Weekly Perspective

 

  Heather Cox Richardson Jun 17   A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that even before a fighter launched a slur at former First Lady Michelle Obama, and even before the sight of the corporate branding at the event, only 16% of Americans thought it was appropriate to hold an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight at the White House. Today, Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel, who has been in trouble with Trump over stories of his drinking, said the FBI discovered and foiled a plot to attack the UFC fight. The FBI alleged in an affidavit that nineteen attackers planned to target the fight with drones laden with explosives and then to shoot at the fleeing crowd. Jude Joffe-Block, Lisa Hagen, and Audrey Nguyen of NPR noted in 2024 that Patel often peddled in conspiracy theories and, since taking on the directorship of the FBI, has tripped himself up in the past by announcing things that he later has to walk back. That history meant that social media users greeted the annou...

 

 We present a recent "snapshot" of engagements by President Trump recently courtesy the team at Politico: President Donald Trump listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday. | AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin President Donald Trump has made his priorities clear. “I don’t care about the midterms,” Trump said today during his 12th Cabinet meeting. The comment came as the president spoke about why he hasn’t moved faster to end the war with Iran. But the remark also comes two weeks after the president told reporters “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation” when approaching those negotiations. Even in the context of the war, the striking admissions point to Trump’s unexpected focus during his second term, in which he has become embroiled in a series of conflicts abroad — going to war with Iran, capturing Venezuela’s leader, escalating tensions with Cuba and threatening to annex Greenland, to name the major ones — amid plummeting approval and skyrocketi...