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The White House will not renew the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, effectively ending the country’s trilateral economic pact with its closest neighbors and allies.

“The United States did not agree to renew the USMCA in its current form,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement Wednesday, the deadline to renew the 16-year arrangement. Greer added that, despite the lapse, the USMCA would remain “in force pending resolution of these issues or until the Agreement’s termination.”

“The United States will continue to engage with Mexico and Canada to address the Agreement’s shortcomings and our trade deficits with these countries,” he said.

The USMCA will automatically expire July 1, 2036, unless all three member countries come to a new agreement.

Donald Trump initially lauded the deal when it was negotiated under his first administration in 2018 as a replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement. It went into full effect on July 1, 2020, and was designed to assist North American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses by creating a “more balanced, reciprocal trade” that would support job growth across the continent, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Since then, the U.S. has exported trillions of dollars worth of goods and services through the arrangement, though that was apparently not enough to prevent Trump from souring on the trinational accord.

Trump opted instead to impose unprecedented duties and tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods after he returned to office in 2025, tearing the deal to shreds in the process. On June 10, the president insisted that the U.S. should have a more level playing field with its trade partners, claiming that America doesn’t need its neighbors’ goods and services.

“We don’t need anything that Canada has. We don’t need anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have,” Trump told reporters at the time. “And they have to treat us better.”

Canada and Mexico are two of America’s top trading partners, cumulatively accounting for about a third of all U.S. exports, per the U.S. Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade statistics. Annually, the deal has provided the infrastructure for roughly $2 trillion in annual trade, according to data obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

But the lapsed trade agreement sets the stage for a larger debate over American economic relations that some economists estimate could take a long time to pin down. In the meantime, regional economies are expected to suffer from the lingering uncertainty.

Kelly Ann Shaw, who served as deputy director of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term, told the Journal that the U.S. will likely morph the deal into something that could look much different from the USMCA.

“That process will carry on throughout the rest of the summer, if not into the end of this year,” she said.

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Donald Trump has promised the July 4 fireworks display in Washington will be the largest in world history. There will be a parade, a 17-plane flyover, and a “spectacular Trump rally” featuring a lengthy speech by the president. The private company producing these festivities, Event Strategies, Inc., is no stranger to massive gatherings on the National Mall. Five years ago, the same firm helped organize Trump’s January 6, 2021, rally at the Ellipse, which preceded that day’s attack on the US Capitol.

Since Trump returned to the White House, Event Strategies, sometimes known as ESI, has received tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts from government agencies to organize anniversary events, often without completive bidding. The company also has a large contract with Freedom 250—a semi-private entity that receives public funding. Working under Freedom 250, Event Strategies is managing events including the July 4 rally, the ongoing Great American State Fair, the “Rededicate 250” prayer event on the National Mall, and other gatherings.

“This is typical behavior from the Trump administration, where everyone feels they have license to do sleazy self-dealing.”

Event Strategies won those contracts while one of its partners, Justin Caporale, holds a second position. Trump in late 2024 announced that Caporale would work for his “external operation” as “Executive Producer for Major Events and Public Appearances.” In practice, that means that Caporale is Trump’s “events guy,” a person familiar with White House planing for the anniversary said. Caporale helps Trump plan 250th anniversary celebrations and other public events, often attending meetings in the White House, the person said. His work has reportedly involved drafting budgets for anniversary spending.

Caporale is not a government employee. But his advisory role for the president’s “external operation” means he has helped to plan the same Freedom 250 festivities that the administration is paying Event Strategies—Caporale’s private firm—to carry out. Government contractors often advise federal agencies, but it is highly unusual, at least until now, for them to have regular presidential access, and to wield influence over decisions that could affect their own bottom line.

Caporale and Event Strategies haven’t been accused of breaking any laws. But critics argue that the set-up is vulnerable to abuse at a time when the president and his allies are routinely profiting from government power.

“It is clear that such a backdoor arrangement for White House advisory personnel creates the opportunity for the appearance of impropriety, the avoidance of which is a bedrock principle of all federal ethics law,” said Toni Aguilar Rosenthal, a program director at the Revolving Door Project, a nonprofit group.

“It’s just unethical,” said Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen. “This is typical behavior from the Trump administration, where everyone feels they have license to do sleazy self-dealing.”

Caporale did not respond to inquiries. The White House press office has previously said that the White House had no role in federal agencies awarding contracts to Event Strategies. But the White House did not respond to questions from Mother Jones about what exactly Caporale’s events work for Trump entails, or whether he influenced Freedom 250’s hiring of Event Strategies under its separate contract for massive DC events related to the anniversary.

Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for Freedom 250, defended the group’s employment of Event Strategies, arguing the company is uniquely suited to organize semiquincentennial events. “There are few firms in the world that can do this,” Alvarez said. “ESI is one of those firms. They do an excellent job at executing events.”

Donald Trump reads a note that Justin Caporale handed on stage at a campaign town hall at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center & Fairgrounds, 2024.Alex Brandon/AP

Freedom 250 won’t say exactly how much it is paying Event Strategies or any other vendors. The person familiar with anniversary planning said the firm’s profit comes from receiving a small percentage, around 3.5 percent, of the money it gets from Freedom 250 to stage events. That gives the company, and Caporale, an incentive to push for big, expensive celebrations—on American taxpayers’ dime.

