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Donald Trump is now 'very seriously' considering a diesel export ban as gas prices hit record highs – despite his top cabinet officials saying for months the move was off the table. 'The blunt tool of banning diesel exports definitely doesn't work,' Energy Secretary Chris Wright said at an event last week. As the President's top energy official responsible for oil and gas production and the management of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Wright has warned that the ban 'would put upward pressure on gasoline prices and jet ⁠fuel prices'. He said in May that the ban was then 'absolutely' ruled...

The arrogance of the oligarchs is extraordinary. THEY WANT IT ALL. In this election, Musk and other billionaires will spend huge amounts of money to make sure that Congress works for them — not working families. We can beat them. Educate. Organize. Get your friends to vote.

As their midterm picture darkens, and gas and diesel prices soar, some Republicans who backed the war for months are now changing their tune. As President Trump warned in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in recent days that he might “annihilate” Iran, a growing number of Republicans were scrambling to find distance from a costly war that has swelled into a midterm crisis for the party.The split screen showed how Mr. Trump and his party’s battleground candidates are increasingly at odds as the November elections approach. With no clear resolution in sight, the war has sent the...

Here a Crack. There a Crack. Everywhere a Crack Crack!Yes, if Politico is seeing cracks (of the GOP variety) then you know it must be election season. And right on cue with a little over a month left until the midterm elections Politico is seeing huge cracks in the Republican party. In fact they are so insistent on GOP cracks that you almost get the sense they want Republican-inclined voters to get demoralized and neglect to vote this year.For an example of how much Politico is desperately hyping the GOP Crack theme you need only to look at their Friday...

Vice President JD Vance was reportedly the anonymous White House source behind a story that President Donald Trump’s administration is now pointing to as evidence for why Politico deserved to lose its White House access. The revelation, first reported Wednesday by Oliver Darcy’s Status, adds a striking wrinkle to the administration’s defense of its Friday decision to boot Politico from the White House grounds alongside CNN and MS NOW. The Washington Post reported just minutes earlier that the White House had identified six Politico stories in a Tuesday letter laying out its case against the outlet, accusing it of reporting...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is urging “a resolution” to the Iran war, sending the strongest signal to date that Republicans on Capitol Hill are feeling the political sting of the long-drawn conflict heading into the midterm elections. “It’s been a priority and an objective of every administration, for 50 years nearly, to ensure that Iran didn’t have a nuclear capability. Now that’s done. Operation Epic Fury was an epic success. … The world is safer because of it,” Johnson said in an interview with a local TV station. “But now we’ve got to bring that to a resolution.” Johnson did...

Polls continue to dole out depressing numbers for Republicans, with several Senate races defying earlier predictions and Democrats radically outperforming how then-Vice President Kamala Harris fared against President Donald Trump in 2024. The polling numbers for Trump and the GOP have been brutal as his second term has progressed, with Americans’ views on his handling of the economy and immigration — topics on which he had previously outpolled Democrats — taking a dive. The president’s war in Iran has been another issue dragging down his polling, specifically because of its impact on gas prices. Several recent polls have had shocking...

Israel is treating the new documentary “NAZA,” by the Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, less like bad publicity than a national security crisis. Eyal Zamir, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, pledged to use “every tool at our disposal” against the documentary, which features anonymous interviews with 24 intelligence officers and soldiers, most involved in remote strikes in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for legislation that would let the state strip Abraham and Szor of their citizenship. Israel’s culture minister has asked the Interior Ministry to investigate them for treason. Activists and staff members...

... So he flew to Venezuela, one of the few countries where he could enter as an Iranian without advance permission, and embarked on a weeks-long trek northward to the U.S. Near San Diego, he crossed the border illegally and presented himself to ask for asylum on Feb. 2, 2025, he said. Saleh Fard never walked freely again inside the borders of the United States, but its government would soon dictate where in the world he could live. He arrived the same day that the Trump administration signed a deal with Panama to “repatriate foreigners that enter [U.S.] territory without...

President Donald Trump told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst that “very big things are going to be happening in the not-so-distant future” on Iran and that “my question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up?” In a Sunday morning appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend Yingst reported he had just spoken with Trump and conveyed the substance of his conversation with the audience. “He tells Fox News he’s in a ‘deciding mode’ and that ‘very big things are going to be happening in the not-so-distant future,'” Yingst said. “The president described the current choices...

