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      Are Lindsey Graham’s contortions about to prod Trump into Russia sanctions?

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      Has Lindsey Graham been playing the long game with Donald Trump?Graham, who has calibrated his pro-Ukraine support since the inauguration to stay in the US president’s orbit, has said he expects this week that the Senate will begin moving his Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, a bill that he says would impose “bone-breaking sanctions” on Vladimir Putin and a 500% tariff on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil and other goods, potentially targeting China and India.The fate of the bill still depends on whether Trump gives the go-ahead, according to congressional insiders. But Trump’s growing frustration with Putin has emboldened some in the GOP to begin speaking out on the conflict again – with the notoriously flexible Graham leading the charge for tougher sanctions on the Kremlin. Is it nearing a critical mass moment in Congress – a body that has largely abdicated its role in foreign policy since Trump’s inauguration?“I hope so, because it is the right action to take,” said Don Bacon, a Republican House representative who has criticised the White House on its Ukraine policy. “But it is risky to speak for others. I know where I stand. The Senate has an overwhelming majority in support of sanctions and we should move out. It is in our national security interests that Russia fails here and it should be obvious that Putin doesn’t want peace, but wants dominance over Ukraine.”Trump’s shift on Russia has come as his efforts to negotiate a speedy ceasefire have failed. Talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on Monday led to little progress, and continued outreach from his personal envoy, Steve Witkoff, to the Kremlin has not brought concessions from Vladimir Putin. A leaked draft of Russia’s demands at the negotiations depicted a capitulation: withdrawal from Ukrainian territory claimed by Russia, no Nato membership for Ukraine, caps on the size of the country’s military.Yet it has specifically been the bombardment of cities that has upset Trump, proving once again that Putin has managed to be his own worst enemy when it comes to negotiations.“I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him,” Trump said last week, repeating part of the comments in public. “He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever.”As the White House looks for means to increase pressure on Russia and its enablers like China, the bill backed by Graham and the Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal has become a convenient tool to do just that. One person in GOP circles said that the White House was considering letting Republicans “vote their conscience” – in effect allowing Congress to support the bill without facing blowback from the Trump administration.But that would involve a final decision by the White House, and Trump has still not openly backed new sanctions as more than just a contingency.“Despite support of 82 or so senators, the bill can’t move without support in the House, and the speaker of the House won’t move it without the president’s support,” said Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute. “And it’s not clear the president has really decided Putin’s the impediment to a ceasefire. Additionally, the Senate will be consumed with passing the reconciliation bill for the next few weeks.”But as of Tuesday, the leadership appeared ready to move forward.The weather vane for Trump’s gusty foreign policy on Ukraine has been Graham, a veteran political survivor who has built a strong relationship with the president through relentless flattery and has tailored his views to match Trump’s when convenient. On Ukraine, he has been so bendable that he could not be broken.“They play a very careful game because they don’t want to upset their relationship with the big guy,” said one person knowledgable about discussions among congressional Republicans. “At the same time, I do think his heart and his head is in the right place. Just really not quite his own courage.”Graham’s interventions have been meaningful. He was instrumental in pushing the minerals deal that Ukraine signed with the US as a way to get Trump’s buy-in for its defense. Over a game of golf, he pitched Trump on the “trillions” in mineral wealth in Ukraine and later showed him a map (Trump said he wanted “half” according to one account).At the same time, he publicly fumed about Volodymyr Zelenskyy following the disastrous White House meeting of late February when Trump and JD Vance argued with the wartime leader. “I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again,” Graham said, also suggesting that the Ukrainian leader should resign. (Zelenskyy shot back later that he was ready to offer him citizenship if he wanted to discuss who should lead Ukraine).Graham’s latitude has stunned some of his former colleagues. A former colleague who had worked with Graham on Ukraine policy said that his remarks about Zelenskyy had given him “whiplash”. Asked if Graham had a coherent strategy to influence Trump, the person said: “Graham’s strategy is to put Graham first.”“I think that he understands the big game,” said another person familiar with discussions over the bill. “He would like the policy to be sound, which means [putting sanctions] on the Kremlin. But he values his relationship with the president and that that trumps the first calculation. So if he really feels the president’s against, he’s not going to go for it.”Now, with Trump signaling greater readiness for sanctions, Graham has traveled to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy (all smiles) and to Brussels, where he and the EU president, Ursula von der Leyen, discussed potential EU and US sanctions packages to turn up the pressure on Moscow.“Senator Graham deserves a lot of credit for making the case for tougher pressure on the Kremlin,” said John Hardie, the Russia program deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative thinktank. “Carrots clearly haven’t worked, so it’s time to start using some sticks, including by going after Russia’s oil revenue. This economic pressure should be paired with sustained military assistance for Ukraine.”Hardie and others noted that Trump could increase pressure on Russia without the Senate bill.“If President Trump were to decide to go the pressure route, he already has the tools at his disposal to do so,” said Hardie. “For example, he could immediately designate the rest of Russia’s shadow fleet and other non-western entities facilitating Russian oil exports and could join with G7 partners in lowering the G7 oil price cap.”And even if the sanctions are passed, they will ultimately rely on Trump’s decision to enforce them.“The Senate is prepared either way,” Graham wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week. “I have coordinated with the White House on the Russia sanctions bill since its inception. The bill would put Russia on a trade island, slapping 500% tariffs on any country that buys Moscow’s energy products. The consequences of its barbaric invasion must be made real to those that prop it up. If China or India stopped buying cheap oil, Mr Putin’s war machine would grind to a halt.” More

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      Democratic party leaders just met for the first time in months. When will they take real action? | Norman Solomon

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      People with the power to change the direction of the Democratic party – the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – met last Friday for the first time in five months.They took no action.The party’s bylaws make the executive committee “responsible for the conduct of the affairs of the Democratic party” between the meetings of the full committee, which isn’t scheduled to gather until late August. But taking responsibility wasn’t on the agenda. Instead, committee members and staff kept praising each other and committee leaders. Many talked about improving the party’s infrastructure and vowed to defeat Republicans. Deliberation, proposals and debate were completely absent. So was a sense of urgency.After so many months without a meeting, you might think that the executive committee would have a lot to talk about. But it was scheduled to meet for only three hours, which turned out to be more than adequate for what anyone had to say. The committee adjourned after an hour and a half.If obscurity was a goal for the national meeting, held in Little Rock, Arkansas, it was a success. The DNC’s website didn’t mention the meeting. Media coverage was close to nonexistent.The committee leadership remains largely within a bubble insulated from the anger and disgust – toward the party – that is widespread among countless Democrats and other Americans. They want the Democratic party to really put up a fight, while its leaders mainly talk about putting up a fight. The Trump regime is setting basic structures of democracy on fire, while Democratic leaders don’t seem to be doing much more than wielding squirt guns.A week ago, the new chair, Ken Martin, received a petition calling for an emergency meeting of the full 448-member committee. The petition, co-sponsored by Progressive Democrats of America and RootsAction (where I’m national director), includes more than 1,500 individual comments. They’re often filled with anguish and rage.The California representative Ro Khanna has joined in the call for an emergency committee meeting. “I’ve supported it, I’ve spoken directly to our chair, Ken Martin, about it,” Khanna said last week. “Look, what’s going on is chilling … They’re banning all international students from coming to Harvard. I mean, think about that – all foreign students banned. They could do this in other universities. They have fired, or let go of, seven of the 18 directors at the NIH, totally dismantling future medical research in our country. They have dismantled the FDA, firing people who approve new drugs. They are systematically firing people at the FAA … They’re openly talking about defying United States supreme court orders, [JD] Vance has said just defy the orders. They’re calling universities ‘the enemy’. This is very chilling.”Khanna then zeroed in on a crucial point that party leaders have so far refused to acknowledge, much less heed: “It’s not enough for us to have individual responses. I’m out there doing my town halls in red districts, Bernie [Sanders] is inspiring the country with his oligarchy tour, but they’re all individual efforts. We need concerted effort, we need a battle plan. And that’s what an emergency DNC meeting would do – it would acknowledge the stakes, and it would say ‘here is our plan’ – to make sure that they’re not degrading and chipping away at every institution of American democracy.”Refusal to call an emergency meeting is a marker of deeper problems, with Democratic party leadership remaining in a political rut – spouting mildly liberal rhetoric while serving the interests of big donors, high-paid consultants and entrenched power brokers. Along the way, such business as usual is a gift that keeps on giving power to the pseudo-populist messages of Maga Republican politicians, who don’t have to go up against genuine progressive populism at election time. No wonder the Democratic party has lost most of the working-class vote.With no Democrat in the White House, the DNC chair is powerful. To his credit, Martin talks articulately about the need to “democratize this party”. Four months into the job previously held by Jaime Harrison, who was Joe Biden’s obedient appointee, Martin is clearly an improvement. How much of an improvement is unclear.After the DNC’s executive committee adjourned, Martin provided a glimmer of hope for ending the chokehold that mega-funders, notably Aipac, have exerted on recent primary campaigns. He was interviewed by my colleague Sam Rosenthal, covering the event for Progressive Hub and apparently the only journalist based outside of Arkansas to make the trek to Little Rock. In response to a question about whether he would “like to see less influence from dark money, removing the influence especially in Democratic party primaries”, Martin said: “Yes. In fact, I’ll be bringing forward a resolution on that, and I will be pushing hard for our party to come up with solutions on this so that we actually have our candidates and campaigns realize that we have to live our values; we can’t just say we want dark money out of politics and then have candidates and their campaigns accepting all types of support from these shadow groups. We actually need to reverse course.”That reply might indicate that Martin is now willing to move away from the position that he took while running for DNC chair in January, when he said: “There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats who share our values and we will take their money, but we’re not taking money from those bad billionaires.”With June under way, the Democratic party is no closer to operating with urgency to vigorously oppose the daily Trump attacks on basic rights, the rule of law, and the economic interests of most Americans. The party’s terrible approval ratings in polls – with disdain for its congressional leaders – make the need for drastic changes in the party all too clear.But when the DNC and allied party organizations do outreach urging people to “get involved”, routinely the only involvement urged or offered is to give money. It’s a formulaic approach that reveals just how little the national party is really seeking participatory democracy.Millions of usual (and all-too-often former) Democratic voters see party leaders as asleep at the switch, while the Trump regime is hard at work enriching the already rich and demolishing structures of democracy. As usual, if genuine change for the better is going to come, it won’t be handed down from on high. People at the grassroots will have to fight for it.

      Norman Solomon is the director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book is War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine More

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      Trump extendss sympathy after Biden cancer diagnosis – but it doesn’t last long

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      After Joe Biden revealed his cancer diagnosis, Donald Trump offered an uncharacteristically empathetic and simple response.“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 president wrote on social media.But the compassion didn’t last long.Trump soon reverted to type, dabbling in a burgeoning right-wing conspiracy theory about Biden’s health and comparing the former president, who has stage four prostate cancer, to a corpse, as Trump’s hangers-on and acolytes used the diagnosis to attack Biden and his wife.Trump posted his well-wishing message on 18 May, after Biden’s office announced the 82-year-old had been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.The president’s tone changed quickly, however. Trump spent Memorial Day – which the Department of Defense describes as being intended to “honor all those who died in service to the US during peacetime and war”, attacking his one time rival and his time in office.“Happy Memorial Day to all,” the president wrote on Truth Social.“Including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds, who allowed 21,000,000 million people to illegally enter our country, many of them being criminals and the mentally insane, through an open border that only an incompetent president would approve, and through judges who are on a mission to keep murderers, drug dealers, rapists, gang members, and released prisoners from all over the world, in our country so they can rob, murder, and rape again – all protected by these USA hating judges who suffer from an ideology that is sick, and very dangerous for our country.”It was clear that Trump’s “warmest and best wishes” to Biden had been firmly retracted, and that became even more transparent as Trump went on to promote an emerging, fact-free, theory that Biden hid the cancer diagnosis while in office.“I’m surprised that the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine, that’s a long time,” Trump said – seemingly conflating the Gleason score, which measures how cancerous cells look compared with normal cells, with Biden’s stage four cancer.Trump’s comments hinted at the growing conspiracy theory about Biden’s alleged use of an “autopen” – a device which replicates a person’s signature – to sign legislation while in office. The president continued the theme when he suggested that Biden, while president, was taken advantage of by unnamed individuals who “knew he was cognitively impaired”.It has been a growing issue on the right. This week, Trump’s AI czar David Sacks speculated that Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator, “controlled the autopen during that administration”, in comments seized upon by the rightwing conspiracy theory Alex Jones, among others.That set the ball rolling. Trump twice posted about the pen, in one post he claimed that the alleged use of the autopen was “the Biggest Scandal in American History” as he suggested Biden was not of “sound mind”. On Thursday, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt followed up in an official briefing, suggesting Jill Biden should “speak up about what she saw” about the health of her husband, who is said to be reviewing treatment options for the aggressive cancer that was discovered less than two weeks ago.Others in Trump’s orbit have also made unsavory comments, including Donald Trump Jr, who mocked Jill Biden over the diagnosis. Trump Jr posted on social media: “What I want to know is how did Dr Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup???”It was a message that neatly managed to combine the autopen theory with a callback to Republican mocking of Jill Biden, who holds a doctorate in education and is not a medical doctor.But for all the Republican group-think about Biden’s health, it was left to Trump himself to offer the bleakest take, reposting a message on Truth Social that read: “They stole the 2020 election and hijacked the country using a decrepit corpse as a frontman They used an autopen to start wars, steal from our treasury, and pardon their friends Arrest those responsible and charge them with TREASON.”In late April, as Trump approached 100 days in office, NBC News reported that Trump had posted or commented on Biden, or his family, at least 580 times since becoming president. With that little commitment, perhaps in hindsight it shouldn’t be surprising that a cancer diagnosis would not stop the commander-in-chief. More

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      Suspect in Boulder flamethrower attack told Colorado police he targeted ‘Zionist group’ – US politics live

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      Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.We start with the news that a man accused of using a makeshift flame-thrower and an incendiary device to attack a US group bringing attention to Israeli hostages in Gaza has been charged with a federal hate crime.Mohammed Sabry Soliman, 45, told police he had planned it for a year and targeted what he described as the “Zionist group”, the FBI said.CNN reviewed a Facebook account matching his name and date of birth. It reported:
      On the account’s page, which was last updated about 10 years ago, Soliman said he attended high school and college in Egypt and later moved to Kuwait, where he had an accounting job, according to the page. That account featured photos of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who served as Egypt’s president from 2012 to 2013, when he was ousted in a military coup that triggered mass protests and sit-ins in Cairo.
      Posts on the Facebook page expressed support for the Muslim Brotherhood protests against the removal of Morsi. One post from August 2013 featured a four-finger salute with a yellow background, a symbol supportive of the Rabaa al-Adawiya Square encampment, which was violently dispersed by Egyptian security forces loyal to Egypt’s then-defense minister and current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
      Twelve people were injured in the attack in Colorado, some with burns, as a group was concluding a weekly demonstration to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza, AP reported. Witnesses reported the man shouted “Free Palestine” during the attack.An FBI affidavit says Soliman confessed to the attack after being taken into custody on Sunday and told the police he would do it again. The affidavit was released in support of a federal hate crime charged filed by the Justice Department on Monday.The attack happened on the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which is marked with the reading of the Torah, and barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli embassy employees outside a Jewish museum in Washington.Federal and state prosecutors filed separate criminal cases against Soliman, charging him with a hate crime and attempted murder, respectively. He faces additional state charges related to the incendiary devices, and more charges are possible in federal court, where the Justice Department will seek a grand jury indictment.During a state court hearing on Monday, Soliman appeared briefly via a video link from the Boulder County Jail wearing an orange jumpsuit.In other news:

      The head of Ice defended his agency’s decision to arrest an 18-year-old Massachusetts high school student on his way to volleyball practice. US district judge Richard Stearns later ordered a 72-hour stay to “provide a fair opportunity for the judge who will be randomly assigned to this case” to review merits and rule on any contested issues in the case of Marcelo Gomes Da Silva.

      Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) barred its 2025 class president from attending her graduation ceremony on Friday after she delivered a speech during a commencement event the day before condemning Israel’s war in Gaza and criticizing the university’s ties to Israel.

      China accused the US of “seriously violating” and undermining the agreements reached in Geneva in May.

      Prosecutors in Milwaukee charged a man on Monday with four felonies for attempting to frame an undocumented immigrant he is accused of assaulting, by sending forged letters in the immigrant’s name with a threat to kill Donald Trump.

      New York’s lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, announced on Monday that he is running for governor, setting up a Democratic primary battle against the sitting governor, Kathy Hochul, who selected him for the job as her deputy.

      Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s senior Democrat, released a social media video on Monday in which he seemed to taunt Donald Trump for supposedly being too “chicken” in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. More

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      Trump news at a glance: US-China trade relations falter amid fragile trade truce

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      President Donald Trump had this May hailed a “total reset” of US-China relations, but trade relations between the world’s two-largest economies have faltered since, highlighting the fragility of the truce.The US is now complaining that China not delivered on its promises to roll back restrictions on the export of key critical minerals, with Trump saying on Friday that China had “totally violated” the agreement.China has also hit back, with its commerce ministry saying this week that China “is determined to safeguard its rights and interests”. It also denied the accusation it had undermined the 12 May agreement.Here are the key stories at a glance:China accuses US of ‘seriously violating’ trade truceChina has accused the US of “seriously violating” the fragile US-China detente that has been in place for less than a month since the two countries agreed to pause the trade war that risked upending the global economy.Read the full storyOAN reporter fired after criticizing HegsethA pro-Donald Trump journalist says she was fired from her job after criticizing the president’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, over his attempts to restrict media access at the Pentagon.Read the full story20 Planned Parenthood clinics shutter this yearAt least 20 Planned Parenthood clinics across seven states have shuttered since the start of 2025 or have announced plans to close soon – closures that come amid immense financial and political turbulence for the reproductive health giant as the United States continues to grapple with the fallout from the end of Roe v Wade.Read the full storyTrump officials open up millions of acres in Alaska to drilling and miningMillions of acres of Alaska wilderness will lose federal protections and be exposed to drilling and mining in the Trump administration’s latest move to prioritize energy production over the shielding of the US’s open spaces.Read the full storyUS leaders condemn attack on Colorado rally for Israeli hostagesPolitical leaders across the US have condemned what they describe as a horrific, antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado, after a man allegedly used a makeshift flamethrower and incendiary devices to target people at a rally calling for the release of the hostages held by Hamas.Read the full storyTrump pardons shark diversDonald Trump has pardoned two south Florida shark divers convicted of theft for freeing 19 sharks and a giant grouper from a fisherman’s longline several miles from shore. Pardons for Tanner Mansell and John Moore Jr were signed on Wednesday. They had been convicted in 2022 of theft of property within special maritime jurisdiction.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Trump administration officials sparked a huge protest in a Boston suburb after immigration agents detained a high school student while they were seeking his father.

      US senator Joni Ernst triggered fierce criticism after making light of voters’ fears that Republican Medicaid cuts could prove fatal.

