Trump's Semiquincentennial Faceplant  —  Our long national nightmare may be coming to an end: The White House and Iran are reportedly closing in on a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran seemingly willing to forgo tolls or controls on the waterway in exchange for various U.S. concessions …

Inside Bari's ‘60’ Bloodbath … “They're killing ‘60 Minutes.’”  —  That's how the iconic newsmagazine's former executive producer Bill Owens, who quit last summer citing corporate interference, put it to me by phone on Thursday as news broke about the firings ordered by the widely disliked …

Trump Might Already Be a Lame Duck  —  President Trump has never really cared about the Republican Party per se.  He basks in its adulation, and it's beneficial to him when the GOP controls Congress.  But he's never adhered to its orthodoxies or honored its heroes.

Judge temporarily blocks payouts from Trump's $1.8B ‘anti-weaponization’ settlement fund  —  A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's administration from paying any claims through a new $1.776 billion settlement fund for the Republican president's allies who believe they were victims of a weaponized government.

Summary of Key Changes in OMB's Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule  —  https://www.federalregister.gov/ public-inspection/2026-10817/regulation - for-federal-financial-assistance  —  Thanks for reading!  Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Why so much election analysis is basically useless  —  Last Friday, I (reluctantly) wrote a long piece about the Democratic National Committee's finally published “autopsy” of the party's 2024 campaign.  In that post I argued that the single biggest cause of Trump's win was the economy/inflation …

Stephen Miller's Wife Doxed This Young Dem.  Then the MAGA Rage Hit. … Katie Miller, who is married to Stephen Miller, lashed out at a young Democratic operative on Thursday, after the Democratic Party's official account called her husband an “ugly f-k.”  The aggrieved wife …

Boat Strikes Have Failed to Curb Flow of Cocaine to U.S., Experts Say … With deadly precision, the Trump administration has launched dozens of attacks on small boats in the waters off South America, killing nearly 200 people in a campaign U.S. officials say is meant to curb the flow of illicit drugs to the United States.

Trump's Violent Threats Can't Hide the Truth: He's a Humiliated Bully  —  Under Trump, the United States is looking for weaker and weaker victims in order to mask its own fragility.  —  Pocket  —  Donald Trump is a rotten peacemaker for many reasons—but one of them is that he can't even remember which enemy he's fighting.

There's No Escaping the Rot in This Justice Department  —  The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois used to be considered one of the best federal prosecutors' offices in the country, but the last week has shown that Donald Trump's administration is driving it off the rails.

Bondi defends handling of Epstein files to House panel … Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.  — CNBC Councils  — Join the CNBC Panel  — News Tips  —  Got a confidential news tip?  We want to hear from you.

Biden just won't go away  —  Some of us haven't yet finished wishing Barack Obama would just go away.  A decade after leaving the Oval Office, the former president still hovers over our politics issuing sanctimonious tweets in support of dishonest causes, such as the Democrats' botched gerrymander in Virginia.

Frederica Wilson is leaving Congress.  She explains why in an exclusive interview  —  Congresswoman Frederica Wilson will not seek a ninth term in Congress, she confirmed to the Miami Herald Thursday in a wide-ranging interview explaining why she obfuscated her plan to give up her seat …

Becerra leads governor's race, with Hilton and Steyer in tight contest for second spot, poll finds  — 9 min Click here to listen to this article  — On the cusp of California's gubernatorial primary, former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra narrowly leads a volatile race …

He hasn't been seen in Congress for months.  Now Republicans are worried.  —  Rep. Tom Kean Jr.'s New Jersey district is among the country's most competitive, and his absence from the House since March has sparked increasing alarm in his party.  —  Summary

Habeas Flight Watch: New tool helps track ICE flights to your city  —  Activists have been quietly piloting a live map of ICE flights to help immigration attorneys with habeas filings.  Now they say it's ready for everyone to use.  —  A group of activists have built a new online tool …

A court in Kenya blocks U.S. plan to keep American Ebola patients in Africa  —  A facility built by the U.S. military on a Kenyan air base was intended to isolate Americans exposed to Ebola during the growing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  —  Summary

FBI interviews election workers in a swing state amid Trump's false 2020 claims  —  Agents in Wisconsin have been following up on debunked conspiracy theories as part of their queries, after pursuing 2020 ballots in other swing states.  —  Summary  —  MADISON, Wis. — The FBI in recent weeks …

The 2026 race that's a presidential proxy  —  With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco and Irie Sentner  —  Good Friday morning, this is Adam Wren coming to you from beautiful and crisp Michigan, which feels these days like the center of the midterm universe.  Get in touch.  —  In today's Playbook ...

China is building launch pads near its nuclear missile silos  —  In a remote Chinese desert, a vast military complex is taking shape that some security scholars say appears built to ensure no American first strike on China's nuclear arsenal could reliably knock out Beijing's ability to hit back.

Who's Deranged, Exactly?  —  Of partisanship and economic sentiment  —  Donald Trump's chief economist said something interesting the other day.  Yes, the remarks by Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, were stupid, but that goes without saying.

Vietnam moves its dead for Trump golf course  —  Project has become symbolically important for relations between Washington and Hanoi  —  In a small cemetery nestled between fruit farms in northern Vietnam, farmers who for decades buried their dead near family plantations are digging up the graves.

The Record Divide Between Corporate Profits and Worker Pay  —  Labor's share of economic output just hit an all-time low, while the profit share hit a near record.  It helps explain why consumers feel so glum.  —  To understand why people are so miserable about the economy …

AI billionaires brace for pitchforks … - Populist politicians, particularly on the left, have cast this as capitalism's next great reckoning: an even deeper concentration of wealth and power in an economy already rigged for the elite. … Many suggest the answer is not deceleration or wealth taxes, but shared abundance.