Author: Charlotte Hays

Well, it’s certainly innovative—sending Cabinet members to sub for the Press Secretary, who’s on maternity leave. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the latest to take his turn at the lectern. And wow! A star is born:

Scott Bessent – GAH-RRROOOWWWLLLLLLLL! …

Holy smokes, for a cabinet stuffed to the gills with oversized intellects and booming characters, it really takes a blazing comet-like personality to consistently rise above such a stellar crew, but two guys do it effortlessly. One is obviously the masterful global Jack-of-All-Trades, our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

His polar opposite in personality, yet always a center-stage kind of guy the second he opens his mouth, is the utterly urbane, completely unruffled, and smooth-as-silk Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent.

Nothing fazes the man, and he is so delightful that having a chance to watch him in action is a real treat.

That’s Beege Welborn of Hot Air, whose headline, shortly after Bessent’s stellar performance, was “It Was Scott Bessent’s Turn Behind the Press Podium and Oh, My.” Townhall’s Matt Vespa was similarly impressed. His headline was more hardcore: “Treasury Secretary Bessent Just Humiliated the Washington Post and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at the Same Time.” Bessent addressed the question that has the MSM most riled: Will President Trump’s face be on a $250 bill?

What other administration would—or could—draft members of the Cabinet to fill in for the absent Press Secretary? Try to imagine then Vice President Kamala Harris stepping in for the perpetually petulant Karine Jean Pierre. No can do.

The word yesterday was that “something feels different” about the latest announcement that the U.S. and Iran have reached a deal. The Washington Post reports that a deal has been reached but still needs President Trump’s signature. It is a provisional agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and extend the ceasefire while negotiations continue. Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen warns, “Trump has devastated Iran’s regime. Don’t give it a lifeline now.” An editorial in the Wall Street Journal says it’s “risky to end the U.S. blockade without getting the enriched uranium.”

According to the liberal Politico, Dems are furious that the Bidens won’t go away and ask, “Why are we talking about” Jill Biden’s claim that she thought Joe was having a stroke during the presidential debate. Jill is dredging up the whole cognitive cover-up thing. Meanwhile, Babylon Bee has a mischievous take on the Doc’s revelations:

Jill Biden Explains She Thought Joe Had a Stroke During Debate, Which Is Why She Left Him Up There to Die

Jill Biden isn’t the only thing that blew up this week. A Blue Origin rocket exploded on the launchpad. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has the wherewithal, both financial and gumption-wise, to roll with the punches. More on the explosion.

And the Biden coverup wasn’t the only coverup shredded:

Ex-CIA officer David Rush’s alleged years-long scheme that netted him $40 million in gold bars and a top-secret security clearance has those in the Clandestine Service community questioning how he slipped through the fastidious vetting process — and who else may be flying under the radar.

The Examiner’s Byron York writes about what he calls “the CIA’s insane bold bar scandal.” Apparently, the spooks never uncovered blatant falsehoods on David Rush’s resume. At one point, Rush asked for millions in gold bars for “work-related expenses”:

And the CIA gave it to him! Officials began handing Rush money and gold. Only later did someone begin to wonder what was going on. The CIA then searched a storage space in Rush’s office but found “only a portion of the currency” that he had been given. Government officials were “unable to locate the gold bars or significant amounts of the foreign currency Rush received pursuant to his requests or to identify the intended use of these funds,” the affidavit said.

At that point, it appears that light bulbs finally started going off at the CIA. …

Can you believe that next Tuesday is the Los Angeles Mayor’s race? Caitlin Flanagan has an interesting piece at The Free Press headlined “Pratt Daddy’s Revenge.” “Pratt Daddy” is the name of candidate Spencer Pratt’s online business. Flanagan writes:

Pratt Daddy’s candidacy is motivated by a singular and purifying anger—more of a hatred, really—all of it directed at the incumbent, Karen Bass. He holds her directly responsible for the burning of his and his parents’ houses in the Pacific Palisades. Unseating her is his intention. The primary election is next week, and the top two candidates will advance to the general election in November (if one of them gets more than that 50 percent of the vote in the primary, he or she becomes mayor, a scenario that is impossible to imagine. Bass and Pratt are expected to run against each other in the general. I assume he won’t win, but I never thought Richard Hatch would win the first season of Survivor.

