White House officials and President Trump unloaded on Sen. Jon Ossoff after the Georgia Democrat used a campaign rally to accuse Trump of neglecting his duties to "travel with Natalie", a reference to a 35-year-old aide who survived bone cancer.
Ossoff, who is seeking a second Senate term and faces Republican Rep. Mike Collins in November, made the remarks at an Atlanta campaign event on Sunday. He referred to Natalie Harp, Trump's executive assistant, by first name only, accusing the president of preferring to "build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar." The framing carried an unmistakable insinuation, and the White House treated it that way.
By Monday, the response from the West Wing was sharp and personal. White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on X calling Ossoff "the biggest cuck loser in politics" and labeling him a "radical, extremist." White House spokesman Davis Ingle piled on, calling Ossoff "a cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid cosplaying as Barack Obama" and adding that "nobody gives a s*** what this lightweight loser says."
Trump himself weighed in during an Oval Office event. Asked about Ossoff, the president responded with a nickname he has used before: "You mean Pee-wee Herman?", a reference to the character made famous by the late comedian Paul Reubens.
The senator's Sunday remarks covered a wide range of accusations. He claimed Trump had "lied" the country into war with Iran, calling that act "uniquely despicable." He accused the president of "fruitlessly" draining munitions and oil reserves. And he invoked the USS Abraham Lincoln by name, saying its sailors were fighting Trump's war while the president "sleeps through his meetings."
Ossoff also accused Trump of frequent golf outings and stock trading, though he did not provide specifics for either charge. The broadest accusation, that Trump spends his time on personal projects and travel rather than governing, was the one that drew the sharpest White House response, largely because it singled out Harp.
Some analysts have floated Ossoff as a potential 2028 presidential contender, and the Georgia Senate race has already drawn national attention. That context makes his decision to name a White House staffer in a rally speech more than a throwaway line, it reads like a calculated attempt to generate headlines.
Harp came to Trump's attention in 2019 after publicly crediting his Right to Try Act, signed in 2018, with giving her access to a lifesaving treatment for bone cancer. She has served as an executive assistant to the president, a role that involves travel and close coordination with the commander in chief. Referring to her by first name only, in a context designed to imply something improper, struck many on the right as a smear aimed at a cancer survivor doing her job.
Rep. Brandon Gill, a Republican, responded directly:
"Natalie Harp survived bone cancer because President Trump allowed her the right to try. Now she's an extremely hardworking and trusted assistant. Any other insinuation is vile."
Multiple conservative figures described Ossoff's remarks as sexist and misogynistic, a framing the White House clearly shared. Cheung's full post urged Ossoff to "look deep into his soul and ask himself why he's a miserable person who hates this country."
Ossoff later attempted to walk back the tone without retracting the substance. He called Harp Trump's "security blanket" and accused White House aides of only telling the president what he wants to hear, a softer version of the rally attack, but one that still targeted a staffer by name rather than engaging on policy.
The White House response was not limited to outrage. Ingle's "theatre kid" jab was a reference to Ossoff's college years at Georgetown University, where he was a member of a singing group. Footage also surfaced during his first Senate run showing Ossoff dressed as Han Solo for a "Star Wars" parody film, material that opponents used in attack ads at the time.
None of that history is disqualifying, but it gave the White House a ready-made contrast: a senator who built his early public profile on campus theatrics was now accusing a bone cancer survivor of something unsavory for doing her job. The optics favored the administration, and Democrats in competitive Senate races cannot afford that kind of unforced error.
Trump, for his part, did not dwell on the personal insult. When pressed about Ossoff's claim that he preferred traveling with Harp to governing, Trump said simply: "No, I would much rather do other things." He added: "We are building a great facility here", a reference to the construction project Ossoff had mocked.
Ossoff faces Collins in a race that both parties view as critical to control of the Senate. The incumbent has positioned himself as a combative critic of the Trump administration, and his rally remarks fit that pattern. But the decision to single out a female aide by first name, rather than challenging Trump's record on Iran, the economy, or any other policy front, handed Republicans a gift.
The White House's response was undeniably coarse. Calling a sitting senator "Jon Jerkoff" and a "cuck loser" is not the language of a measured communications shop. But the underlying point, that Ossoff's attack was aimed at a working woman rather than a policy, landed cleanly enough that even the vulgarity served as amplification rather than distraction.
The broader political environment matters here. Senate dynamics remain volatile heading into the midterms, and every competitive race carries outsized weight. Ossoff has the advantage of incumbency, but incumbents who make themselves the story, especially with attacks that look personal rather than substantive, tend to regret it.
Harp herself has not publicly responded to Ossoff's characterization. She does not need to. The facts of her story, a cancer survivor who credited a Trump policy with saving her life and went on to serve in the White House, speak for themselves. Ossoff chose to make her a punchline at a campaign rally. The administration's willingness to respond forcefully to perceived attacks on its own staff is well established by now.
If Ossoff wanted to make the case that Trump is neglecting the presidency, he had policy arguments available, on Iran, on spending, on executive priorities. Instead, he went after a 35-year-old woman by first name and implied something he lacked the courage to say outright. That is not opposition. That is innuendo dressed up as populism, and Georgia voters deserve better from both sides.
Tommy John, the left-handed pitcher whose 26-year Major League Baseball career and groundbreaking 1974 elbow surgery changed the sport forever, has died at age 83 at his Florida home.
John died Saturday night while in hospice care in Bradenton, Florida, surrounded by his wife Cheryl and other family members, his agent Mike Maguire confirmed in a statement reported by CBS News. The New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers both confirmed the death on Sunday. No official cause of death was given, though John had been battling bladder cancer and had recently undergone treatment for a recurrence of the disease.
His passing came roughly one week after he sent a farewell message to fans during the Yankees' 78th Old-Timers' Day on August 8, delivered from his home in Bradenton. The timing gave the message, already emotional, the weight of a final goodbye.
John debuted with the Cleveland Indians in 1963 and went on to pitch for six teams over 26 seasons: the Indians, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, California Angels, Oakland Athletics, and New York Yankees. He won 288 games, compiled a 3.34 ERA, and struck out 2,245 batters. He started 700 games, the eighth-most in MLB history. A four-time All-Star, he threw his final pitch for the Yankees in 1989 at age 46.
He never won a Cy Young Award. His 288 wins rank as the second-highest total for any Modern Era pitcher excluded from the Baseball Hall of Fame. That omission remains one of the sport's more debated snubs, given the sheer volume of his production and the longevity that defined his career.
But John's legacy extends far beyond the win column. On July 17, 1974, while pitching for the Dodgers, he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow, the kind of injury that, at the time, ended careers outright.
Dr. Frank Jobe, the Dodgers' team physician, performed a reconstruction of John's elbow using a tendon from his right wrist, a procedure that had never been attempted on a pitcher. The odds were not in John's favor. Jobe himself reportedly gave the surgery only a one-in-a-hundred chance of returning John to the mound.
John proved him wrong. He returned to pitching in 1976 and went on to win 164 more games after the operation, more than half his career total. The surgery, which came to bear his name, transformed modern baseball medicine.
As of 2024, more than a third of active major league pitchers had undergone the procedure. Over 2,600 major leaguers have had the surgery, along with countless amateur players. What began as an experimental last resort became one of the most common operations in professional sports.
Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole, who himself underwent the procedure, acknowledged John's role in making it possible for pitchers like him to continue playing.
"He was really writing the book for all of us. There's a lot of gratitude towards him."
On August 8, during the Yankees' 78th Old-Timers' Day, the team shared a video message from John at his home in Bradenton. He addressed fans, former teammates, and the organization directly.
John said:
"I want to thank the Yankees organization & the Steinbrenner family for giving me this opportunity to say goodbye to everyone, along with all the friends & fans who followed me throughout my 26-year career. Thanks to Dr. Jobe, who saved my arm & made it possible for me to continue pitching."
In the same farewell, John told fans: "Thank you to all the fans who supported me & my teammates for 26 years. I will never forget you."
The message carried the plainspoken gratitude of a man who knew he was running out of time. John had been diagnosed with bladder cancer in recent years and had entered hospice care before his death. He was not hiding from what was coming. He spent his final public words thanking the people who watched him play.
In Washington, the political world has seen its own share of prolonged absences and health battles among public figures, but few farewells have been as direct or as graceful as John's.
The Yankees released a statement Sunday calling John "a bedrock of our rotation during his time in pinstripes and a longtime favorite of Yankees fans." The statement added a point that often gets lost in the surgery conversation.
"While his incredible longevity and post-surgery achievements changed the fortunes and trajectory of countless athletes around the world, it also overshadowed his excellence as a pitcher."
That line captures something worth pausing on. John's name became so synonymous with the surgery that people sometimes forget he was, by any measure, one of the most durable and productive pitchers of his era. He won 288 games. He pitched until he was 46. He made four All-Star teams. He did all of this across six franchises and more than a quarter-century of professional baseball.
Dodgers President Stan Kasten struck a similar note. "Tommy was an exceptional pitcher throughout his career in Major League Baseball, and his courageous role in becoming the first to have surgery that would go on to bear his name can't be overstated," Kasten said. "His impact both on and off the field has been felt by ballplayers of all ages and will be for generations to come."
In an era when confusion and misinformation can surround the health of prominent Americans, the clarity of the tributes to John stood out. The baseball world knew what it had lost and said so plainly.
John's family plans a private celebration of life in Florida. In lieu of flowers, they have asked for donations to the Duke University Medical Fund.
No public memorial details have been announced. The family's request for privacy reflects the same straightforward, no-nonsense approach John brought to his career, show up, do the work, let the results speak.
Tommy John played 26 seasons, won 288 games, and lent his name to a surgery that has saved thousands of careers. He said goodbye on his own terms, thanked the fans who watched him play, and went home. That is how a man leaves the game.
American taxpayers collected $296 billion in refunds during the 2026 filing season, a $43 billion jump driven largely by new deductions President Trump signed into law, though the IRS stumbled badly on paper processing and staffing along the way.
The Government Accountability Office released a report documenting the sharp increase, which amounted to a 17% rise over the previous year's filing season. The average refund climbed $333, or 11%, and the IRS issued more than 8 million additional refunds compared with 2025. GAO tied the gains in part to provisions in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which created new deductions for qualified tips and overtime pay, two categories that put money directly back into the pockets of hourly workers, servers, and tradespeople who earn a large share of their income from those sources.
Just the News first reported the GAO findings on August 15, noting the agency processed roughly 98% of the 177 million individual and business returns it received during the season. The scale of the refund increase, $43 billion in a single year, marks one of the most concrete, measurable payoffs of any recent tax legislation.
The "no tax on tips" and "no tax on overtime" provisions were signature campaign promises Trump carried into law. Millions of taxpayers claimed the new deductions for the first time during the 2026 season, and the IRS attributed the refund surge in part to that wave of new claims.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt framed the numbers as validation, telling reporters:
"As we have seen this tax season, President Trump's Working Families Tax Cuts have put a historic amount of money back into the pockets of the American people this year."
Trump himself had signaled confidence in the law's impact months earlier. In January 2026, he said: "You know, the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill just kicked in, and you're going to see some tremendous numbers."
The numbers bore that out. An extra $43 billion flowing back to taxpayers in a single filing season is not an abstraction, it is money that lands in checking accounts, pays down credit cards, covers car repairs, and funds small-business inventory. For a worker who earns tips or pulls overtime shifts, the deduction means keeping more of what they earned rather than sending it to Washington.
The legislative win fits a broader pattern. Trump has signed major bills into law on multiple fronts this year, pushing his agenda through Congress on issues from border security to domestic spending.
For the vast majority of filers, the system worked. Nine out of ten refunds sent by direct deposit arrived within 21 days. The IRS also pushed hard to move taxpayers away from paper checks and toward electronic delivery, sending approximately 4.2 million notices by early May asking filers to provide bank account information.
That push produced dramatic results. Paper-check refunds issued by early April dropped more than 80%, from about 2.8 million in 2025 to roughly 493,000 in 2026. Taxpayer engagement with digital tools hit record levels: the IRS recorded approximately 155 million successful logins to individual online accounts through April, the highest total in the six-year period GAO studied. The agency's "Where's My Refund?" tool drew 346 million visits, up 9% from the prior year.
But the shift to direct deposit came with a cost for those left behind.
Taxpayers who still received paper checks waited an average of 36 days for their refunds, compared with 13 days the year before. That is roughly three times longer, and for a worker counting on a refund to cover rent or a medical bill, 36 days is not a bureaucratic inconvenience. It is a hardship.
GAO put it plainly:
"Most paper check refunds were delayed by weeks."
The delays were not limited to individual filers. Business returns fared even worse. The average processing time for Form 941 returns, the quarterly payroll tax form that small businesses file, ballooned to 72 days in 2026. That is up from 45 days in 2025 and 25 days in 2024. The IRS's own target was 32 days. It missed that mark by more than a month.
Individual paper returns took an average of 30 days to process, more than twice the agency's 13-working-day target.
On other policy fronts, Trump has continued to use executive authority aggressively, including declaring a food supply emergency and adjusting tariffs to address fertilizer costs, moves that reflect the same willingness to act that produced the tax law itself.
The processing failures did not happen in a vacuum. The IRS Submission Processing unit ended the 2026 filing season with 8,111 employees, 18% fewer than the 9,850 it had at the close of the previous season. That is a loss of more than 1,700 workers in the division responsible for handling returns.
IRS officials told GAO the unit simply did not have enough employees "to process returns timely." The candor is notable. The agency's own people acknowledged the problem, which raises the question of why leadership allowed the staffing level to drop so far heading into a season that was guaranteed to be more complex, given the new deductions in the tax code.
Technology compounded the staffing shortfall. GAO found that the IRS's individual paper processing system could not handle tax year 2025 returns for the first six weeks of the 2026 filing season. The scanning system for business paper returns could not process those returns for the entire season.
GAO documented the scope of the failure:
"IRS's individual paper processing system was unable to process tax year 2025 returns for the first 6 weeks of 2026, and its scanning system for business paper returns was unable to process tax year 2025 returns for the entire 2026 filing season, according to IRS officials."
IRS officials blamed the breakdowns on the loss of experienced IT acquisition employees, telling GAO that systems were not ready when the filing season began. In other words, the agency knew its technology was not prepared, knew it had lost the people who could fix it, and opened the doors anyway.
