December 3, 2025 at 10:58 AM EST
Trump putting top official in 'unusually uncomfortable spot'

During a televised Cabinet meeting in the White House on Tuesday, December 2, President Donald Trump angrily railed against familiar targets ranging from former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. And he reiterated his call for steep interest rates cuts. Although Powell has been gradually lowering interest rates, Trump believes the Fed chairman isn't lowering them nearly enough. And he resents him deeply for it.

December 3, 2025 at 10:52 AM EST
Art of the Deal? Trump's 'poor negotiating tactics' fail to bring peace

The peace talks between the United States and Russia over the war in Ukraine have failed because of poor negotiating tactics, according to a report in Time Magazine . "So far, no compromise version of a peace settlement has been found," Yuri Ushakov, an advisor to Russian president Vladimir Putin, said after Tuesday's five-hour meeting between Putin and U.S. Special Envoy and former Long Island real estate lawyer Steve Witkoff.

December 3, 2025 at 6:08 AM EST
Revealed: Wealthy ranchers profit from public lands while taxpayers pick up the tab

Stan Kroenke doesn't need federal help to make a business flourish. He is worth an estimated $20 billion, a fortune that has allowed him to become one of America's largest property owners and afforded him stakes in storied sports franchises, including the Denver Nuggets and England's Arsenal soccer club. Yet Kroenke, whose wife is an heiress to the Walmart fortune, benefits from one of the federal government's bedrock subsidy programs, one that props up ranching in the West.

December 3, 2025 at 5:59 AM EST
Trump wants Americans to have more babies. There's just one big problem with that.

Maddy Olcott plans to start a career once she graduates from college. But the junior at the State University of New York-Purchase College is so far not planning to start a family -- even with the Trump administration dangling inducements like thousand-dollar "baby bonuses" or cheaper infertility drugs. "Our country wants us to be birthing machines, but they're cutting what resources there already are," said Olcott, 20. "And a $1,000 baby bonus? It's low-key like, what, bro? That wouldn't even cover my month's rent."

December 3, 2025 at 5:48 AM EST
MAGA isn't the biggest threat to America

"As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters." -- President Grover Cleveland "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." -- President Theodore Roosevelt

December 3, 2025 at 5:42 AM EST
Identifying the most harmful Trump official presents a complex challenge

Today's Office Hours discussion question is particularly difficult to answer. After more than 10 months of this catastrophic Trump regime, who has emerged as the worst person in it, other than Trump himself? There are so many candidates for this distinction that's it been hard to narrow down the finalists, but I've done the best I can to identify the most dangerous. All have caused extensive damage. This isn't to excuse Trump, of course. He appointed them and continues to support them. His rantings and ravings have encouraged them.

December 3, 2025 at 5:35 AM EST
The most dangerous corporation in America is one you may not have heard of

It's called Palantir Technologies, a Silicon Valley tech company that may put your most basic freedoms at risk. Palantir gets its name from a device used in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, in which a "palantir" is a seeing stone -- something like a crystal ball -- that can be used to spy on people and distort the truth. During the War of the Ring, a palantir falls under the control of the evil Sauron, who uses it to manipulate and deceive.

December 2, 2025 at 10:19 PM EST
Experts accuse Trump admin of leaving top admiral 'exposed' to legal consequences: report

Admiral Frank M. Bradley - who was in charge of the September 2, 2025 mission in which the U.S. military killed two shipwrecked survivors of a boat strike in the Caribbean Sea -- is being left out to dry by President Donald Trump's administration, according to multiple experts. The New York Times' Helene Cooper and John Ismay reported Tuesday that recent comments from Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt all suggest that Bradley is being cast as the central figure in the controversial strike. The Washington Post reported that after the initial missile strike that blew up a boat in international waters, the two survivors were seen clinging to the wreckage of the vessel, and that Hegseth demanded officials overseeing the operation "kill everybody." Dan Maurer, retired U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) officer, characterized the operation as "murder."

December 2, 2025 at 9:11 PM EST
Johnson 'losing further control' of House GOP as more Republicans turn on him: report

House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) grip on power appears to be slipping, as a growing number of the House Republican Conference publicly denounces his leadership. That's according to a Tuesday article by Politico's Meredith Lee Hill and Hailey Fuchs, who reported that Johnson's tenure as speaker appears to be teetering "on a razor's edge" as numerous Republicans take stances against him.

December 2, 2025 at 8:12 PM EST
GOP congressman and retired general says Trump should 'absolutely' fire Pentagon chief

One Republican member of Congress with an extensive military record is calling on President Donald Trump to fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. During a Tuesday interview with CNN reporter Manu Raju, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force and serves on the House Armed Forces Committee, expanded on his view that the embattled defense secretary should be "held accountable" in the wake of a Washington Post report alleging that he ordered the deaths of two people who survived a missile strike.

December 2, 2025 at 7:03 PM EST
DC shooting suspect may have been blackmailed into carrying out attack: report

Alleged Washington D.C. shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal may have been coerced into carrying out last week's attack on two members of the West Virginia National Guard, according to a new report. The Daily Beast's "The Swamp" newsletter reported Tuesday that U.S. intelligence sources are investigating whether the Taliban may have blackmailed the 29 year-old Lakanwal into shooting 24 year-old Andrew Wolfe and 20 year-old Sarah Beckstrom. Wolfe remains in critical condition, while Beckstrom died from her injuries. Lakanwal was also shot during the ambush-style attack and remains hospitalized.

December 2, 2025 at 5:56 PM EST
'I hate it': Senate Republicans say Trump's pardon of drug kingpin undermines his agenda

President Donald Trump's recent pardon of an international drug kingpin has ruffled feathers among members of his own party, according to a new report. The National Review's Audrey Fahlberg reported Tuesday that Trump's pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Herna'ndez has caused consternation among several Republicans in the U.S. Senate, who say that the clemency measure takes the wind out of the sails of his stated goal of combating drug traffickers. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is retiring from the Senate in 2026, said the pardon was "horrible optics" and sent a "mixed message" about the administration's goals.