An excerpt from The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s upcoming book, published on Thursday by the Daily Mail, revealed that White House staff allegedly needed to monitor President Donald Trump’s trash after it was discovered that “he was sometimes throwing out” sterling silver utensils.
[. . .]
The journalists added, “The President’s redecorating generated such a
flurry of activity that staff often felt caught between the two Trumps,
who were the only presidential couple to regularly use and maintain
separate bedrooms since Richard and Pat Nixon.”
Not since Richard and Pat Nixon? And Chump tries to play the man. He's not having sex. He hasn't had sex in years. He's a withered up old man whose body is decaying before our eyes.
He tries to pretend he's not a senior -- even said that in public a little while ago. But he's an 80 year old man. And an 80 year old man in poor health. Eating garbage. Unable to sleep at night and nodding off in public during the day. He can't get a hard on. And he's not someone who's ever been interested in a women's pleasure so he's not doing any eating out. His life is over. And he knows it. His life is now about nothing except waiting for his own death.
And with his health, that could be any day.
But he pretends for the MAGA bros. And the idiot ones like Joe Rogan join him in pretending. Rogan hits 59 this year and he's not young. He's probably suffering from erectile dysfunction just like Chump. Him pretending Chump is a functioning man is about him pretending he himself is not old
Friday, June 19, 2026. Chump's deal or 'deal' has already hit a snag,
Republicans in the US Senate don't see themselves as Chump's drones,
Pete Hegseth faces more problems, Kristi Noem's errors and mistakes
continue to surface from her time as Secretary of Homeland Security, in
Chicago Barack reminds how a real president conducts themselves and
honors this country, and much more.
As Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes above, Israel's attacked Lebanon and it appears the 'deal' or 'memo' may be off.
The nascent
U.S.-Iran deal faced fresh challenges on Friday after Switzerland said
that the next phase of talks had been postponed and as Israel launched
new strikes in Lebanon following a deadly attack on its soldiers there.
Israel
said its military had struck more than 80 targets belonging to the
Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, killing dozens, in response to an attack
on an Israeli tank crew that left four soldiers dead in southern
Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that Israeli airstrikes
overnight had killed at least 18 people and injured 33 others.
The
upsurge of violence showed how Lebanon remained a major obstacle to the
durability of the preliminary U.S.-Iran agreement. Israel is not a
party to the U.S.-Iran talks, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that he is not bound by the deal, which calls for a cease-fire on all fronts, including Lebanon.
Mr.
Netanyahu said on Friday that he had ordered the Israeli military to
respond forcefully to the deaths of the tank crew, warning that Israel
“will exact a very heavy price from Hezbollah for these attacks.”
Some
lawmakers in Israel, and some Republicans in Congress, have strongly
criticized the deal, which President Trump and President Masoud
Pezeshkian of Iran signed this week. Critics say it gives Iran significant economic relief while punting tougher negotiations, including on Tehran’s nuclear program, down the road.
Vice
President JD Vance had been expected to fly to Switzerland for talks
with Iranian officials, but the White House said late Thursday that his
trip would be delayed. The United States was looking forward “to
beginning technical talks as soon as possible,” a White House statement
said.
MS NOW notes JD's trip is off for now and details some of the lies Miss Sassy has been telling about the proposed deal.
On the 'deal,' 'memo,' 'cease-fire,' 'chain letter' Chump's been pimping as the greatest deal ever. Holly Baxter (INDEPENDENT) notes that Vice President JD Vance tried to talk up the effort yesterday:
As he pointed out himself during this very press conference, he has absolutely zero experience in conducting diplomatic negotiations.
“Progressive critics” say he can’t do “hostile negotiations,” he said,
with a smile, “but just two days ago I went on The View.”
Nobody
laughed. He tried again: “Joy Behar is way more hostile than the
Iranians and she and I are best friends now.” The room remained silent.
Notwithstanding the fact that Joy Behar seemed to quite openly dislike
Vance when she encountered him on The View,
this joke doesn’t really work unless you follow it up with solid proof
that you actually do have good political credentials and the
“progressive critics” are wrong. Instead, Vance merely moved on.
When
pressed why this deal was better than Obama’s, Vance couldn’t offer a
lot of specifics. He kept going back to the idea that “Gulf states like
this deal” and they didn’t like the old one, “and I trust their
judgment”. He didn’t seem to know exactly why they’d come to that
judgment.
Is Cuba next? “You guys would have to
ask Marco [Rubio] about Cuba,” he said, before adding that the
administration is talking with the Cuban government and hopes they “make
smart decisions.”
Is he still going on his
promised trip to Switzerland Friday to sign the deal that has, it turns
out, already been signed? Apparently not. There are other people going
“on the ground” in Iran to do “technical negotiations”, possibly over
the weekend, and the Geneva signing may or may not happen after that.
“So you’re not going tomorrow?” one reporter asked. Vance equivocated and, again, moved on.
Then
we entered the weirder portion of the presser. When told that the Pope
had hailed the end of the war, Vance said, in a tone of voice that
skirted a little too close to sarcasm, “My response to that is: Praise
Jesus!” When someone said they noticed his voice is hoarse, he said,
“I’ve been on a book tour,” thus reminding everybody of the fact that
the chief Iran negotiator has been wasting his time this week on daytime
talk shows soft-launching a 2028 presidential run by shilling a book
about Christianity.
Once, we had wars of choice. Today, we have wars of distraction.
Call the catastrophically misguided war in Iran and the blink-and-you-missed-it war with Venezuela the Epstein Wars.
These were not wars fought to defend U.S. national security. They were not wars fought to advance our national interests.
They
were wars conjured up not by generals or seasoned foreign policy
advisors but by a frightened old man and his public relations team to
distract from a scandal he fears will be his undoing.
President
Donald Trump's director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons is firing back
after a Democratic lawmaker accused the administration of giving luxury
treatment to Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell,
who authorities said helped run Epstein's child trafficking operation
for years, was controversially moved from a facility in Florida to an
amenity-filled "prison camp" in Bryan, Texas generally reserved for
low-level offenders, breaking the rules that usually would prohibit sex
offenders from such a facility — right around the time the
administration was trying to get her testimony to turn down the
temperature on public outrage over the Epstein case files.
Rep.
Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member on the House Oversight
Committee, broke down the apparent injustice of it all in an interview
on CNN this week.
