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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the highest-ranking Army officer in the country in the middle of the U.S. war on Iran.On Thursday, CBS News reported that Hegseth had asked Gen. Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff, to step down and retire. The Biden appointee’s term was set to end in 2027; Army chiefs of staff typically serve four-year terms. George joins more than a dozen high-ranking military officers who have been fired since Hegseth and his ultra-hawkish ideology took over at the Pentagon.According to CBS, the Pentagon wanted someone who’d do a better job of listening to Hegseth and President Trump and their vision for the Army. “We are grateful for his service, but it was time for a leadership change in the Army,” an official said. The move comes at a crucial moment, as the U.S.-Israeli joint war in Iran grows more serious. On Thursday, Trump and Hegseth promised to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age.”

President Trump wanted his Department of Justice to prosecute and put in jail former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Representative Adam Schiff, and numerous of his other political enemies. That effort has largely failed. So Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday. Her replacement is likely to be just as horrible and corrupt, but her dismissal is the latest sign of Trump’s growing weakness and the successful resistance to his authoritarian aims. Trump did not explain exactly why he sacked Bondi, who will be replaced for now by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the president’s former personal lawyer. But reports from The New York Times and NBC News suggest that the president was frustrated by Bondi’s handling of the files associated with Jeffrey Epstein and her failure to win convictions against James and others hated by Trump. The president had publicly complained in the fall about Bondi’s inability to prosecute his enemies. In a Truth Social post in September that reportedly Trump intended to send as a direct message to Bondi, he wrote:Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” … We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!Federal prosecutors under Bondi’s purview did not even file formal charges against many of Trump’s political foes. Comey and James were indicted, but a federal judge later dismissed both cases on the grounds that the U.S. attorney who had led the prosecutions was improperly in that post, rendering her decisions invalid. Trump is reportedly also frustrated with Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files. This has become a debacle, with even congressional Republicans suggesting that Bondi has not released some documents quickly enough. Bondi’s firing comes almost exactly a month after Trump fired another high-profile member of his team, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The former South Dakota governor seems to have gotten the lion’s share of the blame inside the administration for the deeply unpopular federal intervention in Minnesota, which resulted in the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. While the exact circumstances of these firings are different, they are illustrative of a broader reality: Trump’s policy goals are being stalled, and he’s increasingly unpopular. He appears to be reverting to the pattern of his first term, firing top officials instead of considering whether the president himself is the problem. I don’t want to be too celebratory here. Blanche is likely to continue to run DOJ as Trump’s personal law firm, as Bondi did. Trump reportedly wants Lee Zeldin, who is currently administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to be Bondi’s eventual replacement. It’s possible that Blanche or Zeldin would be as committed as Bondi to using the DOJ as a means to prosecute Trump’s enemies, and perhaps be more successful. Nonetheless, in her year in office, Bondi did a lot of damage. The department dropped about 23,000 cases of white-collar crime, terrorism, and other offenses to exclusively focus on immigration cases, according to a recent ProPublica report. Even if Comey and James were not convicted, it’s scary and ominous that the DOJ sought and won indictments of people on trumped-up charges just because the president dislikes them. There have been mass resignations in the department’s civil rights division. Bondi essentially stopped all prosecutions of political corruption. She was one of the worst attorney generals in American history, and the shortness of her tenure should not diminish its horribleness. And most importantly, Trump is still in office.  As long as we have a president who views the Department of Justice as a tool to punish his enemies and exonerate his friends, we’re in trouble. Pam Bondi is gone, but Trump’s horribly mistaken vision of the DOJ will endure for another three years.

Makers of brand-name drugs who refuse the US’ demands to lower prices and relocate manufacturing to the US will face tariffs of 100%.

Makers of brand-name drugs who refuse the US’ demands to lower prices and relocate manufacturing to the US will face tariffs of 100%.

