Democrats Move to Subpoena Top Officials Behind Trump Slush Fund |
Democrats Move to Subpoena Top Officials Behind Trump Slush Fund
Democrats are prepared to fight to stop Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for his friends and allies.
Democrats are doing what they can to stop President Donald Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department and his self-serving use of taxpayer money.
On Wednesday morning, Representative Jamie Raskin, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, moved to subpoena acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and other officials involved in the creation of a $1.8 billion slush fund, which is expected to be used to pay out Trump allies who feel they were wronged by previous administrations.
The committee vote on the subpoena will be Wednesday afternoon. Republicans have the numbers to block it, though Scott MacFarlane of MeidasTouch noted that “it’s not a favorable vote politically.”
Trump’s slush fund was announced on Monday by the Department of Justice (remember when that used to be an independent body?) as part of a settlement in Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. The lawsuit was filed over the president’s tax returns, which were leaked to the press by an IRS contractor in 2018 after Trump repeatedly refused to release them.
Critics and policy experts have labeled the slush fund one of the most blatantly corrupt moves the Trump administration has ever made, and Democrats seem to agree.
In addition to the subpoena, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and the Ways and Means Committee submitted a congressional inquiry to the White House on Wednesday containing 10 questions about what the hell is going on. They are similarly questioning the president’s newfound immunity from any IRS investigations into his and his family’s tax returns.
“The American people and the world just witnessed one of the most brazen acts of public corruption and self-dealing in American history,” the inquiry reads.
Trump Reveals He’s Ready to Screw Over Own Party With Iran Deal
Donald Trump said he’s in “no rush” to make a deal with Iran.
The president said he is in no rush to end the Iran war—and could be about to drag his own party down in the process.
One day after promising to end his Middle East conflict in “two or three days,” Donald Trump told reporters that he is in “no hurry” to make a deal with Iran.
“Everyone is saying, ‘Oh, the midterms,’” Trump said to reporters at Joint Base Andrews Wednesday. “I’m in no hurry.”
It’s a dramatically different timeline from the one Trump offered Tuesday, in which the president stated in no uncertain terms that Tehran had until Sunday to come to the negotiating table.
“I’m saying two or three days. Maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday, something,” Trump said outside the White House as construction workers hammered away at his $1 billion ballroom project. “A limited period of time. Because we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon. If they had a nuclear weapon, they would start with Israel, they would blow it up and they would blow it up fast. But they would blow it up.”
“It would be nuclear holocaust,” Trump said, imagining the future if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon.
But now it seems the president is happy to take his time, a move that could hurt Republican candidates come November. The vast majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war. A New York Times/Siena poll released Monday revealed that some 64 percent of the country feels that going to war with Iran was the wrong decision, while more than half of respondents said that the war will not be worth its cost.
The war itself—which has so far lasted roughly 12 weeks—is costing the U.S. about $1 billion per day, according to early estimates by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. But Trump’s warmongering has made life more expensive for people everywhere, due to the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on several major oil and gas facilities.
The average cost of gas nationwide is $4.55 per gallon, with large swaths of the U.S. pushing $5 a gallon, according to the AAA’s price tracker. That’s about 50 percent higher than prices were before the war started.
Costs have also gone up for the rest of the world, a reality that has only aggravated U.S. alliances.
The situation has become so dire that Trump’s Cabinet members have stopped speculating as to when prices will actually go back down. Analysts, meanwhile, have projected that gas and oil costs will likely continue to climb—potentially even after midterms.
Republicans are already frustrated with Trump for backing primary candidates who openly support him, rather than candidates who are likely to perform well in a general election. If the war is still dragging on when voters head to the polls in the fall, who knows what will happen to the GOP.
Jeff Bezos Claims Trump’s Brand of Genius Deserves Some Credit
The Amazon founder is somehow hitting a new low in sucking up to Trump.
Jeff Bezos is still sucking up to President Trump, even as Trump’s approval rating is at an all-time low.
In an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin Wednesday morning, the billionaire Amazon founder was asked about what he thought of President Trump’s second term amid tariffs and the war in Iran, and the tech CEO went out of his way to praise the president.
“I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term,” Bezos said. “Trump has lots of good ideas and been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due.”
Bezos on Trump: "I think he's a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term. Trump has lots of good ideas. He's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due." pic.twitter.com/VPyFUGRJZs— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 20, 2026
Bezos on Trump: "I think he's a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term. Trump has lots of good ideas. He's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due." pic.twitter.com/VPyFUGRJZs
“I’m on the side of America, and that’s where business leaders should be,” Bezos continued.
Earlier in the interview, Bezos was asked point-blank whether he is trying to placate Trump, citing the Melania documentary that Amazon Prime made about the first lady.
“The Melania thing is a falsehood that will not die,” Bezos said, denying that he personally had anything to do with producing the movie or that a deal was reached at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. But he still defended the documentary as a “good business decision.”
“It did very well in theaters, it’s done very well on streaming, people are very curious........