Trump aides set up Freedom 250 as a limited limited liability corporation operating through the National Park Foundation, a nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. Based on that structure, Freedom 250 has asserted that, even as it spends taxpayer dollars, it does not need to tell Congress how it is using those funds.

“They have done a very clever job of hiding where the money is going,” said Alan Zibel, research director for Public Citizen. “The opaque nature of this arrangement makes public scrutiny all but impossible.”

ESI was launched 26 years ago by political operatives with experience in campaign advance work—that is, organizing candidates’ campaign appearances and other events. The company hitched up with Trump in 2015, helping to arrange his “golden escalator” campaign launch. It has since won steady work from all three Trump campaigns, and it’s been paid more than $67 million by political committees backing Trump, the New York Times has reported.

In late 2020, Turning Point USA and Women for America First—right-wing groups that had received funding from Julie Jenkins Fancelli, a Publix grocery heir—hired Event Strategies to arrange a rally Trump had announced for January 6 in Washington. With his infamous “Be there, will be wild!” tweet, Trump summoned supporters to assemble to oppose the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. The president worked up the crowd with false claims that he had actually won the election, and he urged them to march “peacefully” on Congress. More than 2,000 of his supporters ultimately stormed the Capitol.

Event Strategies was paid about $688,000 for work that included handling lights, staging, trash, and other details for Trump’s Ellipse rally, Mother Jones has reported. The firm appears to have spent a bit over $500,000 of that money to pay subcontractors.

None of the company’s employees were charged with wrongdoing. In a subsequent deposition, Caporale distanced the firm from the riot, which he called “a disgusting display that should’ve never happened.”

The House January 6 committee, in its final report released late 2022, cited a December 29, 2020 text in which Caporale told an associate that the Ellipse rally would be “a call to action to march to the [C]apitol and make noise.” That’s an indication Caporale was aware that Trump planned to urge the assembled crowd to advance on the Capitol and pressure lawmakers to allow him to remain in office.

“There are few firms in the world that can do this.”

Event Strategies continued working for Trump after January 6. And following his victory in 2024, Trump credited Caporale with helping to arrange “viral” events, including an appearance in which Trump was photographed behind the wheel of garbage truck. Caporale was also reportedly involved in a controversial incident in which Trump filmed a campaign video at Arlington National Cemetery. During the incident, another campaign staffer allegedly pushed aside a female cemetery employee who tried to stop Trump from using what many Americans consider a hallowed ground as a campaign backdrop.

Trump’s second presidency has provided a bonanza for the company, allowing it to shift from campaign events to federal government work.

After receiving less than $200,000 in federal contracts over the last decade, Event Strategies since last January has received nearly $40 million from the government, according USA Spending, a database of federal contract awards. That includes a $15 million contract the State Department gave the group in June for “event planning.” The department did not answer questions about the contract.

Wired has reported that most of ESI’s federal contracts are for anniversary events. And many were awarded with limited competition. According to the New York Times, five of the firm’s contracts were awarded without the agencies seeking competing bids. The agencies instead signed so-called sole-source contracts with the firm, citing rules that allow doing so in cases where there is an urgent need, or where the government determines only one specialized vendor can do the work.

When Trump took office, America250—a congressionally chartered nonprofit—had already spent more than a decade planning events to mark the country’s 250th anniversary. By statute, America250 is bipartisan and reports to a commission that includes lawmakers from both parties.

Still, America250 last year attempted to appease the new president. It hired a slew of Trump-linked operatives, including former Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, former Fox News pundit Monica Crowley, and Caporale. As Mother Jones first reported, the group also tapped Event Strategies to stage events, including the June 2025 military parade on Trump’s 79th birthday.

Rather than agree to anniversary celebrations that Democrats could swallow, Trump aides created Freedom 250.

But those efforts were insufficient for Trump. As he pressed for increasingly partisan and garish events to mark the anniversary, America250’s board eventually pushed back hard enough to interfere with the president’s ambitions. Rather than agree to anniversary celebrations that Democrats could swallow, Trump aides created Freedom 250—an alternative entity that allowed Trump to stage events that resemble his self-aggrandizing campaign rallies.

Freedom 250 soon tapped Event Strategies to function as its general contractor for anniversary events. That work has been is extensive. For instance, Freedom 250 has received $14 million in federal funds to dispatch a small fleet of so-called Freedom Trucks to travel the country, displaying AI-supported history lessons on the nation’s founders that were crafted by two conservative organizations, PragerU and Hillsdale College.

Critics argue the trucks offer a sanitized version of American history, ignoring Native Americans, women’s rights, and the impact of slavery. Freedom 250 didn’t directly hire staffers for the trucks. The people driving those vehicles, and interacting with visitors, work for Event Strategies, two of them told me at a recent event.

Event Strategies is just one of a host of firms and people with ties to the administration that appear to be benefitting from anniversary events. Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project, in a June report, said that the administration has awarded more $100 million in grants and federal contracts “to a network of politicized entities” run by Trump allies for the celebrations.

Freedom 250 also employs Campaign Nucleus, a company run by Brad Parscale, a former top Trump campaign official, to provide a communications platform. Parscale’s work for the group comes while he also works as a registered agent for Israel. LaCivita and former Trump fundraiser Meredith O’Rourke also have key roles with Freedom 250, though Freedom 250 says they are unpaid.

Freedom 250 is paying contractors, at least in part, with federal appropriations. It has reportedly received at least $79 million in federal funds. But the group is also raising money from corporate donors, including many with interests before the administration.