"Oversight and Judiciary Dems
visited Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison today, it is essentially a pristine
park with fountains and ample green space," said Garcia, posting his
reaction to X. "She’s the only convicted sex offender there ... this
isn’t justice."
He demanded answers as to why
then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, now Trump's acting attorney
general and nominee for the permanent role, sent her to that facility.
The statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons did not say anything that mattered or was factual. And, as Tom Latchem (DAILY BEAST) notes,
"The agency did not explain why a convicted sex offender was placed at a
camp that, under its own rules, bars such inmates without a special
waiver."
As you may recall, last July Blanche, who was serving as Deputy
Attorney General, conducted a two-day interview with Maxwell while she
was seeking clemency. After making favorable comments about Tr*mp, she
wasn’t granted a pardon, but she did see her fortunes turn for the
better.
From the minute Maxwell stepped into Camp Bryan, her presence
“disrupted” the lives of her fellow inmates, all of whom are non-violent
offenders serving much lighter sentences for far less serious crimes.
Last August, she was allowed to take meetings outdoors while the rest
of the women had to stay inside. According to WSJ, the warden even scheduled a talk with
other inmates after one incident where he warned that any aggressive
behavior toward Maxwell would be punished. He also allegedly cautioned
inmates not to speak with press about Maxwell, a move which, according to Jamie Raskin, violates the inmates’ rights.
“Every inmate I’ve heard from is upset she is here,” one reporter said of the facility where Theranos grifter Elizabeth Holmes is also serving time and where former Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah recently finished 33 months.
Since the start of Maxwell’s sentence, she’s also had access to special meals, a specialized response team,
and other privileges seemingly denied the other inmates, none of whom
have committed crimes anywhere near the scale of Maxwell’s.
Money might be able to buy you plenty of privileges in prison, but they don’t buy you that much.
House Democrats have been asking Blanche what the deal is for months,
when a Wall Street Journal investigation broke the story of Maxwell’s
special treatment wide open. So far, they haven’t gotten any clear
answers.
In other news . . .
Time for Convicted Felon Donald Chump to preen and pose. The ego maniac has set some new standards. David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports:
President Donald Trump just broke three of his own records in a new poll, and none of them are good.
The NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll,
conducted June 8–11 among 1,340 adults with a margin of error of plus
or minus 3 percentage points, finds Trump hitting simultaneous lows: his
worst-ever economy approval rating, his worst-ever approval spread, and
a disapproval rating that ties the highest ever recorded for him.
Just
33% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy — the
lowest Marist has recorded since it began asking the question in 2019.
Sixty percent disapprove.
Trump's overall approval sits at
36%, with 59% disapproving — a 23-point gap that is the widest Marist
has ever measured for him across either term.
President
Donald Trump is calling for Republicans to pass a $350 billion bill to
fund the military while notching conservative policy victories — and GOP
senators aren’t exactly scurrying to action.
House
Republican leaders and committee chairs have been meeting for weeks
about what to include in a new party-line reconciliation package.
Speaker Mike Johnson has also had conversations about the House’s vision
with Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
But
the Senate has taken no concrete steps toward advancing a bill, and GOP
senators and aides said this week it was becoming clear any
“Reconciliation 3.0” would be a House-led effort. Multiple Senate
Republicans — including members of leadership — say they don’t currently
see a path that could marshall 50 votes behind such a measure on their
side of the Capitol just months before the midterms.
“Everybody
has a different concept of what they want, which is going to be the
problem,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in an interview this week.
Sen.
John Cornyn (R-Texas) said a third bill “doesn’t look to me like it's
got a lot of life in it,” while Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) separately
warned that if his party was going to pass a third reconciliation bill,
Republicans need to “saddle up and ride hard, because we’re running out
of time.”
Wait. They aren't marching in lockstep behind him? Singing a hearty tune? Chris Brennan (USA TODAY) explains there are hostilities currently:
President
Donald Trump has groused repeatedly during his second term about the
sometimes lengthy nomination process needed for key administration
officials to be approved by the U.S. Senate.
That was, until Trump derailed the fast-track with a petulant, early morning social media post just before 4 a.m. on June 17, catching his Republican allies in the Senate off guard hours before Clayton's hearing.
That
annoyed Trump, who lobbed his bombshell into the nomination process
from the G7 summit in France on June 17, where the six-hour time
difference meant he was tossing his tantrum about 10 a.m. local time
while Senate Republicans were likely sleeping back home in America.
President
Donald Trump is making life almost impossible for Senate Republicans —
and these days fewer of them are willing to just let it slide.
Some
lawmakers that were once happy to brush off impulsive and disruptive
behavior by saying they hadn’t seen the president’s social media posts
or that it was just “Trump being Trump” are increasingly willing to
speak out against what they view as bad decisions that undermine their
ability to deliver legislative wins as the midterms approach.
The
latest irritation was the early-morning Truth Social post Wednesday
that upended GOP hopes of quickly confirming a new director of national
intelligence and reviving a surveillance bill that Trump already
derailed earlier this month.
The chaos that
followed Trump’s sudden U-turn on Jay Clayton’s nomination, just hours
before a scheduled confirmation hearing, further loosened tongues in the
Capitol hallways — even from lawmakers who tend to be reliable allies.
“The
president’s timing and communication needs improvement,” Sen. Shelley
Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said. “I think it’s unfortunate. It throws a
kicker into the system when we get going and then we have to readjust.”
Asked
about frustration within the conference about the recent lack of
coordination, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) added, “Well, duh.”
Kennedy
added, “No, I don't,” when asked if Trump takes senators into
consideration: “He wants what he wants, and until he gets it, he just
keeps pushing.”
President Trump wants Republicans in Congress to do exactly as they are told.
But recently he has been hearing a lot of “no” from John Thune, the Senate’s top Republican.
That
has led to open conflict as Trump tries to push through a voter-ID law
that he has said is crucial to Republicans’ winning the midterms but
lacks enough support to pass. It is one of a series of disputes that
have intensified pressure on Thune, the lanky South Dakota conservative
who finds himself in an increasingly difficult political position just
months ahead of the elections.
[. . .]
