As thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Los Angeles County to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, misinformation has been running rampant online.The protests, and President Donald Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard and Marines in response, are one of the first major contentious news events to unfold in a new era in which AI tools have become embedded in online life. And as the news has sparked fierce debate and dialogue online, those tools have played an outsize role in the discourse. Social media users have wielded AI tools to create deepfakes and spread misinformation—but also to fact-check and debunk false claims. Here’s how AI has been used during the L.A. protests.DeepfakesProvocative, authentic images from the protests have captured the world’s attention this week, including a protester raising a Mexican flag and a journalist being shot in the leg with a rubber bullet by a police officer. At the same time, a handful of AI-generated fake videos have also circulated.Over the past couple years, tools for creating these videos have rapidly improved, allowing users to rapidly create convincing deepfakes within minutes. Earlier this month, for example, TIME used Google’s new Veo 3 tool to demonstrate how it can be used to create misleading or inflammatory videos about news events. Among the videos that have spread over the past week is one of a National Guard soldier named “Bob” who filmed himself “on duty” in Los Angeles and preparing to gas protesters. That video was seen more than 1 million times, according to France 24, but appears to have since been taken down from TikTok. Thousands of people left comments on the video, thanking “Bob” for his service—not realizing that “Bob” did not exist.AdvertisementMany other misleading images have circulated not due to AI, but much more low-tech efforts. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, for example, reposted a video on X originally shared by conservative actor James Woods that appeared to show a violent protest with cars on fire—but it was actually footage from 2020. And another viral post showed a pallet of bricks, which the poster claimed were going to be used by “Democrat militants.” But the photo was traced to a Malaysian construction supplier. Fact checkingIn both of those instances, X users replied to the original posts by asking Grok, Elon Musk’s AI, if the claims were true. Grok has become a major source of fact checking during the protests: Many X users have been relying on it and other AI models, sometimes more than professional journalists, to fact check claims related to the L.A. protests, including, for instance, how much collateral damage there has been from the demonstrations.AdvertisementGrok debunked both Cruz’s post and the brick post. In response to the Texas senator, the AI wrote: “The footage was likely taken on May 30, 2020.... While the video shows violence, many protests were peaceful, and using old footage today can mislead.” In response to the photo of bricks, it wrote: “The photo of bricks originates from a Malaysian building supply company, as confirmed by community notes and fact-checking sources like The Guardian and PolitiFact. It was misused to falsely claim that Soros-funded organizations placed bricks near U.S. ICE facilities for protests.” But Grok and other AI tools have gotten things wrong, making them a less-than-optimal source of news. Grok falsely insinuated that a photo depicting National Guard troops sleeping on floors in L.A. that was shared by Newsom was recycled from Afghanistan in 2021. ChatGPT said the same. These accusations were shared by prominent right-wing influencers like Laura Loomer. In reality, the San Francisco Chronicle had first published the photo, having exclusively obtained the image, and had verified its authenticity.AdvertisementGrok later corrected itself and apologized. “I’m Grok, built to chase the truth, not peddle fairy tales. If I said those pics were from Afghanistan, it was a glitch—my training data’s a wild mess of internet scraps, and sometimes I misfire,” Grok said in a post on X, replying to a post about the misinformation."The dysfunctional information environment we're living in is without doubt exacerbating the public’s difficulty in navigating the current state of the protests in LA and the federal government’s actions to deploy military personnel to quell them,” says Kate Ruane, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Free Expression Program. Nina Brown, a professor at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, says that it is “really troubling” if people are relying on AI to fact check information, rather than turning to reputable sources like journalists, because AI “is not a reliable source for any information at this point.”Advertisement“It has a lot of incredible uses, and it’s getting more accurate by the minute, but it is absolutely not a replacement for a true fact checker,” Brown says. “The role that journalists and the media play is to be the eyes and ears for the public of what’s going on around us, and to be a reliable source of information. So it really troubles me that people would look to a generative AI tool instead of what is being communicated by journalists in the field.”Brown says she is increasingly worried about how misinformation will spread in the age of AI.“I’m more concerned because of a combination of the willingness of people to believe what they see without investigation—the taking it at face value—and the incredible advancements in AI that allow lay-users to create incredibly realistic video that is, in fact, deceptive; that is a deepfake, that is not real,” Brown says.

As President Donald Trump kicked off a birthday military parade on the streets of Washington, DC, what’s estimated as roughly 2,000 events were held across the US and beyond — protesting Trump and Elon Musk’s evisceration of government services, an unprecedented crackdown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and countless other actions from the administration in its first five months. Held under the title “No Kings” (with, as you’ll see, one conspicuous exception), they’re the latest in several mass protests, following April’s Hands Off events and a wave of Tesla Takedown demonstrations in March.As The Verge’s Tina Nguyen went to downtown DC, we also sent reporters to No Kings demonstrations spanning the country, plus a “No Tyrants” event in the UK. How would they unfold after promises of “very heavy force” against protesters in the capital, after the deployment of thousands of military troops in a move a judge has bluntly called illegal, and after promises to “liberate” the city of Los Angeles from its “burdensome leadership” by local elected officials? What about the overnight killing of a Minnesota Democratic state representative and her husband, and the shooting of a Democratic state senator and his wife?The answer, at the events we attended, was fairly calmly — even against a backdrop of chaos.Downtown Los Angeles, CaliforniaAn inflatable baby Donald Trump, dressed in a diaper, hovered over throngs of people rallying outside of Los Angeles City Hall. Demonstrators outnumbered clumps of California National Guard members in fatigues posted up along sidewalks. “Go home to your families, we don’t need you in our streets,” one young person wearing a long braid down her back tells them while marching past. “Trump come catch these hands foo!” the back of her sign reads. I can’t see what the front says, but I can tell there’s an empty bag of Cheetos pasted to it.The big baby joins the march, floating through the streets of Downtown LA over demonstrators. A flatbed truck rolls ahead of it, the band — maybe LA’s own Ozomatli? — singing “We don’t like Trump” to the tune of “We Want The Funk.” Ducking inside Grand Central Market from the march, I talk to Puck and Twinkle Toes — two demonstrators in line for the public restrooms. Twinkle Toes tells me she’s part of an activist clown collective called Imp and Circumstance, wearing pink and white clown makeup and a striped pink and white bow wrapped around a loose hair bun atop her head. She’s here exercising her right to free speech, she says. Demonstrators in Los Angeles marched alongside an inflatable Donald Trump baby dressed in a diaper.“The more people that are out here, the more we know that this is not okay. That we don’t want an autocrat. We want democracy,” Puck tells me, adding that the Pride March in Hollywood last weekend was “nothing but love and sunshine” despite protests and burning driverless cars making headlines in downtown. “The news tries to make you think all of LA is rioting. It’s not.” Puck says.Back out on the streets, a young man quickly writes “Fuck ICE” on a black wall with white spray paint before a group of older demonstrators wearing floppy hats shushes him away — warning him that tagging will only attract more law enforcement.Further along, another older man with tufts of white hair sticking out under his Lakers cap walks stiffly and slowly along under the summer sun. A Mexican flag draped across his shoulders, he crosses Hope Street. A young man wearing a Nike cap makes his way over to ask if he wants water; the old man accepts a bottle and keeps walking without stopping. The march has looped around downtown, and is coming to an end back at City Hall. As I make my way to my bus stop, a line of police vehicles — sirens blasting — whizzes past me, back toward the crowd still gathering around City Hall.The Los Angeles Police Department issued a dispersal order for parts of downtown Los Angeles later in the afternoon, citing people “throwing rocks, bricks, bottles and other objects.” Law enforcement reportedly cleared crowds using gas, and the LAPD authorized the use of “less lethal” force.— Justine CalmaPortland, OregonFour different “No Kings” protests in the greater Portland area on Saturday drew massive crowds of tens of thousands across the city. Various activists, government officials, and representatives for politicians spoke at the rallies, which also featured music and live performances. (One advertised free drag shows.) Protesters of all ages came with dogs, strollers, flags, banners, and hand-made signs. At the downtown waterfront, some tourist boats appeared to still be departing, but the bike rental stand (which also sells ice cream) was closed for the day with a hand-lettered explanation reading “No crowns, no thrones, no kings” and “Americans against oligarchy.” Women appearing to be organizers passed out free American flags; many attendees came with their own American flags modified to fly upside down. Most protesters brought signs expressing a wide range of sentiments on the theme of “No Kings.” Some signs were surprisingly verbose (“If the founders wanted a unitary executive (a king) we’d all still be British”) while others were more succinct (“Sic semper tyrannis”). Others opted for simple images, such as a picture of a crown crossed out, or — less frequently — a guillotine. Image: Sarah JeongThe waterfront park area was filled with people from the shoreline to the curb of the nearest street, where protesters held up signs to passing cars that honked in approval. The honking of a passing fire truck sent the crowd into an uproarious cheer. Portland is about a thousand miles from the border with Mexico, but the flag of its distant neighbor nation has emerged as protest iconography in solidarity with Los Angeles. The rainbow pride flag was flown as often as the Mexican flag. Military veterans were scattered throughout the crowd, some identifying themselves as having seen action in conflicts spanning from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Emanuel, an Air Force veteran, told me that he had turned out in defense of the constitution and due process, saying, “Nobody has any rights if one person doesn’t have any rights.” Image: Sarah JeongAnger was directed at ICE and the mass deportations all throughout the day, in signage, in chants, and in rally speeches. The previous night, about 150 people protested at a local ICE facility — coincidentally located by the Tesla dealership — a mile south of downtown, near a highway exit. The ICE facility protests, which have been continuous for some days, have been steadily building up. A couple of “No Kings” signs were present on Friday. (The following day, a handful of “Chinga la migra” signs would show up at the “No Kings” protests). Demonstrators stood on the curb urging passing cars to “Honk if you hate fascists,” successfully eliciting car horns every few seconds, including some from a pristine white Tesla. Federal law enforcement in camo and helmets, their faces obscured, maced and shot at protesters with pepper balls, targeting them through the gates and sniping at them from the rooftop of the building. A handful of protesters — many wearing gas masks and respirators — formed phalanx formations in the driveway, wielding umbrellas and handmade shields. On Saturday, a speaker at one of the “No Kings” rallies advertised the occupation of the ICE facility, saying, “We’re a sanctuary city.” The crowd — replete with American flags both upside down and right side up — cheered. — Sarah JeongNew Port Richey, FloridaNearly every intersection on Pasco County’s State Road 54 looks the same: a cross-section of strip malls, each anchored by a Walmart or Target or Publix, surrounded by a mix of restaurants, nail salons, and gas stations. It’s not an environment that is particularly conducive to protests, but hundreds of people turned out in humid, 90-plus degree weather anyway. The overall size of the crowd is hard to determine, but it’s larger than I — and other attendees — anticipated, given the local demographics. (Trump won 61 percent of the vote in Pasco County in 2024.) New Port Richey, FL. Image: Gaby Del ValleEveryone is on the sidewalk; an organizer with a megaphone tells people to use crosswalks if they’re going to attempt to brave the six-lane highway. Two days earlier, Governor Ron DeSantis said Floridians could legally run over protesters on the street if they feel “threatened.” New Port Richey, FL. Image: Gaby Del ValleSo far, most drivers seem friendly. There are lots of supportive honks. One woman rolls down her window and thanks the protesters. “I love you! I wish I could be with you, but I have to work today!” she yells as she drives away. Not everyone is amenable. A man in a MAGA hat marches through the crowd waving a “thin green line” flag and yelling “long live the king!” as people in the crowd call him a traitor. A pickup truck drives by blasting “Ice Ice Baby,” waving another pro-law enforcement flag. The protesters have flags, too: American flags large and small, some upside down; Mexican; Ukrainian; Palestinian; Canadian; different configurations of pride and trans flags. Their signs, like their flags, illustrate their diverse reasons for attending: opposition to Trump’s “big beautiful” funding bill, DOGE’s budget cuts, and ICE arrests; support for immigrants, government workers, and Palestinians. One woman wears an inflatable chicken suit. Her friend pulls an effigy of Trump — dressed to look both like an eighteenth-century monarch, a taco, and a chicken — alongside her.New Port Richey, FL. Image: Gaby Del ValleMost of the demonstrators are on the older side, but there are people of all ages in attendance. “I thought it was going to be maybe 20 people with a couple of signs,” Abby, 24, says, adding that she’s pleasantly surprised at both the turnout and the fact that most of the protesters are of retirement age. Abe, 20, tells me this is his first protest. Holding a sign that says “ICE = GESTAPO,” he tells me he came out to support a friend who is Mexican. Three teenagers walk by with signs expressing support for immigrants: “While Trump destroys America, we built it.” “Trump: 3 felonies. My parents: 0.” As I drive away, I notice nine counter-protesters off to the side, around the corner from the main event. They wave their own flags, but the demonstrators seemingly pay them no mind.— Gaby Del ValleHistoric Filipinotown, Los AngelesWearing a camo baseball cap — “Desert Storm Veteran” emblazoned on the front — Joe Arciaga greets a crowd of about 100 people in Los Angeles’ Historic Filipinotown around 9:00AM.“Good morning everyone, are you ready for some beautiful trouble?” Arciaga says into the megaphone, an American flag bandana wrapped around his wrist. The faces of Filipino labor leaders Philip Vera Cruz and Larry Itliong, who organized farm workers alongside Cesar Chavez, peer over his shoulders from a mural that lines the length of Unidad Park where Arciaga and a group called Lakas Collective helped organize this neighborhood No Kings rally. “I’m a Desert Storm veteran, and I’m a father of three and a grandfather of three, and I want to work for a future where democracy is upheld, due process, civil rights, the preservation of the rule of law — That’s all I want. I’m not a billionaire, I’m just a regular Joe, right?”, he tells The Verge.Joe Arciaga speaks to people at a rally in Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles. Image: Justine Calma“I am mad as hell,” he says, when I ask him about the Army 250th anniversary parade Donald Trump has organized in Washington, DC coinciding with the president’s birthday. “The guy does not deserve to be honored, he’s a draft dodger, right?” Arciaga says. He’s “livid” that the President and DOGE have fired veterans working for federal agencies and slashed VA staff.Arciaga organizes the crowd into two lines that file out of the park to stand along Beverly Blvd., one of the main drags through LA. Arciaga has deputized a handful of attendees with security or medical experience with whistles to serve as “marshals” tasked with flagging and de-escalating any potentially risky situation that might arise. Johneric Concordia, one of the co-founders of the popular The Park’s Finest barbecue joint in the neighborhood, is MCing out on Beverly Blvd. He and Arciaga direct people onto the sidewalks and off the asphalt as honking cars zip by. In between chants of “No hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here!” and rap songs from LA artist Bambu that Concordia plays from a speaker, Concordia hypes up the organizers. “Who’s cool? Joe’s cool?” He spits into the microphone connected to his speaker. “Who’s streets? Our streets!” the crowd cheers. An hour later, a man sitting at a red light in a black Prius rolls down his window. “Go home!” he yells from the intersection. “Take your Mexican flag and go home!”The crowd mostly ignores him. One attendee on the corner holds up his “No Kings” sign to the Prius without turning his head to look at him. A few minutes later, a jogger in a blue t-shirt raises his fist as he passes the crowd. “Fuck yeah guys,” he says to cheers.By 10AM, the neighborhood event is coming to a close. Demonstrators start to trickle away, some fanning out to other rallies planned across LA today. Concordia is heading out too, microphone and speaker still in hand, “If you’re headed to downtown, watch out for suspicious crew cuts!” — Justine CalmaSan Francisco, California1/10Most of the crowd trickled out after 2pm, which was the scheduled end time of the protest, but hundreds stayed in the area. Image: Vjeran PavicLondon, UKLondon’s protest was a little different than most: it was almost entirely bereft of “No Kings” signs, thanks to the fact that about two miles away much larger crowds were gathered to celebrate the official birthday of one King Charles III. “We don’t have anything against King Charles,” Alyssa, a member of organizers Indivisible London, told me. And so, “out of respect for our host country as immigrants,” they instead set up shop in front of the US embassy with a tweaked message: “No kings, no crowns” became “no tyrants, no clowns.” London, UK. Image: Dominic PrestonOf the hundreds gathered, not everyone got the memo, with a few painted signs decrying kings and crowns regardless, and one brave Brit brandishing a bit of cardboard with a simple message: “Our king is better than yours!”London, UK. Image: Dominic PrestonStill, most of the crowd were on board, with red noses, clown suits, and Pennywise masks dotted throughout, plus costumes ranging from tacos to Roman emperors. “I think tyrants is the better word, and that’s why I dressed up as Caesar, because he was the original,” says Anna, a Long Island native who’s lived in London for three years. “Nobody likes a tyrant. Nobody. And they don’t do well, historically, but they destroy a lot.”For 90 minutes or so the crowd — predominantly American, judging by the accents around me — leaned into the circus theme. Speakers shared the stage with performers, from a comic singalong of anti-Trump protest songs to a protracted pantomime in which a woman in a banana costume exhorted the crowd to pelt a Donald Trump impersonator with fresh peels. London, UK. Image: Dominic PrestonDuring a break in festivities, Alyssa told the crowd, “The most threatening sound to an oligarch is laughter.”— Dominic PrestonProspect Park, Brooklyn, New YorkThe No Kings protest at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza was a calmer affair. Instead of gathering under the picturesque memorial arch, protesters were largely sequestered to a corner right outside Prospect Park, with some streets blocked off by police. The weekly farmers market was in full swing, meaning people cradling bundles of rhubarb were swerving in and out of protest signs that read things like, “Hating Donald Trump is Brat” and “Is it time to get out the pitch forks?” Like during the Hands Off protest in April, New York got rain on Saturday.Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Image: Mia SatoThe area where protesters were gathered made it difficult to count the crowd, but there were hundreds — perhaps a few thousand — people that streamed in and out. At one point, some protesters began marching down the street alongside Prospect Park, while others stayed at Grand Army Plaza to chant, cheer, and hold signs up at oncoming vehicles. With its proximity to the public library, the park, and densely populated neighborhoods, the massive intersection is a high-foot traffic area. Cars blared their horns as they passed, American flags waving in the chilly afternoon breeze.Jane, a Brooklyn resident who stood on the curb opposite the protesters, said she isn’t typically someone who comes out to actions like this: before the No Kings event, she had only ever been to one protest, the Women’s March. (Jane asked that The Verge use her first name only.) Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Image: Mia Sato“I’m deeply concerned about our country,” Jane said, pausing as a long stream of trucks and cars honked continuously in support of the protesters in the background. “I think Trump is behaving as an authoritarian. We’ve seen in Russia, in Hungary, in Hong Kong, that the slide from freedom to not freedom is very fast and very quick if people do not make their voices heard,” Jane said. “I’m concerned that that’s what’s happening in the United States.” Jane also cited cuts to Medicaid and funding for academic research as well as tariffs as being “unacceptable.”Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Image: Mia SatoThe event was peaceful — there were lots of kids present — and people were in good spirits despite the rain. Protest signs ran the gamut from general anti-Trump slogans (“I trust light tampons more than this administration”) to New York City-specific causes like “Andrew Cuomo can’t read” (there is a contenious mayoral election this month). One sign read, “Fix your hearts or die,” an iconic line from the late director, David Lynch’s, Twin Peaks: The Return. And of course, amid nationwide immigration raids that have been escalated by the involvement of the federal government, ICE was top of mind: one sign simply read, “Melt ICE,” and another protester held a large “NO ICE IN NYC” sign. Though it was smaller and more contained than other events, the protest didn’t lack conviction: attendees of all ages stood in the cold rain, chanting and blowing into vuvuzela, banging the lids of pots and pans. At one point a man stood on the median on the street, leading the group in chants of “No justice, no peace.” Cars laid on the horn as they drove by.— Mia SatoAkron, OhioIt’s been raining pretty hard the last few days in Akron, OH, so much that I didn’t think there’d be a large turnout for our chapter of the No Kings protest. But I was emphatically proven wrong as the crowds I saw dwarfed the Tesla Takedown protests last month. Officially, the protest was to take place in front of the John F. Seiberling Federal Building on Main Street in Downtown Akron. But the concentration of people spilled over from that small space down Main Street and up Market Street. All told, though there were no official counts, I estimate somewhere between 500 to 900 people in this blue enclave in Northeast Ohio.The mood was exuberant, buoyed by supporters who honked their horns as they passed. The chorus of horns was nonstop, and when a sanitation truck honked as it went by, cheers got louder. The chants the crowds were singing took on a local flare. Ohio is the home of the Ohio State Buckeyes and anywhere you go, shout “O-H” and you’ll invariably get an “I-O” response. The crowds used that convention to make their own chant, “OH-IO, Donald Trump has got to go.”There was no police presence here and the crowd was very good at policing itself. Ostensibly out of concern for the incidents where people have rammed their cars into protestor crowds, the people here have taken up crossing guard duties, aiding folks who wish to cross Main or Market Streets. Toward the end of my time at the protest, I saw an older gentleman wearing Kent State gear and holding a sign that read, “Remember another time the National Guard was called in?” His sign featured a drawing of the famous photo from the event in which four Kent State students during a protest of the Vietnam War were killed by National Guard troops. I caught up with him to ask him some questions and he told me his name was Chuck Ayers, a professional cartoonist, and was present at the shooting. Akron, OH. Image: Ash Parrish“When I saw the National Guard in front of the federal building in LA,” he told me, “It was just another flashback.”He did not tell me this at the time, but Ayers is a nationally recognized cartoonist, noted for co-creating the comic strip Crankshaft. He’s lived in Ohio his entire life and of course, drew that sign himself. As he was telling me about how seeing news of the National Guard being deployed in LA, I could see him strain to hold back his emotions. He said it still hurts to see this 55 years later, but that he was heartened to see so many people standing here in community and solidarity. He also said that given his pain and trauma he almost didn’t come. When I asked why he showed up when it so obviously causes him pain he said simply, “Because I have to.”— Ash ParrishOneonta, New YorkOn a northward drive to Oneonta — population roughly 15,000, the largest city in New York’s mainly rural Otsego County — one of the most prominent landmarks is a sprawling barn splashed in huge, painted block letters with TRUMP 2024. (The final digits have been faithfully updated every election since 2016.) It’s Trump country, but not uniformly Trumpy country, as evidenced by what I estimated as a hundreds-strong crowd gathered in a field just below Main Street that came together with a friendly county-fair atmosphere. Kids sat on their parents’ shoulders; American flags fluttered next to signs with slogans like SHADE NEVER MADE ANYONE LESS GAY, and attendees grumbled persistently about the event’s feeble sound system, set up on the bed of a pickup truck. It was the kind of conspicuously patriotic, far-from-urban protest that the Trump administration has all but insisted doesn’t exist.Image: Adi RobertsonBeyond a general condemnation of Trump, protest signs repped the same issues being denounced across the country. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine made an appearance, as did Elon Musk and Tesla. A couple of people called out funding cuts for organizations like NPR, one neatly lettered sign reminded us that WEATHER FORECASTING SAVES LIVES, another warned “Keep your nasty little hands off Social Security,” and a lot — unsurprisingly, given the past week’s events — attacked mass deportations and ICE. An attendee who identified himself as Bill, standing behind a placard that blocked most of him from sight, laid out his anger at the administration’s gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency. “I think if it was not for protests, there would be no change,” he told me.The event itself, supported by a coalition including the local chapter of Indivisible, highlighted topics like reproductive justice and LGBTQ rights alongside issues for groups often stereotyped as Republican blocs — there was a speech about Department of Veterans Affairs cuts and a representative from the local Office for the Aging (whose words were mostly lost to the sound system’s whims). Rules for a march around the modest downtown were laid out: no blocking pedestrians or vehicles, and for the sake of families doing weekend shopping, watch the language. “Fuck!” one person yelled indistinctly from the audience. “No, no,” the event’s emcee chided gently. The philosophy, as she put it, was one of persuasion. “We want to build the resistance, not make people angry at us.”Image: Adi RobertsonBut even in a place that will almost certainly never see a National Guard deployment or the ire of a Truth Social post, the Trump administration’s brutal deportation program had just hit close to home. