President Trump is appointing a longtime loyalist and budget hardliner, Russell Vought, to take over the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) when Elon Musk leaves.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, is expected to cut the federal government with a sharp pen, with even Republicans voicing opposition to his plans for the military.
While Musk's bold, tech-driven approach to reforming government was fast and disruptive, Vought comes with an extensive background in government policy and budgeting that could help DOGE's reforms stick.
Trump acknowledged at a recent Cabinet meeting that Musk is headed back to the private sector, although Trump told the Tesla billionaire he is "invited to stay as long as you want—at some point he wants to get back home to his cars.”
Vought is expected to push for a $9.3 billion rescissions package that would claw back funding from the State Department, USAID, National Public Radio and PBS. Musk has already gutted USAID to a large degree, and Trump has said NPR and PBS should lose public funding because of their left-wing bias.
Vought has shown dedication to Trump's MAGA mission, having worked for Trump in his first term as OMB director before returning to the role this year.
Among Democrats, Vought is a figure both reviled and feared because of his role in crafting the conservative policy agenda known as Project 2025.
Democrats have ripped his hardline approach - which envisions using the impoundment power to claw back federal spending - as a threat to Congress' control over the public purse.
A senior OMB official said during a recent call with reporters that impoundment hasn’t been taken “off the table.”
Vought is also likely to focus on cutting federal regulations and implementing Schedule F, a civil service reform first introduced by Trump at the end of his first term that weakens job protections for federal employees.
But it isn't just Democrats who are voicing concern with Vought's approach. Some Republicans are up in arms over what they argue is a cut to the military.
Trump's 2026 budget proposal gives the Pentagon $1 trillion for the first time. But Republican defense hawks dismiss the number as gimmicky, since it includes a one-time supplement of defense spending through a process called budget reconciliation, which Republicans are using to pass Trump's "big, beautiful bill" without Democratic support. The Pentagon's annual budget would otherwise stay flat at more than $890 billion.
Trump's budget calls for a $163 billon cut across the federal government, bringing domestic spending to its lowest level since the 1960s.
On the other hand, the budget surges spending for the Department of Homeland Security by 65% to support Trump's deportation agenda and calls for a 13% increase in defense.
A top economic adviser to President Trump said new taxes on the rich aren't likely - despite Trump's suggestion that it would be "good politics" to make top earners pay more.
A day before Republicans released their tax plan, Kevin Hassett said a tax hike on the rich is "probably not going to happen."
“No, it’s not in the plan right now,” Kevin Hassett told Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures.
Trump has floated a tax hike on the rich to help pay for his sweeping agenda, which includes a tax cut for workers who rely on tips - an idea his electoral opponent Kamala Harris adopted.
Republicans in Congress have resisted Trump's push to raise taxes on the rich, which runs afoul of conservative orthodoxy against raising taxes.
Draft legislation released Monday includes many of Trump's tax proposals, including tax cuts on tips, overtime, and Social Security, but the bill does not include a tax hike on the wealthy.
“But it’s probably not going to happen," Hassett had said of the tax hike. "He literally is putting his priorities first and those priorities are in both versions of the bill that I’ve seen.”
Republicans in Congress are trying to pass Trump's agenda in one "big, beautiful bill," with his first-term tax cuts in danger of expiring at the end of the year.
“But the president is clear that he’s got the objectives that he wants to achieve for the American worker like no tax on overtime," Hassett said.
"That no tax on overtime, by the way, it’s a huge benefit. We were doing some estimates that for a typical unionized worker might be 100, 200 dollars a week. He’s got those things as top priorities in the bill.”
Trump has said any tax increase on the rich would be small, and that it would be "good politics" to make the rich pay for tax relief for those earning less.
"I actually think it's good politics to do it where richer people give up. And it's a very small – it's like a point – but they give it up to benefit the people on lower income," Trump told reporters at the White House last week.
Still, in a Truth Social post, Trump said Republicans "should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!”
At this stage, it appears clear that Republicans do not have the appetite for Trump's proposal.
Trump's numerous critics and haters across the media sphere have attempted to spin a narrative that First Lady Melania Trump is leaning away from her husband.