United Airlines was added to a list of Freedom 250 donors in April, a few months after the airline reportedly pitched the Trump administration on supporting a United merger with American Airlines, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibly and Ethics in Washington has noted.

Various companies have also donated to Freedom 250 while mounting lobbying campaigns to influence federal officials. They include Palantir, the much-maligned federal contractor lobbying to boost its image; defense contracting giant Northrup Grumman; RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, another federal contractor; and mining giant Mosaic, which is seeking federal approval to expand a waste pile in Florida. Penske Corporation, the trucking and auto company owned by Trump ally Roger Penske, gave to Freedom 250 while it also stepped up its lobbying on trucking regulations and electric vehicle legislation.

Then there’s the UFC fight that Trump hosted on White House grounds on his 80th birthday, which was organized as part of the 250th celebration. That spectacle offered UFC chief executive Dana White, a Trump donor, and Paramount Skydance Corp—controlled by Trump backers Larry and David Ellison—a valuable benefit, a lawsuit by the Public Integrity Project charged. The sponsors received “unfettered access to the White House and Lincoln Memorial to stage a private, for-profit sports event, with all the promotional and branding opportunities that accompany such access,” according to the suit, which was dismissed by a judge.

Another Freedom 250 sponsor, ScottsMiracle-Gro, sells the weed-killer Roundup, which includes glyphosate—a chemical that the EPA says is safe but that lawsuits have alleged may cause cancer. The company is helping fund Trump’s anniversary events while its lobbyists push the administration to limit pesticide regulation. In February, Trump signed an executive order calling for boosting production of glyphosate, a move that could help ScottsMiracle-Gro.

After the UFC fight trashed the White House lawn, ScottsMiracle-Gro said it was donating $1 million worth of labor and materials to restore the grass. The White House promoted a gushing Fox News story about this pledge, providing what looked like free advertising for the company.

Last month, various performing artists—including Young MC, Martina McBride, and the current Milli Vanilli—backed out of Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair over concerns about the event’s partisanship. So Trump turned the fair’s opening night into a rally, featuring a speech in which he celebrated his own record. And Freedom 250 booked country music signer Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI director Kash Patel, to perform the national anthem. Wilkins said she was not paid. But the televised event offered valuable publicity to Wilkins, whose music has so far won less notice than her relationship with Patel.

Happy birthday, America.

On Tuesday, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) held a House oversight hearing on MKULTRA, the notorious and failed CIA mind control program that is believed to have operated from 1953 to 1973. Luna heads the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets; the two witnesses called were authors who both wrote excellent books on different aspects of MKULTRA, and who used their testimony to call for the declassification of more documents related to the program.  But Luna, a Trump loyalist, muddied the proceedings by trying to link MKULTRA with her own pet conspiracy theories. She made it clear that she thought MKULTRA could still be active today, asking one witness if USAID, the international humanitarian aid organization dismantled by the Trump administration, “may have been used overseas” on “prisoners of war” to further the CIA program, a suggestion for which she provided no direct evidence.

As with a hearing she held on the JFK assassination last year, Luna implied that the MKULTRA hearing was merely the opening salvo, and that further revelations about bygone conspiracies would come. She said that she had “received reports” about “new MKULTRA boxes that were discovered,” and that the CIA was in the process of declassifying what was in those files, which appeared to relate to a “forgery program that was being housed under MKULTRA.” Luna promised that the documents would be released as soon as possible. 

“Why were they talking about COVID and Anthony Fauci at a hearing about MKUltra?”

It was obvious to knowledgeable observers that Luna would likely use the hearing to promote conspiracy theories. Mike Evans, an author at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, warned as much in a blog post earlier this week. (The National Security Archive is an NGO that focuses on government transparency and holds a large collection of declassified government documents.)

“Instead of focusing on the real and enduring secrets surrounding MKULTRA, there are strong indications that Luna will use the hearing as a platform to incite panic about vaccines, something she has done time and time again,” Evans wrote. “Luna’s preoccupation with the perceived dangers of ordinary vaccines was also what originally inspired her to call for a hearing on MKULTRA, according to a February 24 post to her account on X.com.”  

One of the authors called to testify was Dr. Stephen Kinzer, the author of Poisoner In Chief, a book about Sidney Gottlieb, the infamous chemist who headed the CIA’s Technical Services Division in the 1950s and 1960s and oversaw both MKULTRA and multiple attempts to kill or discredit Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The other was Tom O’Neill, author of Chaos, a book that documents his decades-long quest to determine whether Charles Manson or members of his murderous Family may have been subject to CIA experiments, served as FBI informants, or both. 

“I would urge this committee to fill out all the blank spaces in the documents that we have,” Kinzer said in his opening statement.

The task force, Kinzer added, “could also consider trying to determine whether some new incarnation of MKULTRA exists today,” arguing that some kind of mind control technology could exist that did not in the ‘60s and ‘70s. “In the many decades since then, there have been enormous advances in cybertechnology and artificial intelligence, in neuroscience; covert agencies may have access now to tools for mind control that Sidney Gottlieb could not even have imagined.”

The question of whether mind control “might now be possible under our new circumstances,” Kinzer said, “is something that has presumably occurred to scientists who work for secret services, including our own.” 

O’Neill also pointed out that a key promise of the 1977 hearings into MKULTRA and other governmental abuses was never fulfilled. “Committee members like yourselves,” he told the panel, “promised that the victims of MKULTRA would be identified, compensated and provided lifetime medical care. None of that ever happened.” Later in his remarks, O’Neill also argued that the documents that have thus far been discovered, “warrant a thorough reexamination of what this program accomplished, what Congress was told, and what may still remain hidden.”