“Purifying anger”—aka righteous indignation—is, in my book, an excellent reason for running. Perhaps it’s that “purifying anger” that opened Pratt’s eyes to the idea that the Los Angeles homeless problem is really a drug problem. Governor Gavin Newsom has endorsed Karen Bass. It’ll be interesting to see if LA voters go for the establishment or are willing to try something new. Michael Barone has a piece headlined “The California dream ends in empty reservoirs and homeless tents.” Barone recalls a glowing article he once wrote on the Golden State:

No one would write such an article about California today, except maybe in a humor magazine. The public sector that helped make California the nation’s most populous state in 1963 is today producing a dystopia that has tens of thousands more people leaving than arriving in the once promised land of California every year.

California today “has the nation’s highest cost-of-living adjusted poverty rate, the highest levels of functioning illiteracy, and the worst housing affordability in the continental US,” writes Joel Kotkin, who has been chronicling California’s highs and lows for more than 40 years. “California increasingly resembles a neo-feudal state, where a handful of large companies drive the economy while the vast majority of workers endure high energy and housing costs, high taxes, and diminishing opportunity.”

Golden State government has spawned fiascos large and small. Fraudulent Medicaid spending, which made headlines in Minnesota this winter, seems likely to be even more monumental in California, whose Medicaid programs are scheduled to get $138 billion from the federal government, up $18 billion from 2024. The state subsidizes tribal ceremonies and exorcisms, gym memberships and art lessons.

What with spooks who can’t keep track of millions in gold bars and exploding rockets, we’ve had some surprises this morning. What could be next? How about “California Teaches Native Americans How to Light a Fire,” in City Journal:

California Governor Gavin Newsom has allocated millions of dollars to a program that funds Native American “food sovereignty,” owl counting, and “cultural burns,” in which tribal groups use traditional fire techniques to clear brush from the landscape and preserve their “close kinship” with plants, animals, and “other natural relatives.”

Since 2023, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CAL FIRE, has awarded $24 million to tribal groups and other nonprofits as part of its “Tribal Wildfire Resilience” program. The man effectively overseeing the program, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, believes that California was founded on a “state-sanctioned policy of genocide” and that the state has pursued “decades of land dispossession, discrimination, and disconnection.” The Newsom administration, he said, was making progress in returning the land to the “leadership of California Native American tribes.”

Could we say this is dumber than carrying coals to Newcastle?

It’s about Time. CBS honcho and Free Press founder Bari Weiss is at last overhauling “60 Minutes,” including installing a new Executive Producer. This is good news. The elderly show badly needs a facelift. … Okay, the story is behind the paywall, but I can’t resist the headline: “The Bulwark’s Tim Miller and James Talarico Discuss God’s Genitalia, and Dems Wonder Why They Lose Texas.” Mr. Talarico is the Texas Democratic nominee for the Senate. TGIF.

Pretty stupid if Doc Biden’s interview with Rita Braver of CBS is any indication:

Former first lady Jill Biden said she was “frightened” by her husband Joe Biden’s 2024 debate performance and thought he was having a stroke.

“I was frightened, because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” Jill Biden told CBS News Sunday Morning’s Rita Braver in an interview airing Sunday on CBS. 

“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”

But not so scared that she rushed Joe to Walter Reed. Instead, she cooed to the befuddled old man about how well he had done on the debate stage. The most incredulity-provoking claim Jill made was that she had never previously seen Joe act that way and hasn’t since. Golly, I have—haven’t you? Reporters at the Wall Street Journal certainly had noticed Biden’s decline—they wrote” How the White House Functioned with a Diminished Biden in Charge” in December of 2024.

An editorial in the New York Post argues that in the interview, Jill Biden just admitted to a scandal of historic proportions:

The most shocking thing about Jill Biden divulging that she thought her husband, the president of the United States, was having a stroke during his disastrous debate against Donald Trump, is that she so casually says this during a television interview two years later.

She’s admitting to a crime against the American people — and expecting sympathy for it.

This is on the level of Edith Wilson running the government while Woodrow Wilson was bedridden.

It is a scandal of historic proportions.

Thought Experiment: Are you more likely to compare Jill Biden to Edith Wilson (as above) or to, say, Lady Macbeth? Meanwhile, whether he knows it or not, Joe Biden is suing the Justice Department to block the release of the former President speaking at length to a biographer.