Faced with systems that could not scan business returns, the IRS turned to outside vendors. The agency sent approximately 3.7 million business paper returns to contractors for scanning, a staggering 725% increase from the 443,000 sent the previous year.
Meanwhile, IRS employees processed 46% fewer individual paper returns and 80% fewer business paper returns than in the prior year. Even with fewer paper returns coming in, the IRS received 8.9 million paper filings, down 19% from 2025, the agency still could not keep pace with its own workload.
The contrast is striking. On the refund side, the numbers tell a success story: bigger checks, faster electronic delivery, record digital engagement. On the processing side, the numbers tell a story of an agency that lost workers, lost institutional knowledge, and lost control of its own technology, then papered over the gap by shipping millions of returns to outside contractors.
Trump has shown a willingness to fight institutional resistance on multiple fronts, including vowing a Supreme Court appeal after a federal court blocked a White House construction project. The IRS's operational struggles suggest the federal bureaucracy's deeper problems, bloated processes, outdated systems, workforce attrition, will not be solved by any single piece of legislation.
The report settles the headline question decisively. Trump's tax law put substantially more money back in taxpayers' hands. A 17% jump in total refunds and an 11% increase in the average refund are not marginal. They are the direct, measurable result of a policy that let workers keep more of their tips and overtime earnings.
What the report does not settle is whether the IRS can handle the operational demands of a changing tax code while simultaneously losing staff and running on failing technology. Processing times for business returns more than doubled in two years. Paper-check filers, often older Americans or those without bank accounts, bore the brunt of delays that tripled their wait times.
GAO did not specify whether its report included formal recommendations to the IRS, and the agency has not publicly outlined a timeline for fixing the technology failures that hobbled its paper processing systems all season. Those are questions that deserve answers before the next filing season begins.
Trump's political allies are already using the refund numbers to make the case for his broader agenda, and the political landscape continues to shift in his favor as he backs key candidates heading into competitive races.
The policy delivered. Forty-three billion dollars went back to the people who earned it. Now the IRS needs to prove it can run the machinery that gets the money there, without making millions of Americans wait a month and a half for a check that used to arrive in two weeks.
President Trump is working the phones to consolidate Republican support behind his endorsed Senate candidate in South Carolina, calling former Gov. Mark Sanford and Rep. Russell Fry to back Darline Graham Nordone ahead of an August 25 runoff.
On primary election night, as Graham Nordone and Rep. Ralph Norman advanced to the runoff, Trump picked up the phone and dialed Sanford, a man he has clashed with for years, and asked him to endorse Graham Nordone. Sanford, who finished fourth in the primary, gave Trump no commitment and later told reporters he did not plan to endorse in the runoff.
Trump also called Fry, who finished third. That call produced results. On Friday, Fry endorsed Graham Nordone in a public statement:
"President Trump needs fighters and allies in the Senate who will show up every day and get results. I believe Darline Graham will be exactly that."
Fry's backing carries geographic weight. Myrtle Beach sits in his congressional district, the same area where the Trump team is now weighing a rally for Graham Nordone before the runoff, three people familiar with the discussions told the Washington Post. The event has not been finalized.
Sanford's history with Trump makes the outreach notable. The former governor broke with Trump years ago, and that split cost him his House primary in 2018. Sanford then challenged Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination. The fact that Trump called him anyway signals how seriously the White House is treating this runoff.
Sanford's refusal to commit leaves him on the sideline. But Trump's willingness to reach across old fault lines, even to a former rival who ran against him, shows a candidate-consolidation effort that goes beyond routine endorsement politics.
Trump endorsed Graham Nordone in July, giving her what Breitbart described as a "complete and total endorsement" for the U.S. Senate race. On primary night, he told reporters plainly: "They're all Trumpers, but, I endorse her. I think she's great."
Graham Nordone's runoff opponent, Rep. Ralph Norman, has assembled his own coalition, and it includes names that carry weight in conservative circles. Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah have both endorsed Norman. So have Turning Point Action and CPAC.
Norman also has the backing of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, with whom he shares a long alliance. Norman was one of just two House members to support Haley over Trump in the 2024 presidential primary. A source close to Haley told the Washington Examiner she is "prepared to do whatever it takes to help him win."
That lineup gives Norman institutional conservative backing. But it also positions the runoff as a test of whether Trump's personal endorsement carries more force than a coalition of Senate allies and movement organizations. Trump has shown he takes those tests personally, and he has intervened in similar runoff fights before.
On Thursday, South Carolina Republicans began receiving texts carrying a poll conducted by the firm Dynata. The survey tested how a dual endorsement, Trump backing both Graham Nordone and Norman, would affect their vote. It is unclear who paid for the survey.
The poll's existence points to a live debate inside Trump's orbit. Some Trump allies have floated the idea of a dual endorsement, which would let the president claim credit for whichever candidate wins. Trump has not ruled it out.
But Trump has reason to be cautious about that approach. He issued a dual endorsement in South Carolina's June gubernatorial primary, backing both candidates. His initial pick, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, lost the runoff. The episode was a reminder that splitting an endorsement can dilute its power, and leave the president tied to a loser. Trump has shown elsewhere that he is willing to pull endorsements entirely when circumstances shift.
A full rally in the Myrtle Beach area would send a different signal, one that leaves no ambiguity about where Trump stands. Fry's district gives the event a natural base of support, and the congressman's endorsement would let Trump present a unified front with a local ally who just competed in the same primary.
Norman's connection to Haley gives this runoff a dimension beyond a standard intraparty contest. Haley challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, and Norman's decision to back her over the sitting president marked him as one of the few House Republicans willing to break ranks. That history hangs over the runoff whether Norman wants it to or not.
Trump's endorsement decisions have carried real consequences in recent cycles. In races across the country, his backing has lifted candidates and reshaped primaries, though not always with the outcome he wanted. The Arizona GOP primary earlier this cycle showed that his endorsement can push a candidate through even under difficult circumstances.
For Graham Nordone, the calculus is straightforward: Trump's endorsement, Fry's backing, and a potential Myrtle Beach rally give her the machinery to consolidate the primary field's voters behind her candidacy. For Norman, the question is whether the Scott-Lee-Haley-Turning Point coalition can match that in a low-turnout runoff.
The August 25 runoff will test something Republicans keep debating: whether Trump's direct involvement in down-ballot races strengthens the party or simply reshuffles its internal loyalties. In South Carolina, the answer will come with a Senate seat attached.
Trump has also shown he is not afraid to cross party lines to reshape a race when he sees an opening, and this runoff gives him one more chance to prove that his word still moves Republican voters where it counts.
When the president of the United States picks up the phone on election night and starts dialing former rivals, it is not a courtesy call. It is a reminder that in today's Republican Party, endorsements are not suggestions, they are marching orders.
Nearly half of New York City bus riders now refuse to pay the $3 fare, a surge that transit officials and the city's largest transit union blame squarely on Mayor Zohran Mamdani's campaign promise of free buses, a promise the city cannot fund.
