The Pentagon estimates that it has spent upward of $29 billion on weaponry to bomb Iran since February 28, in a war of choice that has killed at least 3,400 people in Iran and thousands more across the region. 

Americans, far away from the bombs, are relatively insulated from the immediate, human costs of warmaking. But the war is hitting Americans in their pocketbooks—and a new tracker shows how much individual American consumers have spent on higher-priced fuel since the war began and gas prices soared to a national average of $4.50 per gallon.

The Climate Solutions Lab and Costs of War Project at Brown University released a research brief May 18 showing that Americans have spent an additional $42 billion on gasoline and diesel over the past ten weeks. “On average, each U.S. household has paid over $300 more for gasoline and diesel since February 28, 2026, than it would have without the war,” the researchers wrote. 

“This is where Americans who aren’t service members or who don’t have service members in their families are feeling this war in Iran the most,” said Stephanie Savell, a researcher with the Costs of War Project. “It’s a reminder, every time you go to the gas pump, that this country is at war.”

A 2025 report on US consumers showed that most Americans could not afford a $1000 emergency, and federal reserve data that same year revealed that only 60 percent of American households could withstand even a $400 unexpected expense. A surprise $300 surcharge at the gas pump, then, could be disastrous. 

“People are already having to make choices between gas and other basic living expenses, and that is just going to continue,” Savell said. “This is a war cost that affects people on the lower end of the income ladder more.”

The Pentagon still has not provided Congress with an itemized cost of this war—the best numbers we have come from Pete Hegseth’s congressional testimony earlier this month, and then from a Pentagon official who corrected him the next day, saying he had estimated a bit too low. Some researchers say that the costs are likely far higher—somewhere more in the region of $1 trillion. And many of those costs are being kicked down the road to future generations, Savell said: “When the US is engaged in a conflict, a lot of times the spending is credit card spending. So we’re basically deferring payment for the war to future generations.” War borrowing, Savell explained, is “basically taking money from the budget for any sort of social safety net,” and then passing that money along to creditors.

“This data shows that energy price shocks function as an economy-wide, unacknowledged tax on households, with costs comparable to large federal programs and policies,” the Costs of War Project and Climate Solutions Lab researchers wrote in their brief. As the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, that “unacknowledged tax” will keep showing up at the gas pump. 

Donald Trump, meanwhile, told reporters today that high gas prices are not a concern of his. “This is peanuts,” he said. “I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. But I don’t even think about it.”

Trump now has a slush fund to reward his devotees, but who gets a share of it is unclear.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.): “Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund?”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) “Will you commit that none of this money will go to President Trump’s campaign donors?”

During Tuesday’s Senate hearing before an appropriations subcommittee, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche could not commit. “I am not committing to anything beyond the settlement agreement,” Blanche said in response to Sen. Coons’ question. And to Sen. Van Hollen: “Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they are a victim of weaponization.”

That reply, of course, doesn’t answer the question. 

Blanche also maintained that it’s not up to him to decide eligibility as the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” will be managed by five commission members. But, per the Justice Department’s Monday press release announcing the fund’s launch, the attorney general will appoint all five members—although one will be chosen “in consultation with congressional leadership.”

The Office of the Attorney General’s explainer document of the fund states that “once the funds are deposited into the Designated Account, the United States has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguard of those funds…or any other fraud or misuse of the funds.” 

To put it more plainly: anyone could be eligible.

According to the Justice Department, the commission doesn’t have to disclose everyone who receives money. “Will you commit to making reports fully public so Americans know who is getting taxpayer dollars out of this settlement fund?” Sen. Coons asked Blanche. The settlement agreement between the IRS and President Trump, his two eldest sons, and the Trump Organization, specifically states that the commission members will give the attorney general “a confidential written report that includes the name and address of each claimant who has received any relief and if so, nature of such relief.” 

COONS: Will you commit to making reports fully public so Americans know who is getting taxpayer dollars out of this settlement fund?BLANCHE: There are privacy laws that may prevent some of the information from being fully public

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-19T14:14:45.373Z

“There’s obviously laws that exist around privacy that may prevent some of the information that the commission takes in from being fully public.” Blanche responded—a statement that provides those who run the fund an easy out when asked who and why recipients will get the money.

The potential conflicts of interest are endless.

An ICE officer who allegedly shot a Minneapolis man when the Trump administration sent thousands of officers to Minnesota and lied about the series of events that led to the shooting was charged on Monday.

Christian J. Castro, the officer, is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime in the shooting of Julio César Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant, on January 14, just one week after the killing of Renée Good.

A federal agent shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after he and another officer pursued Sosa-Celis’ roommate, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna. Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty said both Sosa-Celis and Aljorna reside in the US legally. The two men’s attorneys said that neither had violent criminal records. 

Federal authorities initially claimed that the two men assaulted a federal officer. The next day, former Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem called the event—without evidence—an act of “attempted murder,” and said the men beat the officer “with snow shovels and the handles of brooms.” Then a widely-circulated video showed what really happened, contradicting the federal government’s statements, and the federal government changed their story.

The video shows Aljorna going to his home after crashing his car as Castro chases him. Sosa-Celis was outside and he, Aljorna, and Castro tussled but no weapons were used. The two men then run into their home when the officer shoots at them. 

The FBI said a week after the shooting that it was a case of mistaken identity.