The full CBS interview, done in conjunction with the June 2 release of her new book, “View from the East Wing: A Memoir,” airs Sunday. Expect soul-searching honesty. One More CBS Note: Sharyn Alfonsi, who went out of her way to pick a fight with boss Bari Weiss, will exit “60 Minutes.” Alfonsi has no intention of going quietly. How much do you care? 

The MSM got itself in a pickle by refusing to notice Joe Biden’s precipitous decline because now their fervid speculations about President Trump’s health ring hollow. USA TODAY columnist Nicole Russell is onto the MSM’s shenanigans with Trump’s health.  We see President Trump all the time, and, while we aren’t all fortunate enough to have a medical degree like Jill Biden, we have eyes. We saw Trump conduct a big ol’ Cabinet meeting yesterday, all by himself, something poor old Joe simply could not do.

The U.S. Military is conducting new strikes on Iran. A Wall Street Journal news story asks, “How Long Can Iran Withstand the Economic Pain of the U.S. Blockade?” Their situation is dire:

Already, the blockade has choked off oil export revenue and raised the risk that Iran will have to shut down wells as it runs out of places to store crude. Iranian officials are urging people to conserve fuel, electricity and water—a sign that the economic squeeze is spreading from oil terminals and factories into daily life. Critical industries have been damaged. More than a million Iranians have been left out of work as the national currency falls to record lows. 

President Trump said during a Cabinet meeting yesterday that Iran was “negotiating on fumes.” Frequent Iran updates at Fox Digital. Several pro-U.S. nations are stepping up (here and here).

Delaney Hall, the ICE detention facility in Newark, continues to be a glam gathering spot for New Jersey’s liberal political establishment. Townhall captures the scene:

Another day, another leftist riot for murderers and sex offenders. After obstructing law enforcement, ICE agents are arresting Antifa activists and leftists outside of Delaney Hall, an ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey.

Townhall introduces some of the detainees in Delaney Hall, and it’s safe to say nobody sane would want to come into contact with them. They are reportedly on a hunger strike. It is essential to treat detainees in a humane fashion, but I think Republican state Rep. Paul Kanitra might be onto something when she cruelly suggests that illegals have no entitlement to five-star accommodations.

The female-identifying male athlete at the center of a Title IX case before the Supreme Court found time to defeat more women athletes while waiting for the ruling:

Transgender athlete Becky Pepper-Jackson won a girls’ state championship in West Virginia this week, before the U.S. Supreme Court could make a ruling on whether the state can ban Pepper-Jackson from competing against females….

The Supreme Court appears ready to rule in favor of West Virginia against Pepper-Jackson with the expected June ruling looming. But that looming will do nothing for the girls who were impacted on Saturday.

“What has already happened by putting West Virginia’s law on hold as it applies to West Virginia in the B.P.J case is that girls have already been harmed,” Beecher added. “When you ignore differences between boys and girls, and between males and females, a lot of the harm falls on girls.”

The dust is beginning to settle after the Texas electoral earthquake. A RealClear Politics story by Caroline Lumetta suggests that the Ken Paxton victory over longtime incumbent Senator John Cornyn is the beginning of a remaking of the GOP:

In addition to showcasing Trump’s endorsement weight, the runoff election results also exposed the weakness of the Senate Republican establishment. For months, National Republican Senate Committee chair Tim Scott took to the morning news shows extolling Cornyn’s virtues while insisting that he was the key to keeping Texas safely red. The NRSC posted lists of Paxton’s various personal and professional scandals, as Cornyn called his opponent an embarrassment.

Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter urges readers to “Savor Our Victory Over the Establishment,” which the Paxton win represents, while Hugh Hewitt warns the GOP that it could lose the Senate if it doesn’t stop the infighting:

The entire Texas GOP will need to get behind [Paxton] quickly, and Paxton will need Cornyn’s half-million runoff voters and his financial supporters. The whole GOP will need to swing behind Paxton, even though Cornyn is respected and admired by longtime conservatives like me who value his knowledge of the Constitution, his work on the Judiciary Committee in every tough fight there over decades, and his tenure as GOP whip. But party loyalists have to know that ours is a two-party system and Winston Churchill’s admonition, “Trust the people!” applies in every fair contest.