The numbers are stark. Paid bus ridership fell nearly 8 percent in June 2026 compared to the same month a year earlier. Bus fare revenue dropped $31 million during Mamdani's first six months in office compared to the first half of 2025. And the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, already staring at a projected $300 million deficit for next year, now estimates that close to half of all bus passengers simply walk past the fare box or board through the back door without paying a dime.
The people who drive those buses say the problem has never been worse. John Chiarello, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents more than 40,000 transit workers, told Fox News Digital that a toxic mix of pandemic-era freebies and mayoral rhetoric created the crisis.
"Once you make something free, and you give people a feeling of entitlement, and then the mayor says that he wants to make buses free, you have a perfect storm of people not wanting to pay."
Chiarello was blunt about who is skipping the fare. It is not just low-income riders struggling to scrape together three dollars. He said he has watched it firsthand from the front of the bus.
"I can see myself when I'm sitting in the buses where people with suits are coming on. These are people that have the money. It's just that they're not paying because it's in vogue now."
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber made a similar point at a board meeting in July 2026, though he stopped short of naming Mamdani directly. The New York Post reported Lieber's remarks, in which he tied the evasion spike to the political conversation around eliminating fares.
"There's a trend that broke out. With malice towards none, I say all of the talk of free buses, it has an impact."
Lieber then aimed his comments at the white-collar commuters who have joined the non-payment wave. He called on higher earners to do their part, framing fare evasion as a cost shift onto fellow taxpayers.
"For all the people who are on their way to office jobs, who are making a good income, who walk by the bus driver and don't pay or get on the back and don't pay, I say it's time to be New Yorkers. You're just passing along the cost to another taxpayer. Somebody's going to have to pay for that ride."
That appeal to civic duty may be the MTA's best option right now. The authority is controlled by Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul and the state, not by City Hall, which limits Mamdani's direct operational authority over the system. But the mayor's words carry weight with riders, and the evasion data suggests they have been listening closely.
Mamdani made "fast and free buses" a centerpiece of his 2025 mayoral campaign. The promise helped propel him into office, but the fiscal reality behind it has not caught up with the politics. On July 8, Mamdani and Hochul unveiled a joint plan that focused on speeding up bus routes, not on making them free. The gap between the campaign rhetoric and the governing reality left the free-fare expectation hanging in the air, unresolved and unfunded.
The pattern fits a broader trend under Mamdani's leadership. The mayor has repeatedly staked out ambitious progressive positions without securing the money or the legal authority to back them up, as seen when he signaled defiance of the Supreme Court's TPS ruling earlier this year.
Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who specializes in urban policy, laid out the fiscal math for Fox News Digital. She cited the city's Independent Budget Office, which estimated in June 2026 that eliminating bus fares entirely would cost the MTA roughly $1.1 billion a year in lost fare revenue.
"The [Independent Budget Office] has estimated free buses would cost the MTA about [$1.1 billion a year] in fare revenue. And we need that money. The MTA [is] already looking at a $300 million deficit for next year. The idea of giving up a billion dollars plus in fare revenue from the buses, when you have no way to replace that, it's just not fiscally wise."
Gelinas also described the behavioral spiral that makes the problem self-reinforcing. When enough riders stop paying, the holdouts who still swipe their cards start to wonder why they bother.
"You pay your fare, and then you watch 10 people get on and not pay the fare. So at some point, you're just going to think like, 'Why am I paying the fare?' So you really want to move back from that tipping point because, right now, if you're paying the fare, you're basically subsidizing the people who are not."
That tipping-point dynamic is not theoretical. The MTA's own data shows it is already happening. A system where nearly half the riders skip the fare is a system where paying customers are, in effect, covering the tab for everyone else, and where the incentive to keep paying erodes with every ride.
The fiscal recklessness of the free-bus promise is not an isolated episode. An immigrant-owned business coalition has prepared a lawsuit challenging Mamdani's $70 million taxpayer-funded grocery store plan, another ambitious spending proposal that drew immediate legal and fiscal pushback.
Enforcement on the buses is effectively nonexistent. Chiarello explained that TWU Local 100 rules strictly prohibit bus operators from confronting fare evaders. The policy exists for the drivers' own safety, put in place after violent attacks on operators in the past. So the drivers watch passengers board without paying and say nothing. They have no choice.
Mamdani's office, meanwhile, treated the evasion numbers as proof that fares should be eliminated rather than enforced. Deputy press secretary Jeremy Edwards told Fox News Digital that the problem predates Mamdani and reflects a deeper affordability crisis.
"Fare evasion has been a persistent problem for years, and the fact that some people are unable to afford bus fare highlights the affordability crisis in our city. This is exactly why Mayor Mamdani is pushing for a fare free system."
Edwards also pointed to Mamdani's record as a state assemblyman, when he ran a free bus pilot that the mayor's office says boosted ridership by more than 30 percent. The office claimed people earning under $28,000 a year made up the largest share of new riders during that pilot. It also said assaults on bus operators fell nearly 40 percent during the program.
Those figures come from the mayor's own office and have not been independently verified in the available reporting. Even if they hold up, they do not answer the central question: who pays the $1.1 billion annual bill?
The roots of the current crisis trace back to the COVID-19 pandemic, when the MTA temporarily made bus rides free to keep essential workers moving. The authority later worked to reverse the habit of non-payment that took hold during that period. But Mamdani's campaign promise reopened the door, giving riders who had already grown accustomed to free service a fresh reason to stop paying again.
The consequences of that dynamic extend beyond the fare box. Critics have pointed to a pattern of governance under Mamdani that prioritizes progressive symbolism over operational reality, a pattern visible in everything from a growing homeless encampment in Manhattan to his decision to skip the Israel Day Parade, breaking six decades of mayoral tradition.
The MTA's own numbers tell a clear story. Paid ridership down. Revenue down $31 million in six months. A $300 million deficit on the horizon. And a billion-dollar-a-year proposal with no identified funding source floating over all of it, encouraging the very behavior that is draining the system.
Chiarello, Lieber, and Gelinas, a union leader, a transit chairman, and a policy analyst, all arrived at the same conclusion from different directions. The mayor's free-bus rhetoric gave New Yorkers permission to stop paying, and they took him at his word.
When a politician promises something for nothing and millions of people act on it, the bill does not disappear. It just lands on the people still playing by the rules.
A federal judge has gutted the National Firearms Act's registration requirements for gun suppressors, and for the first time since 1934, Americans walked out of a Texas gun shop with silencers and no federal paperwork.
U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, ruled on August 5 that the NFA's registration and approval requirements for suppressors lost their constitutional basis once Congress zeroed out the $200 making and transfer tax through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The permanent injunction blocks federal officials from enforcing those requirements against the plaintiffs, Gun Owners of America, the Silencer Shop Foundation, and their members and customers.
Just after midnight Thursday, two gun owners, Brandon Herrera and Texas state Rep. Wes Virdell, walked into Silencer Shop in Leander, Texas, and acquired suppressors without NFA registration. Gun Owners of America called it the first lawful transfer of its kind in 92 years. Before the ruling, the same act carried a penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine per violation.
The chain of events traces back to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which reduced the NFA's making and transfer taxes to $0 for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and certain other weapons, effective January 1, 2026. Republicans had initially pushed for broader NFA deregulation during the 2025 reconciliation process, but the Senate parliamentarian, a nonpartisan rules referee, blocked portions of that effort under the budget rules that govern reconciliation bills.
