Socialists sweep NYC as Americans balk at movement’s brutal catch: ‘Talk to immigrants’

Rally-goers on the National Mall pointed to Cuba and Venezuela as cautionary tales of socialist governance

June 26, 2026 1:47pm EDT / Fox News

By Ashley J. DiMella, Hannah Brennan

Americans sound the alarm over socialist surge following New York sweep

Fox News Digital spoke with attendees at the Great American State Fair rally about their concerns over the rise of socialism in the United States.

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Americans gathered on the National Mall for President Donald Trump’s America250 kickoff at the Great American State Fair said New York’s socialist surge is a warning sign for Democrats — one they argue history has already rejected.

“If you study history, you will see that many countries have already tried to go down that path and ended up in disaster,” said 11th grade Georgia teacher Jill. “If you talk to immigrants who came from countries that were socialist, they will tell you they left you know tending toward communist countries. They left for that reason.”

Fox News Digital spoke with Americans who gathered on the National Mall Wednesday evening for Trump’s rally kicking off the Great American State Fair celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary, where attendees shared why they believe socialism would fail in the United States.

The comments follow New York City socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani scoring another political victory Tuesday, with all three congressional candidates he endorsed—Brad Lander, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier—winning their respective Democratic primaries.

WINNERS AND LOSERS EMERGE AFTER SOCIALIST EARTHQUAKE ROCKS NYC PRIMARIES

Rally-goers on the National Mall call out socialism.(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images; Fox News Digital)

The victories were widely viewed as another sign of Mamdani’s growing influence in the Democrat Party and the increasing acceptance of socialism.

The socialist victories in several high-profile New York Democratic primaries drew a sharp political contrast that many attendees of Trump’s rally told Fox News Digital served as a stark reminder of the direction they fear the country is heading.

Rally attendee Jill told Fox News Digital that she traveled to East Germany at the age of 16 when the Berlin Wall was coming down, an experience she now brings into the classroom by showing her students photos from the trip.

“I show my students pictures, and we talk about what communism means … capitalism is what’s got us here. We’ve been a capitalist country for a very long time. They have to be extremely careful when voting. They need to study and be well-informed voters,” Jill continued.

While socialism collapsed in the Soviet Union and East Germany, it continues to shape the governments of countries such as Cuba and Venezuela—two nations that President Donald Trump has made a focus of his foreign policy efforts in an effort to support democratic change.

NYC VOTERS EMBRACE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM AS AOC, SANDERS STUMP FOR MAMDANI

Trump supporters speak to Fox News Digital at Great American State Fair rally.(Hannah Brennan/Fox News Digital)

“I don’t support socialism … If you look at Cuba, the difference there… compared to even the other Caribbean countries around it, it’s totally different. And they’re driving old cars. They don’t have even heating and air … capitalism makes that possible. And so I’m very much in favor of working for what you want … I still think America is a place where the American dream can still come true,” said Toni of Kentucky.

“A hundred million people died from communism, whether it be from China and Mao or Stalin and Russia, Hitler. We can’t forget our history, or we have a tendency to repeat it, and we should definitely reject this. It’s never worked anywhere. And capitalism and a free market society has benefited the world,” David of Annapolis, Maryland, said.

Jennifer, who traveled from Tennessee, said she is worried about the rise of socialism in America.

“It’s not something that’s beneficial for our country and our values,” she said.

Former Rochester, New York, resident Norma told Fox News Digital she has 10 grandchildren and is worried about the next generation.

“New York is pretty much, I hate to say, far gone… I lived there for 22 years. There are conservative people there, but unfortunately, there’s this new agenda coming through,” she said.

NYC VOTERS FLOCK TO SOCIALIST-STYLE FREEBIES AS MAMDANI PUSHES RENT FREEZES, CITY-RUN STORES

A father and son traveled from New York.(Ashley DiMella/Fox News Digital)

Mamdani has faced criticism from conservatives over proposals including fare-free city buses, universal free childcare and city-run grocery stores, with Americans at the event telling Fox News Digital that “free” programs ultimately come at taxpayers’ expense.

“Socialism promises everything, but they can’t deliver past everybody’s money… history has shown where socialism fails… the proof is in the pudding,” said Billy of North Carolina.

“I don’t agree with it at all… we can’t function on giving everything away for free,” said Nicky of Tennessee.

DANGEROUS OR AN OPPORTUNITY? SOCIAL MEDIA AS VENUE FOR DISCUSSING POLITICS DEBATED BY YOUNG CONSERVATIVES

People watch as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally to kick off the Great American State Fair on the National Mall on June 24, 2026 in Washington, DC.(Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

When Fox News Digital asked Gen Z and Millennial voters whether Mamdani is “cool,” Sarah of Massachusetts and Johanna and Elizabeth of California responded, “no.”

“I understand the appeal that socialism has, but definitely don’t think that it’s the right way our country should be going. I think in theory it makes sense,” said Sarah. “In reality, that’s not how it ends up looking. It’s definitely scary to see so many of my generation leaning that way.”

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“It’s a really good concept to have everything for free in socialism, but it doesn’t really work out in the real world,” added Johanna. “If you look at the countries that have already tried socialism, it really hasn’t worked. It also doesn’t encourage innovation.”

Elizabeth, visiting Washington, D.C. for the week, said she agreed with her friends, adding, “I’m not a socialist. I’m a Republican.”

Ashley J. DiMella reports on politics for Fox News Digital.

Judge in Charlie Kirk murder case finds prosecutor in contempt for public comments, but won’t take death penalty off the table

June 26, 2026 / 12:37 PM EDT / CBS News

By Kerry Breen

A prosecutor has been found in civil contempt after making comments on the strength of the murder case against Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting and killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Judge Tony Graf Jr. ruled in a virtual hearing on Friday that the prosecutor was in civil contempt for making comments to the media about a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk’s body.

The defense team asked that Graf block the death penalty in the case, claiming the prosecutors’ comments could sway potential jurors. Graf declined to do so, ruling that the prosecution could continue to pursue the death penalty.

Judge Tony Graf during a hearing for Tyler Robinson on Friday, April 17, 2026 in Provo, Utah. Trent Nelson-Pool / Getty Images

The defense team previously accused prosecutors, including Deputy Utah County Attorney Christopher Ballard, of going on a “media tour.”

At a May hearing, Ballard argued that he didn’t speak to the media about case specifics and that he had only remarked generally about how ballistics testing can be inconclusive.

There will be additional jury questionnaires and the jury pool may be expanded, Graf said.

Robinson has been charged with aggravated murder, and has not yet entered a plea. His preliminary hearing is set to begin on July 6. That hearing will determine if there is enough evidence to bring Robinson to trial.

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Graf ruled earlier this week that a former roommate of Robinson’s will not have to testify in person during the preliminary hearing, which will be open to the public.

Deputy Utah County Attorney Christopher Ballard on June 12, 2026 in Provo, Utah. Francisco Kjolseth-Pool / Getty Images

Trump administration asks US Supreme Court to endorse immigration detention policy

2026-06-26T17:59:32.57Z / Reuters

June 26 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let it detain people arrested in its immigration crackdown without a chance to seek bond, even if they have lived in the country for years.

The administration made that request in a filing made public on Friday, asking the Supreme Court to overturn a May decision by a federal appeals court, which had rejected its reinterpretation of a decades-old immigration law that now underlies its mass detention policy.

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The administration filed the appeal earlier this week, before the 6-3 conservative majority court handed it a pair of major wins on immigration policy on Thursday, including by allowing it to strip hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants of protections against deportation.

The administration is asking the Supreme Court to review a ruling by a 2-1 panel of the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of three appeals courts that have joined with hundreds of lower-court judges in rejecting its detention practice.

Two other appeals courts have endorsed the administration’s policy, a fact U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer noted as he urged the justices to intervene and resolve a “critically important question of immigration law” that is fueling thousands of lawsuits by people challenging their detention.

“Detaining aliens who are living in the country after an illegal entry while their removal proceedings unfold prevents those aliens from evading hearings and helps ensure their removal from the United States,” Sauer argued in a petition.

Bucking a long-standing interpretation of immigration law, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last year took the position that non-citizens already residing in the United States, and not just people arriving at the border, qualify as “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention.

Under federal immigration law, “applicants for admission” to the United States are subject to mandatory detention while their cases proceed in immigration courts and are ineligible for bond hearings.

The Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the Justice Department, issued a decision in September that adopted that interpretation. As a result, immigration judges, who are employed by the department, across the country began ordering mandatory detention.

The 6th Circuit’s ruling came in cases out of Michigan involving citizens of Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Guatemala who had resided in the United States for years before being arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

It held that the administration misinterpreted a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and that the migrants were denied bond hearings in violation of their due process rights under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Sanjeev Miglani

Suspect in Minnesota fraud case arrested in Somalia after 4 years on the run, officials say

June 26, 2026 / 3:29 PM EDT / CBS News

MINNEAPOLIS — An alleged leader of the largest pandemic-era fraud scheme in the country was arrested overseas after being on the run for more than four years, according to federal officials.

Abdikerm Eidleh, 43, was arrested in Mogadishu, Somalia, earlier this week in a daytime raid coordinated by both the FBI and Somali intelligence agencies. He was indicted in September 2022 as part of the sweeping $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud investigation.

“This is a big fish,” Daniel Rosen, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, told CBS News. “Eidleh was a key leader and was responsible for bribing and recruiting business to steal from the American taxpayer.”

Rosen said Eidleh was “second in command” to Aimee Bock, the convicted ringleader of the scheme, who was just sentenced to more than 40 years in prison.

Abdikerm Eidleh

Investigators allege Eidleh personally collected $5 million in bribes and kickbacks after instructing restaurants and catering businesses to inflate receipts submitted to the Minnesota Department of Education for reimbursement.

“This shows the global reach and outstretched arm of American law enforcement,” said Christopher Dotson, FBI Special Agent in Charge at FBI Minneapolis. “Somalia is not the safe haven you may think it is.”

So far prosecutors have charged 79 people, most of Somali descent, in the Feeding Our Future case. Of those, 66 have been convicted or pleading guilty.

Dozens of others have also been charged in Minnesota in a range of alleged schemes to defraud taxpayer-funded social service programs, including childcare, housing and behavioral health.

Rosen previously told CBS News the total amount of fraud in Minnesota could top $1 billion.

“The chapter for Feeding Our Future might be closing, but we’re still in the beginning of making sure we protect the American taxpayer,” Rosen said

‘Damning silence’: Swing-seat Democrat stays quiet after AOC voices support

Cait Conley has yet to comment on AOC’s support or address the three socialist candidates sharing Democratic ticket

June 26, 2026 12:49pm EDT / Fox News

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A Democratic House hopeful vying for one of the nation’s most competitive districts is staying silent after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., voiced support for her campaign.

Ocasio-Cortez, a leftist firebrand with growing influence in the Democratic Party, congratulated former Biden administration official Cait Conley on her primary victory in a social media post Wednesday.

“I look forward to working together as a delegation as we fight for working families across New York,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

The post also celebrated a Democrat vying to succeed retiring Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., alongside three socialist candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

RISING SOCIALIST STARS ON TRACK TO CONGRESS: WHO ARE DARIALIZA AVILA CHEVALIER, BRAD LANDER AND CLAIRE VALDEZ?

Brad Lander, former New York City comptroller and U.S. House candidate, stands with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at a “Get Out The Vote” rally at Kings Theater in Brooklyn on June 18, 2026.(Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Conley has yet to comment on Ocasio-Cortez’s support or address the trio of far-left candidates — longtime New York official Brad Lander, state Assembly member Claire Valdez, D-N.Y., and activist Darializa Avila-Chevalier — who have called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are outspoken critics of Israel and have vowed to advance the Palestinian cause in Congress.

Conley’s general election opponent, Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., insists she should have to answer for it.

“Which is it, Cait: do you reject AOC and the candidates who want to abolish ICE, defund the police, and tear down our borders, or do you embrace them?” Lawler’s campaign manager Ciro Riccardi said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“The Hudson Valley deserves an answer, and so far all we’ve heard is your damning silence,” he continued.

Lander and Avila-Chevalier previously called for defunding the police, while the latter has continued to advocate for abolishing prisons and stopping all deportations. Avila-Chevalier also reposted a tweet denying Israel’s right to exist and helped form a pro-Palestinian group at Columbia University that called for “the total eradication of Western civilization.”

The three Mamdani-backed candidates are expected to double the ranks of the left-wing group known as the “Squad,” an informal bloc closely aligned with Ocasio-Cortez, who also supports abolishing ICE.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Conley campaign for comment.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a leader of the Democratic Party’s leftist flank, voiced support for Democratic House candidate Cait Conley after she won a contested primary Tuesday.(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

DEM CANDIDATE CLEARS CROWDED FIELD TO FACE TRUMP-BACKED INCUMBENT IN NY

The scrutiny comes after Conley avoided criticizing the socialist candidates during an interview with MS NOW on Thursday.

Asked about socialist candidates who support prison abolition and have suggested the United States deserved 9/11, Conley talked about her own background rather than directly addressing the question.

“I joined the Army and went to West Point because of 9/11 because I watched the suffering and pain that we as a nation, we as a state, we as the Hudson Valley, experienced that day,” Conley said. “And so when you talk about the American government’s responsibility to the people, it is to keep it safe.”

“While, you know, folks were elected down in New York City, in New York-17, Democratic voters chose a West Point grad and 16-year Army combat veteran to be their representative in this fight this fall,” Conley added, referring to herself.

Aber Kawas, a socialist and pro-Palestinian activist who won a Democratic primary for a New York State Senate seat Tuesday, appeared to justify 9/11 in a resurfaced 2017 video.

Conley has previously faced scrutiny over her role on former President Joe Biden’s national security team. Lawler has argued that she downplayed her alleged involvement in the former president’s botched 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, which coincided with her time on the National Security Council.

The battleground race is expected to be one of the most hotly-contested races in the country, with national Republicans expected to aggressively defend Lawler’s bid for a third House term.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., leaves the U.S. Capitol after the last vote of the week on Jan. 9, 2026.(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

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The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the contest as a “toss-up” after shifting the race in favor of Democrats earlier this year.

In 2024, former Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly won the purple district, where Democrats hold a sizable voter registration advantage.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6399411108112

Trump threatens 100% tariff on any country that imposes digital services tax

2026-06-26T16:36:48.05Z / Reuters

By Doina Chiacu and David Lawder

June 26, 2026 4:36 PM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

U.S. President Donald Trump walks to address guests as he hosts a dinner with farmers in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 25, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

• Summary

• Trump threatens new tariff to deter digital services taxes
• Move follows Macron’s refusal to back down from French levies ​on US tech firms
• EU countries cut tariffs on US goods on Thursday to meet Trump’s ‌July 4 deadline

WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday a 100% tariff on all goods from any country that imposes a digital services tax on American companies, inflaming transatlantic trade tensions a day after ​European Union countries met Trump’s July 4 deadline to cut tariffs on U.S. goods.

“Numerous European Countries have ​been discussing the imminent implementation of a Digital Services Tax on American Companies,” Trump ⁠said in a social media post. “Some of these Countries are close to actually doing this.

Get weekly news and analysis on U.S. politics and how it matters to the world with the Reuters Politics U.S. newsletter. Sign up here.

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“Please let this ​statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a ​100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America.”

Trump said the new tariff would supersede any trade deals with the United States, “whether implemented, signed or not.”

That would include the deal the U.S. and EU agreed to ​last year, which caps U.S. tariffs on European goods at 15% in exchange for EU countries reducing tariffs ​on U.S. industrial goods to zero.

But a lengthy EU legislative process to meet the bloc’s commitments under the deal prompted ‌Trump ⁠to threaten to reimpose a 25% tariff on imports from Europe, including autos. EU lawmakers then scrambled to meet a deadline from Trump to implement the changes by July 4.

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French President Emmanuel Macron said last week, before meeting with Trump at a G7 summit, that France would not bow to pressure from him and scrap ​its digital tax on U.S. ​tech giants. The digital ⁠services it taxes include online marketplaces and advertising.

Before setting off for the summit in France, Trump had warned that the U.S. would “have no choice” but to apply ​100% tariffs on French wine unless Paris eliminated its digital tax.

France has applied ​a 3% ⁠levy since 2019 on revenue earned in France from digital services provided by companies with revenue of more than €25 million in the country and €750 million ($854.02 million) worldwide. French lawmakers last year proposed doubling the tax to 6%.

The U.S. ⁠Trade Representative’s ​office has long threatened France, Britain, Austria, Spain and other ​European countries with retaliatory tariffs if they impose digital services taxes, arguing that these levies discriminate against U.S. companies, which dominate the sector globally.

($1 = ​0.8782 euros)

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Reporting by Jasper Ward, David Lawder and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Deepa Babington, Rod Nickel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Rep. Stansbury: Billionaire Leon Black walked out in the middle of Epstein interview

3:42 PM EDT, Fri June 26, 2026 / CNN

By Blake McGill, CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/26/politics/video/cncpm-leon-black-oversight-committee

Rep. Stansbury: Billionaire Leon Black walked out in the middle of Epstein interview

House Oversight Committee member Rep. Melanie Stansbury and CNN’s Boris Sanchez discuss billionaire Leon Black’s voluntary appearance before the committee.

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Clinton judge orders DOJ to unseal the Epstein files it has been keeping hidden

2026-06-26 12:17pm EDT / Fox News

Redacted records include a 2007 draft indictment and emails with hidden senders including one about a torture video

By Elaine Mallon, Fox News

A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to release more unredacted Jeffrey Epstein records or justify keeping them sealed by July 2, with redacted versions of the files including sensitive interview notes documenting a minor’s uncorroborated sexual assault allegations against President Donald Trump.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Clinton-appointed judge, issued the order after granting a preliminary injunction sought by independent journalist Katie Phang, who sued Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in April. She alleged that the Justice Department failed to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act that was signed last year when she requested several documents. The law requires the government to make Epstein-related investigative records public while allowing limited redactions to protect victims and other legally protected information.

More than half of the six million files have been made publicly available, with the remaining files withheld because of legal privilege protections or because they are duplicates, according to the Justice Department. But the department has faced growing criticism over the scope of its redactions, with critics arguing it has concealed information that should be public under the law.

EPSTEIN FALLOUT GROWS AS DOJ WATCHDOG DIGS DEEPER INTO HANDLING OF THE CASE

Jeffrey Epstein walks outdoors in New York City on Feb. 23, 2011. He is the subject of a bipartisan House Oversight Committee investigation.(David McGlynn)

In a 48-page memorandum, Sullivan ordered the Justice Department to either disclose less-redacted versions of several key Epstein records or justify the redactions. The documents covered by the order include eight emails with hidden senders or recipients; a 2007 draft federal indictment — with the names of potential co-conspirators redacted — that was never filed; and a 2019 email referencing alleged co-conspirators whose identities were obscured.

Among the redacted records is an email — with the recipient’s identity concealed — in which Epstein wrote that he “loved” a torture video he watched. During the litigation, Blanche suggested the recipient was wealthy Middle Eastern businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem.

The order also covers FBI records summarizing 2019 interviews with a woman who made allegations involving President Donald Trump. In the FBI’s interview summary, the woman alleged she met Epstein when she was 14 or 15 years old and that he later introduced her to Trump, whom she accused of sexually assaulting her in explicit detail. Those claims are uncorroborated, and the president has denied the allegations. Trump was friends with the late financier in the 1990s and early 2000s but cut ties after a falling-out in the mid-2000s.

The Justice Department is also required to issue a complete log of every redaction made in records released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

DOJ PUBLISHES TROVE OF EPSTEIN FILES, SAYS MORE TO COME AFTER FRIDAY DEADLINE

The Justice Department had argued the lawsuit should be dismissed because Phang could have sought the records through the Freedom of Information Act. Sullivan rejected that argument, concluding that FOIA did not provide Phang an “adequate remedy.”

Phang’s lawyers said the department’s previous denial of related FOIA requests showed that FOIA was not an adequate way to obtain the records.

[image_4]

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“I have standing to be able to get Todd Blanche to comply with Judge Sullivan’s order, which is now telling him that on or before July 2, he either has to put up or shut up,” Phang said during an appearance on the MeidasTouch network. “He either has to bring forth unredacted files or show cause as to why he should not or cannot do so.”

The ruling also noted that the department itself had previously acknowledged the Epstein Files Transparency Act required broader disclosure than would ordinarily occur through FOIA, including limiting certain exemptions typically available under federal public records law.

[image_5]

Jeffrey Epstein’s mugshot was taken in New York in 2019 after federal authorities filed trafficking charges against him.(Kypros/Getty Images)

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Sullivan has become a prominent figure in cases involving Trump and his allies. He oversaw former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s criminal case and challenged the Trump Justice Department’s effort to drop the charges after Flynn pleaded guilty. Sullivan also presided over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Justice Department and the White House for comment.

Elaine Mallon is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business covering national politics.

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“Regime Change” authors on Trump’s “information bubble,” Situation Room meetings on Epstein

2026-06-26 12:08 PM EDT / CBS News

By

President Trump has “a fundamentally different conception of the U.S. presidency” than his predecessors, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan explain in their new book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.”

Haberman and Swan sat down with “CBS Mornings” Friday to talk about their book, which dives into the president’s second term and is the result of more than 1,000 interviews.

“This administration is so unrecognizable [compared] to Trump’s first one,” Haberman told “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King.

She said “it became really clear to us,” over many months of reporting, “that we were covering not the transfer of power from a Democrat to a Republican or a Democrat to a Democrat. This is a fundamentally different conception of the U.S. presidency.”

Here are some of the key takeaways from their reporting.

Trump is using executive power like never before

Swan said the second Trump administration, and the book, are “really about the way he’s using executive power.”

“We haven’t seen anything like this in our lifetime in terms of the unilateral expression of executive power,” Swan said, noting that it comes at a time when “it’s pretty hard to think of a precedent for a U.S. president having the command that Trump has had over his own party in Congress.”

“There really isn’t a precedent. I mean, he basically got them to do whatever he wanted, and Congress wasn’t even consulted when he went to war with Iran.”

Even former President George W. Bush, for all the criticism of the wars he led in Iraq and Afghanistan, got congressional authorization, Swan noted.

“Trump is just acting,” Swan said. “He is acting and the system is trying to catch up to him. That’s really the way it’s working.”

Trump is fundamentally changing the U.S. approach to foreign policy

Through his unilateral actions, Mr. Trump is also changing the United States’ approach to foreign policy, from his acquisition of Venezuelan oil to his unabated aspirations of acquiring Greenland.

“It is changing how countries around the world, leaders around the world, how people in the U.S. look at their president, and we’re not used to covering regime change, as you say, here,” Haberman said. “But that is what we were doing.”

Two things that matter to Trump: Loyalty and looking the part

The president’s decisions in picking top officials for critical roles boil down to two things, Haberman and Swan said: Is that person fiercely loyal to him, and do they look the part?

“Loyalty was a premier characteristic he was seeking, and loyalty — and we write about this — has a bit of a fungible definition,” Haberman said. “What became the real litmus test was January 6th. Where you were on January 6th and where you were on January 7th? If on January 7th in Trump’s mind in any way you were separated from him, he did not want you around.”

The authors also wrote about how the president selected members of his Cabinet. According to the book, before picking John Ratcliffe as CIA director, the president said he thought he looked like actor Cary Grant, straight out of central casting.

“The ‘central casting’ aspect is a big one,” Haberman said. “Part of that is Pete Hegseth, how you now have him as the secretary of defense/war. He liked that Hegseth was good on TV. He liked that Hegseth defended, quote unquote, warriors. When it comes to someone like Tulsi Gabbard, who was the director of national intelligence, it was, ‘Let’s give it to her, what harm could she really do?’”

Trump operates in an “information bubble” and is rarely told bad news

Much more so than in his first term, the president operates in an “information bubble” where his advisers rarely tell him bad news, Haberman and Swan write. In the president’s first term, he had more advisers who would push back on occasion — but not so much these days.

Haberman noted that former President Joe Biden also hated receiving negative news, but she said, “Trump is in an information bubble that is unlike anything that I can remember.”

“The inputs that are reaching him are so small,” she said, adding that many times “decisions are being made by a group of about a half a dozen people.”

For example, Haberman said, in the lead-up to the Iran war, “The energy secretary and the treasury secretary, the two people would have to manage the after-effects and economic impacts of a global energy crisis caused by this war, were not part of these meetings initially because they were concerned about leaks.”

The Situation Room was used for meetings about Epstein files

In a series of closely held meetings, the Situation Room — normally the site of top-level national security decisions — was used for discussions about how to handle fallout from Jeffrey Epstein and the Epstein files, Haberman and Swan write in their book.

“This was a pretty extraordinary series of meetings that happened last summer and the setting itself was extraordinary,” Swan said.

“Over the summer of last year they essentially turned the Situation Room into an Epstein crisis response center, and you had the most senior officials in the U.S. government gathering in that room to figure out essentially a PR strategy to deal with the Epstein crisis,” he said.

“One of the problems they had was they built this website that they were going to release — a Justice Department public-facing website. And they were searching around in it for Trump and they were finding a lot of stuff on Trump and some of it was, you know, embarrassing, so they had to make decisions about what to disclose and what not to disclose. But that really was a political crisis that has had long-term effects way beyond what his team expected.”

Why JD Vance is downplaying Richard Nixon’s corruption

2026-06-26T16:51:04.732Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/26/politics/jd-vance-richard-nixon-corruption

It’s not every day that you see the would-be frontrunner for a major party’s presidential nomination extolling the virtues of Richard Nixon and downplaying his corruption.

But there was Vice President JD Vance on Thursday doing precisely that.

During an appearance at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California, Vance likened Nixon’s ouster to efforts to hold President Donald Trump accountable in his first term, blaming the “deep state.” Vance also claimed Watergate wouldn’t be much of a story today.

There are some grains of truth in what he said, as well as some potential strategic benefit.

But there is also some danger. The vice president’s comments point to how perceptions of corruption are a sleeping giant for the Trump administration — and, by extension, for Vance in 2028.

“I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance — but I think deservedly so,” Vance said of Nixon. “As I joked … backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. Like, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”

Vance added: “And by the way, if you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people — the same institutions — tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.”

Vance even compared his profile to Nixon’s — having been vice president and “hated by the media” — adding with a smile in perhaps a light-hearted way: “I’ve always liked Richard Nixon.”

For starters, Vance’s contention that Nixon’s legacy is enjoying a “bit of a renaissance” is unproven. If anything, that comment might point to a longstanding criticism of Vance, which is that he’s a bit too online.

There has been an effort by some prominent conservatives to rehabilitate Nixon’s image in recent years. Witness this Politico story from 2023, as well as these Time magazine and NBC News stories from last year.

Then-GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy used his own appearance at the Nixon Library in August 2023 to call Nixon “the most underappreciated president of our modern history in this country, probably in all of American history.”

But there is scant evidence that these efforts have truly penetrated with the broader public. The most recent quality poll — from Gallup in December 2024 — showed 54% of Americans rated Nixon “below average” or “poor,” to just 12% who rated him “above average” or “outstanding.” Those were the worst numbers among 10 presidents tested.

Even among Republicans, about twice as many rated Nixon negatively (39%) as positively (19%).

Is it possible that has changed in the last year and a half? Perhaps modestly. But it’s likely Vance was praising a man who is still quite unpopular.

Of course, the real point of Vance’s comments probably wasn’t to make Nixon seem good; it was to make Trump seem not so bad.

As some of those Nixon stories linked above noted, much of this effort to rehab Nixon’s image appears to be about downplaying Trump’s problems.

Watergate is the archetype of the modern political scandal, and if people suddenly regard it as no big deal or even a “deep state” operation, maybe they’ll view Trump’s corruption allegations accordingly.

And to be clear, suggestions of corruption could ultimately matter a lot more than it might seem right now.

Trump has flooded the zone with controversy and made it so that any corruption-related stories don’t last very long. He’s also commandeered the Justice Department, and his party controls Congress. So there’s not really an investigative entity at the ready to hold him accountable.

But there is a real chance that after the November midterm elections, Democrats will control one or both legislative chambers next Congress. That would give them subpoena power and the ability to launch investigations.

And at this point, there are so many potentially fruitful probes that the dilemma is really about which one — or ones — to focus on.

Tangle’s Isaac Saul last month assembled a great compendium of the biggest potential corruption issues in the Trump administration.

Some of the big ones:

• The extensive self-enrichment, which the New Yorker has pegged at $4 billion.
• The regular intermingling of official and personal business.
• The many pardons of allies.
• The rather transparent effort to train the Justice Department on Trump’s political foes based on flimsy evidence.
• The administration’s often bizarre handling of the Epstein files in which, as The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan recently reported, the chief goal seemed to be protecting Trump. (He has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the late sex offender.)

Just think about potential House Oversight Committee hearings, for example, on the still-unexplained decision to move Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to a lower-security prison right after she said things that could help Trump.

The perception of corruption is not generally regarded as a main reason why Trump’s political fortunes have declined so much. (Those would be inflation, the economy and the Iran war.) But it shouldn’t be dismissed as a factor.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll last month showed Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of corruption issues 61%-27%. And history shows many a would-be strongman leader has been felled by supporters turning on them over corruption. Corruption was a big reason Trump ally Viktor Orbán was ousted in Hungary this spring after 16 years in office.

There’s a reason why Vance, ahead of a potential 2028 bid, would fear perceptions of the administration’s self-dealing resonating with the public.

For many apparent conflicts of interest, there isn’t a great explanation. Trump has fed these perceptions rather unapologetically, out in the open.

When The New York Times asked Trump in January why he reversed his first-term policy of his family avoiding overseas business, Trump replied: “Because I found out that nobody cared.” (Meanwhile, the White House has repeatedly argued that Trump is “restoring the integrity of the Executive Branch” by being “the most transparent” president.)

But one way for a potential Trump successor to try to manage those optics is to muddy the waters. If Watergate’s not actually a scandal, after all, what is?

Vance surely exaggerates. Watergate, after all, involved bona fide crimes including ones committed by high-profile Nixon administration officials, as well as secret tapes. But there is some truth to the claim that it’d probably be somewhat less shocking today.

That’s because Trump has absolutely blitzed the country with actions that would be scandalous in any other era.

And while Trump has proven adept at getting past these issues and keeping his base intact, it’s not so clear Vance will be so adept.