Months before the midterm elections, President Trump once again is trying to take over voting in America, claiming power he doesn’t have. His latest executive order, which he signed on Tuesday, instructs the U.S. Postal Service to refuse to deliver ballots unless the voters are on a new list of approved citizens. It’s a mess, and it’s unconstitutional. There’s every reason to think courts will block it.This is part of a larger story. Trump and his allies in Washington and around the country have spent a year in a frenzy of activity all toward a singular goal: undermining elections. Between conspiracy theories, FBI raids, late-night social media rants, and more, these moves can confuse or distract. But it is more than improvisational chaos. The contours of the strategy behind it all are now increasingly clear. Yet here’s the thing: For every move Trump has made, there’s been a countermove. And the pushback has been fierce and increasingly successful. Start with Tuesday’s executive order, which voting rights groups, including the Brennan Center, are challenging in court (Democrats have already sued Trump over it). Under its terms, the USPS would only deliver a voter’s ballot if their name is on a federally created list of enrolled voters. So would the Post Office assemble state voter rolls and compare them to a new federal list? What if the lists are full of errors, as past attempts were? Yikes. The order even tells the attorney general to prioritize prosecutions of election officials.More than that, it’s illegal. When Trump tried to rewrite election rules a year ago with an order requiring people who submit a national voter registration form to produce a passport or other citizenship document, a federal court blocked it. The judge declared, “Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States—not the president—with the power to regulate federal elections.” Moreover, the USPS is an independent body not subject to presidential edict. Whoever drafted the order did not try to dress it up in a legitimate legal argument: Trump can do this, it claims, because Article 2 of the Constitution gives him … lots of power! That’s about it.The second strategy seeks to enlist Congress. The SAVE Act, Trump’s “number one priority,” would require citizens to produce a passport or birth certificate to register—yet 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents. The House of Representatives twice passed versions of the bill, and for two weeks this past month, the Senate debated it. Forty-two opponents gave floor speeches—including Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski—and thus the bill has so far been unable to garner the support necessary to overcome a filibuster. Senators went on vacation without even taking a vote. The president’s only live legislative priority will, again, be stymied if foes continue to press.Another scheme deploys the Justice Department. In January, the FBI raided the elections offices in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing ballots from the 2020 election in an attempt to relitigate the results. The affidavit underlying the raid turned out to be a compilation of debunked conspiracy theories. That’s all ominous, but just as worrisome have been the Justice Department’s demands that all 50 states turn over sensitive voter rolls, including Social Security numbers. Why is the federal government hoovering up all this information? It’s now clear that Trump’s team wants to pressure states to purge voters from the rolls, many of whom would be eligible to cast ballots. Some states have gone along, but most have resisted. Three courts so far have ruled that Washington has no authority to demand this data. In the face of improper federal demands, state and county officials are standing up. Outside experts are training lawyers for election officials about how to resist further encroachment. Another move has been to pull the federal cops off the beat. Election officials have been beset by threats, disinformation, and actual violence. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency exists in part to help them, providing expertise and funding. But last year, Trump gutted the agency, cleaning out its staff and even ordering an investigation of its former director, Chris Krebs, who had the temerity to affirm that the 2020 election had been secure. That has left elections dangerously unprotected against foreign government hacking. There’s no substitute for a strong national security response, but many of these election security experts are now advising states from the outside.One more countermeasure: Conservative and liberal groups created the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections—half law enforcement, half election officials—to help guard against threats and violence. The coalition plans to host 100 sessions around the country, and at least 100,000 pocket guides on how to protect elections will be distributed to police officers.Perhaps the most chilling tactic hasn’t even happened yet. Trump ally Steve Bannon said last week that the presence of ICE at airports would be “perfect training for the fall of 2026.” Sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement or any other armed agent to the polls is illegal under both federal and state law. If voters or election workers are intimidated, they can go to court, and based on experience of the past year, we can expect judges to rule quickly to prevent disruptions and intimidation. Many worry that Trump doesn’t follow the law. Actually, his administration largely has followed federal rulings, even if howling all the way. But there’s a reason for vigilance. While regularly losing in court, Trump often responds with escalation. Sure, courts might rule, but what if, in the hours before the November elections, he delivers on his repeated threats to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploys the military against protesters? Would even a good court ruling matter then?  That’s where voters, civic groups, and campaigns come in. Citizens should make a plan, vote early when possible, use drop boxes. Already civil society has begun to mobilize. The League of Women Voters, for example, plans to organize as many as 70,000 people to watch voting and work at the polls. Clergy have begun to prepare to show up in force. Perhaps the business community, active in 2020 but shamefully hesitant since, can enlist employees to serve as poll workers and monitors. The inspiring citizen mobilization in Minneapolis can offer a model for a crusade to keep the elections free from interference. Some of Trump’s moves will no doubt succeed. But the countermoves, taken together, can be successful in blocking or blunting many more. We’ve seen some of the worst impulses repelled already. But it will take all of us. Executive order or not, we can have safe and secure elections in November, but we’ll have to work for it. 