Gun Owners of America and the Silencer Shop Foundation filed suit the same day President Trump signed the bill into law. Their argument was straightforward: the NFA's registration and approval machinery existed to collect a tax. Once Congress eliminated that tax, the regulatory apparatus had no constitutional leg to stand on.
The Justice Department countered that the remaining regulations could be sustained under other NFA taxes still in effect and under Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce. AP News reported that the NFA had been upheld for nearly 90 years under Congress's taxing power, a foundation Judge Hendrix found no longer applied.
Fifteen states joined the legal challenge as plaintiffs, though the specific states were not identified in the ruling's public reporting.
Hendrix's ruling permanently bars federal enforcement of the challenged NFA provisions against the plaintiffs, their members, and their customers. But he declined to issue a nationwide injunction, meaning the ruling's direct reach is limited to those covered parties. He also declined to rule on a separate Second Amendment argument raised by the plaintiffs.
In his opinion, Hendrix wrote plainly about the limits of his own authority. Fox News Digital reported the judge's statement:
"Efforts to render the NFA constitutional must come from Congress, not this Court."
That line cuts both ways. It tells gun-control advocates that the judiciary will not rescue a regulatory framework Congress itself undermined. And it tells gun-rights groups that any further expansion of the ruling, to cover all gun owners nationwide, or to address the Second Amendment question directly, will require either additional litigation or legislative action.
The Trump administration's response to the ruling has been telling. Rep. Andrew Clyde, the Georgia Republican who helped write the legislation that set the stage for the case, said Wednesday he received confirmation from the Trump administration that the DOJ would not appeal. Just The News reported Clyde's statement directly:
"I've received confirmation from the Trump Administration that the DOJ will NOT appeal our historic court victory against the NFA."
Whether DOJ has formally filed a notice of non-appeal or whether Clyde's statement remains the sole public confirmation is unclear from available reporting. The administration has not issued a separate formal statement on the ruling.
Clyde attended the midnight transfers at Silencer Shop in Leander and did not hold back. He called the ruling "literally, the greatest Second Amendment win in the history of our country" and "a monumental day for the country and a monumental day for the Second Amendment." That kind of language from a sitting congressman who helped craft the underlying law carries weight, he is not a bystander commenting on someone else's victory.
GOA's director of federal affairs, Aidan Johnston, framed the significance in practical terms in an interview with Fox News Digital:
"This is the first time in 92 years that any gun owner has been able to do this. Previously, this would have been punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine per violation. So, this was a big federal law. We took a really big bite out of it."
Johnston also explained the legal logic in plain language. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act did not fully repeal the NFA. It reduced the 1934 tax from $200 to $0. As Johnston put it: "I think all of us could understand there's no such thing as a $0 tax. It doesn't raise any revenue. It's not a tax."
The broader pattern of Trump DOJ legal maneuvers working in tandem with legislative strategy has produced results across multiple policy areas. In this case, the legislative action created the opening, and the DOJ's decision not to appeal sealed the outcome.
GOA senior vice president Erich Pratt issued a statement tying the courtroom win to the group's broader campaign:
"GOA fought to crush the NFA's unconstitutional restrictions through the One Big Beautiful Bill, but we didn't stop there. We promised to keep fighting until these restrictions were gone, and now our members are putting the historic victory into action."
Pratt added a line that signals where gun-rights groups intend to push next: "The era of federal registration for constitutionally protected arms must end."
Breitbart reported that the case is styled Jensen v. ATF and that the Trump DOJ and ATF declined to appeal within the seven-day window, allowing the ruling to take effect on August 13, 2026. Silencer Shop completed the first lawful, unregistered suppressor transfer that day, a fact GOA confirmed publicly.
The Second Amendment Foundation, a separate gun-rights organization, also weighed in on the ruling's broader implications. The group said the decision "will set a precedent we can now argue in courts across the country to allow Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights without fear of being placed on some government registry."
That ambition, taking a ruling that covers GOA members and Silencer Shop customers and extending it to every gun owner in the country, remains untested. Judge Hendrix explicitly refused to issue a nationwide injunction. But with the DOJ declining to appeal, gun-rights organizations now hold a favorable ruling they can cite in future challenges across other federal districts.
The ruling also raises questions beyond suppressors. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act zeroed out the NFA tax on short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and certain other weapons. The Washington Examiner reported that the injunction covers those categories as well, though the initial transfers at Silencer Shop involved only suppressors.
Courts have played an increasingly visible role in shaping policy outcomes on both sides of the aisle. From redistricting battles in Florida to age-verification laws in Texas, federal and state judges are resolving disputes that legislatures either cannot or will not settle on their own. The NFA ruling fits squarely in that pattern, Congress changed the tax, and a federal judge drew the constitutional conclusion.
Several open questions hang over the ruling. The injunction protects GOA members, Silencer Shop customers, and named plaintiffs. Gun owners outside those groups who attempt to acquire suppressors without NFA registration could still face federal prosecution, at least until another court extends the reasoning or Congress acts.
Judge Hendrix's refusal to address the Second Amendment argument also leaves a major constitutional question for another day. Gun-rights groups had urged the court to rule that the Second Amendment independently protects the right to own suppressors, regardless of the tax question. Hendrix passed on that issue, writing that it "must come from Congress, not this Court."
The Trump administration's broader approach to DOJ priorities has drawn attention for its willingness to decline enforcement or appeal in cases that align with the president's policy goals. The decision not to fight the NFA ruling fits that pattern. Whether it holds through any future administration change is another matter entirely.
For now, the practical reality is concrete. Two men walked into a gun shop in a small Texas city just after midnight, bought suppressors, and walked out without filling out NFA paperwork. Ninety-two years of federal registration requirements did not stop them, because a federal judge said those requirements no longer have a constitutional reason to exist.
When Congress took the tax away, it took the justification with it. The gun-rights groups that saw the opening and moved fast deserve the credit, and the left, which spent decades treating the NFA as settled law, now has to reckon with the fact that their own colleagues' legislative carelessness helped bring it down.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar won Minnesota's Democratic gubernatorial primary in a landslide, but the failed presidential candidate now faces a Republican opponent eager to tie her to outgoing Gov. Tim Walz and a fraud scandal federal prosecutors say could cost taxpayers more than $9 billion.
Klobuchar captured 89.1% of the vote Tuesday, dispatching a field of long-shot challengers in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party primary. She will square off in November against Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who won her own contested Republican primary on the same night. The general election will test whether Klobuchar can separate herself from an administration that became a national byword for government waste, or whether voters see her as more of the same.
Walz announced earlier this year he would not seek another term. He didn't leave voluntarily out of modesty. His administration faced intense criticism over the handling of fraud in state social services and Medicaid programs, fraud so large that federal prosecutors have said the final taxpayer tab could exceed $9 billion. Walz himself testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on March 4, 2026, in a hearing examining alleged misuse of federal funds flowing through Minnesota's welfare apparatus.
When Klobuchar rolled out her governing priorities in May, she built her pitch around accountability. Her campaign published a policy plank titled "Make Government Accountable and Root out Fraud," which pledged "immediate action to root out fraud" and declared that "fixing the government is the foundation of everything we need to do."