Party Pooper. Karl Rove offers “The GOP’s Five Paxton Problems.” Rove says the GOP’s failure to repay Senator Cornyn for his loyalty was a mistake.

Financial Round Up. Kevin Warsh is now the Fed Chair, and David Malpass writes that he will face resistance to reform from colleagues eager to protect their turf in an op-ed headlined “Why the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet Needs to Shrink.” … An intriguing Wall Street Journal op ed explains how only booming capitalism allows New York Mayor Mamdani to fiddle with the pension system. Which might not be a good idea in the long run. … Wow! Vice President Vance’s fraud task force just received powerful reinforcements:

The federal agency that oversees more than $126 billion in federal contracts is joining Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force, expanding the White House crackdown into the federal government’s contracting system.

We’re often told by activists that when parolees end up back in prison, the poor dears were just victims of technicalities. Not so, according to “The Hidden Crimes of Parolees” in City Journal:  

If they committed a crime, though, why are these individuals reimprisoned on the basis of a technical violation? Why not charge a crime and seek a conviction?

The candid answer: it’s faster, easier, and more likely to pay off for prosecutors to send someone back to prison through a parole-violation hearing rather than through the courts. The parole hearing is held before representatives of the parole board, without any need to seat a jury, and the standard of proof is lower (“preponderance of the evidence,” not “beyond a reasonable doubt”).

Well, Texas, the eyes of the nation are upon you today, all the livelong day. What to make of the Texas-sized political earthquake that hit Texas yesterday?

AG Ken Paxton walloped incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the Lone Star state’s GOP primary runoff yesterday, sending tremors far and wide.

A Wall Street Journal story suggests the Paxton win made strange bedfellows:  

President Trump and Democrats rarely find themselves in alignment. Yet both sides wanted the same outcome in Tuesday’s Texas Senate primary runoff election.

Ken Paxton’s trouncing of incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican runoff represents Trump’s latest triumph in maintaining his grip on his MAGA base after he similarly ousted rivals in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky.

But to the delight of Democrats, the president’s decision to make an 11th-hour endorsement of Paxton could put the Senate seat in play for James Talarico after decades of Democratic futility in the Lone Star State.

An editorial in the same venerable outlet headlined “The Ken Paxton Republicans” is brutal:

Mr. Paxton is known for his polarizing style, ethical travails and lousy political judgment, but he won over Mr. Trump with his fealty and bombast.

Mr. Paxton represents the serrated edge of the Texas GOP, for which “owning the libs” is the highest political value. He’s a conservative culture warrior on gender and race. But when it comes to economics, he’s staked out a record of anti-business populism that is little different from that of progressive Democrats.

In a Washington Post editorial headlined “Texas and the Price of Loyalty to Trump,” editors argue that President Trump may have harmed his own agenda:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) lost his bid Tuesday for a fifth term after Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the GOP runoff. This saddles Republicans with a scandal-plagued nominee whose liabilities will probably force the national party to spend significant sums this fall to hold what would have otherwise been a safe seat.

A big enough blue wave could even allow James Talarico to become the first Democrat to win statewide in Texas since 1994. If that somehow happens, Democrats would probably flip control of the Senate — bringing Trump’s domestic agenda and nominations to a standstill during his final two years in power.

USA TODAY’s conservative columnist Nicole Russell writes:

It’s difficult to imagine Paxton heading to Washington focused primarily on the best interests of Texans rather than on the spotlight he craves and the political ambitions he shares with Trump.

The Free Press goes so far as to ask, “Is Donald Trump Tired of Winning?” “From his endorsement of Ken Paxton to the White House ballroom, the president is putting his own priorities ahead of his party’s,” argues Mene Ukueberuwa.

Very much on the other side of the ledger, Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter writes that “Cornyn Never Represented the Will of His Voters” (alas, behind the paywall). PJ Media’s Stephen Kruiser was upbeat on the Texas earthquake. Townhall’s Joseph Chalfant says, “Beware of Never Paxtons.” Meanwhile, Paxton is given credit for having helped to establish a long-overdue clinic for detransitioners in Texas.

Meanwhile, Democrat Maureen Galindo, a South Texas sex therapist who called for Zionists to be held in converted ICE facilities, was also defeated. And Rep. Al Green will threateningly brandish his walking cane on the House floor no more—he lost a special election primary to Christian Menafee. Jasmine Crockett-endorsed Colin Allred, previously crushingly defeated by Senator Ted Cruz, looks poised to make it to Congress.