Thune
has had to deliver a series of unwelcome news to Trump. Before they
agreed to pass a recent $70 billion border-security package, Senate
Republicans rejected funding for Trump’s White House ballroom and forced
the administration to scratch a $1.8 billion fund that could have been
used to compensate Trump’s political allies. Also, lawmakers loudly
objected to Pulte in the role as interim director, saying he lacked
national-security experience and airing concern that he would politicize
the position.
Republicans
are at a "boiling point" over tensions between President Donald Trump
and Senate GOP leadership, Punchbowl News reported on Thursday morning.
Senate
Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has been "bearing the brunt of the
fallout from Trump’s erratic behavior, expressing his frustrations with
the president in an intentional but very reserved manner," said the
report.
For the last week, the report noted, Thune
"was being stiff-armed by a White House that was refusing his request
for a briefing on the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement" — then things
kicked into high gear after Trump publicly blew up a hearing for one of
his own critical nominees and triggered a standoff.
Things
have gotten so tense that Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told reporters Trump
is "taking shots" at Thune, and lamented, “Who doesn’t like John Thune?
If you don’t like John Thune, you don’t like golden retrievers.”
Let's turn to one of the charm experts from Chump's cabinet. Lorne Cook (AP) reports,
"U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at NATO allies on
Thursday, announcing a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in
Europe whose outcome will depend on how fast the Europeans take
responsibility for their own security. The threat of a review was yet
another surprise for European allies and Canada as they learn to deal
with an increasingly unpredictable ally. U.S. officials and senior
military officers had promised to coordinate closely with the Europeans
as America draws down." Fresh from disgracing the United States at Normandy,
Hegseth's just spreading the ill will around, The man who only got
confirmed in the Senate thanks to JD Vance's tie breaking vote has been a
serial screw up going back to the Signal chat. Remember that?
Remember when the report from the Pentagon's Inspector General found
that, in that chat, Hegseth gave out the exact timelines, launch
sequences and even the specific weapons that would be deployed in the
strike on Yemen.
Yet he remained in the job. Loose lips Hegseth? He's apparently the cold sore America can't get rid of. Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) reports:
While
Donald Trump is being excoriated by Republicans over his Iran deal,
which one GOP lawmaker called “… a tremendous foreign policy blunder,”
MS NOW’s Bill Rohde stated on Thursday morning that Defense Secretary
Pete Hegseth can expect that his role in advising the president to
launch the war has put his job at risk.
Discussing
the blowback Trump is facing over the war that, for the moment, has
ended in a stalemate, Rohde claimed that Hegseth is already a prime
target instead since he is already on the outs with a substantial number
of Republican lawmakers.
“At some point. President Trump is the person most responsible
for this strategic defeat and failure,” Rohde told the "Morning Joe”
co-hosts. “But I would argue the person second most responsible, who is
in the most dangerous position politically, is Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth. He repeatedly lied to the American public
in his press conferences about the progress of the war, and he also
refused to give basic information to members of Congress. There's a lot
of ill will among senators and House members towards Pete Hegseth.”
Senators and House members have ill will towards Hegseth? That would explain what Eren Waris (MEAWW) reports:
Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing a bipartisan congressional rebuke as
lawmakers move to restrict his travel budget over long-running
complaints that the Pentagon has kept Congress in the dark.
The
proposed restriction comes as senators demand records related to
military strikes that have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides
of the aisle. The effort turns months of frustration over limited access
to information into a direct funding measure aimed at forcing greater
transparency from the Pentagon.
A Republican-led
Senate Armed Services Committee proposal filed Tuesday would block
Hegseth from using more than 25 percent of his travel budget until the
Pentagon turns over key documents related to military operations.
Under
the defense policy bill, lawmakers are demanding "unredacted civilian
harm investigations" and other records connected to strikes in the
Middle East and Latin America.
Committee members, led
by Republican Sen Roger Wicker, highlighted the April 2025 strikes in
Yemen that resulted in dozens of casualties and the February 2026 strike
on the Minab girls' school in Iran that left at least 150 students and
staff among the reported casualties.
Hegseth
is notorious for so many things -- most of them hideous. That would
include his refusal to wash his hands. Hygiene isn't a big thing with
Hegseth nor are vaccines. And that's coming back to haunt him. Greg Jaffe and Maggie Haberman (NEW YORK TIMES) report:
A
major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force
Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated
for the flu, defense officials said.
The
outbreak at the base in San Antonio raced through an Air Force Basic
Military Training wing, where new recruits sleep on bunk beds in open
bays and share meals at large communal tables.
A
trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill on
Friday and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the Air Force said
in a news release. It was not immediately clear whether the death of
the trainee, Keon McDaniel, was related to the flu outbreak.
A comprehensive medical review into his death is underway to determine the cause, according to the Air Force.
In the weeks since Mr. Hegseth’s vaccine policy took effect on April 21,
only about 40 percent of Air Force trainees have opted to take the
vaccine, which had previously been mandatory, an Air Force official
said.
And this is happening right now. Imagine what awaits come winter. Hegseth, ruining America just a little bit more each day.
Moving
over to air head Kristi Noem. As Chump's Special Envoy to the Shield
of the Americas, Kristi continues to screw up. She was laughed at earlier this week when asked which country in South America would qualify as the US' best friend and she responded,
"Well, we've worked so much with El Salvador and migration issues and
third country agreements. But also Ecuador's been fantastic; we did a
joint operation with them with the Department of War against the cartels
in their country. We work very well with Argentina; their economic
policies line up with ours. Costa Rica's been fantastic; they have a new
president" -- Stop. El Salvador and Costa Rica are not South American
countries, they are part of Central America.
It's
the sort of mistake a freshman in high school could make but not one
that the Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas should be making.
Prior to her current role, Kristi was the Secretary of Homeland Security
where she did so many things wrong. This included buying up facilities
to turn into ICE prisons. Hamed Aleaziz (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:
The idea was meant to supercharge President Trump’s mass deportation plan.
Immigration
and Customs Enforcement would purchase more than a dozen empty
warehouses across the United States to massively expand its capacity to
detain people deemed to be in the country illegally, which in turn would
spike deportations. A year into Mr. Trump’s term, it had bought 11
facilities at a cost of $1 billion.
But in a
major turnabout, the agency is planning to offload seven warehouses
purchased for more than $700 million by either giving them to other
federal agencies or selling them outright, according to documents
obtained by The New York Times.
