Trump administration
June 5, 2026 — John Hinderaker
Democrats are outraged over the news that the administration is considering issuing a $250 bill in commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, with President Trump’s picture on it. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent displayed a mockup of the hypothetical bill: I think this is a marvelous troll on the part of President Trump. Trump has a sense of humor, and his critics generally don’t. Thus, they often fail to understand when
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May 30, 2026 — John Hinderaker
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is one of the heroes of President Trump’s remarkable cabinet. Yesterday he delivered a speech at the Reagan National Economic Forum that everyone should watch or read. Here is the speech, which consists of the first 16:32 of the video. The rest is conversation with Larry Kudlow: The complete text is here. Bessent diagnoses the problems that have been caused by the delinking of economic policy
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May 27, 2026 — John Hinderaker
This is justifiable, but perhaps the most radical idea the Trump administration has floated so far: 🚨 HUGE DEVELOPMENT: Sec. Markwayne Mullin announces DHS is drawing up plans to BLOCK ALL international flights into sanctuary cities by ending Customs screening there This would DEVASTATE those cities. Mullin is doing it as a direct result of sanctuaries refusing to cooperate… pic.twitter.com/GRHOWtdipv — Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 27, 2026 As I understand
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May 18, 2026 — John Hinderaker
The Trump administration is taking the position that federal law does not just permit the government to detain illegal immigrants, it requires such detention. This position has inspired outrage on the left, and circuits that have addressed the issue have split. So it is on to the Supreme Court. The question is a tricky one, involving interpretation of a law that is not particularly well drafted. That is probably due,
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April 22, 2026 — John Hinderaker
The New York Times looks into what has happened to USAID employees since that agency was shuttered, and gets out the violin: [Amy Uccello] was fired by email while on maternity leave, given 24 hours to clear out her desk and left with three days of health insurance and no severance pay. She had worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development or related groups for more than two decades.
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April 20, 2026 — John Hinderaker
Democrats howled when President Trump marshaled federal law enforcement and the National Guard to get crime under control in Washington, D.C. But Trump’s efforts, and those of his United States Attorney, have paid off: Washington DC is on pace for roughly 42 murders this year — the lowest since at least 1930. Two years ago it had 274. Carjackings are also down (by 44%). What changed: 1) New U.S. Attorney
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April 20, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The Star Tribune is the dominant media organ in Minnesota. It serves the interests of the left in the fashion of the New York Times in the national press, acting as the public relations arm of the Democratic Party and its aligned interest groups. The Star Tribune, however, is something of a joke. It adamantly supports illegal immigration and opposes the enforcement of immigration law, though it doesn’t say so
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April 14, 2026 — Scott Johnson
In a 2-1 decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has shut down Judge James Boasberg’s endless contempt proceedings against the Trump administration. D.C. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao wrote the majority opinion. D.C. Circuit Judge Justin Walker concurred in full with Judge Rao’s opinion and separately added a few licks. Both Judge Rao and Judge Walker are Trump appointees. They have had it with Judge Boasberg’s “law is politics by
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April 14, 2026 — John Hinderaker
One of the extraordinary features of the first year of President Trump’s second term has been the attempted judicial coup by Democratic Party district court judges who have, in effect, tried to take over the operation of the Executive Branch. Rogue district judges have issued one ill-founded order after another, most of which have been reversed on appeal. Perhaps the worst offender has been James Boasberg, Chief Judge of the
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April 10, 2026 — John Hinderaker
I can’t argue with this: Instead of importing hostile and unassimilable immigrants, the Chinese have been, for some time, dominating the production and refining of the minerals that are necessary to run any advanced economy. Thus: How China Dominates the World’s Critical Minerals Production: Critical minerals are mined all over the world but the majority of the supply ends up passing through China. For a broad range of key metals
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April 6, 2026 — Scott Johnson
CNN’s Sunday morning State of the Union gabfest included EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin as a guest on its August 2, 2025 edition. We somehow missed it! CNN’s Kasie Hunt pressed Zeldin “over his push to gut the government’s ability to fight climate change by rolling back regulations on greenhouse gases,” as CNN’s tendentious summary put it. Now in a long post on X Michael Roth analyzes Zeldin’s performance with a
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March 30, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Responding to a question about Ilhan Omar’s marriage to her brother, Vice President Vance announced that he “definitely” believes Omar committed immigration fraud and that the administration is actively looking into legal remedies: So we actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America,” Vance said. “And I talked to [White House deputy chief of staff] Stephen Miller about this actually recently. We’re trying
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March 29, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Treasury Secretary Bessent took issue in a big way with a story published by the Financial Times last week (behind the FT paywall). I found his beef of interest: By publishing this explicitly false story, the @FT has officially become tabloid trash for market participants. Despite my direct, on-the-record denial of ever having advocated, explored, or espoused the idea that Chancellor-Bank of England statute serving as a prototype for a
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March 25, 2026 — John Hinderaker
It will be a happy day when the last of the left-wing late-night “comedians” is finally off the air. The latest outrage comes from Jimmy Kimmel, who might have been funny once in his life, but if so, I missed it: When Markwayne Mullin was 20 his dad's health took a turn. He dropped out of college to run the family business. He built it from 6 people into a
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March 25, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Do you remember the massive Biden-era censorship case that was litigated mostly as Missouri v. Biden? I wrote about the case in several posts including “Walk away, Joe.” The case resulted in a disappointing Supreme Court opinion that avoided the merits on the ground of standing in Murthy v. Missouri. I anticipated the result after the oral argument of the case which I summarized in “To the Supreme Court” (citing
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March 9, 2026 — John Hinderaker
Liberal news outlets are trumpeting polls that purport to show widespread opposition to our air strikes on Iran. Meanwhile, renegade former conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens are attacking the administration over the conflict, which they blame on Israel and the Jews. Is MAGA really splintering over Iran? Seemingly not, at least not so far. CNN’s chief data analyst, Harry Enten, looks at multiple polls dating from last week,
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March 5, 2026 — John Hinderaker
President Trump has announced that Kristi Noem is stepping down as Secretary of Homeland Security. I don’t have any particular comment on that. Noem was an excellent Governor of South Dakota, but at some point her fame seemed to go to her head, and she went Hollywood. Trump is nominating Markwayne Mullin, Senator from Oklahoma, to succeed Noem. Mullin is up for re-election this year, so Republicans will have to
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