June 8, 2025 at 2:30 PM EDT
Pastor explains how 'powerful' Pope Leo 'directly threatens' fearful MAGA Christians

The ascendancy of Cardinal Robert Prevost -- now Pope Leo XIV - to become the global head of the Catholic Church is an inherent threat to the worldview of the American religious right, according to one Christian pastor. In a recent essay for Religion News Service (RNS), the Rev. Jennifer Butler -- who is the senior pastor at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Corvallis, Oregon -- argued that the far right is railing against Leo XIV specifically because of the dilemma he presents to their belief system. Butler wrote that the MAGA faithful is not opposed to the new pontiff because he's a liberal like his predecessor Pope Francis, but because he's a traditional conservative Catholic who nonetheless holds radically different views than Christian nationalists.

June 8, 2025 at 2:05 PM EDT
'No concern that they weren't true': BBC hits back at Karoline Leavitt's 'fake news'

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, recently gave a press briefing about Palestinians killed close to an aid distribution centre in Gaza on June 1. A key question, she suggested, was whether the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) were really to blame, as had been reported. "Unlike some in the media, we don't take the word of Hamas as total truth," she said. "We like to look into it when they speak, unlike the BBC."

June 8, 2025 at 1:55 PM EDT
'Beyond shameful': New Trump 'discriminatory policy' denounced by critics

Progressive lawmakers, civil rights groups, and humanitarians responded with outrage and condemnation overnight and into Thursday after President Donald Trump announced a blanket travel ban on 12 countries and harsh restrictions on seven others, calling the move a hateful and "unlawful" regurgitation of a policy he attempted during his first term. In total, the executive order from Trump's White House would impact people and families from 19 countries. Twelve nations would face a total ban: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. People from seven other nations would face severe restrictions: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

June 8, 2025 at 1:42 PM EDT
'It's just a distraction': Dem hammers Trump for hypocrisy

WASHINGTON - Dismissing President Donald Trump's claim that preemptive pardons Joe Biden gave members of the House January 6 committee are invalid if Biden used an autopen to sign them, the senior Democrat who chaired that panel and received such a pardon doubted whether Trump himself signed all pardons he gave supporters who carried out the Capitol attack. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told Raw Story: "Ask him! Did he sign all 1,500 pardons?"

June 8, 2025 at 1:28 PM EDT
'Big cringe moment': How Trump's meetings with world leaders are a 'queasy experience'

During his second term, President Donald Trump has frequently made headlines for his showy Oval Office meetings with world leaders. One veteran entertainment journalist is now pointing out something they all have in common. In a Sunday essay for the New York Times, Lisa Schwarzbaum -- who was a longtime film critic for Entertainment Weekly -- observed that many Americans have likened Trump's meetings with foreign heads of state to reality TV. But she cautioned that world leaders may end up avoiding the White House altogether to avoid being caught up in the media spectacle that typically ensues after each meeting.

June 8, 2025 at 12:05 PM EDT
'Anti-American': WH press sec blasted over demand to punish reporter who criticized Trump

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is now being raked over the coals in response to her call for ABC to censor a journalist who criticized President Donald Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. In a Sunday tweet, Keavitt posted a screenshot of a now-deleted post by ABC News' Terry Moran -- who interviewed Trump earlier this year -- and called on his employer to punish him over his "unhinged and unacceptable" critique of the administration. Moran opined in the post that Miller was not "the brains behind Trumpism" but a "world-class hater" whose "bile" is his "spiritual nourishment." He then said that Trump was also a "world-class hater" whose own "spiritual nourishment" was "his own glorification."

June 8, 2025 at 10:34 AM EDT
'Not going to buckle': Republican warns Senate he'll tank Trump's bill over this provision

As the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate mulls changes to President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," one House Republican is warning his Senate counterparts against tweaking one particular section. During a Sunday interview with CNN congressional correspondent Manu Raju, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) cautioned Senate Republicans against making any changes to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction he and others negotiated with House Republican leadership. The SALT deduction cap is currently at $10,000, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) agreed to raise the cap to $40,000 in order to convince House's SALT caucus to support the legislation.

June 8, 2025 at 9:29 AM EDT
'Destroyed their credibility': MAGA turns on Trump officials unable to prove conspiracies

Several senior officials in President Donald Trump's administration are now finding themselves in the crosshairs of Trump's MAGA base, who are upset with their inability to follow through on promises to get to the bottom of unproven conspiracy theories. According to a Sunday report in the New York Times, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino have all experienced MAGA's wrath on multiple occasions since they were confirmed to their positions. Bondi was lambasted for giving far-right, pro-Trump activists binders full of material that was teased as new revelations about the late convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein, only to disappoint them once it was found that there was no new information contained in those binders.

June 8, 2025 at 8:35 AM EDT
'Don't have a violin small enough': Critics mock DOGE staff worried about losing jobs

Since President Donald Trump and Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk began their public feud, staffers at Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are now wondering whether they themselves will still have jobs in the Trump administration. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that DOGE staffers across multiple federal agencies -- whose jobs have mostly consisted of singling out probationary federal workers for mass layoffs -- are now in fear of losing their own employment given their ties to Musk. According to the Journal , the White House is defending DOGE's mass firings, though one former staffer who previously worked for Musk's quasi-agency expressed fear that DOGE itself may soon crumble.

June 8, 2025 at 7:56 AM EDT
Republican rep. warns the GOP is following Trump 'off a cliff' -- and he won't go with them

One moderate Republican member of the House of Representatives is arguing that the GOP needs to stake out its own identity outside of being a rubber stamp for President Donald Trump. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) defended his more frequent public opposition to Trump's agenda as simply "being on the right side" of history. A retired brigadier general in the Air Force, Bacon is likely to decide soon whether to run for a sixth term in Congress or retire when his current term expires.

June 8, 2025 at 6:03 AM EDT
Humiliated Trump targets California

What is our moral responsibility as citizens of the United States when the President of the United States moves to deploy thousands of American soldiers against us? Trump signed a memo late yesterday ordering 2,000 members of the National Guard to be deployed in Los Angeles County after federal immigration agents in riot gear squared off with hundreds of protesters for a second consecutive day.

June 7, 2025 at 2:11 PM EDT
How 'absurd' Trump's 'obsession with' Biden could pave the way for greater abuses

Four and one-half months after former President Joe Biden left the White House, President Donald Trump is calling for an investigation of Biden's use of the autopen -- which, Trump claims, was used to hide his "cognitive decline." In an article published by The Atlantic on June 7, attorney Paul Rosenzweig argues that this probe is not only "absurd" -- it is also dangerous because it could pave the way for Trump to expand his abuse of the legal system.