But reports -- and common sense -- tell a different story, especially as President Trump was relentlessly prosecuted in multiple rounds of political lawfare, which some say has actually brought the couple closer together than ever before.
Melania Trump has reportedly spent more time with her husband than usual, and sources close to her say that even though she was "furious" about the Stormy Daniels situation, she feels her husband was unfairly treated by his political enemies.
The first lady has taken heat for being mostly away from the White House since Donald was reelected, but sources close to her say there's a very good reason for that.
One of those reasons is her deep bond with the couple's son, Barron Trump.
First Lady Trump understandably went into full protective mode, especially after assassins attempted to kill Mr. Trump on several occasions.
Reports noted:
As a result, part of her desire to spend more time at the Trump's New York City apartment is reportedly to try to ensure the safety of 19-year-old Barron. Melania also prioritized Barron during the first Trump administration, delaying her move to the White House so that he could finish up the school year in New York.
Melania Trump wasn't happy about the Stormy Daniels situation, according to Mary Jordan, a journalist at the Washington Post and author of The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump.
"When she found out years ago about Stormy Daniels, she was the most upset she’s been," MJordan told The Times. "She was furious and it was a very low period."]
While many of Trump's critics presumably hoped for the two to grow apart as a result of the case, the opposite happened.
Jordan added, "The trials and the cases in court have infuriated her and drawn her closer to Trump. She believes that he has been persecuted."
Melania Trump has gone on record as saying that her top priority is protecting her family, especially her young son, who is now in college.
Many in the media have desperately attempted to tell a different, darker story. But it's not catching on.
Clearly, Melania loves her husband, her son, and the Trump family, and that's not going to change anytime soon.
Any reasonable person can understand why she does what she does.
Former New York Republican lawmaker George Santos, who faces seven years in prison after he was sentenced recently in the wake of being hit with 24 charges of fraud and identity theft, wasn't shy about begging President Donald Trump for help.
According to the New York Post, the disgraced former lawmaker, who became the sixth-ever lawmaker to be kicked out of the House of Representatives by his colleagues, used his time during an interview with Piers Morgan to ask Trump for a pardon or clemency.
Santos even choked up during his request, which was presumably even more of a turn-off for Trump.
The disgraced lawmaker admitted he wasn't an "altar boy" but insisted that he deserves leniancy because he's not a "hardened criminal."
Santos held nothing back during his interview with Morgan in asking Trump for assistance before he's required to surrender to the feds on July 25.
“I’ll take a commutation, clemency, whatever the president is willing to give me,” Santos said on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” while adding he was “not entertaining a pardon” until recently.
While clearly holding back tears as he looked into the camera, Santos added, "President Trump, I’d appreciate if you can give me a consideration."
The outlet recalled his crimes:
While running for Congress in 2022, the Republican candidate had defrauded dozens of donors — including some family members and friends — and later filed false campaign finance reports to juice his contribution figures.
The Post reported:
Last month, Central Islip federal Judge Joanna Seybert sentenced Santos, 36, to seven years and three months behind bars and ordered him to pay $373,000 after he pleaded guilty in August to charges of wire fraud and identity theft.
Santos was indicted on the charges back in 2023, and was ultimately hit with a total of 23 charges. Still, he remained in his elected office despite widespread calls from the Republican Party to step aside.
The disgraced lawmaker didn't listen and was ultimately voted out of the lower chamber, making history in the worst and most embarrassing possible way.
Social media reacts
Users across social media blasted Santos for having the audacity to ask for help from Trump at this time.
George Santos is officially asking President Trump for a pardon.
Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/qDU1LfoYRz
— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) May 10, 2025
"You do the crime, you do the time!" one X user wrote.
President Donald Trump's relationship with Israel appears to be at a turning point, with reports that he is "disappointed" with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump is said to be angry with Netanyahu after he pushed the White House to dismantle Iran's nuclear program with military action, according to Hebrew language outlet Israel Hayom.
The outlet noted that Trump has decided to pursue America's objectives in the Middle East without "waiting" for input from Israel.
Trump's change in attitude has been made clear by his recent moves in the Middle East, which have taken Israel by surprise.