The decision to
sharply scale back the warehouse plan is a rejection of a signature
initiative under the previous homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem,
who pushed the boundaries of what the government can do to aggressively
round up potential deportees. The new secretary, Markwayne Mullin, who
had privately expressed skepticism about the plan, has said publicly
that he wants the agency to be quieter about how it carries out
immigration enforcement.
Yesterday, America was reminded of what a president can be as Barack Obama spoke in Chicago.
The opening of the Obama Presidential Center drew thousands, including A-list celebrities, to celebrate the facility honoring the 44th president's historic legacy.
Former President Barack Obama, joined on stage by his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, oversaw the grand opening ceremony that also featured other living former presidents: Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
"Everybody's
got an opinion, and that means getting stuff done, involves reconciling
the demands of a couple of 100 million people," Obama said as he
reflected on America's political history. "Democracy can be frustrating,
it can be slow, it can be inefficient, and yet more than anything, I
hope this center will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how
precious our democracy truly is, and remind us what we can achieve when
we embrace our shared responsibilities as citizens."
Michelle Obama also commemorated the former president's work during a
speech about his tenure and the center's many community-oriented
amenities: "You were unflappable at every turn, always focused, always
calm, always looking at the long view," she told her husband.
The entertainment was first-rate.
People
came together and did so with a purpose that was beyond greed. It was a
reminder of what the country could be -- and will be again once Chump
is out of the White House.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Tammy Duckworth's office:
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—Ranking
Member of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation—is demanding the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reject any pressure to rubberstamp
President Donald Trump’s latest taxpayer-funded vanity project, the
so-called “Triumphal Arch,” that could jeopardize the safety of the
flying public. In a letter to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, Duckworth
warned against wasting time and resources reviewing the proposed
259-foot “Triumphal Arch,” which would be constructed in one of the most
complex and congested airspaces in the country.
Aviation Subcommittee Ranking Member Duckworth wrote, “President
Trump choosing to force the FAA to invest limited staff and resources
into a distracting review of his gaudy and disgraceful arch is merely
the latest example of Trump putting his pet projects first, while
neglecting America’s needs. This wasteful and dangerous project is
particularly irresponsible given the FAA’s ongoing efforts to implement
safety enhancements in and around DCA following the preventable DCA
collision in late January 2025, the deadliest domestic air crash since
the 2009 Colgan tragedy.”
In the letter, the Senator underscores the critical importance of
exercising the highest level of caution in DC airspace after the tragic
DCA collision claimed 67 lives. Initial reviews of the Arch project were
conducted on an expedited timeline, raising concerns about undue
pressure from the Trump Administration to advance a needless project
which could put people’s lives in danger.
“Your mission is to provide the safest, most efficient
aerospace system in the world. Accordingly, the FAA must commit to
upholding the highest safety standards and be firm in rejecting any
improper or irresponsible pressure from President Trump to prioritize
the construction of his gaudy, vanity arch over the safety of the
American people,” concluded Ranking Member Duckworth.
I write to demand the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) uphold
the highest safety standards and reject any efforts from President
Donald Trump to pressure the FAA into wasting time and resources
modifying the complex National Capital Region (NCR) airspace as part of a
wasteful campaign to rubberstamp Donald Trump’s newest vanity project,
the so-called “Triumphal Arch.” The Trump arch—which Donald Trump’s arch
designer noted is a distinct memorial because unlike the Lincoln and
Jefferson Memorials, President Trump’s arch is intended to celebrate the living—would
offensively desecrate the hallowed symbolism of Arlington National
Cemetery by destroying the historic sightline between the Lincoln
Memorial and Arlington House that has symbolized post-Civil War unity
for decades.
Furthermore, the vanity arch’s proximity to Ronald Reagan Washington
National Airport (DCA)—which, as the Trump administration is well aware,
is one of the most complex, constrained and airspaces in the National
Airspace System—reflects a flagrant disregard for the operational
integrity of the airspace, aviation safety and the priorities of the
American people.
President Trump choosing to force the FAA to invest limited staff and
resources into a distracting review of his gaudy and disgraceful arch
is merely the latest example of Trump putting his pet projects first,
while neglecting America’s needs. This wasteful and dangerous project is
particularly irresponsible given the FAA’s ongoing efforts to implement
safety enhancements in and around DCA following the preventable DCA
collision in late January 2025, the deadliest domestic air crash since
the 2009 Colgan tragedy.
As you know, the FAA has failed to secure full funding for the Trump
administration’s “Brand New Air Traffic Control System” despite
Republicans controlling the U.S. House of Representatives and the United
States Senate since 2025, and jamming through not just one, but two,
massive partisan Republican reconciliation spending bills. Some may
brush off wasting millions, if not billions, of taxpayer dollars on
Trump’s vanity arch as only an annoying nuisance. However, FAA should
know better than anyone that such flippant dismissals are reckless and
wrong.
The NCR is an extremely challenging airspace because of complicated
flight paths, restricted airspace and complex civil-military operations.
Even minor disruptions can have cascading, fatal effects—a sobering
reality that our country witnessed just last year when a midair
collision involving a commercial aircraft and an Army Blackhawk
helicopter killed 67 people. The DCA midair collision underscores the
consequences of inadequate coordination and the need for extreme caution
when evaluating any new obstruction in this environment.
The FAA’s initial feasibility study was a “limited review” and far
from the required full aeronautical study that must be conducted.
However, even this limited examination confirmed that the proposed
259-ft Trump vanity arch structure requires red lighting because it
constitutes an obstruction under Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations
(CFR), Part 77. FAA’s initial review appears to have been completed on
an expedited timeline, raising questions as to whether Donald Trump or
his White House aides are already improperly pressuring FAA to
prioritize rubberstamping Trump’s vanity arch over public safety.
Importantly, the finished structure is not the only potential hazard
Donald Trump is forcing into this highly congested, complex DCA
airspace. The National Park Service (NPS) indicated that construction of
Trump’s vanity arch would require cranes reaching 300 to 320 feet in
height and NPS estimated construction could last 20 hours per day for two to three years.
On final approach to DCA, commercial jets can fly as low as 500 feet
above ground level (AGL). Introducing construction equipment approaching
the AGL limit in an already congested airspace raises additional
operational and safety issues.
