passes. The Palm Beach International Airport is now also to be changing its name to celebrate Trump.

A Daily Beast reader commented on a story about the tarp that hasn't been removed and the mockery it drew this week from host Bill Maher. That person wrote, “Trump is just so petty about everything and to continue bringing attention to his embarrassment by not removing the tarps is so 4-year-old behavior.”

A former Minnesota state senator remarked, "This is all bulls—— and should be treated accordingly."

President Donald Trump, appearing not to grasp the legal effect of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion that struck down his executive order on birthright citizenship, just hours later floated a workaround.

“The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship.”

Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney responded to the president’s message, writing, “Trump incorrectly suggests Congress can act to limit birthright citizenship without a constitutional amendment, which the majority foreclosed.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the 6-3 majority, said, “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community.”

“The framers of the 14th Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” he added. “We keep that promise today.”

As The New York Times noted, Trump “wrongly asserted that ‘no long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary.'”

And as NBC News reported, a constitutional amendment would be required to change the law. That means a two-thirds majority in the House and the Senate — plus ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, noted that he was “very disappointed” with the ruling, as Alternet reported. But, contrary to Trump’s take, Johnson said that it is time to amend the Constitution over birthright citizenship, which he argued has been “grossly abused in recent years.”

Noting that Trump had attended oral arguments for the birthright citizenship case, journalist Gabe Fleisher wrote that “Trump has now responded to the birthright citizenship opinion, but does not seem to have understood its holding. Trump says that birthright citizenship could still be undone by statute, without a constitutional amendment, even though a 5-justice majority said the opposite.”

Forbes’ Mark Joyella responded to Trump’s claim, writing, “Ya gotta love how little Trump understands how this country works.”

Journalist Michael McGough asked, “Did he even consult with a lawyer before coming out with this?”

Prominent MAGA pundit Steve Bannon ripped into a Trump official he previously championed, per The Hill, chastising him for touting statistics that "nobody believes" and demanding he go further.

Bannon previously served as an influential top aide during President Donald Trump's first campaign and the early months of his first term, and remains a major voice in the MAGA movement by way of his "War Room" podcast. One of the second-term appointees that Bannon championed was FBI Director Kash Patel, who also emerged from the world of far-right podcasts.

Now, however, Bannon appears to be growing displeased with Patel's performance in the job, taking him to task for touting statistics about crime levels during a recent "War Room" episode.

"Kash, I love you brother, but I don’t want to hear any more statistics about how crime’s coming down, crime’s coming down, all that," Bannon said, adding that "nobody believes" what he is claiming.

"Nobody believes the crime statistics anyway, I’m sorry," he continued. "They still don’t feel comfortable walking down a street in Memphis [or] these other places, unless they see the National Guard... I don’t want to hear any crime statistics, I just don’t. It’s not going to move the needle, it’s not going to matter in any voting. Let’s have some urgency, let’s light a fire.”

Bannon further urged Patel to start getting "perp walks of the deep state" if he wants to make serious progress at the FBI. The Hill noted that this comment referred to the notion of an "unproven network of operatives within the federal government that supporters of Trump believe has sabotaged him for years."

The outlet also laid out a fuller picture of the crime statistics Bannon dismissed, which other experts have touted as signs of a remarkable nationwide downturn in violent crime, a trend that long preceded Trump's entry into the White House.

"Violent crime in the U.S. was down 9.1 percent in the U.S. from March 2025 to February of this year, according to the FBI," the outlet explained. "That includes robberies dropping by 19.1 percent, murders declining by 18.7 percent, rapes decreasing by 7.2 percent and aggravated assaults dropping by 6.9 percent. Property crime, meanwhile, dropped by 12 percent during the aforementioned time period, the FBI reported. Motor vehicle thefts decreased by 21.6 percent, while burglaries and larcenies dropped by 15.7 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively. Those declines followed a decrease in violent crime by 9.3 percent and in property crimes by 12.4 percent from 2024 to 2025, according to the FBI."