This week, Trump announced a cease-fire between the U.S. and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels who have been harassing ships in the Red Sea. Trump agreed to stop bombing the Houthis if they cease targeting U.S. interests in the region, but the Houthis have not made a commitment to stop attacking Israel. In response to the deal, Netanyahu said that Israel would "defend ourselves alone."
The Houthi cease-fire comes after Trump announced "direct" talks between the U.S. and Iran over a nuclear agreement. Trump broke the news while seated next to Netanyahu in the Oval Office.
According to Israel Hayom, Trump is angry about Netanyahu's perceived efforts to push Mike Waltz, the president's former national security adviser, to take military action against Iran. Waltz's interactions with Netanyahu also reportedly played a role in Trump's decision to oust Waltz from the national security team.
Trump has favored using diplomacy with Iran instead, although he has continued to threaten force if Iran is not cooperative about dismantling its nuclear facilities.
A couple of factors seem to be influencing the recent rift between Trump and Netanyahu.
On the one hand, Trump and his team clearly see a gap between Israel's demands and America's interests in the Middle East, but there is also a personal factor: Trump's approach to politics is pragmatic and transactional, and if he feels like he is being disrespected by someone, he's not going to do them any favors.
During his first term, Trump's foreign policy was highly favorable towards Israel, and Trump forged close ties with Netanyahu. But tensions became apparent after Netanyahu congratulated President Joe Biden on his dubious victory in the 2020 election.
Trump will visit the Persian Gulf next week for his first major foreign trip, stopping first in Saudi Arabia, where he marked his first international trip during his first term. Trump currently has no plans to stop in Israel.
In another sign of a growing rift, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly cancelled a trip to Israel that was planned for next week.
Political leaders in California are mourning the death of Nate Holden, a former Democratic state senator and Los Angeles city councilman. He was 95.
Holden, who was black, was born in Macon, Georgia in June 1929, during the segregation era. He became a "force to be reckoned with" in Los Angeles, according to L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who shared the news of his passing.
“Nate Holden was a legend here in Los Angeles,” Hahn said in a statement. “He was a lion in the State Senate and a force to be reckoned with on the Los Angeles City Council. I learned a lot sitting next to him in the chambers as a new Councilmember."
Holden was first elected to public office in the state senate, winning the seat in 1974 after time spent working for Hahn's father, former Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.
In the Senate, Holden's major initiatives included writing the Housing Financial Discrimination Act, which prohibited financial institutions from discriminating based on race, religion, sex or marital status, and forcing public schools to recognize Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.
After leaving the job in 1978 to pursue a failed bid for U.S. Congress - his second attempt - Holden was eventually elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1987, holding the job until 2003.
His tough, sometimes difficult personality won him praise from his mostly black constituents, who saw him as a neighborhood champion even as he rankled colleagues in government with his confrontational approach. He supported measures to combat crime and gang activity during the crime wave of the 80s and 90s, once provoking scowls from his fellow council members when he held a press conference to announce that he was giving up his $12,000 raise to the Los Angeles Police Department to boost foot patrols.
“They just want to keep the money,” Holden said of his colleagues at the time. “That’s their choice.”
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, paid tribute to Holden, who has a performing arts center named after him in the Mid-City area.
“Nate Holden leaves behind a legacy of service and strength. Throughout his life, he put the South Los Angeles community front and center. As an organizer, I learned from the way he served, always working to ensure vital services were delivered directly to the residents he represented. For decades, he was a trusted advisor. My thoughts are with the Holden family during this difficult time. Flags in the City of Los Angeles will fly at half staff as our city mourns.”
After years out of the public eye, Holden came to national attention last year after President Trump recalled taking an unforgettable helicopter ride with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Holden said he, not Brown, was with Trump when the helicopter almost crashed.
"Willie is the short black guy living in San Francisco … I’m a tall black guy living in Los Angeles," Holden said. "I guess we all look alike.”
The wife of Democratic senator John Fetterman (Pa.) was driven to her "breaking point" by his vocal support of Israel in its war against Hamas, according to a new report.
The lengthy article, from New York, paints Fetterman as a dangerously erratic figure who has alienated those close to him with his surprising political drift towards the right.