She addressed voter anger directly, telling supporters:
"You are right to be angry about the fraud. It is unacceptable and it must end."
She also promised a "top-to-bottom audit" of state government beginning on "day one" of her administration. The language is sharp. The question Republicans will press between now and November is whether a senator who has represented Minnesota since 2007, and who shares a party with the governor who presided over the fraud, can credibly cast herself as the outsider who will clean house.
Demuth has already started making that argument. She told reporters that Klobuchar's record and past political alliances tell a different story than her campaign rhetoric. The administration's failures in protecting taxpayer dollars from fraud have become a central issue in an era when affordability and government accountability dominate voter concerns nationwide.
"Amy Klobuchar, as a governor, would just be... 2.0. Tim Walz."
That was Demuth's blunt assessment of her general-election opponent, as reported during Tuesday's primary coverage. In a separate statement, she framed her own win as a mandate for change.
"Tonight, Minnesotans made it clear they are ready for real change, at the top."
Klobuchar, for her part, tried to put distance between herself and Walz without disowning him entirely. She acknowledged the obvious: "I obviously am going to do things differently than Gov. Walz. We have different backgrounds. We're going to have some different focuses."
Demuth countered that framing by pointing to Klobuchar's voting record and political endorsements. "When you look at her voting record and who she supported, she is not good for Minnesota going forward," Demuth said.
Demuth's path to the Republican nomination ran through MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, who carried a Trump endorsement but couldn't convert it into votes. Demuth took 45.1% to Lindell's 31.0%, a gap of more than 14 points, a result that defied nearly every pre-election poll showing Lindell ahead, albeit by single digits. Just the News described the outcome as a blow to Trump's endorsement record.
Lindell refused to concede. With 99% of votes counted and his own network's data confirming the loss, he dismissed the Associated Press call of the race. "Why would I listen to the AP?" he said, according to Breitbart. Lindell, who built a national profile around claims of election fraud, now found himself on the other side of a result he didn't want to accept.
Demuth enters the general election as a candidate who won her primary on her own terms. Her campaign manager, Garren Randolph, though speaking about a different race, captured a sentiment that applies broadly to establishment candidates who outperformed ideological firebrands on Tuesday night. Across state lines in Wisconsin, a similar dynamic played out in dramatic fashion.
Minnesota wasn't the only Midwest primary that delivered a jolt. In Wisconsin, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeated Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong in the gubernatorial primary by just over 3,200 votes out of roughly 787,000 cast, a margin of 0.41 percentage points. Hong had polled ahead by double digits. She conceded early Wednesday morning despite being entitled to a recount under state law, as National Review reported.
The result dealt a blow to the Democratic Socialists of America, which had ridden a string of primary victories in recent cycles. Republican groups had spent $3.5 million boosting Hong during the primary, betting that her far-left views would make her easier to defeat in a general election. That gambit failed when Crowley pulled ahead in the overnight count.
Crowley's campaign manager, Garren Randolph, framed the win as a rejection of ideological extremes: "David is focused on bringing people together, earning the support of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and anyone who believes Wisconsin is at its best when we work together and deliver results."
The broader pattern across Tuesday's primaries was unmistakable. Voters in multiple states chose candidates who at least sounded moderate over those who wore ideology on their sleeves. Whether those candidates govern as moderates is another question, one that applies with particular force to Klobuchar, whose Senate record sits well to the left of her current campaign messaging on fraud and accountability. The ongoing national debate over election administration adds another layer of complexity to a midterm cycle already shaped by questions of government competence.
One detail that has drawn less attention: Klobuchar has not resigned from the Senate while running for governor. Her current term doesn't expire until January 2031. If she wins in November and steps down, she would create a Senate vacancy in a state where Democrats can ill afford to lose ground.
Minnesota hasn't elected a Republican governor since Tim Pawlenty, who left office in January 2011. That 15-year drought gives Democrats structural confidence, but the $9 billion fraud scandal is the kind of issue that can reshape a race overnight. Federal prosecutors have put a number on the cost. Voters will decide whether Klobuchar's promise to audit the mess is credible, or whether she's too close to the people who made it. Accountability in government spending has become a defining issue nationally, with recent revelations about politically motivated federal grant decisions reinforcing public skepticism about how tax dollars are managed.
Klobuchar's biography gives her some raw material for the pivot. She was born in Plymouth, Minnesota, and served as Hennepin County attorney before entering the Senate. She ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, dropped out, and endorsed Joe Biden. That presidential bid gave her national name recognition but also a national voting record that Republicans will mine for ammunition.
Demuth, meanwhile, will try to do what no Republican gubernatorial candidate has managed in Minnesota since Pawlenty: win. She starts with a clear line of attack, a fraud scandal that voters can see in dollar signs, and a Democratic opponent who spent nearly two decades in Washington while the problems at home grew. The Trump administration's focus on government accountability at the federal level gives Demuth a national tailwind if she can harness it at the state level.
Promising a "top-to-bottom audit" is easy when you're running. Explaining why you didn't sound the alarm while $9 billion walked out the door, that's the harder conversation Klobuchar will have to survive between now and November.
Former South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem says she has no plans to run for the U.S. Senate in 2028 but refuses to rule out a return to the ballot, comments she made after a $150,000 bronze statue in her likeness was unveiled in Pierre.
About 100 people gathered at the entrance to the Hilger's Gulch nature area near the state Capitol complex on August 7, 2026, to watch Noem and sculptor John Lopez pull the cover off the statue. The ceremony also included the unveiling of Noem's official portrait inside the Capitol building, where it will hang alongside those of every other former governor. South Dakota Searchlight reported that Noem's daughters, sons-in-law, four grandchildren, and her mother attended. Her husband, Bryon Noem, could not make it, and one of her sons is currently serving as a missionary in the Middle East.
Noem used the occasion to praise her successor, Gov. Larry Rhoden, and First Lady Sandy Rhoden, both of whom were present. But the real interest came afterward, when reporters asked whether she planned to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Mike Rounds in 2028.
Noem told reporters she is focused on her current job as special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a position President Trump created earlier in 2026. Trump reassigned Noem to the role in March after she resigned as Secretary of Homeland Security.
"I'm not planning to run for Senate in 2028. So, I'm planning to build a lot of fence, continue to help other countries build departments of homeland security and work with the State Department to help President Trump continue to be successful."
Pressed on whether she would ever run for office again, Noem did not shut the door.
"Oh, I wouldn't take it off the table. I may someday, but you know, we ran 13 races and won them all, so campaigns don't scare me, but I've got a lot of other things to do, too."
That track record stretches back two decades. Noem won a seat in the South Dakota state House in 2006 and served until 2010, when she entered a competitive Republican primary for the state's lone U.S. House seat. She won the primary and then ousted incumbent Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in the general election. In 2018, with an endorsement from Trump, she defeated the state's attorney general in a Republican gubernatorial primary and went on to become South Dakota's first female governor. She won a second term in 2022.
The 2028 Senate landscape in South Dakota remains unsettled. Rounds holds one seat. Senate Majority Leader John Thune holds the other, and Politico reported earlier in the week that Thune anticipates running for reelection, though anonymously quoted senators suggested he might retire. Noem's refusal to close the door keeps her name in the conversation, even if she insists her focus is elsewhere.