President Donald Trump has to nominate someone to replace Attorney General Pam Bondi and, big surprise: His options are all bad. Ahead of Bondi’s ouster Thursday, reports were already swirling that a dissatisfied Trump was planning to tap Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to replace her. Since taking on his role in January 2025, Zeldin has been a fierce supporter of Trump’s agenda, overseeing what he called “the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States.” To achieve the president’s energy production goals, Zeldin has tried to make life easier for polluters by eviscerating auto fuel standards, oil drilling limits, and the “endangerment finding” underlying emissions regulations. Under Zeldin, Trump’s EPA is overseeing a historic decline in enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws.Zeldin has a legal background, and became the youngest attorney in New York state at the time in 2004, at the age of 23. He served in Congress from 2015 until 2023, where he supported Trump in both of his impeachments and voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election. But there are other names being floated to replace Bondi. One person being discussed as a potential new attorney general is Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, according to MeidasTouch’s Scott MacFarlane. The former Fox News host Trump tapped for the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital would certainly be loyal: She once bragged about how far she went to push Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.But Pirro is mired in many of the same kinds of disasters that plagued Bondi’s reign. Pirro’s office was behind a thwarted effort to pursue a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, one of the president’s perceived enemies. Pirro’s office also failed four separate times to indict one woman accused of assaulting a federal agent. And in February, Pirro enraged the MAGA base when she warned citizens not to bring firearms to the District of Columbia. Some senators are hoping Trump will hear their pitch for Utah Senator Mike Lee as attorney general, two sources with knowledge of the matter told NOTUS. Lee is probably best known for posting MAGA conspiracy theories and shitposting online. Lee spent several years as an attorney with a private law firm in appellate and Supreme Court litigation before serving for three years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Salt Lake City. He later held a one-year clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. For now, Trump has promoted Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to interim attorney general.

Nearly 40,000 poor and working-class people in Puerto Rico were promised accessible solar panels and battery storage from the U.S. government following massive blackouts after Hurricane Maria in 2017 and Hurricane Fiona in 2022. Within a year of Donald Trump winning his second term as president, his administration eliminated the programs.On Thursday, Grist reported that the Trump administration has diverted a large chunk of funding away from the Energy Resilience Fund, a $1 billion program Congress formed in 2022, and handed over what’s left of it to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA—a government-owned energy company with a history of corruption and incompetence. On top of that, in January, Trump’s Department of Energy eliminated $350 million in grants to low-income households on the island to set up their own solar systems.“Why would you cancel something that is working as intended and being executed, to give it to someone that has a bad history?” a former Energy Department official told Grist, referring to PREPA. “Why are we risking these funds?”The ailing state of Puerto Rico’s power grid was exacerbated by Hurricane Fiona in 2022 and Hurricane Maria in 2017. Both resulted in blackouts across the island, and the infrastructure failure caused by the former—not by the storm itself—killed around 3,000 people in Puerto Rico. Now Trump has placed the power grid, and the safety of thousands of Puerto Ricans, in flux as hurricane season approaches once again.Only 6,000 solar battery units were placed before the ERF’s funding was cut. Read the full report here.

The National Capital Planning Commission, or NCPC, issued final approval for Donald Trump’s White House ballroom Thursday, a key goalpost for the enormous development.The decision arrived two days after U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ordered construction on the site to cease until Trump obtained congressional approval. It is not clear yet if the agency’s approval will bear any weight with regard to the halted timeline, which Trump has tried to expedite in an attempt to complete the project before he is out of office.Leon argued in a 35-page opinion Tuesday that while the president serves as the “steward of the White House for future generations of First Families,” he does not own it, emphasizing that “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have” with regard to reimagining the White House grounds.Trump has repeatedly rejected the fact that he needs Congress’s approval to build upon or demolish the publicly owned mansion.The 12-person NCPC was originally set to vote on the ballroom in March, but was delayed until Thursday due to the number of individuals wishing to comment on the development at the committee meeting. Most of those who spoke were opposed, reported the Associated Press.Trump’s idea to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the executive estate has been riddled with problems and colored by lies since he first announced the project in July. Initially, Trump pledged that the development would “be near but not touching” the White House East Wing.Months later, his construction teams completely razed the FDR-era extension, plowing forward without prerequisite approval from the NCPC or the express permission of Congress, both of which were conveniently unavailable at the time due to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.The ballroom’s estimated price tag has been similarly difficult to nail down. Trump originally claimed that the project would cost $200 million, but a decision to tack on extra construction to the site doubled its cost to $400 million. The new building will have 40-foot ceilings, be able to accommodate up to 1,000 seated guests, and would constitute 22,000 square feet of the 90,000-square-foot development, according to projections offered by East Wing ballroom architect Shalom Baranes in January.The ballroom is the biggest and most expensive reform Trump has proposed to the White House, but it’s far from his only attempt to remake the “People’s House” in his image. Trump also renovated Jackie Kennedy’s famous Rose Garden, mowing down flowers in order to literally pave paradise. He gutted the Lincoln bathroom, transforming it from Lyndon B. Johnson’s “favorite office” into a marble-slathered eyesore, and swapped the historic Palm Room’s lush green tones and tall ferns for white paint and framed photos of plants.