"Former and current staffers paint a picture of an erratic senator who has become almost impossible to work for and whose mental-health situation is more serious and complicated than previously reported," the article says.
As Fetterman entered the spotlight during his Senate run in 2022, his wife Gisele, an immigrant from Brazil who entered the U.S. illegally, also drew attention for her outspoken leftism. Fetterman won the race despite suffering a debilitating stroke during the campaign.
His politics later evolved in unexpected directions, to the consternation of those around him. Despite being known initially as a progressive, Fetterman broke with the left on the Israel-Palestine conflict after Hamas' October 7, 2023, assault. He made a high-profile pilgrimage to Mar-A-Lago after President Trump's re-election last year, a move that angered fellow Democrats including his own wife, according to New York's article.
It wasn't the only time that politics put the couple at odds. In the aftermath of October 7, Fetterman's strident backing of Israel alarmed his staff, and his own spouse.
“In early November, just weeks after the attack, Gisele arrived at her husband’s Senate office and, according to a staffer present, they got into a heated argument. ‘They are bombing refugee camps. How can you support this?’ the staffer recalled her saying with tears in her eyes,” New York reported.
“‘That’s all propaganda,’ Fetterman replied.”
According to New York, Fetterman's wife was crushed to find out that his staff were not pushing him to support Israel, but rather, the opposite was true: he was resisting pressure to change his stance. Gisele reportedly texted another staffer and admitted she was at her "breaking point" and asked for help drafting a statement to clearly separate herself from her husband's view.
In addition to sharing details on the alleged tensions in his marriage, the New York article makes a series of shocking claims about Fetterman's mental health.
The report, which is based on current and former staffers, says Fetterman walked into traffic before he was admitted to the hospital for depression in 2023.
In a statement to the magazine, Fetterman and his wife put on a united front, with Fetterman dismissing any notion of a rift as overblown. He acknowledged that his wife "has her own voice" and said it's normal for couples in politics to disagree.
Gisele Fetterman accused one of the article's main sources, Fetterman's former chief of staff Adam Jentleson, of peddling "scary, untrue stories about John’s health" for political gain.
Pete Hegseth has given orders to trim the top brass at the Pentagon, part of his ongoing effort to streamline a bloated military bureaucracy.
Hegseth's memo directs the Pentagon to eliminate "redundant" positions to make the armed forces more lethal and efficient.
"Through these measures, we will uphold our position as the most lethal fighting force in the world, achieving peace through strength and ensuring greater efficiency, innovation, and preparedness for any challenge that lies ahead,” Hegseth wrote.
The ratio of senior officers to enlisted personnel has increased dramatically in recent years. The number of four-star officers jumped 107% from 1965 to 2013, according to the Congressional Reseach Service.
Critics of the modern military, including Hegseth, have often said the armed forces have grown bloated and top-heavy, and Hegseth framed his latest shakeup as an effort to cut bureaucracy and prioritize the common soldier.
"This is not a slash-and-burn exercise meant to punish high-ranking officers,” Hegseth said in a video on X.
“This has been a deliberative process, working with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with one goal: maximizing strategic readiness and operational effectiveness by making prudent reductions in the general and flag officer ranks.”
Hegseth said the overhaul will be the largest the Pentagon has experienced since the 1980s and will take place in two stages.
In the first, there will be a minimum 20% reduction in active-duty four-star generals and admirals and a minimum 20% reduction of general officers in the National Guard.
Phase two will include an additional 10% reduction in general and flag officers.
This will take place alongside a systematic review of the Unified Command Plan, which is a classified document that designates the missions and geographic areas of responsibility for each of the military's combat commands.
Critics have complained about Hegseth's lack of senior military experience ever since Trump recruited him to shake up the Pentagon and restore a focus on warfighting and lethality.
Hegseth's defenders have touted the Army vet as an outsider who will deliver necessary reforms to a "woke" Pentagon resistant to change. Hegseth has not hesitated to fire top military officers who pushed a divisive "diversity" agenda, like former chairman of the Joint Chiefs C.Q. Brown.