There is already evidence that the Trump administration is dismissive
of, or simply avoids, advanced aviation safety planning in coordination
with FAA experts. In addition to the Trump administration’s chaotic
testing of Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the NAS, commercial
pilots reported that during evening approaches to DCA, the bright lights
from Donald Trump’s personal UFC playground—which was installed on the
White House lawn for his taxpayer-funded birthday party—impaired pilot
visibility as they worked to navigate one of the most challenging
approaches in the NAS.
Your mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace
system in the world. Accordingly, the FAA must commit to upholding the
highest safety standards and be firm in rejecting any improper or
irresponsible pressure from President Trump to prioritize the
construction of his gaudy, vanity arch over the safety of the American
people.
Rep.
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday bluntly suggested that Donald
Trump’s mental fitness should be examined before pivoting away from
attacking the president and praising his nemesis, his predecessor Barack
Obama.
“I think there’s some reason to review
his mental state,” the former House speaker, who has called Trump’s
mental acuity into question on multiple previous occasions, told MS
NOW’s Jen Psaki.
Pelosi’s
remark came after Psaki, a former Biden White House press secretary,
asked what had gone through her mind while watching “the monstrosity of
the UFC fight, the effort to build a ballroom, the destruction of the
East Wing” under Trump.
Even
Nancy's talking about it. Even Nancy sees it. We all do. Chump
decays before our own eyes. He knows it too. You look at photos of him
now and he's got this kind of long pause face. Where his face
registers nothing. Yet hate is pouring out of his pores. We sense it
and we sense that the old man has lost his grip.
Thursday, June 18, 2026. Chump goes deranged as his 'deal' is called
out and mocked, Todd Blanche is the man with something to hide, most
Americans see Chump as "a dangerous dictator," and much more.
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) charts Chump's early morning dementia.
A
majority of Americans view President Donald Trump as a “dangerous
dictator” whose power should be constrained, according to a poll that
found a notable increase in that sentiment since March.
[. . .]
A
new Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll of 5,469 adults
living across all 50 states found that 59 percent believe that Trump “is
a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys
American democracy.”
Support for that view has
increased since March, when 52 percent of Americans agreed with the
statement. It also exceeds the 56 percent recorded in September 2025, when a majority of respondents similarly described Trump as a “dangerous dictator,” according to PRRI.
The
poll, which was conducted between May 1 and 18, has a margin of error
of plus or minus 1.53 percentage points. While the poll was being
conducted, headlines around the Trump administration included foreign
policy and the war with Iran, trade and tariff escalations with Europe,
and gas prices rising due to troubles in the Strait of Hormuz.
Dictator? Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan (NEW YORK TIMES) reported
on
the Situation Room meetings of Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi, Susie Wiles, JD
Vance and other members of the administration to plot on how to deceive
the American people about Epstein and specifically Chump's closeness to
Epstein while also detailing the administration's discussions about
implementing the Insurrectionist Act and suspending habeas corpus. The
last two are why Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued the
following yesterday:
Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, demanded
answers from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles after recent
reporting revealed Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller
pushed to suspend habeas corpus rights and Vice President J.D. Vance
pushed to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress peaceful protests in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. Habeas corpus is a fundamental aspect of due
process, allowing people in the United States to contest the basis of
their detention.
“Donald Trump has worked to defy and undermine the Constitution to
push his bigoted mass deportation campaign. New reporting shows that top
White House officials openly planned to deny core constitutional
rights, and the Vice President’s support to use the military against
peaceful protests. Oversight Democrats will fully investigate this
outrageous attack on the Constitution and the rule of law. All those
responsible should be held accountable,” said Ranking Member Robert
Garcia.
In the letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Ranking
Member Garcia wrote, “Oversight Democrats are investigating the
systematic violations of the Constitution by the Trump Administration
through its mass deportation campaign. The Administration’s willingness
to use violence against civilians, lack of oversight for violations of
civil rights, and violations of court orders are widely documented. New
reporting revealed that the Administration considered far more egregious
violations of the constitution, and that senior White House staff,
including Vice President J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller, advocated for
the illegal suspension of fundamental civil liberties as the
Administration considered suspending habeas corpus rights and invoking
the Insurrection Act to suppress peaceful protests in Minneapolis. In
light of this disclosure, we demand that you immediately provide records
and documents which outline a draft plan by senior members of the
Administration to effectively subvert the Constitution on a massive
scale.”
###
As Ruth noted
"We still have not seen the
'deal,' 'cease-fire,' or 'memo of understanding.' Whatever you call it,
Convicted Felon Donald Chump continues to keep it under wraps." --
whatever it is, it's still unknown. But based upon Chump's incessant
remarks and the sketch that's been discussed, people are forming
opinions.
Toward
the end of the Obama administration’s negotiations over its Iran
nuclear deal in 2015, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump chimed in
with some advice from his book, “The Art of the Deal.”
“Message to Obama re: Iran: ‘The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it,’” he posted on Twitter.
Trump and his administration are now committing this cardinal sin in their efforts to obtain their own nuclear deal with Iran.
In fact, it looks a lot like they’re giving up on even claiming their memorandum of understanding
(MOU) with Iran is a favorable document to the US. The Trump
administration is making it abundantly clear they just want out of this
war.
Trump’s overriding desire to extract himself
has been clear for a long time; he has repeatedly pulled back on his
threats, downplayed Iranian provocations and resisted a return to
large-scale hostilities.
But over the last 24 hours, this attitude has moved from the subtext to the text.
The administration has repeatedly suggested that its handling of the MOU is about catering to Iran.
Perhaps most striking were comments the administration made without attribution.
“The
consensus of the team was we want to get this thing over with, and the
deal is the way to do it in a way that maximizes our upside and
minimizes our downside,” an administration official directly involved in
the talks told CNN’s Alayna Treene.
If
you’d like to know how Donald Trump’s closing speech at the G7 went,
it’s probably best to start at the part where he asked Scott Bessent
whether the stock market was smarter than his Treasury secretary.
“No,
sir,” Bessent dutifully replied. He was disagreeing with a notion Trump
had just posited, but it was clear from his tone of voice that he
didn’t mean to disagree. He was simply trying to make real-time sense of
what his boss had just said, which happened to be the semi-coherent and
utterly baffling: “The stock market is more brilliant than anybody
there is, including people on this stage, apart from me. What do you
think, Scott, is the stock market more brilliant than you?”