Luna also noted during the hearing that more documents related to MKULTRA could and should be declassified, but presented an incomplete picture of what’s been released already. Documents about MKULTRA released by a Senate committee beginning in 1975. Two years later, in 1977, records containing far more detailed revelations were made public, including that the CIA had given drugs like LSD to unwitting civilians. One particularly infamous operation related to MKULTRA was Operation Midnight Climax, in which sex workers in CIA safehouses drugged patrons with LSD while CIA agents watched behind two-way mirrors. At least one person is known to have died as a result of MKULTRA: Frank Olson, a CIA scientist who was drugged with LSD at a CIA meeting in 1953 and either jumped or was pushed from a hotel window the same night. His death remains one of the most hotly-contested and infamous incidents in US intelligence history. (Gottlieb, meanwhile, the architect of MKULTRA, was allowed to retire quietly after his time in the CIA, living in rural Virginia, taking up folk dancing and breeding goats.)

During a 1977 hearing, the late-Sen. Edwardy Kennedy (D-Mass.), denounced MKULTRA’s bizarre and unethical pseudo-experimentation in stark terms. 

“The Agency itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense,” he said. “The agents doing the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers. The test subjects were seldom accessible beyond the first hours of the test. In a number of instances, the test subject became ill for hours or days, and effective followup was impossible. Other experiments were equally offensive. For example, heroin addicts were enticed into participating in LSD experiments in order to get a reward—heroin. Perhaps most disturbing of all was the fact that the extent of experimentation on human subjects was unknown.”  

The present-day hearing was considerably less focused, and no one involved—elected officials or witnesses—seemed able to answer the questions they were raising, particularly about whether MKULTRA or a similar program might still exist in some form. House Democrats also didn’t appear to know what to do with this strange event; they called as a witness a former NIH employee, Dr. Elizabeth Ginexi, a research psychologist who had no specific knowledge of MKULTRA, but who warned that the agency is being stripped, warped, and politicized beyond recognition. 

In response to Ginexi’s presence on the panel, Republicans grilled her about Anthony Fauci and the origins of Covid. “Do you believe the NIH or Dr. Fauci lied to the American people about Covid?” Rep. Nancy Mace, (R-SC) asked, in one representative exchange.

“No,” Ginexi replied. 

Mace questioned why Ginexi had been sent to participate in the panel at all, if she wasn’t an expert on MKULTRA. Ginexi responded that she’s an expert on human subjects research; not appearing to understand the connection, Mace moved on.

Ginexi also tried to tell the members of Congress that canceling government-backed clinical trials, something that’s happened repeatedly under the Trump administration, was harming people’s trust in science and in the government, and would make it hard to recruit patients for such trials in the future. Republican members of Congress seemed uninterested in discussing that idea, instead focusing repeatedly on Covid and Covid conspiracy theories.

“You just brought up trust,” shot back Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.). “Do you think the NIH has a trust problem, based on how they handled Covid?” 

“No, I do not,” Genexi responded. “I think the NIH is beloved by the American people because we know about the advances in human health and cancer treatment and heart disease and diabetes and all the health gains the research has produced.”

“Well I think you’re wrong, ma’am,” Crane responded. “I think the public has a serious mistrust issue with the NIH. Do you deny that the NIH tried to cover up the origin of Covid?” 

Mike Evans of the National Security Archive told Mother Jones on Wednesday that the hearing had proceeded more or less as he expected. 

“I think that the two main witnesses did their best to stay focused on what the committee can do to illuminate the historical record,” he told me in an email. “But l just don’t think that this is a sincere effort by the Task Force to do that. Why were they talking about COVID and Anthony Fauci at a hearing about MKULTRA?”

Evans was also confused by Genexi’s inclusion: “I also have to say that I found the decision by the minority members to call a former NIH staffer with no background in researching MKULTRA to be rather baffling. I still don’t understand why they did that.”

By far “the most underwhelming part,” Evans added, was Luna’s announcement that files will be reviewed related to an apparent forgery program. “What does that have to do with MKULTRA or CIA mind control efforts?” he asked. “That’s just basic intelligence tradecraft. My guess is that CIA felt like they needed to produce something to satisfy the task force, but if that’s the extent of it, then these hearings were a total failure.”

“In the end, the hearing didn’t break any new ground as far as I can tell,” Evans added. None of what was presented at the hearings, he said, “is really new. So why are they holding hearings now?”

In all, the hearing was a neat demonstration of current Republican priorities, their interest in promising disclosures that never really come, as well as their energetic embrace of any conspiracy theory that does not directly implicate Donald Trump. A neat, if accidental, encapsulation of what happened during the hearing was provided by Kinzer, the Poisoner in Chief author, near the end of the proceedings. 

“There’s a reason why conspiracy theories are so widespread in America,” Kinzer told Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). “It has to do with the dissociation between what we say we are and do, and what we really are and do. This has become more and more clear to more and more people. Therefore, they’re suspicious of nefarious dealings by the US and they’re also suspicious of other things that aren’t nefarious at all.”  