The White House has dismissed ongoing criticism of Hegseth, and dissension from within the Pentagon itself, as a defensive response from the "Swamp" to Trump's military reforms.
President Trump gave his strongest indication yet that he will not seek a third term, as he named two possible frontrunners to continue the legacy of his MAGA movement.
Trump gave nods to Vice president J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an interview with NBC's Meet The Press.
“It’s far too early to say that. But you know, I do have a vice president … and JD’s doing a fantastic job,” Trump said.
“I don’t want to get involved in that. I think he’s a fantastic, brilliant guy. Marco is great. There’s a lot of them that are great,” he added. “We have a lot of good people in this party.”
Rubio and Vance have followed starkly different career paths to their current positions at the top of the second Trump administration.
Rubio is a career Republican who fought Trump in the 2016 presidential cycle, when Trump labeled him "Little Marco," while Vance had never held public office when Trump launched him into the U.S. Senate a few years ago. Like Rubio, Vance had also criticized Trump's original 2016 run before embracing him.
Reflecting on the growth of his historic movement, Trump predicted that MAGA will continue without him at the helm, pointing to a large number of "tremendous" individuals who could take over.
Trump said Vance would likely have an "advantage" if he runs for the presidency, but Trump predicted that his VP would face some tough challenges as well.
"I think we have tremendous people. I think we have a tremendous group of people," Trump said. "You look at Marco, you look at J.D. Vance, who's fantastic. I could name 10, 15, 20 people right now, just sitting here."
Trump had previously told Welker in March that he was "not joking" about seeking another term. The president's repeated comments to that effect rattled his critics, who accused him of seeking to defy the Constitution's two-term limit.
But Trump is clearly beginning to think about his legacy in generational terms. In his latest interview with Welker, he said four years is enough time to achieve his goals, and he will leave the rest to his successor, "ideally a great Republican."
“I’ll be an eight-year president. I’ll be a two-term president. I always thought that was very important,” he added.
“This is not something I’m looking to do. I’m looking to have four great years and turn it over to somebody, ideally a great Republican," he said.
So many Democrats and others are so ridden with Trump Derangement Sydrome (TDS) that it often transfers on to other members of Trump's administration, including on Vice President J.D. Vance.
According to the Daily Mail, one of VP Vance's old college friends, who happens to be a politician, recently announced that Vance isn't welcomed in Canada until President Trump changes his rhetoric about the country becoming America's 51st state.
The Canadian politician, Jamil Jivani, once referred to Vance as "brother," indicating a strong friendship.
But apparently that's gone out of the window in the wake of Trump's repeated insistence that Canada would be better off joining the United States.
Jivani, a conservative member of the nation's parliament, recently won his reelection bid, which was especially notable given that the most recent election in Canada saw liberals storm the proverbial gates.
The Canadian politician most recently had dinner with Vance in December and even attended the inauguration in Washington D.C., but now he seems to not be very fond of Trump's rhetoric and is taking it out on his old friend.
"They need to probably reconsider some of their rhetoric and their policy before coming to Canada," Jivani said.
The Daily Mail noted:
The pair were friends long before they got into politics, having attended Yale Law School together, with Jivani joking that they'd been in a fantasy football league together the past 15 years.
Jivani, who represents a district populated by thousands of auto workers, admits that there has been a distance between himself in the vice president.
Jivani wasn't totally hateful when describing why he and the VP have grown apart, saying their busy schedules cause most of the distance between them.
"He's busy, I'm busy. It's just the nature of the work that we do. Certainly, the way they've talked about Canada has been a problem for me personally. I'm a proud Canadian. I'm focused on my community, and we'll see what happens next," Jivani said.
Jivani, during his reelection campaign, battled opposing candidates' ads that linked him to Vance, pushing the idea that the two were close friends, which is apparently a turn-off for most Canadian voters.
"They created commercials about me and JD being friends. They doctored pictures of us and dropped them in mailboxes in my riding," Jivani said.
He added, "The misrepresentation of who I am, what I believe in, the misrepresentation of my commitment to this country, that stuff, was very, very frustrating."
That could explain why he's distancing himself from Vance and attempting to forbid him from entering the country.