In an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune before she announced the charges, Moriarty said that their investigation into the incident revealed “no demonstrable trauma to [Castro’s] body, except for an abrasion to his left hand.” 

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, which covers all of Minneapolis, issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Castro. In April, the office charged another ICE agent for pointing his weapon at two people while driving illegally on the highway.

The state of Minnesota also sued the Trump administration in March, alleging that it withheld evidence in the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Sosa-Celis in order to prevent possible charges against their agents. 

As my colleague Isabela Dias wrote in January during Operation Metro Surge, the federal government’s violence was intentional: 

Under pressure to meet the administration’s goal of 3,000 daily arrests, ICE has been on a hiring spree…The result of that expansion drive has been less than optimal, with recruits failing fitness tests and not undergoing proper vetting. Experts have also raised concerns about the lowering of standards and reduced training times for new hires.

And as I wrote in February following a congressional hearing, the heads of ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and Citizenship and Immigration Services, largely deflected questions about killings by ICE officers. My colleagues have reported again and again that they clearly do not care. 

So it is up to local and state governments to hold the federal government accountable.

“There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal officers who commit crimes in this state or any other,” Moriarty stated during a press conference announcing the charges on Monday afternoon.

But as she told the Minnesota Star Tribune, “While I understand people really want accountability and they saw what they saw in the [Good and Pretti] videos, this is incredibly complex. The last thing we want to do is make a mistake.”

It’s symptomatic of a system of failed accountability, and the cruelty is still happening today.

It’s been just over a year since Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), a sitting member of Congress, showed up to Delaney Hall, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, to do her job.

Members of Congress have the statutory right to conduct unannounced oversight visits at ICE detention centers across the country, and McIver had done it before.

But this time was different.

Things turned chaotic. ICE flooded the facility with agents. The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested. And McIver, a first-term Congresswoman, left that day, about to face two federal felony counts and a misdemeanor, for “forcibly impeded and interfered with federal officers,” according to the charges.

For the past year, McIver, who has pleaded not guilty, has been fighting the case, running to keep her seat in Congress, and making the argument that this isn’t really about her. For McIver, it’s about whether Congress can do its job in the Trump era.

“Honestly, it’s been extremely difficult,” McIver told me in this wide-ranging interview. “I think some days I’m still looking back, like, is this really happening? Because it’s truly unbelievable. I never thought I would get to Congress and have to be dealing with something like this, or being targeted in this way or fashion.”

McIver just revealed in an interview with People magazine that she is facing these charges while she is pregnant with her second child.

“This is really America, and it saddens me that this is happening,” she told me. “It definitely feels like I’m on the island alone, for sure, and that’s why I continue to talk about this case and explain that it’s bigger than just LaMonica McIver.”

Just ahead of the one-year anniversary of the events of that day, I sat down with Rep. McIver to talk about what happened, what went wrong, and why the Trump administration just won’t let up.

Watch the interview in full here:

When President Donald Trump visited Beijing last week for a high-stakes summit to discuss the war in Iran, Taiwan, and other complex geopolitical issues involving the world’s two biggest superpowers, an unlikely project occupied the president’s mind: Rush Hour 4.

Yes, a pending fourth installment of the buddy-cop franchise, which peaked in popularity more than a quarter century ago with Rush Hour, was a top priority for Trump, who brought the disgraced filmmaker Brett Ratner as a part of the official US delegation to China to scout locations for the film. (Ratner, of course, is the same director behind Melania.) For months, reviving Rush Hour has been something of an obsession for Trump, who reportedly adores the series. So much so, that MarketWatch reports the president has acted as a “shadow executive producer” for the movie, going as far as to pressure Larry Ellison, Paramount’s biggest shareholder, to support a fourth film with Ratner in the director’s seat. It worked, and Ratner now hitches rides on Air Force One.

But set aside, for a moment, the enormous potential for conflicts of interest and generally inappropriate behavior on behalf of a president, and a simple question emerges: Rush Hour 4? Who, aside from Donald Trump…wants this? Because the enthusiasm with which Trump is personally pushing for the film could give the impression that there’s a clamoring for more Rush Hour, when, objectively, none exists.

A similar chasm can be found in reported conversations taking place between Paramount and Katie Miller to expand her eponymous podcast, which, over the last nine months, has billed itself as a place for “conservative women to gather online.” As she explained in a launch, “As a mom of three young kids, who eats healthy, goes to the gym, works full-time, I know there isn’t a podcast for women like myself.” Yet despite the show’s ability to pull in high-profile guests, including Elon Musk, JD Vance, and Mike Johnson, “The Katie Miller Podcast” struggles to attract listeners; the interviews themselves rarely make headlines. Some episodes fail to crack even 5,000 views on YouTube.

Backing illogical projects with zero audience interest could be a small price to pay as Paramount’s bid to take over Warner Bros. awaits approval from the Trump administration. Doing so fits neatly into the many moves Paramount has made to curry favor these days: creating an ombudsman to ensure a “diversity of viewpoints,” paying $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over a 60 Minutes segment he didn’t like, etc. But plans to extend a dead franchise or prop up Miller as a serious talking head appear to signal MAGA’s further descent into its “cringe era,” where quality is nonexistent, and barely anyone is watching anymore. And if they are, they are wincing.