Noem's time as DHS Secretary was brief and contentious. Confirmed in 2025, she oversaw a period of aggressive immigration enforcement that drew both praise from border hawks and fierce opposition from the left. ICE enforcement actions spread protests across the country. In January, ICE agents shot and killed two American citizens during enforcement operations in Minneapolis, an episode that intensified scrutiny of the agency's tactics.
Noem faced congressional hearings where lawmakers criticized her handling of ICE. During one hearing, a Democratic lawmaker raised allegations of a romantic relationship between Noem and adviser Corey Lewandowski, allegations that had been the subject of multiple media reports. Lewandowski was notably absent from the statue unveiling in Pierre. Her successor at DHS, Secretary Mullin, has since announced that the Trump administration has removed more than three million illegal immigrants.
Noem resigned from DHS in 2025, and Trump moved her into the Shield of the Americas envoy position the following March. The exact scope of that role remains unclear. Noem described it as working with other countries to secure their borders and building departments of homeland security abroad, a diplomatic portfolio rather than a domestic enforcement one.
The transition came after Noem had already weathered controversy on the national stage. Her hands-off approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic during her first term as governor drew sharp criticism from public health officials but earned her a following among conservatives who opposed lockdowns. Then came her 2024 book, "No Going Back," published by Hachette Book Group. The memoir generated negative headlines nationwide after Noem recounted fatally shooting a misbehaving hunting dog and an unruly goat, stories that struck many readers as gratuitously harsh and overshadowed whatever political message the book intended to deliver.
The statue itself carried a price tag well above the norm. Leroy Foster, a representative of the Trail of Governors foundation, said Noem's bronze cost $150,000, compared to $78,000 for past statues in the collection. The late Wyoming investment manager Foster Friess made the largest single donation, at least $68,000. Friess, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Wyoming in 2018, died before the statue was completed.
Lopez, the sculptor, hails from Lemmon, South Dakota. With Noem's addition, every former South Dakota governor is now represented on the Trail of Governors, a walkable outdoor collection in Pierre that uses private donations to commission, build, and maintain the statues. The project sits near the Capitol complex, placing Noem's likeness within sight of the building where she governed for four years.
The broader Republican landscape is shifting as 2028 approaches. Noem's comments about her political future land amid ongoing jockeying within the party. Vice President JD Vance is already positioning for the next presidential cycle, and prominent Republican women continue to make moves of their own, Sen. Marsha Blackburn recently captured the Tennessee GOP gubernatorial nomination in a commanding primary win.
Meanwhile, the immigration enforcement framework Noem helped build at DHS continues to face legal resistance. A Biden-appointed judge in Massachusetts recently blocked the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Ethiopian nationals, defying the Supreme Court in the process, a reminder that the policy fights Noem oversaw are far from settled.
Noem praised the Rhodens during her speech at the unveiling.
"They have been incredible people of integrity to lead South Dakota. I've been grateful for them and all that they have done."
At 54, Noem has held state legislative office, a U.S. House seat, the governor's mansion, and a Cabinet post. She has weathered a pandemic, a book controversy, congressional grillings, and a forced reassignment, and she still claims a perfect record at the ballot box. Whether that record matters depends on whether she decides to add a fourteenth race.
For now, she says the answer is no. But "no" and "never" are different words, and Noem made sure everyone heard the distinction.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted a golf video to social media that drew widespread ridicule for his swing and wardrobe choices, a lighthearted distraction from the billions in welfare fraud that ended his reelection hopes.
Walz shared an approximately two-minute clip on X showing himself playing the sixth hole at Northwest Angle Country Club in Minnesota, a 261-yard Par-4. He wore a quarter-zip pullover with no undershirt underneath, a fashion decision that drew as much attention as the golf itself. OutKick columnist Zach Dean called the outfit choice "absolutely psycho behavior."
Walz claimed he had 100 yards remaining on his second shot, which would put his tee shot at roughly 161 yards on a 261-yard hole. Dean noted that Walz's drive almost certainly did not travel 220 yards, as the governor's own stated yardage confirmed. Walz finished the hole with a two-putt bogey.
Social media users piled on. Walz had already been mocked online following his suggestion that he might run for president in 2028, a trial balloon that landed about as well as his tee shot.
The golf outing might be easy to dismiss as a slow-news-day curiosity, except for what Walz is actually running from. Federal prosecutors estimate that up to half of the $18 billion Minnesota distributed across 14 taxpayer-funded social services programs since 2018 could be fraudulent. That is potentially $9 billion in stolen public money, on Walz's watch, under his administration's oversight.
The scale of the scandal forced Walz to announce on January 5 that he would not seek reelection as governor. "The buck does stop with me," he told reporters at a press conference before walking out without taking questions.
Vice President JD Vance has pushed for accountability beyond Walz's political exit. Vance sent Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to the Justice Department for a criminal fraud referral, pressing for a full federal investigation into how the money disappeared and who failed to stop it.
Walz is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on March 4 alongside Ellison. Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, framed the hearing in blunt terms.
"Americans deserve answers about the rampant misuse of taxpayer dollars in Minnesota's social services programs that occurred on Governor Walz's and Attorney General Ellison's watch."
State Republican lawmakers have already testified under oath that Walz and Ellison failed to act on the fraud and retaliated against whistleblowers who tried to raise alarms. The Washington Examiner reported that the hearing will examine the alleged misuse of federal funds intended for Minnesota social services and Medicaid programs.
A December poll found that a large majority of Minnesota registered voters believed welfare fraud was a major problem in the state and wanted Walz to do more to stop it. He chose to step aside instead.
Vance has also called on the Justice Department to investigate Walz over what critics describe as a cover-up of Minnesota benefit fraud, a charge that extends beyond negligence into questions about whether the governor's office actively suppressed efforts to root out the theft.
The fraud scandal is not the only controversy trailing Walz. His long history with communist China has drawn sustained scrutiny. Walz first traveled to China in 1989, the same year as the Tiananmen Square massacre, and told a Nebraska newspaper that the Chinese treated him "exceptionally well." He deliberately chose to marry on June 4, 1994, the fifth anniversary of the massacre.
His wife, Gwen Walz, confirmed the date was intentional. "He wanted to have a date he'll always remember," she said. The couple honeymooned in China, and Walz and his wife later founded a tour company called Educational Travel Adventures that made dozens of trips back to the country. As recently as 2015, Walz praised China's development, saying, "There's no doubt...the modernization of China over the last 25 years has been nothing short of spectacular." Breitbart documented the full timeline of those ties.
Closer to home, Walz drew fire for his involvement in clemency decisions that put public safety at risk. His administration and the Minnesota Board of Pardons cleared a convicted child sex offender facing deportation, a decision that drew national condemnation. Federal authorities later stepped in after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the legal status Walz had tried to protect.
The Minnesota fraud scandal also extends beyond Walz's office. Rep. Ilhan Omar has faced questions about her connections to the Feeding Our Future fraud case, one of the largest pandemic-era fraud schemes in the country. Omar has denied ties to the fraud and tried to shift blame to the Trump administration, a deflection that has done little to quiet the questions.