What’s going on with the Iran negotiations?

President Trump is holding a Cabinet meeting today in Washington, originally scheduled for Camp David, to consider Iran. The discussion will include Iran’s demand for $24 billion in frozen funds to be released. Optics would be bad, even if the money isn’t delivered in pallets of fresh bills. “Is Trump blinking on Iran?” Guy Benson asks. Meanwhile, Byron York, also of the Examiner, asks, “Why doesn’t Trump just finish the job in Iran?” York answers:

So why doesn’t Trump just finish the job in Iran? The short version of this conversation was that it would take a substantial escalation of military force to change the current situation, and the president does not think it is worth it. The official did not detail just what a “substantial escalation” would involve, but the U.S. has already applied a lot of military force in Iran, so it would be a lot of force on top of force. It’s no surprise the president is reluctant to do it if there are other options available.

Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins asks an astonishing question: “In a Year, Will Iran Matter?” “The war made sense for President Trump only if he thought he could get a quick win,” Jenkins argues.

The New York Post has a double cover. The headline is “Give & Take.” “Give” is New York Governor Katht Hochul, who caved to the demands of the teachers’ union, and “Take” is New York Mayor Zohran Mamdami, who proposes doing what socialists have done throughout their dismal history: taking private property from the rightful owners. A story inside the Post reports:

Seize the means of accommodation!

Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani put bad landlords on notice Tuesday, pledging to help “transfer ownership” of chronically neglected buildings to tenants as part of his sprawling, new housing plan.

“When necessary we will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers,” he said to cheers as he unveiled his administration’s “Block by Block” plan in Gowanus, Brooklyn.

“And for buildings that have suffered chronic neglect, we will work to transfer ownership to responsible stewards – stewards that include community land trusts, nonprofits or even the tenants themselves.”

And so it begins. … The Daily Wire warns that Mamdani “Wants to Decide Who Deserves to Keep Their Property.”

Anything to Help Illegals Put Down Roots: “California Is Giving Free Solar Panels to Illegal Aliens,” Chris Rufo and Austen Hufford report in City Journal. They write:

We spoke with MAROMA customer service representative Ángel Quintanilla, who confirmed that the company had provided solar panels for illegal immigrants. “You don’t need to have documentation,” Quintanilla said. “They ask for their pay stub and a form of their income and, of course, the gas and the electricity bill.”

Despite a $49 million budget and nearly seven years of operation, the farmworker “weatherization” program has only provided services to about 2,000 families. That means the State of California has allocated roughly $23,000 per household for its program to provide free solar panels, refrigerators, and other services—a number that raises serious concerns about financial accountability.

Another One from City Journal: Former Virginia AG Jason Myares writes about Steve Descano, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax, Virginia. In a congressional hearing last week, Descano was forced to look at the mother of a murder victim, whose alleged killer was free because of decisions of Descano’s office. Myares observes:

Descano’s office maintained impressive-sounding statistics. Fairfax County is a safe community, his staff said. Of course, it looks safe on paper when you’re consistently pleading felonies down to misdemeanors and declining to prosecute serious charges. But creative bookkeeping is not public safety. Meantime, the actual danger—the actual person—walked free to harm someone else. The reality: violent crime is up 92 percent under Steve Descano’s criminal-first, victim-last policies.

Memorial Day Hijacked. Jay Rogers writes at RCP that some jerks preferred to celebrate criminals instead of fallen soldiers on Memorial Day:

Memorial Day 2026 should have centered on flags at graves and the quiet dignity of remembering Americans who died in uniform. It didn’t. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Governor Tim Walz turned the day into another lap of the George Floyd perpetual remembrance tour.

While families visited Arlington and small-town cemeteries, Frey posted a Floyd tribute on X before his office had offered a single word about the fallen. Walz, meanwhile, skipped a scheduled appearance at Fort Snelling National Cemetery — where veterans waited for a governor who never arrived — to attend the Rise and Remember festival at George Floyd Square.

It’s a tragedy that George Floyd was killed, but a hero or role model for the young, he wasn’t.

Fresh Breeze Blowing? Writing in the London Spectator, Peachey Keenan says, “Get ready for a Spencer Pratt Summer.” The subtitle: “He Can Win.”