President Donald Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service on Monday in exchange for a settlement deal to launch a $1.8 billion fund to pay claims made by his friends for purported unfair prosecution.

“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in his department’s Monday press release, announcing “The Anti-Weaponization Fund.” “As part of this settlement, we are setting up a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.”

“The Fund will consist of a Commission of five members appointed by the Attorney General. One Member will be chosen in consultation with congressional leadership,” the Justice Department’s press release states. “The President can remove any member, but a replacement must be chosen the same way as the replaced member was selected.”

According to the Justice Department, “on a quarterly basis, the Fund shall send a report to the Attorney General outlining who has received relief and what form of relief was awarded.” If Blanche’s previous decisions to protect Trump and go after his alleged enemies are anything to go by, there will therefore be little to no oversight beyond Trump loyalists.

The president has long claimed that he and his allies have been targeted by the Biden administration—including, as Mother Jones’ Michael Mechanic pointed out on Saturday, defendants who were charged for involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Trump, his two eldest sons, and the Trump Organization filed the $10 billion lawsuit this past January after IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn leaked the president’s tax returns to ProPublica and the New York Times. 

In a Monday amicus brief shared with MS NOW, House Democrats said Trump’s lawsuit “undermine[d] the Constitution” and the potential “Truth and Justice Commission” was a “slush fund.”

“Never in the history of the United States has a sitting President sought a monetary settlement from the government he leads—let alone sought many billions of dollars in taxpayer funds,” the Democrats wrote, arguing that Trump was “filing a collusive lawsuit only to immediately dismiss it in order to produce a collusive settlement.” 

And this is a pattern. Just think about the ABC lawsuit, where the process of the Trump administration’s pressure and subsequent settlement resulted in a form of extortion. As for the IRS settlement, the president now has a $1.8 billion compensation fund to support future attacks against anyone who opposes him.

A GOP bill aiming to use $1 billion of taxpayer money to finance required security for President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom was denied in a Saturday night ruling on technical grounds.

Senate Republicans attempted to include the ballroom project in a budget reconciliation bill—which also includes roughly $38 billion for ICE and $26 billion for US Border Patrol, among other immigration and law enforcement spending—to bypass the 60-vote filibuster threshold and only require a simple majority for passage. But all funding in such bills must be directly related to federal spending and revenue, which prevents “extraneous” provisions under the Byrd Rule.

“A project as complex and large in scale as Trump’s proposed ballroom necessarily involves the coordination of many government agencies which span the jurisdiction of many Senate committees,” said Senate Democrats, after meeting with the chamber’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, whose ruling stopped the bill. “As drafted, the provision inappropriately funds activities outside the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee.”

The GOP appears poised to seek a workaround. Ryan Wrasse, the communications director for Senate Majority Leader John Thune posted on X that the decision is not “abnormal” and that the next step is to, “Redraft. Refine. Resubmit.” 

The GOP push to fund the security infrastructure conflicts in its own right with Trump’s stated plans for the construction. Trump has repeatedly said that his ballroom would cost no government funds. “These are all private individuals that put up a lot of money to build the ballroom,” he said last November at the White House. “Not one penny is being used from the federal government.”

Some Republican lawmakers are concerned about apportioning $1 billion for the ballroom. “I think the timing and the optics are really bad,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said last week. “This time last year, roughly, maybe a little bit before, we were all impressed with the fact that this $400 million building was going to be paid for out of the generosity of donors, and now we’re hearing 2½ times that is necessary for some other aspect of the project.”

According to a memo shared with senators and obtained by PBS NewsHour, $220 million would be used to toughen the White House complex, $180 million would be used for visitor screenings, $175 million for training, and an additional $175 million to boost security for those under protection by the Secret Service.

Sen. Bill Cassidy may remember coming in third place, but the American people will be left with his legacy of playing a role in degrading the nation’s health care system. 

On Saturday, Cassidy won only roughly 25 percent of the vote for Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary—in a group of candidates led by President Donald Trump’s pick, Julia Letlow—thereby failing to qualify for the runoff in June. Cassidy’s political demise apparently was the first time an elected senator placed third or worse in a primary since 1944.

Cassidy, who practiced as a physician and has said he understands the “absolute scientifically based understanding that vaccines are safe,” provided the deciding vote in favor of advancing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for health secretary in February 2025.  “We need a leader at HHS who will guide President Trump’s agenda to Make America Healthy Again,” the longtime GOP senator said during his floor speech explaining his support. “Based on Mr. Kennedy’s assurances on vaccines and his platform to positively influence Americans’ health, it is my consideration that he will get this done.”

RFK Jr. has since launched a war on vaccines, while Cassidy has offered little more than passive criticisms. Trump’s health secretary has alsodismantled huge swaths of his department and replaced them with Trump loyalists. So much for “Mr. Kennedy’s assurances.”

Cassidy has repeatedly refused to acknowledge that he made a mistake by confirming RFK Jr. As Julianne McShane wrote for Mother Jones last November, Cassidy admitted to CNN’s State of the Union host Jake Tapper that the CDC pushing unsubstantiated links between vaccines and autism on its website was problematic, but he downplayed the importance of the site and did not name RFK Jr. as a principal reason for the change in the health department’s direction.

Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial over the Jan. 6 insurrection, but since then, he has appeared to mostly bend over backwards to get on the president’s good side. Trump nonetheless attacked him as “disloyal” ahead of Saturday’s vote. Notably, as Mother Jones’ Sophie Hurwitz pointed out, only four members of Congress—out of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 and the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict him—won reelection. Cassidy is the latest example of why so many in his party continue to fear crossing Trump.

On Friday afternoon, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis issued 35 pardons. He also commuted the sentences of nine prisoners, allowing them to be released years before they otherwise would be.

Some of these acts of clemency were deeply controversial. Polis, a Democrat, shortened the sentences of multiple convicted murderers. He is also setting free Brandin Kreuzer, who shot Douglas County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Tucker in 2008 and has served 15 years of a 50-year sentence. “I had numerous surgeries to basically put my arm back together,” Tucker told Denver’s 9News. “I still have lasting nerve damage to this day. My arm is not 100 percent, does not function as it should.” The current county sheriff said in a statement that he was “furious” about Kreuzer’s commutation: “The audacity of Governor Polis to grant clemency to a would-be cop killer on National Peace Officer Memorial Day shows a complete lack of respect for the brave men and women who wear the badge.”

But it’s a different commutation that has sparked furious bipartisan backlash across Colorado. In 2024, Tina Peters—the former Mesa County clerk—was convicted of various crimes for her role in a scheme to illegally breach that county’s election system and in an effort to prove the 2020 race had been stolen from Donald Trump. Peters was originally sentenced to nearly nine years behind bars. On Friday, Polis commuted her sentence to about four-and-a-half years and ordered her paroled next month.

Trump—who for months has been demanding Peters’ release and attempting to punish Colorado for this and other perceived transgressions—immediately celebrated Polis’ decision. But beyond the MAGA faithful, the move is drawing broad outrage. Matt Crane, a Republican who directs the Colorado County Clerks Association, blasted Polis in a press conference, as Colorado Public Radio reported: “When given the opportunity to stand firmly for the rule of law, for the integrity of Colorado elections and for the public servants who defend them, [Polis] chose a different path.” The watchdog group Common Cause Colorado added that “Governor Polis’ decision undermines election security, weakens accountability, and permanently stains his legacy.”

These are reasonable arguments, but personally, I don’t find them compelling. There’s no doubt that Peters is a raging conspiracy theorist who abused her public office and broke the law. But nine years is an awfully long time. She is 70 and has already been in prison for more than a year and a half. A defendant who pleaded guilty to similar charges in the doomed Trump RICO prosecution in Georgia received probation. “The crimes you were convicted of are very serious and you deserve to spend time in prison,” Polis wrote in his commutation letter to Peters. “However, this is an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first time offender who committed nonviolent crimes.”

Why was Peters’ prison sentence so severe? Partly because it was based on unconstitutional factors. At sentencing, Judge Matthew Barrett indicated that he was taking into account not just her actions, but her noxious conspiracy theories. Among other things, Barrett accused Peters of peddling “a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”

“So the damage that is caused and continue[s] to be caused is just as bad, if not worse, than the physical violence that this court sees on an all too regular basis,” Barrett declared. “And it’s particularly damaging when those words come from someone who holds a position of influence like you.”

The key word there is “words.”

Last month, three Colorado appellate judges—all of whom were appointed by Polis’ Democratic predecessor—unanimously threw out Peters’ prison sentence, declaring it a clear violation of her First Amendment free speech rights. They ordered Peters to be resentenced, but Polis intervened before that could happen.

“It is apparent that the [trial] court imposed the lengthy sentence it did because Peters continued to espouse the views that led her to commit these crimes,” the appeals court concluded. “The tenor of the [trial] court’s comments makes clear that it felt the sentence length was necessary, at least in part, to prevent her from continuing to espouse views the court deemed ‘damaging.’”

In other words, Peters should have been sentenced for what she actually did, not the bizarre conspiracy theories she espoused. She can be punished for the crimes she committed in her illegal quest to expose non-existent election fraud. But she can’t be punished for loudly voicing her beliefs.

Publicly, Peters herself now claims to recognize this distinction. In a statement she released after the commutation was announced, she acknowledged that her actions were wrong but said that once released, she planned to “support election integrity” through “legal means.”

Thank you Governor Polis.

I made mistakes, and for those I am sorry. Five years ago I misled the Secretary of State when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment. That was wrong. I have learned and grown during my time in prison and going forward I will make…

— Tina Peters🇺🇸 Whistleblower of fallen Navy SEAL (@realtinapeters) May 15, 2026

I have no doubt that Peters will continue spreading damaging election conspiracy theories in the years to come. But prison is not the solution to that.

Polis addressed that point in an interview Friday with 9News’ Kyle Clark. “I vehemently disagree with much of what she has to say, certainly her conspiratorial beliefs,” the governor said. But, he added, the proper way to oppose such rhetoric is through public refutation—not to “lock somebody up because they believe something that is…conspiratorial and potentially dangerous.”

“That’s not the country we live in,” Polis said. “I believe in free speech.”

As voters in Louisiana head to the polls for Saturday’s primary elections, President Donald Trump is doing all he can to ensure that incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy gets the boot. 

Cassidy was one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial after the January 6 insurrection, and the president hasn’t forgotten. Cassidy is facing two primary challengers: State Treasurer John Fleming and Congresswoman Julia Letlow, whom Trump has endorsed. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote Saturday, Louisiana Republicans will head back to the polls on June 27 for a runoff. 

“Senator Bill Cassidy is a Disloyal Disaster,” Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday morning. “Now he’s going to get CLOBBERED, hopefully, in today’s BIG election, by two great people!!!”

Beyond voting to convict Trump, Cassidy has clashed with the president over HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccination stance—though he also cast the deciding vote to confirm Kennedy to his position. Cassidy’s capitulation in the confirmation battle doesn’t seem to have helped him much with Trump’s and Kennedy’s loyalists. MAHA PAC, a group associated with Kennedy’s agenda, has spent six figures opposing Cassidy and supporting Letlow. Still, Cassidy outraised both of his challengers by millions of dollars. 

Letlow has spent her time in Congress focused on the culture war in education, sponsoring a “Parents Bill Of Rights Act” that would require educators to notify parents if a child requests to use a different name or pronouns in school. It would also allow parents to review all educational materials, such as library books. Despite this, Cassidy’s campaign has spent heavily on ads calling her “Liberal Letlow.” 

Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 and the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict him, only four have subsequently managed to win reelection. Most retired, lost primaries, or were redistricted out of their seats.

If Trump gets his way, Cassidy will become the next apostate to be ousted. And three days from now, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie—a Republican who didn’t vote to impeach Trump but has opposed him on numerous other issues—will attempt to defend his seat against a Trump-backed challenger, too.

The Trump administration is withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursement payments to California after officials alleged that the state failed to prosecute fraud in its own Medicaid program. 

“There are California taxpayers and American taxpayers who are being defrauded because California isn’t taking its program seriously,” JD Vance, vice president and designated “fraud czar” said in his Wednesday announcement. “Fraudsters have actually encouraged false prescriptions and false administration of medications.”

Vance did not provide evidence of Medicaid fraud, though he did attack home care, also known as home and community-based services. Since 1983, qualifying disabled people and aging adults on Medicaid have been able to get services at home, allowing them to live outside of nursing homes and institutional settings.An essential part of the disability rights movement is for disabled people to be able to live in their communities.

“It provides everything from assistance with bathing, preparing meals, dressing, getting in and out of bed, shopping and even house cleaning, chores, laundry, etc,” Lindsay Imai Hong, the California Director of Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network, told Mother Jones. “It’s enabled so many Californians to be able to get the support they need to live in their homes and also with their families.”

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, claimed California must explain hundreds of millions of dollars in billing and in-home services related to coverage for undocumented immigrants. But undocumented immigrants do not have access to Medicaid. 

On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office posted on X that the growth of home healthcare placements saves taxpayer money as it keeps “more people OUT of far more expensive nursing homes.” Disability and care advocates are currently trying to mitigate cuts to Medicaid-funded home care in California, which Newsom attempted to do previously even before Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill passed.

Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, posted on X on Wednesday that the Trump administration was targeting California “solely for political reasons.”

United Domestic Workers executive director Doug Moore also labeled the attack as politically motivated in a press release. “The real scandal is the carelessness with which politicians disregard our community members in order to line the pockets of their billionaire friends,” he said. “Last year, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress gave away $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, by cutting vital social service programs like Medicaid and SNAP.”

In his announcement, Vance also threatened to halt federal funding to all states who don’t sufficiently go after Medicaid fraud. The Trump administration’s decision in California draws parallels to its suspension of more than $250 million in Medicaid funds from Minnesota based on fraud claims targeting Somali communities that led to unsubstantiated, right-wing conspiracy theories. 

A new Gallup poll has found that most Americans would really prefer not to live next door to a data center.

For the first time, the polling organization asked people what they think of data centers, the massive computer-warehouses required to operate (among other things) large AI models.

Data centers need significant space, energy and water to operate, and they don’t provide many jobs relative to the investment they require. And they’re often unpleasant neighbors: their cooling systems can be noisy, and many include onsite gas turbines that belch black smoke into the air.

Gallup found seven out of ten Americans would be opposed to a data center in their backyard, with nearly half of those surveyed (48 percent) “strongly opposed” to data centers in their area.

That opposition seems to translate into real-life political organizing: according to Data Center Watch, an industry analytics project, coordinated local pushback led to the cancellation of at least $156 billion in data center infrastructure construction. And Data Center Opposition Report, a newly-launched website tracking opposition to data center development across the country, says there are at least 268 local opposition groups across 37 states, organizing over 300,000 people.

Some developers still aren’t taking the pushback seriously, though. Celebrity investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, who hopes to build a massive data center in Utah on a plot of land more than twice the size of Manhattan, is one of them. He claimed last week that hundreds of people who showed up to a county commission protesting his plan were “professional protesters,” bussed in from out of state.

A few days later, on Fox News, O’Leary said that those opposing his data center were actually Chinese plants. “These are proxies for the Chinese government is my argument. They’re just spreading falsehoods,” he said. “This is the CCP at work here. There’s no question about it.”

The data, conversely, suggests that opposition to hyperscale data center development is extremely American.

The DOJ is considering settling Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, which could send about 10 billion taxpayer dollars directly into the president’s pockets, the New York Times reported Tuesday, citing three sources familiar with the matter.

In January, Trump and two of his sons sued the IRS, alleging that it failed to stop the unauthorized release of his tax documents by a government contractor who shared them with news outlets.

Trump oversees the IRS, the agency he is suing. (This, the Times delicately pointed out, raises some questions as to the validity of the lawsuit: “For a lawsuit to be valid, the two parties must actually be on opposite sides, otherwise the judge can throw out the case.”) The conflicts of interest don’t end there: the DOJ is led by the president’s former personal criminal defense lawyer.

If a settlement is reached, it could make it much harder for Trump’s finances to be investigated in the future: beyond the $10 billion taxpayer-fleecing operation, one of the settlement terms under review would require the IRS to drop any and all audits of Trump, his family, and his businesses.

Last month, Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill to prevent the president, the vice president, and their families from collecting settlement money from the government. “While American families are getting flattened by skyrocketing costs, Donald Trump is trying to snatch up billions of taxpayer dollars to line his own pockets and settle personal scores,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote.

And this isn’t the first time Trump has tried to use the Justice Department to profit. In October of 2025, he was reportedly seeking $230 million in damages from the Justice Department over the time federal agents seized classified documents he’d unlawfully brought to Mar-a-Lago and an earlier probe into his campaign’s ties to Russia.

“It’s awfully strange,” Trump said at the time. “To make a decision where I’m paying myself.”

Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense dream might seem like something out of science fiction, but it would cost real dollars, the Congressional Budget Office says—about $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years, according to a report the federal agency released today.

Trump has held the idea dear since his 2024 campaign, when he made  “A GREAT IRON DOME MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD OVER OUR ENTIRE COUNTRY” to “PREVENT WORLD WAR III” one of his 20 core campaign promises. Later, he rebranded it as the “Golden Dome,” and about a dozen major American weapons manufacturers (and over 2,300 smaller companies) started to compete for the privilege of building a massive interceptor-missile system in the skies over the United States.

As I reported in 2024 and again in 2025, scientists have a lot of questions about how this will work. It would nominally be modeled after Israel’s Iron Dome system, which is designed to protect a very small geographic area (something the US does not have) from improvised missiles launched from within 40 miles (which is also not happening here).

Given those constraints, the administration quickly moved to include satellite-based missile interceptors on their vision board. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein admitted to the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee in April that this Star Wars–esque setup might not be cost-effective, either.

Trump estimated last May that his Golden Dome would cost around $175 billion and be deployable by the end of his term in 2029. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, however, says that estimate was off by approximately one trillion, seventy-four billion dollars.

Even at that staggering cost—almost the entire proposed Pentagon budget this year—the system still wouldn’t block all missiles, the CBO wrote in their report. “The system could be overwhelmed by a full-scale attack mounted by a peer or near-peer adversary,” they said.

“It would not be an impenetrable shield or be able to fully counter a large attack of the sort that Russia or China might be able to launch,” the CBO wrote. “As a result, the strategic consequences of deploying an NMD system with the capacity considered here are unclear.”

Even if the Golden Dome never intercepts a single missile, companies like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Anduril are likely to profit: they’re among 12 companies that have already been awarded $3.2 billion in Golden Dome contracts.

President Donald Trump’s Food and Drug Administration commissioner Marty Makary resigned on Tuesday following political battles over health policy that angered anti-abortion activists and industry executives. 

Makary, who led the agency in charge of promoting public health through regulating food safety, medications, tobacco, vaccines, and more, stepped down after Trump pushed him to approve fruit-flavored vapes earlier this month. According to the Wall Street Journal, advisers told the president that flavored vaping was important to young MAGA voters. Makary resisted the idea, but last Friday, the FDA adopted a new policy that opens the door for tobacco and vape companies to sell the e-cigarettes anyway.

Makary also faced criticism from anti-abortion groups who demanded the FDA reverse their approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, which is used in most abortions, to be given out without requiring an in-person visit. A federal court ordered a nationwide in-person requirement earlier this month, and the Supreme Court is still reviewing the decision. Last week, it temporarily reinstated mifepristone access through telemedicine and mail.

This latest resignation opens up another hole in the Trump administration, which has not yet appointed a permanent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director and a surgeon general to Robert F. Kennedy’s health department. Trump has also axed other key officeholders for failing to do his bidding, like former attorney general Pam Bondi and former Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem.

Trump confirmed Makary’s exit on Tuesday afternoon ahead of his trip to China to speak with President Xi Jinping. “He was having some difficulty. He’s a great doctor. He’s going to go on and do well,” Trump told reporters. “Everybody wants that job.” 

Makary was perhaps an attractive FDA commissioner candidate to Trump due in part to his anti-abortion views and promise to quickly transform policy. As Julianne McShane wrote for Mother Jones when Makary was confirmed last March, the FDA commissioner has spread misinformation, including telling ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson that fetuses feel pain in utero several weeks before science indicates.

This was not enough for Trump and his far right supporters. 

Kyle Diamantas, a deputy commissioner within the FDA, will become the acting head of the federal agency, according to Politico, which first reported Makary’s resignation. Whether Diamantas—or whoever is confirmed next—follows the Trump administration’s lead remains to be seen.

The Trump administration has sent subpoenas to dozens of hospitals across the nation over the past year, demanding access to information about children receiving gender-affirming care and the doctors treating them.

Those efforts have mostly failed. At least eight separate Trump administration administrative subpoenas, which would force hospitals to release trans kids’ medical records, have been thrown out. Another massive slate of DOJ subpoenas against California hospitals was dropped in January.

Now, the US Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas is trying a new tactic: Its prosecutors sent out a grand jury subpoena to NYU Langone Hospital seeking confidential information about patients under age 18, according to a statement released by the hospital May 11. As S. Baum of the newsletter Erin In The Morning wrote, this means the federal government is pursuing a criminal case:

[T]his is a dire escalation…this round of subpoenas entails a criminal case, meaning providers or hospital officials face risk of arrest and jail time. It does not appear to target parents of trans kids or trans patients. News of the subpoena also means the federal government has assembled a grand jury, an important step towards criminal proceedings.

“We understand that these developments may be concerning to our patients, providers, and others,” the hospital told its patients. “Please know that NYU Langone takes the privacy of your protected health information very seriously and we are evaluating our response to the subpoena.”

Shannon Minter, the legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, called the subpoena “a blatant attempt to harass and intimidate medical providers based on this administration’s ideological opposition to transgender people and to this healthcare.”

Since prior attempts to pressure hospitals into handing over patient information have been unsuccessful, Minter said, the Department of Justice is now trying to get that same information by pursuing federal criminal charges. And by doing so in Texas, he added, they’re attempting “to find a jurisdiction that would would likely be sympathetic to the administration’s goals.”

“It’s just an egregious abuse of federal power,” Minter said. “This is mafia-type behavior.”

This isn’t the first time NYU Langone has been targeted for its work with transgender patients. It’s the latest in a long back-and-forth between the hospital, its patients, and various government bodies. January 2025, the hospital stopped accepting new patients into its Transgender Youth Health Program following a Trump executive order which attempted to prohibit federally funded hospitals from providing gender-affirming care to minors. They were met with protests at the time. Then, just over a year later, the hospital announced it was ending that program altogether “due to the current regulatory environment,” and were met with more protests from trans kids and their families, many of whom scrambled to find care elsewhere.

In early March, New York Attorney General Letitia James ordered the hospital to resume care. On March 18, then-Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche sent a letter to James demanding that the hospital not reinstate trans youth care. Meanwhile, trans community advocates in New York have pressed the hospital, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, to do more to protect gender-affirming care for all New Yorkers.

In New York, patients and doctors are theoretically protected by a state-level “Shield Law,” which is designed to protect those seeking or providing gender-affirming or abortion-related healthcare from out-of-state retaliation. “New York has strong protections in place to protect the privacy of patient records,” a spokesperson for the New York Attorney General’s office told Mother Jones. “Every health care institution in New York should seek to protect both patients and providers.” New York’s shield law applies to criminal investigations, not just civil ones; many other state-level shield laws do not.

And there is little case law indicating how such protective legislation would hold up in the face of federal investigations—and this particular investigation is coming from a court with a track record of repeatedly ruling that trans people are not protected by federal anti-discrimination law. “This could turn out to be a very important battleground,” Minter said.  

More than 40 hospitals nationwide have terminated some form of gender-affirming care since Trump took office.

A new CNN poll on Tuesday found that 70 percent of Americans disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling the economy.

Notably, Trump never reached a 50 percent disapproval rate over the economy during the entire duration of his first term, according to CNN. The Tuesday poll found that 77 percent of respondents—including a majority of Republicans—said that the president’s policies have increased the cost of living in their community.

The poll was conducted by Social Science Research Solutions, a survey and market research firm, and measured a random sample of 1,499 adults from April 30 through May 4. 

Trump's disapproval rating on the economy has hit a whopping 70% in the new @cnn poll.

It never even reached 50% in his first term. pic.twitter.com/wuouabqyyu

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) May 12, 2026

The economy and cost of living, clearly, is an important issue: 55 percent reported it as their most important concern. This share is more than double any other problem, with the state of democracy being the second issue at 19 percent. 

Thus, to develop policies that materially benefit Americans, numerous surveys suggest that government officials should concentrate on affordability. But, according to Tuesday’s CNN poll, the public is roughly evenly divided on which political party would better handle the economy.

Three-quarter said the US economy unjustly favors the desires of the elite. Conversely, nearly half of respondents said the government provides relief to too many people “who don’t deserve it”—almost 10 percentage points more than people who said the government is not helping enough people.

But there may be opportunity for Democrats in the lead-up to the midterms. If the votes really count, of course.

As Mother’s Day approaches, a group of senators are raising the alarm about the “appalling and horrific treatment” of pregnant and nursing people in immigration detention. On Thursday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) wrote to Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin demanding information about the treatment of this vulnerable group, and urging the agency to release pregnant women from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

“There are virtually no legal safeguards for pregnant women in federal custody.”

Their letter comes on the heels of new legislation introduced this week by Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) that would establish care standards for federally incarcerated pregnant people—including those jailed in ICE and Customs and Border Protection facilities. The bill builds on one that the House already passed in 2022, which only applied to those in Bureau of Prison’s custody. 

It’s hard to know how many pregnant people are in federal custody, and what percentage of those are immigrants. In 2023, more than 700 incarcerated mothers gave birth in prison, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Between January 1, 2025, and February 16, 2026, 363 pregnant, postpartum and nursing immigrants were deported, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Sixteen miscarriages were recorded during that same period. As of March, there were an estimated 126 pregnant women still being held in detention, according to the senators’ letter.

The care those who are pregnant in detention receive—or don’t receive—varies widely depending on the state they’re in, or even the individual facility. Federal guidelines are sparse: There are no federal rules on prenatal nutrition for incarcerated mothers, and some facilities still reportedly shackle pregnant inmates, even around their bellies. Some mothers are separated from their newborns only moments after birth. These practices can put mothers’ lives in danger, and can lead to miscarriages, psychological, and physical trauma. 

Kamlager-Dove’s Pregnant Women In Custody Act would mandate adequate prenatal healthcare in federal prisons, jails, and ICE detention centers. It would prohibit the use of shackles during labor, and improve health-related data collection in federal facilities. 

“It’s unacceptable that there are virtually no legal safeguards for pregnant women in federal custody, and this bill aims to right that wrong by ensuring healthier, safer futures for mothers and babies,” Rep. Kamlager-Dove wrote in a statement.

The senators who wrote to Secretary Mullin about the issue also wrote to two private contractors—Acquisition Logistics, LLC and Amentum Services, Inc.—which contracted with DHS to operate Camp East Montana, an ICE detention facility in El Paso, Texas. As the New York Times reported in March, there is no doctor onsite at that facility, yet pregnant women are held there. “When one experienced vaginal bleeding and requested medical care she was reportedly given only water, prenatal vitamins, and a temperature check,” the senators wrote.

“We write today with deep concern about the callous indifference with which this Administration appears to be mistreating this extremely vulnerable population,” they wrote in their letter to Mullin, adding: “We urge you to immediately resume the commonsense practice of presumption of release of pregnant women from ICE custody.”

Correction, May 11: An earlier version of this story misstated the time period in which 16 miscarriages were recorded in ICE custody.

The recent Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which effectively killed the last remaining provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was authored by Justice Samuel Alito. But it represents the life’s work of Chief Justice John Roberts. The Roberts Court has now gutted the Voting Rights Act on three different occasions, and Roberts wrote or joined every one of those opinions. And that’s not an accident. Roberts has been trying to kill the Voting Rights Act for more than 40 years, and it looks like he’s finally succeeded.

Watch our new video to understand how Roberts has steadily worked to destroy the Voting Rights Act and what can be done to fight back.

“Who would you never invite back to the Met Gala?” 

That’s what Late Late Show host James Corden asked Anna Wintour, then-editor-in-chief of Vogue, in 2017, during a game called “Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts.”

“Donald Trump,” the fashion executive answered, to thunderous applause. And although neither Trump nor his immediate family have been present at fashion’s biggest night since before the start of his first term, Wintour seems to have no issue with MAGA-adjacent benefactors of his administration’s assault on culture—as evidenced by this year’s lead sponsors and honorary co-chairs: Jeff and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who were front and center at Trump’s second inauguration.

In defense of the guest list which she oversees, Wintour, who stepped down as editor-in-chief of Vogue last June but remains Vogue’s global editorial director and head of the Met Gala, told CNN that she’s “grateful” for Sánchez Bezos’ “generosity.” (The amount contributed by Sánchez Bezos and her husband, Jeff, is currently unknown.) Wintour added that Sánchez Bezos is “a great lover of costume and obviously of fashion, so we’re thrilled she’s part of the night.”

Examining the broligarchs’ foray into fashion, in which they attend shows in Milan and Paris clad in couture and court the luxury fashion industry with charity, I can’t help but feel that no matter how many runway shows they attend or which designers they wear, they still come up short in their struggle to conquer cool.

Bezos and Sánchez attended the Met Costume Institute’s spring exhibit and annual fundraiser in 2024. And Big Tech firms like Amazon, TikTok, and Apple, with their deep pockets and powerful algorithms, have been welcome sponsors of the event since the early 2010s. But this year’s benefit has attracted increased scrutiny since Silicon Valley officially hitched its wagon to the Trump train, with anti-billionaire protestors papering the New York City subway with posters calling on passersby to “boycott the Bezos Met Gala” and criticizing Amazon for its allegedly poor working conditions. 

Amazon donated $1 million to Trump’s 2024 inauguration fund and subsequently spent a baffling $75 million on a vanity doc about Melania. And as owner of the Washington Post, Bezos blocked the paper from endorsing Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election.

While the Met Gala has long been dismissed as a gross display of wealth (tickets cost $100,000, more than the median down payment on a house in the US), the involvement of the third-richest man in the world, whitewashing his reputation through a fundraiser for one of the country’s most storied museums while contributing to Trump’s war on culture, sort of obscures the costumes with its glaring irony. 

Since taking office last January, Trump has canceled National Endowment for the Arts grants, imperiling hundreds of arts organizations across the country; threatened museums via executive order to comply with his anti-“woke” agenda; and taken over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, renaming it after himself. 

Bezos isn’t just a passive observer in these attacks on arts and culture. Under his leadership, the Post laid off wide swaths of its staff as subscribers fled, shuttering its books section and dealing a severe blow to media coverage of the arts. 

As the Bezoses, Wintour, and a trio of famous women greet celebrity guests on the Met steps Monday evening, socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani and first lady Rama Duwaji reportedly have other plans. (It’s probably for the best, considering the debacle over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2021 “Tax the Rich” dress and recent uproar over boots Duwaji borrowed for her husband’s inauguration earlier this year.)

Still, though, I know they would have come dressed to impress—and slayed, effortlessly.