Walz's golf video was not the only item generating conversation. The NFL's Hall of Fame game, which aired the previous Thursday, pulled in 7 million viewers. Dean described it as the league's "most useless preseason game", and it still outdrew the NBA's best playoff ratings in a generation.
The NBA averaged 6.35 million viewers across all of its playoff games in the most recent season, spread across ABC, ESPN, Prime Video, NBC, and Peacock. That was the league's best figure since 1998. And a single preseason NFL exhibition still beat it.
The gap between the two leagues' cultural footprints keeps widening, and the numbers tell the story without embellishment. The NFL commands attention even when the games do not count. The NBA struggles to match that even when everything is on the line.
Dean also covered the ongoing controversy surrounding WNBA player Sophie Cunningham, who was involved in a physical incident that left her bloodied during a game. The aftermath shifted quickly from the contact itself to accusations of racial bias, with the league and media framing the situation around questions of privilege rather than the on-court conduct. Sports Illustrated edited a headline about the incident involving Cunningham, creating its own social media backlash.
On a lighter note, baseball player Mark Coley II delivered one of the weekend's best highlights, an outfield catch where he knocked a ball back into the field of play and grabbed it on the way down. The Savannah Bananas, the barnstorming baseball entertainment team, also drew attention, with Super Bowl champion Russell Wilson taking a swing for the club.
A governor who presided over what could be the largest welfare fraud in state history, who chose his wedding date to commemorate a communist massacre, and who shielded a convicted sex offender from deportation spent his Monday posting golf videos. The swing told you everything you needed to know, not about his short game, but about his priorities.
Former President Joe Biden's prostate cancer has metastasized into his bones and is causing him significant pain, his son Hunter confirmed in a BBC interview, a grim update that raises fresh questions about how long Biden's health problems were concealed from the public.
Hunter Biden grew emotional during the BBC Newsnight interview, published late Friday, as he described the 83-year-old former president's deteriorating condition. AP News reported that Hunter said his father's cancer had spread well beyond the original diagnosis and was taking a visible toll on the man who left the White House less than four months before doctors found the disease.
Joe Biden disclosed his prostate cancer diagnosis in May 2025, after doctors discovered a small nodule during a routine physical examination. His personal office acknowledged at the time that the cancer "represents a more aggressive form of the disease" and "appears to be hormone-sensitive." Now, barely a year later, the cancer has moved into his bones, and his own family is publicly acknowledging that his condition is far worse than any official statement has let on.
In the BBC interview, as Breitbart News reported, Hunter Biden offered a blunt assessment of his father's health:
"The cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further. It's very painful, and it's very debilitating in many respects."
He went further, describing the personal weight of watching his father's decline:
"It's really, really hard, and it's really sad to watch."
Despite the severity of the diagnosis, Hunter insisted his father remains engaged. "He's still out there. He's still doing his thing...he so believes in this country," he said. But he also added a line that cut through any optimistic framing: "I wish he would complain more, because it's not good."
A spokesman for Joe Biden declined to comment on Hunter's interview, according to Reuters.
The medical picture that has emerged since Biden's May 2025 announcement is stark. The Washington Examiner reported that Biden received a Gleason score of 9, on a scale where 10 is the most aggressive, and was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer. That score suggests a fast-moving disease, not a slow-growing condition caught early.
Medical experts have pointed to an uncomfortable implication. Dr. Zeke Emanuel suggested Biden likely had cancer "at the start of his presidency in 2021," according to the Washington Free Beacon. If true, that means Biden occupied the Oval Office for four years while harboring an aggressive, undetected, or undisclosed, malignancy.
That timeline matters. Biden served as the oldest sitting president in American history. Throughout his term, his physical and cognitive fitness drew mounting scrutiny, culminating in a 2024 debate performance that effectively ended his reelection campaign. The question of what his doctors knew, and when they knew it, has never been fully answered.
Former First Lady Jill Biden has offered her own public comments on her husband's condition. In an appearance on The View, she acknowledged the toll the disease has taken.
"He keeps his schedule, but he's slowed down. Stage 4 cancer is, and he's 83, so, I think the mix of everything and the medications that he's taken has made life a little more difficult these days."
Fox News reported that Jill Biden also stated the former president "will have to live with cancer for the rest of his life" and admitted he would not have been able to serve another four years. That concession, delivered matter-of-factly on daytime television, carries weight. It confirms what Biden's critics argued throughout 2024: the man was not physically equipped for a second term.
Jill Biden has also spoken publicly about what she sees as unfair media treatment of her husband, a complaint that sits uneasily alongside the family's own record of withholding health information from the press and the public.
The Biden family's credibility on health disclosures has been questioned before, and not without reason. The Washington Free Beacon documented a pattern stretching back more than a decade. In 2013, the family concealed Beau Biden's terminal brain cancer diagnosis. A doctor issued what the Free Beacon described as a fraudulent "clean bill of health" statement about a tumor described as "the size of a golf ball."
Biden's personal physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, a longtime family friend, declared Biden "fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency" in February 2024 without administering a cognitive test. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a physician quoted by the Free Beacon, described the logic bluntly: "If there's no diagnosis, there's nothing to disclose."
Congressman Dean Phillips suggested the timing of Biden's cancer announcement was not coincidental, telling reporters he believed it was designed to deflect criticism surrounding the release of the book *Original Sin*. Whether or not that specific charge holds up, the broader pattern is hard to dismiss: the Biden inner circle has repeatedly managed health information to serve political convenience rather than public transparency.
Hunter Biden himself has become an increasingly unpredictable public figure. He has publicly attacked former Attorney General Merrick Garland as his father's "greatest mistake," and his public appearances have at times veered into confrontation. His candor about his father's cancer in the BBC interview may reflect genuine grief, but it also broke with the family's long-standing instinct to control the narrative.
President Donald Trump responded to the news with a message on Truth Social:
"Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden's recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery."
The gesture was straightforward and gracious. Biden's own office, by contrast, offered nothing. The spokesman's refusal to comment on Hunter's interview left the former president's team in the position of having less to say about his health than his political successor did.
The New York Post noted that Biden has largely stayed out of public view since leaving office, though he has made limited appearances. He is reportedly planning to publish a memoir titled *Promise Me, America* after the midterm elections, an undertaking that assumes a level of stamina his family's own words now call into question.
The former president's health saga also exists within a broader history of Biden-family disclosures that arrived late and under pressure. From classified documents to cognitive decline to cancer, the pattern is consistent: the public learns the full truth only after the political stakes have shifted.
Hunter Biden's interview answered one question, yes, the cancer has spread, while leaving several others open. No one in the Biden camp has specified which bones are affected, what treatment Joe Biden is currently receiving, or what his doctors say about his prognosis. The phrase "and further," which Hunter used to describe the cancer's reach beyond his bones, went unexplained.
Biden's office has not released an updated medical report since the original May 2025 announcement. The public is left to piece together the former president's condition from family interviews and daytime talk-show appearances rather than from any formal, physician-authored disclosure.
For a family that spent four years insisting the oldest president in history was sharp, capable, and fit for office, and that now concedes he could not have served a second term, the credibility gap is not a partisan talking point. It is a matter of public record.
Americans deserve honest answers about their leaders' health, before the election and after. The Biden family has yet to demonstrate it believes that standard applies to them.