President Trump said on Sunday that he has agreed to convert plans for a massive triumphal arch into a "top grade Military Complex," equipped with snipers and drone storage. "At the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes, I have agreed to convert the magnificent Triumphal Arch, planned since the Civil War Era many years ago, at the Receptive Circle adjoining the Arlington Memorial Bridge, into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch," Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Work on the 250-foot-tall arch was expected to begin this month, with plans to...

Even Ohio and Iowa, after trending Republican for years, are battlegrounds in the midterm elections. An old saying suggests that the road to the White House runs through Ohio. For more than 125 years, the Buckeye State has served as the nation’s bellwether. More recently many Midwestern states—not only Ohio, but also Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota—have turned either ruby red or navy blue. That polarization has hit a tipping point. The heartland is set again to become the nation’s pre-eminent battleground, and Democrats need to appreciate what that means for the future. The history is dramatic. Barack Obama won...

President Donald Trump baselessly claimed on Tuesday that the July 2024 assassination attempt against him was a plot by Democrats, including then-President Joe Biden and FBI Director Chris Wray, to push him out of the election. The president posted on Truth Social that Biden's FBI "didn't do what they should have with respect to the Lunatic who shot me in Butler, PA," referring to gunman Thomas Crooks, who was 20 years old when he shot at Trump during a campaign rally, grazing his ear, killing a bystander and injuring two others before the Secret Service fatally shot him. Politics: Trump...

Five individuals working for the intelligence services of the Russian Federation have been charged with a terrorism conspiracy and planning murders “around the world,” including in the United States. The individuals, who are currently at large, “paid and attempted to pay individuals within the United States and elsewhere to conduct pre-operational surveillance and carry out targeted killings, and commissioned associates to commit and attempted to commit acts of terrorism against civilian and military infrastructure in European countries that are aligned, or perceived to be aligned, with Ukraine,” according to the Department of Justice. U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said in a...

When a political player starts drawing personal insults from President Trump and his people, it is a pretty good sign that his star is on the rise. For Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, that moment arrived this summer. In July, Mr. Trump dubbed the fresh-faced lawmaker “Pee-wee Herman.” The next month, upset over Mr. Ossoff’s criticism of the president, one aide called Mr. Ossoff a “feminine theater kid” and a “lightweight loser,” and another derided him as “a miserable person” and “the biggest cuck loser in politics,” while deploying a sexually explicit moniker unfit for a family-friendly publication. Mr. Ossoff...

In recent weeks, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has visited firehouses around New York City as part of an effort to direct the public’s attention toward the victims, and away from himself. Three days before the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, conservative politicians stood with victims’ relatives on the steps of City Hall to repeat their demand that Mayor Zohran Mamdani not participate in the formal ceremony on Friday memorializing the tragedy. But in truth, Mr. Mamdani has been commemorating the anniversary for weeks. He met with firefighters at firehouses that suffered grave losses on that day, including Ladder 118 in Brooklyn...

President Trump pledged a $5,000 payout to U.S. adults on Wednesday, but only if Republicans hold onto their majority in Congress come November. “Here is my promise: if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them … because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” he said at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas, Texas. The legality of this disbursal is unclear. There are about 270 million adults in the U.S. Trump told attendees Wednesday that...

President Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November. The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation. “If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said during the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”

According to Politico Playbook on Wednesday, things are really, really bad for the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas. To support their claim of disaster for that convention, the Politico team of Adam Wren, Dasha Burns, Will Steakin, and Megan Messerly cited — wait for it —conveniently unnamed sources to back up their premise of doom and gloom.The unnamed sources made their invisible cameos in “‘The vibes are very bad’ in Texas,’” only to immediately disappear into the political ether to avoid anything resembling a fact check of their whispered claims:

They could also reshape congressional representation and federal funding allocations. Millions of residents could be excluded from the U.S. census, congressional representation could be reshaped and federal funds could be reallocated across states under changes proposed by the Trump administration. In the proposal posted to the federal register Wednesday, the Census Bureau suggested adding a citizenship question to the decennial questionnaire, which President Donald Trump has wanted since his first term. The proposal argues that the census count should exclude any undocumented immigrants and noncitizens without permanent residency because they are “not true inhabitants, members of the body politic, or...