Yeganeh Torbati (NEW YORK TIMES) states, "The agreement
lifts the U.S.-imposed naval blockade of Iranian ports and, most
crucially, grants Iran waivers to begin exporting its oil even before
the negotiation of a final agreement on its nuclear program. That will
give Iran a critical economic lifeline. In recent years, its economy has
been in a tailspin, with a collapsing currency and sky-high inflation." The paper's David E. Sanger reminds:
It was less than 15 weeks ago when
President Trump, at the height of his bravado about how the war with
Iran would end, declared “there will be no deal with Iran except
UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
When the text of the deal
intended to wind down the conflict was finally released on Wednesday,
read aloud paragraph by paragraph by a senior administration official
who stopped to defend each section, it read nothing like a surrender
document. Instead, the Iranians emerged from a confrontation with the
world’s most powerful military having not only survived, but with much
to celebrate.
It starts with the
resumption of Tehran’s ability to reap billions of dollars in oil sales,
lifting pressure on the struggling regime even as negotiators prepare
to begin haggling over a far more lengthy and critical document: the one
Mr. Trump insisted in an interview on Sunday will arrest Iran’s nuclear
program for the next 15 or 20 years.
For
a president who prizes leverage above all else, that decision is just
another mystery of the war. But the wording of the “Memorandum of
Understanding” also suggests that, over time, Iran may negotiate some
permanent way to exercise sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. That
seems in contradiction to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s declarations
just a few weeks ago that anything other than the kind of free passage
through the strait that the world knew before the war was “not
acceptable” and “cannot happen.”
Republican
Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) on Wednesday slammed the deal between the Trump
administration and Iran, two days before the two sides are set to sign
it.
“The details that I’ve seen so far look …
awful. This will go down as a tremendous foreign policy blunder,”
Cassidy told Nexstar’s Reshad Hudson on Capitol Hill.
Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is not mincing words when it comes to President Donald Trump’s newly-announced deal with Iran.
“Worst foreign policy blunder in decades,” Cassidy said.
In
a post to X on Wednesday, the exiting Louisiana senator — who was
defeated in a primary race in May, after President Trump endorsed one of
his opponents — sounded off on the deal, which he believes is a massive
win for Iran.
“Reagan is rolling over in his
grave,” Cassidy wrote. “Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and
they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will
undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new
infrastructure under this deal.”
He added,
“Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by
sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans
are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be
lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy
blunder in decades.”
President Trump’s agreement with Iran
opened new fissures in his party on Wednesday, with Republicans on
Capitol Hill and beyond questioning whether his administration had
secured adequate concessions from Iranian leaders after months of a
costly and unpopular war.
After the Trump administration released the text
of the arrangement on Wednesday, some Senate Republicans reacted with
fierce criticism, skepticism and alarm. Prominent members of the
G.O.P.’s old guard from outside Congress also sounded dubious notes. And
even some of the president’s allies in the conservative news media
voiced concern.
[. .]
The reactions underscore a challenge Mr. Trump faces five months ahead
of the midterm elections, as he works to free Republicans from the
political albatross of the war while navigating varying views about it
within his own party. While Mr. Trump has won praise for the deal from
some Republican allies, consolidating support in a party with competing
factions is proving to be a difficult task.
Retired
four-star Army Gen. Jack Keane on Wednesday said the tentative deal
between the U.S. and Iran is a “long way from accomplishing” President
Trump’s objectives in the Middle Eastern country.
Keane
told hosts John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby on the “Cats and Cosby
Show” on WABC 770 AM that his “gut reaction” to the deal was “more about
what’s not in there than what’s in it,” referring to a lack of
restrictions on Iran’s missile capabilities and inspections of its
nuclear facilities.
“There's
concerns that [Israel Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu is going to try to
blow up this deal because it's so bad for Israel in the long term,”
Rohde explained before adding a curt, “It is.”
“I
was really expecting a little more meat on the bone,” he said. “We’re a
long way from accomplishing the objectives that the president wants to
accomplish here with the Iranians. … We’re at the beginning of a process
that’s going to take some time here for sure.”
Keane,
who served a stint as acting Army chief of staff in 1993, noted that
Iranian officials will look at the U.S. response to the deal as
“something of a victory for themselves because the war is not
continuing.”
“They got a ceasefire,” he told
Catsimatidis and Cosby. “Now they’re moving towards a final agreement.
And they’re going to delay that as much as possible, believing that the
closer we get to the midterms, the less likely the president will return
with military operations.”
He
has been all over the airwaves in the past few days trying to sell the
Iran deal that President Trump announced Sunday afternoon. In addition
to The View, he showed up on Megyn Kelly’s show. Kelly is a leading
conservative voice who has been sharply critical of the Iran war. Vance
calmly and persistently pushed back on hawkish conservative critics who
allege the White House is being duped by Iran.
“They
are proposing an endless conflict,” Vance said of the critics. “They
want this to go on until every bomb has been dropped or until every
Iranian is dead. That’s not what the President of the United States
wants.”
One challenge for Vance: No one has
seen the fine print on the deal, leading to screams from conservatives
that perhaps Trump has been duped (The WSJ reported Tuesday
that a draft of the deal would allow Iran to sell oil, and Iranian
tankers have already been permitted to depart through the U.S.
blockade).
Donald Trump pitted JD Vance against Marco Rubio during a private dinner, asking Rupert Murdoch to compare the 2028 Republican contenders while they sat at the same table.
The awkward exchange was detailed in an excerpt from Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, obtained by Axios.
The book about Trump’s second term, set for publication on June 23,
offers a glimpse into the 80-year-old president’s habit of holding
impromptu popularity contests among his allies.
Trump has long positioned
his vice president, 41, and secretary of state, 55, as potential rivals
in the 2028 presidential race. While he has not publicly endorsed
either, he has asked friends and advisers to compare the two.
According
to Haberman and Swan, Trump hosted Murdoch, Vance, Rubio, and several
White House aides at a private dinner on Oct. 16, 2025. During the
gathering, Trump turned to the 95-year-old conservative media mogul and
asked him to assess the two men widely viewed as leading candidates for
the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.
The president asked Murdoch whom he preferred, Vance or Rubio, while adding that he thinks “they’re both great.”
“What do you think of JD?” Trump asked.
Murdoch replied: “Well... I think JD has the potential to be great.”