When it comes to the Supreme Court, no amount of treats is enough for President Donald Trump. Sure, they gave him blanket immunity from his myriad crimes, paving the way to retake office. Sure, they just gave him nearly unlimited power to reshape the administrative state and turn it into his personal fiefdom/dumping ground for exceedingly online groypers. And sure…

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A cartoon by Tim Campbell. Related |…

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In an appearance on Fox News, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin discussed whether immigrant women should be subject to some sort of pregnancy screening. The topic came up as Mullin and “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade discussed ways to follow up the Supreme Court decision reaffirming the right to birthright citizenship, which an executive order from President Donald Trump had…

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Small towns hoping to put on celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary have had to cancel or scale back their plans after the Trump administration cut their funding.

NOTUS reports that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashed funding for humanities nonprofit councils in states and territories across the country, many of whom planned to use those federal funds on history projects for the upcoming semiquincentennial. These official nonprofits were created by Congress to help make history and literature accessible to the American public.

Humanities councils in Ohio, West Virginia, Alabama, and Washington state all had to axe or scale back their anniversary plans, their leaders told NOTUS, and it had a ripple effect down to local historical organizations.

Musk’s DOGE initiative left these state organizations with just enough money to stay afloat last year. President Trump shifted millions from DOGE cuts towards his “triumphal arch” and “Garden of American Heroes,” preventing further funds from going towards local 250th anniversary projects.

Congress tried to remedy the shortfall by restoring funding for the state humanities councils to their normal levels for the 2026 fiscal year. But the Trump administration has refused to disperse that money, giving the councils less than half of what was appropriated, and told them not to expect any more.

That’s having a real impact in towns across America.

“It means that we are not able to do things that are extra, things that are bigger projects. A lot of humanities organizations would have had some incredible projects that none of us have been able to complete,” said Jessica Cyders, the executive director of the Southeast Ohio History Center. Her organization could have been a candidate for a 250th anniversary grant from Ohio Humanities, which distributes federal grants to the state’s local historical societies and community groups.

“There’s not really a lot of cultural infrastructure in West Virginia. Where most of the cultural work is done is in regional centers, community centers, small museums, county historical associations. So the people who really got hurt were those small organizations across the state,” Eric Waggoner, the head of the West Virginia Humanities Council, told NOTUS. They had planned to send their 250th anniversary funding to West Virginia University, local libraries, and small museums.

“I’m sad to say we had to scrap it,” Waggoner said. “Since we’re the only organization that does this kind of grant-making in West Virginia, without us, there’s really not much.”

“This is a pretty significant national event,” Cyders said. “Look, I’m probably not going to be alive for the 300th anniversary.”

Trump also took funding from America 250, the federal bipartisan organization that was supposed to be planning the semiquincentennial celebrations, and redirected it towards his own pet Freedom 250 projects. The president seems to have ruined what could have been amazing celebrations for the entire country with his ego, and who knows what could have been going on at the National Mall instead of a tacky “Great American State Fair.

Bill Pulte officially became the acting director of national intelligence less than two weeks ago, but already he has become the president’s battering ram.

Speaking with reporters Wednesday, Donald Trump said he saddled Pulte with the responsibility of declassifying “almost everything.”

“Bill (Pulte) is there just for a fairly short period of time. But while he’s there, I said you can declassify whatever you want,” Trump recalled. “I think that Bill will declassify. I told him you can declassify whatever you want.”

The comments followed an NBC News report that the White House task force planned to declassify thousands of documents from U.S. intelligence agencies in order to bolster Trump’s election fraud conspiracy from the 2020 presidential election.

Sources that spoke with CNN last month said that Trump views the Office of Director of National Intelligence as playing a “central role” in election security, both past and present.

Pulte, despite bringing zero national security experience to a job in which it is legally required, has impressed the president during his time in previous administration roles. In his prior role as the director of U.S. Federal Housing, Pulte found novel ways to legally pursue Trump’s political opponents.

“That’s exactly the type of stuff Trump wants in the person leading election security efforts. Bill will go there, unabashedly,” one unnamed source told CNN.

Trump noted Wednesday that Pulte will only temporarily fill the role, while his formal nominee, Jay Clayton, undergoes his confirmation process. That day could not come soon enough for some people within the Trump administration, who lament Pulte’s efforts to push his own agenda with the president.

“A lot of people absolutely detest Pulte,” one source told CNN last month.

FBI Director Kash Patel failed to properly disclose a six-figure stock purchase in a company that’s been contracted by the Justice Department, NOTUS reported Wednesday.

Federal financial records first reviewed by NOTUS showed that on November 21, Patel  purchased between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in MicroStrategy, a “bitcoin treasury company” that has done millions of dollars in business with the DOJ over the past decade.

Patel failed to disclose the purchase within 45 days of the trade, in violation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, also known as the STOCK Act.

In a letter to the Office of Government Ethics on May 26, Patel said the purchase had been “inadvertently omitted” from his financial disclosure. Two days later, in a letter to the Office of Government Ethics, Deputy Assistant Attorney General William Taylor said the purchase had been omitted due to a miscommunication. “I continue to believe that Director Patel is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest,” he wrote.

An FBI official told NOTUS that Patel’s late reporting was “not realized and unintentional.” However, Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, acting vice president of the Project on Government Oversight, told the outlet that Patel’s stock purchase disclosure is “absolutely” late under the letter of the STOCK Act.

“That’s violating the law—no other way to put it,” Hedtler-Gaudette said.

Patel has yet to face the customary $200 fine for his breach of conduct—and he probably won’t.

Centrist House Democrats are alarmed after realizing that democratic socialists can beat them in primaries outside of New York City.