      Massachusetts Institute of Technology barred its 2025 class president from attending her graduation ceremony after she delivered a speech condemning the war in Gaza and criticizing the university’s ties to Israel.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 1 June 2025. More

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      Trump pardons two divers convicted of theft for freeing sharks off Florida coast

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      Donald Trump has pardoned two south Florida shark divers convicted of theft for freeing 19 sharks and a giant grouper from a fisherman’s longline several miles from shore.Pardons for Tanner Mansell and John Moore Jr were signed on Wednesday. They had been convicted in 2022 of theft of property within special maritime jurisdiction.The two men avoided prison time, but they were ordered to pay $3,343.72 in restitution, and the felony convictions prevented them from voting in Florida, owning firearms and traveling freely outside the US.“We never stopped fighting, and justice has finally prevailed,” Moore’s attorney, Marc Seitles, said in a statement. “We are thrilled the White House considered our arguments and determined this was an unjust prosecution. We could not be happier for John and Tanner.”Moore, who was captain of a shark-diving charter boat, and Mansell, a crew member, spotted the longline about 3 miles (5km) off the Jupiter Inlet in August 2020, according to court records. Believing it was an illegal fishing line, the men freed the sharks and grouper, reported it to state wildlife officials and brought the line back to shore.Federal prosecutors later charged the men with theft. Officials said the line actually belonged to a fisherman licensed by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) to catch sharks for research.Mansell and Moore were convicted by a jury, and their appeals were later denied. The full and unconditional pardons signed by the US president erase those convictions.“This case never should have been filed,” Mansell’s attorney, Ian Goldstein, said in a statement. “These gentlemen made an honest mistake and were trying to save sharks from what they believed to be an illegal longline fishing setup. I can’t think of two individuals more deserving of a Presidential Pardon.” More

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      Philadelphia paper warns Fetterman to take Senate job seriously – ‘or step away’

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      The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board has issued a sharp rebuke of Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman in a new opinion piece, urging him to take his job “seriously” and writing that “it’s time for Fetterman to serve Pennsylvanians, or step away.”In a strongly worded piece published on Sunday, the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which endorsed Fetterman during his 2022 Senate campaign, said the first-term Democrat “has missed more votes than nearly every other senator in the past two years” and “regularly skips committee hearings, cancels meetings, avoids the daily caucus lunches with colleagues, and rarely goes on the Senate floor”.The editorial board also wrote that six former Fetterman staffers told an Inquirer reporter that Fetterman was frequently absent or spent hours alone in his office, avoiding colleagues and meetings.“Being an elected official comes with public scrutiny,” the board wrote. “If Fetterman can’t handle the attention or perform his job, then in the best interest of the country and the nearly 13 million residents of Pennsylvania he represents, he should step aside.”“Being an elected representative is a privilege, not an entitlement,” it added. “Being a US senator is a serious job that requires full-time engagement.”Fetterman responded to the piece and allegations on Monday during a Fox News debate with Republican senator David McCormick.“For me, it’s very clear, it’s just part of like this weird – this weird smear,” Fetterman said. “The more kinds of, left kind of media continues to have these kinds of an attack, and it’s just part of a smear and that’s just not … it’s just not accurate.”He continued: “I’ve always been there, and for me, if I miss some of those votes, I’ve made 90% of them, and we all know those votes that I’ve missed were on Monday. Those are travel days and I have three young kids and … those are throwaway procedural votes that … they were never determined if they were important. That’s a choice that I made.”Fetterman also reportedly claimed senators Bernie Sanders and Patty Murray had missed more votes than he has.“Why aren’t the left media yelling and demanding them and claiming they’re not doing their job?” Fetterman said.In response, a spokesperson for Murray told Politico that most of her missed votes occurred during a vote-a-rama when her husband was hospitalized.A spokesperson for Sanders did not immediately respond to request for comment from Politico, but the outlet pointed out that according to data from GovTrack.us, a government transparency site, Sanders has missed 836 of 6,226 rollcall votes since 1991, or about 13.4%. Murray has missed 290 of 11,106 rollcall votes since 1993, or roughly 2.6%.By comparison, Politico reported that Fetterman has missed 174 of 961 rollcall votes, approximately 18.1%, in his first term, according to GovTrack.us.The editorial on Sunday comes as last month, New York magazine published an article on Fetterman which quoted several former and current Fetterman staffers who expressed concerns about the Senator’s mental and physical health, and his behavior.In response, Fetterman dismissed the piece, calling it “a one-source story, with a couple anonymous sources” and labeling it a “hit piece from a very left publication”. More

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      Republican senator criticized for mock apology after saying ‘we all are going to die’

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      Senator Joni Ernst triggered fierce criticism after making light of voters’ fears that Republican Medicaid cuts could prove fatal, telling a town hall audience “we all are going to die” and then filming a mocking response video over the weekend.The Iowa Republican, who is facing a possibly challenging re-election battle in 2026, was explaining at a Friday town hall how the Republican immigration and tax package would affect Medicaid eligibility when an audience member shouted that people could die if they lost coverage through the proposed cuts.“Well, we all are going to die,” Ernst responded as the crowd groaned. “So, for heaven’s sakes. For heaven’s sakes, folks.”Rather than clarify or apologize, Ernst channeled Trump-era defiance in her response on Saturday with an Instagram video that appeared to be filmed in a graveyard.“I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,” she said. “So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”She concluded by telling viewers: “For those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.”The controversy comes as Senate Republicans prepare to tackle the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill”, which passed the House and would slash social safety net spending by more than $1tn over a decade. Congressional Budget Office projections suggest the measure could strip Medicaid coverage from 8.7 million people and leave 7.6 million more Americans uninsured.On Monday afternoon, the White House defended the legislation with a “mythbuster” statement dismissing claims that the bill would cause deaths as “one of Democrats’ most disgusting lies”.The White House argued the bill would actually “strengthen and protect the social safety net” by removing what it claimed were 1.4 million undocumented people from Medicaid rolls and implementing work requirements for able-bodied adults.“By removing at least 1.4 million illegal immigrants from the program, ending taxpayer-funded gender mutilation surgeries for minors, and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, the One Big Beautiful Bill will ensure Medicaid better serves the American people,” the statement read.Senate Republicans acknowledge the House-passed bill will undergo significant revisions, with several Republican senators seeking changes to the Medicaid provisions. Ernst’s comments have also provided Democrats with potent ammunition for their argument that Republicans prioritize tax cuts for wealthy Americans over healthcare for ordinary citizens.Iowa Democratic state senator JD Scholten told Politico on Monday he is launching a campaign to unseat Ernst, saying the senator “disrespected” its residents.The Democratic National Committee chairperson, Ken Martin, said Ernst had “said the quiet part out loud”, arguing Republicans don’t care “whether their own constituents live or die as long as the richest few get richer”.Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut told CNN on Sunday that the Republican bill “is about life and death”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Everybody in that audience knows that they’re going to die. They would just rather die in old age, at 85 or 90, instead of dying at 40,” Murphy said. “And the reality is that, when you lose your healthcare, you are much more at risk of early death.”In Iowa, the stakes are notably high, with roughly one in five residents relying on Medicaid coverage, including half of all nursing home residents, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.Ernst attempted damage control during Friday’s town hall, insisting Republicans would “focus on those that are most vulnerable” and protect people who meet Medicaid eligibility requirements.The senator faces several primary challengers as she seeks a third term, with the Medicaid controversy potentially complicating her political positioning in a state where healthcare access remains a key voter concern. In December, she was attacked from her right flank for being a “Rino” after initially hesitating on confirming the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth.When asked for comment, her office stayed the path.“There’s only two certainties in life: death and taxes,” a spokesperson for Ernst said, “and she’s working to ease the burden of both by fighting to keep more of Iowans’ hard-earned tax dollars in their own pockets and ensuring their benefits are protected from waste, fraud and abuse.” More