“And what do you think of Marco?” Trump asked.
Murdoch answered immediately: “Marco is brilliant.”
“With
Vance and Rubio sitting awkwardly at the table, Murdoch was notably
more effusive about Rubio,” Haberman and Swan wrote, according to the
excerpt obtained by Axios.
President
Donald Trump is trying to "get creative to avoid embarrassment" after
one of his much-prized endorsements went down in flames in a key swing
state, per a new analysis from MS NOW.
Trump
built up a notable win-streak of 2026 midterm endorsements in recent
weeks, costing numerous state and federal lawmakers their reelection
bids in retaliation for standing up to him. However, as the weeks have
gone by, his endorsements have proven to be far from bulletproof, most
recently when the Trump-backed Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones lost his
gubernatorial bid to businessman and healthcare executive Rick Jackson,
sending him into the general election to face Democrat Keisha Lance
Bottoms in the crucial battleground state.
Despite Trump's endorsement, Jones ended up five points behind Jackson when all was said and done.
Two
weeks ago, in Iowa’s gubernatorial race, Trump threw his support behind
Rep. Randy Feenstra, who narrowly lost his Republican primary to Zach
Lahn. This week, it happened again. MS NOW reported:
Healthcare
executive Rick Jackson clinched the Republican gubernatorial nomination
on Tuesday, pulling off a win over Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and securing a
spot in the November election against Democratic nominee Keisha Lance
Bottoms. […]
Jackson, a
businessman who entered politics as an outsider candidate, sought to
position himself as an alternative to career politicians.
Trump endorsed Jones, the incumbent lieutenant governor, who ended up losing his primary bid by roughly 5 points.
Yes,
sir? No, sir? What, sir? It was clear at that point, just a couple of
minutes in, that nobody — including his own team, or perhaps especially
his own team — had any idea what Trump was talking about.
This
was probably the most alarming Trump appearance to date. He was
breathless and incoherent, ill-seeming and off-piste. He spent 32
minutes justifying his deal with Iran to the world before mentioning a
single discussion that had taken place among the G7 countries at the
summit, and the justifications spoke for themselves.
"This
wasn't a three-month deal," he declared. "This was years in the making.
You know why? Because I was the one who killed General Soleimani."
Soleimani,
who has been dead since 2020, enjoyed repeated cameos throughout the
proceedings. Trump called him "a mad genius" and "the boss of Iran,"
returning to him again and again like an aging musician who keeps
bringing audiences back to his biggest hit because the new material
isn't getting much applause. The implication, of course, was that
Soleimani represented a job well done to Trump himself. This deal? Not
so much.
Turning to Toad Blanche, acting Attorney General. Chump has nominated him to be the next Attorney General. Thomas Kika reports Toad is facing some harsh winds:
President
Donald Trump is keen to get his newest judicial attack dog properly
installed at the top of the Justice Department, but according to a new report from The Hill, he has run into a serious wall of Republican "skepticism" in Congress.
Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump's personal attorney, was promoted to acting Attorney General following the departure of Pam Bondi.
Since then, he has wasted little time attempting to rack up "wins" in
order to endear himself further to the president and audition for the
proper AG job. It seems to have worked out for him, as Trump nominated
him for the position earlier this month.
However,
he now faces considerable pushback from Republicans in the Senate who
will have to confirm his appointment, The Hill reported on Wednesday,
much of it stemming from his involvement in the settlement of Trump's IRS lawsuit.
"Acting
Attorney General Todd Blanche is headed for a rocky Senate confirmation
process to take on the role permanently as several Republican senators
raise concerns about his credibility and independence from President
Trump," The Hill reported. "Blanche faced withering criticism from
Senate Republicans during a private meeting last month at which more
than 20 GOP lawmakers vented their frustrations with the administration
and panned the proposal he rolled out to establish a $1.8 billion 'anti-weaponization' fund."
It continued: "Blanche on Tuesday assured GOP senators in at least two private meetings that the fund is dead
and he won’t support it if Trump tries to revive the idea in the
future. But he still faces skepticism over the fund and other issues,
including an agreement that Trump reached with his administration to
shield himself and his family from IRS audits of past tax returns."
Hanging
over Blanche’s confirmation hearings are damaging new revelations about
the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. No
senator will be able to cast a vote for him without either embracing or
forgiving his cynical politicization of the Epstein matter.
,
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, in new reporting
for the New York Times excerpted from their forthcoming book, Regime
Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, offer
astonishing insights into the dishonesty and incompetency of the leaders
overseeing the bungled Epstein response. And Blanche stands
inextricably at the center of it all.
,
Most
fundamentally, Haberman and Swan expose that Blanche and Justice
Department leadership handled the Epstein case as a matter of politics,
not prosecution. Their reporting flatly discredits Blanche’s
self-congratulatory refrain that, under his watch, the Justice
Department stands above and beyond political concerns. At his
confirmation hearing for the deputy-AG position, for example, Blanche
declared, “Politics would play no role in my decisions as deputy
attorney general.” And when asked in December 2025 if political
motivations influenced redactions from the Epstein files, he fired back,
“Absolutely, positively not.”
Turns out, that was bulls[**]t.
,
In
fact, Haberman and Swan report in detail how key decisions around the
Epstein files were made by Blanche and other DoJ leaders who worked
intensively with (and at times took direction from) top White House
officials. Unsurprisingly for a Justice Department that now hangs on its
headquarters a massive banner of Donald Trump’s glowering face, the
DoJ’s priority was not to pursue criminals, to protect victims, or to
inform the public but to minimize political damage to the president and
his administration.
,
The
panic level around the unfolding public-relations crisis was so intense
that Blanche reportedly met with White House brass in the Situation
Room — the same ultrasecure facility used during national-security
crucibles from the Cuban Missile Crisis to 9/11 to COVID. The
decision-making that came out of those meetings was questionable at
best. At times, Blanche vouched for desperate measures intended to
mitigate individual brushfires, only to accelerate the larger
conflagration.
For example, as
public confidence collapsed around the DoJ’s vexing and often
self-contradictory messaging, Blanche devised an underhanded ploy to
create an illusion of transparency. Haberman and Swan report
that he suggested prosecutors could formally ask judges to unseal
secret grand-jury records relating to the investigations of Epstein and
Ghislaine Maxwell. But, as Blanche understood based on his own
prosecutorial experience, the judges likely would deny the motions
(which they all eventually did). And even if by some fluke a judge
granted the DoJ’s disingenuous request, Blanche knew the grand-jury
records would contain nothing new or interesting. He believed it would
be a win-win; either way, Justice Department leaders would look like
they tried, and nothing damaging would be revealed.
When
that gambit satisfied precisely nobody, Blanche tried something even
more desperate. He flew to Florida and interviewed Maxwell face to face
with the expectation that the convicted child sex trafficker — who
actively solicited a presidential pardon — would clear Trump of
wrongdoing. Haberman and Swan report that Vice-President J.D. Vance (who
“appeared panicked” over the right-wing response to the Epstein mess)
initially proposed that carnival barker Tucker Carlson do the dirty
work, meet with Maxwell behind bars, and tell his audience that all was
well. The plan fell through, and Blanche emerged as Carlson’s understudy
— not exactly a sparkling résumé item for an aspiring attorney general.
Buried in the Department of Justice’s massive trove of files on Epstein, an interview
conducted by the FBI on June 19, 2020, included allegations that the
president had previously used Trump Tower as a hunting ground for young
women, RawStory reported Wednesday.
In
the early 1990s, the woman worked at a luxury shoe store near Trump
Tower, and would study in the building’s public atrium during her lunch
breaks. One day, she met a colleague at the atrium who pointed out two
men lurking nearby.
“[She] described one of the
men was dark haired and looked like Antonio Banderas, while the other
man was blonde and looked like the surfer type,” the FBI report stated.
“Her colleague told her that the men constantly picked up [redacted]
women.”
The woman was then approached by the
dark-haired man, who struck up a conversation with her. “He asked if she
knew who Donald Trump was and told her he was meeting people that day,”
the report stated.
“[She] told the man that
she knew who Trump was. The man asked if she wanted to meet Trump and
told her that she did not need to work so hard to go to school,” the
report stated. “The man winked and said he could do whatever she liked.”
“[She]
felt that it was clear that sex was on the table, even though the man
never mentioned sex,” the report stated. “[She] felt these men were
playing the role of recruiters for Trump.”
“The
man told her that if she did not want to meet Trump right then, she
could go to a party. The man told her that she could bring a friend if
the friend looked like her, but she could not bring a guy,” the report
stated. The invitation for the party had Epstein’s address on it, the
woman told the FBI.
When she declined the
invites, she said she began receiving death threats. “The threats
consisted of the men saying that they knew where she worked and could
find her. [She] never told the police because she did not think they
would believe her,” the report stated. They never approached her again.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
The Children Harmed in
Life-threatening or Dangerous (CHILD) Labor Act would strengthen labor
law, give Department of Labor greater enforcement power
“In fiscal year 2025, more cases of
federal child labor violations were uncovered than during any other
year since the Great Recession, and hazardous work violations ticked up
again after declining in the year prior.” – MORE from the Economic Policy Institute
Murray and DeLauro’s legislation is
more urgent than ever as child labor law violations spike and the Trump
administration has undermined existing enforcement efforts while
Republicans push for even weaker standards
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray,
former chair and senior member of the Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), and U.S. Representative Rosa
DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee
and Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education reintroduced legislation to protect children from exploitative
child labor practices and hold the companies and individuals who take
advantage of them accountable. The Children Harmed in Life-threatening or Dangerous(CHILD) Labor Act strengthens
our ability to combat child labor by cracking down on employers who
violate child labor laws with stronger penalties and allowing children
who have been seriously injured to sue their employers. The bill also
expands child labor provisions to hold suppliers and subcontractors
throughout the supply chain responsible.
According to recent reporting,
the number of child labor violations has risen fivefold in the last 10
years and Republican-led state legislatures are continuing to propose
and pass legislation at the state level that rolls back child labor
regulations with the goal of eroding federal standards–as outlined in Project 2025.
“It should never be cheaper for a company to break child
labor laws than to follow them—but right now, it is. Violations are at
their highest level in years, Republicans are gutting protections in
state after state, and the Trump administration has all but stopped
enforcing the laws on the books,” said Senator Murray. “Children
should not be subjected to abusive and dangerous work environments—they
should not be working the night shift operating heavy equipment and in
unsafe conditions with no consequences. My bill would deliver real
penalties, real accountability for giant corporations, and real recourse
for kids who get hurt.”
“No child should have to risk their life or their future because of a job,” said Congresswoman DeLauro.
“Yet across this country, children are being put to work in dangerous
jobs that threaten that future while companies reap massive profits from
their labor, and this Administration weakens the
agencies responsible for enforcing labor laws and protecting children
from abusive labor practices. Corporations cannot cut corners –
especially not when it comes to our children. The CHILD Labor act will
put a stop to this by holding companies accountable and ensuring our
children’s futures are protected.”
The CHILD Labor Act would protect children by enhancing the Fair Labor Standards Act to
hold liable contractors or subcontractors for child labor violations in
the same manner as the employer who employs the child in oppressive
child labor; increase the civil penalty amount for child labor
violations from $16,000 to $160,350—or 10 times the inflation-adjusted
amount; increase the criminal penalty fine from $10,000 to $750,000;
require any person who violates child labor provisions to be liable to
each employee affected by the violation in an amount no less than
$75,000; and require federal contracts to contain child labor provisions
that prohibit the use of oppressive child labor.
The legislation would also require the Secretary to report to
Congress data and recommendations concerning overall trends for
work-related injuries, illnesses, or deaths to Congress on an annual
basis.
In the Senate, the legislation is cosponsored by Senators Tammy
Duckworth (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Murphy
(D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT),
Tina Smith (D-MN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
In the House, the legislation is cosponsored by Representatives Alma
Adams (D-NC-12), Judy Chu (D-CA-28), Danny Davis (D-IL-7), Mark
DeSaulnier (D-CA-10), Dan Goldman (D-NY-10), Eleanor Holmes Norton
(D-DC), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-18), Seth Magaziner (D-RI-2), Jim McGovern
(D-MA-2), Mark Pocan (D-WI-2), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-9), Shri Thanedar
(D-MI-13), Jill Tokuda (D-HI-2), and Lauren Underwood (D-IL-14).
The legislation is endorsed by the National Employment Law Project, and the Center for Law and Social Policy.