On Tuesday, 29-year-old democratic socialist, lawyer, and Ethiopian immigrant Melat Kiros defeated 15-term incumbent Colorado Representative Dianna DeGette in a high-turnout election by an impressive ten-point margin, according to early results.

DeGette is a longtime member of the Democratic establishment and was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. But even with her progressive status, her support from dark money corporate super PACs and pro-Israel PACs, as well as her staunch support for Israel, made her particularly vulnerable to an attack from a candidate like Kiros—who was fired from her job over a social media post criticizing law firms’ support for Israel. Yet establishment Democrats still seem to be stunned by DeGette’s loss.

“One more case in the growing dynamic of performative politics,” an anonymous House Democrat told Axios. “Diana was an excellent representative with seniority—but the style of someone younger and more outspoken has become more attractive to that cohort of motivated urban left voters.”

BREAKING: Rep. DeGette gets heated with a constituent pressing her on why she voted to send bombs to Israel:

"If this the only issue that you care about is this issue, then you should not vote for me"

DeGette, who's 68, is facing a primary challenge from @MelatKirosCO. pic.twitter.com/sGEiqDPfOl

— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) March 19, 2026

Another senior House Democrat called it a “wake-up call.”

“I told everyone that would listen in 2024, that Trump winning was like manna from heaven to DSA,” another told the publication. “That DSA is … winning some safe seat primaries with these young white college-educated voters is just no shock. It’s literally their entire playbook.”

But Kiros’s supporters point to the will of the voters, not a greater playbook.

“If DeGette didn’t deserve a primary, Denverites wouldn’t have elected Melat by 10 points,” Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi told Axios. “All this outrage proves is the Democratic establishment’s contempt for their own voters.… It’s time for the party to catch up to its own base who are no longer interested in politicians who call themselves progressive but are bankrolled by corporate lobbies and AIPAC while voting to fund genocide and ICE.”

Kiros’s victory comes on the heels of a clean sweep of Democratic Socialists of America victories in New York City, as Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated Representative Adriano Espaillat and Assemblymember Claire Valdez became the Democratic nominee in the 7th congressional district.

“Denver voters of all ages, of all races, of all religions, sends a clear message: We will not wait,” Kiros said in her victory speech Tuesday night. “We will not wait to take the fight to Donald Trump and the oligarchy. We will not wait. We will not wait to abolish ICE and Medicare for all. We will not wait to put an end to the politics of the past, to get big money out of our politics, and to reject corporate packs at AIPAC. And no, we will not wait to end the genocide in Palestine. We believe that fundamental change can and will happen if we fight for it.”

🎥 Recalling how she was fired from her law firm after refusing to remove a letter defending pro-Palestinian student protesters, Melat Kiros said, “I didn’t flinch because I stood by every word and I always will.”

She added: “I know that will not be the only moment where those… pic.twitter.com/iI41zQp5wn

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) July 1, 2026

Though you do not generally have to hand it to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, you do kind of have to hand it to him in one very important respect: He has somehow managed to be even less likable than his predecessor, Kristi Noem. Witness his genuinely disgusting remarks after the Iranian national team was eliminated from the World Cup: “I’m just glad they’re done…

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The multi-million dollar renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was done with highly toxic materials.

The contractor that the Trump administration hired used products by the popular truck-bed coating company Rhino Linings, according to the company’s website. But a closer examination of the materials used indicates that they could cause serious harm to the local wildlife that frequent the 6.5-million gallon basin.

A barrel of “RHINO 405 A Thixotropic High Viscosity Epoxy Resin” was spotted by the pool during the restoration process. According to an OSHA safety data sheet, the chemical is “toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects” and is a strong irritant capable of causing allergic reactions.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the administration finished its renovation and refilled the pool, but already visitors have noticed and documented areas of the memorial’s lining that are peeling and sloughing off.

Several dead ducks have also been spotted in and around the pool, adding to the massive brouhaha.

Records indicate that the Trump administration spent at least $14.7 million renovating the Reflecting Pool—a project that was, apparently, all for naught. (As well as a far cry from the president’s original promise of a $1.8 million price tag.) The money was spent in an apparently futile effort to rid the premises of a relentless algal bloom. That, too, has already returned to the pool, mere weeks after the monument’s reopening.

Fixing the Reflecting Pool is a headache that’s plagued pretty much every administration since its construction in 1923, because what makes the Reflecting Pool beautiful is exactly what makes it so difficult to maintain. The pool’s expansive length is possible due to the use of multiple large concrete slabs as its bottom. But those slabs are also prone to serious, structural leaks, which require the White House to replace roughly 16 million gallons of water each year. And the pool’s shallow depth—which creates its mirror-like appearance—also detracts from the pool’s health by creating a breeding ground for algae blooms that turn the water green.

A cartoon by Clay Bennett. Related | Supreme Court’s leader doesn’t care about the Constitution…

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President Donald Trump raked in more than $86 million last year from suing media companies.

Trump’s annual financial disclosure revealed just how lucrative the president’s pastime of lobbing lawsuits at media companies has become. In 2025, the president made a total of $86.5 million off of settlements from his lawsuits against media companies. 

His most profitable lawsuits were his First Amendment challenges against media companies that had removed him from their platforms in the wake of the January 6 riot. Trump raked in a whopping $24.5 million as part of a settlement with Meta, $22 million off a settlement with YouTube, and $8 million from a settlement with Twitter.  

Trump also also managed to turn silencing the press into a moneymaking scheme. He made $16 million from his settlement with CBS in a lawsuit over the editing of Kamala Harris’s interview on 60 Minutes in 2024. The settlement was supposedly made to ease Paramount’s sale to Skydance Media—a deal that needed approval from the president. (Months later, CBS chopped up an interview with Trump to make him sound normal.) 

Trump made another $16 million from a settlement with ABC News over a defamation lawsuit spurred by George Stephanopoulos’s use of the phrase “liable for rape” while discussing Trump’s E. Jean Carroll case. The jury in that case found Trump liable for sexual abuse, not rape. The Supreme Court rejected Trump’s plea to review the Carroll case Monday. 

Anyone who’s bought a flight, a concert or sports ticket, or a vacation stay recently knows that the price they thought they were paying is not always the price they end up paying. After settling on the desired option, you encounter the onerous and daunting process of checking out: clicking through screen after screen until suddenly, right before it’s time to hit “pay,” the price jumps—and you have to squint to read all of the fees, surcharges, and other costs that have been tacked on at the end. Consumers have to decide to either suck it up and pay or go back to the beginning and comb through other options.

Though familiar from the above examples, this practice is popping up everywhere, even when finding a place to live: A Guardian investigation last week exposed Greystar, a private equity–backed apartment building management company, for piling obscene fees on renters, who are often hooked into long-term leases and can’t escape the fees easily.

Last week, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a law banning junk fees in the state, joining at least four other states—Connecticut, Colorado, Minnesota, and Virginia—in prohibiting companies from showing a cheap price up front and then surprising customers with additional costs when it comes time to buy. “We’re talking about hidden fees, about artificial scarcity, predatory lending products, ticket schemes that make it harder and more expensive for families to just enjoy a night out,” Pritzker said at the signing ceremony. “Together, those things add up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars every year for many Illinois families.”

Tackling junk fees is shaping up to be a big part of the Democrats’ affordability agenda, and it touches on a complaint many Americans have with the economy that is more complex than simply price hikes and supply chain disruptions. Prices aren’t just out of reach for families, but companies are manipulating customers to increase their profits. Americans want a fairer playing field.

President Joe Biden tried to tackle this problem in some major industries before his term ended. Notably, fans’ anger at Ticketmaster pricing during Beyoncé and Taylor Swift tours led to a congressional hearing and ultimately new Federal Trade Commission rules for event tickets and lodging. Biden’s secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, also tried to ban some junk fees on flights. These fees make airlines billions, and they got the ban thrown out in court. President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, is a former lobbyist whose clients included the airline industry, so it’s no wonder he’s been more focused on weakening passengers’ rights and protections.

Junk fees aren’t just an annoyance. They gum up the works of a competitive marketplace, making it harder for families to find affordable goods and services. And it costs them money, not just in fees but in their time. A 2024 FTC study estimated that banning these kinds of deceptive pricing practices could save Americans $11 billion over a decade.

In the wake of Biden’s efforts, some cities and states took up the cause. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has targeted some industries in New York City. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill has directed her administration to review such fees, and Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued a large landlord in the city over junk fees. Several states are considering laws similar to Illinois’s, and even more states may ban dynamic pricing using artificial intelligence that relies on captured personal data.

“Increasingly, pricing feels deceptive, or at a minimum, it doesn’t feel transparent anymore,” said Lindsay Owens, the president and CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, a nonprofit advocacy group that has studied various aspects of the Annoyance Economy. “The lack of transparency, lack of predictability, are things that make the consumer experience in America really frustrating.”

But a lot of the tools the federal government uses to make sure customers are getting a fair shake and companies aren’t gouging them for excess profits, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and similar agencies, have been neutered or abandoned in the Trump administration. That would presumably change under a Democratic president. In the meantime, two Democrats—Florida Representative Maxwell Frost and Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley—have introduced bills in their respective chambers to ban junk fees for renters, but neither seems likely to move forward in the GOP-controlled Congress.

Americans remain angry about the economy for a host of reasons. Prices are rising, but products are also getting worse and more annoying to buy. If you do sign up for a subscription or product, it’s harder to cancel. Workers’ wages aren’t rising as fast as profits for shareholders are, and companies do everything they can to squeeze more money out of us. “Consumers are fed up,” Owens said. In their anger lies a clear opportunity for Democrats, which some of them are finally seizing.

The Fourteenth Amendment could not be any clearer: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” There is no hedging, no vagueness, no double meanings, and no misplaced comma introducing ambiguity. All persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States.

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MAGA world is practically apoplectic over the Supreme Court’s birthright ruling.

Speaking with Fox News late Tuesday, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller suggested that the nation’s highest court had decided to “suicide” the country by upholding the Fourteenth Amendment.

“Here’s a pretty good clue your constitutional interpretation is wrong: If your ruling requires you to suicide your civilization, your reading of the Constitution is wrong,” the Project 2025 adviser said, apparently attempting to school the nation’s highest judiciary on constitutional law.

Miller: Here's a pretty good clue your constitutional interpretation is wrong. If you are ruling requires you to suicide your civilization, your reading of the constitution is wrong. pic.twitter.com/ZNmlDs0fvg

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 1, 2026

“President [Ulysses S.] Grant … in the nineteenth century, did not want to create an automatic third-world citizenship requirement for America,” Miller argued. But that’s not exactly true.

Grant played a major role in the codification of the Fourteenth Amendment, fiercely advocating that the burgeoning concept of birthright citizenship should be granted to Native Americans, immigrants, and the millions of men, women, and children that had been recently freed from slavery.

Even then, the idea was controversial and fiercely debated. Opponents to birthright citizenship included former Confederate states, white former slave owners, and racist terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

But the idea was popular enough that Grant won the presidency in 1868, the same year that the amendment was ratified.

Nonetheless, in Miller’s worldview, the 158-year-old legislation is “an abomination.”

“But let’s thank President Trump, because of President Trump’s courage and leadership, we are now on the precipice—yes, we were dealt a setback—but because of his courage alone, we are on the precipice as a nation of being in the position of ending this travesty once and for all,” Miller said.

Trump himself downplayed the Supreme Court decision, claiming that he and his allies could avoid the lengthy constitutional amendment process and “easily make it up in Congress through Legislation,” even though doing so would run afoul of the law.

The U.S. is not unique in granting birthright citizenship: 32 countries around the world offer unconditional, automatic citizenship to people born within their territory, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Pretty much the entire western hemisphere permits it. Another 50 countries offer something similar. Nor was the U.S. the first to conceive of birthright citizenship: The concept originated in the United Kingdom in 1608 during a debate over whether or not a child owed allegiance to the English crown.

MAGA raged at first lady Melania Trump after she posted a statement in support of the LBGTQ+ community.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to uphold state laws banning transgender women and girls from competing on sports teams that align with their gender, Melania shared a strange message of support for the LBGTQ+ community on X.

“‘As many of you may know, I fully support the LGBTQIA+ community. But we must also ensure that our female athletes are protected and respected.’—MELANIA, #1 NYT Bestseller, (p. 156)” the post read, quoting her own book.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has now legally confirmed this opinion: ‘Under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, may schools maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females? … The answer is yes.’

“America, we can support the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community and also protect opportunities for female athletes. Respect everyone and keep girls’ sports fair,” the post read. “Both ideals are essential.”

Far-right trolls didn’t agree.

“Enough of this virtue signaling BS and bowing to the degenerate mob. Deport her,” wrote Dissident Media, an X account posting far-right content.

“MAGA is to the left of Bill Clinton,” wrote Joel Webbon, a Texas pastor and conservative commentator.

“I support the trans community getting the mental health treatment they need to recognize they are not members of the opposite sex,” wrote X user Matt van Swol.

“What is ideal about men claiming they can become women? What in that do you actually support?” asked X user Debbie, who described herself as #MAGA.

“I’m thoroughly disappointed with this post. LGTBQ+ (alphabet soup) is an Anti-God movement. Sorry to say, but I’ve lost respect,” wrote X user Lori Smith.

It seems that even after Donald Trump campaigned to strip transgender athletes of their freedoms, members of MAGA aren’t convinced that the president and his wife are far-right enough on social issues.

Hello, everyone! As Markos has indicated several times previously, we’re working on a bit of a design refresh for the Front Page. In the course of those discussions, we’ve realized that we’ve long taken for granted that the casual reader — one coming to the site from a search result or social share or aggregator link, but who doesn’t have much prior knowledge about this place — can scan the Front…

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Senator Mitch McConnell was found unconscious before he was rushed to the hospital last month.

Punchbowl News reports that the former Senate majority leader, who is retiring after his current term ends in January, lost consciousness at his Washington, D.C., home at 8:36 a.m. on June 14, before a dispatcher sent over an Advanced Life Support ambulance. Journalist Desiree Townsend posted a recording of the call from the emergency dispatcher Tuesday afternoon to X. 

This emergency dispatch recording was obtained from Washington, D.C. Fire and EMS dispatch and captures the call on June 14, 2026 at 8:36 a.m. requesting an Advanced Life Support (ALS) response after Senator Mitch McConnel was reported unconscious. According to the dispatch,… pic.twitter.com/ABv97WXJhz

— Desirée Townsend (@Cheering4Change) June 30, 2026

The audio has not been independently verified, and McConnell’s office has not commented on it. On that day last month, a spokesperson for the 82-year-old said that McConnell was “receiving excellent care,” but didn’t elaborate further. On June 22, his office issued a statement saying he was “working closely with staff on Senate business and Kentucky matters as he continues his recovery.” And this Tuesday, one of his staff members said that he was recovering and working with staff.  

But his office has not said anything about his condition or prognosis, nor if he is still in the hospital. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said June 15 that McConnell “is clearly dialed in to what’s going on. He’s following along with stuff we are doing this week up here. Very much so.”

Is that still the case? This is the second time McConnell has been hospitalized this year, having spent eight days in the hospital for flu-like symptoms in February. And in the past three years, McConnell’s health has severely deteriorated. 

In March 2023, McConnell fell at a dinner event at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria hotel and fractured his rib while suffering a concussion. He suffered another fall in July, and in public appearances that year, froze mid-sentence twice, dissociating for 20 to 30 seconds each time. The attending physician at the Capitol later declared that McConnell hadn’t suffered from a seizure, stroke, or movement disorder, and was likely dehydrated or experiencing the aftereffects of his concussion.

In December 2024, McConnell would fall again at a Senate Republican lunch, spraining his wrist and cutting his face. He also tripped and fell in a Senate building October 2025 while walking with an aide’s help as a reporter asked him questions.

McConnell seems determined to stay in his Senate seat until the very end, refusing to step aside early because of his health. Six more months might be too much for the former Senate leader, and his refusal to step down has drawn the ire of his Republican colleagues and critics of gerontocracy.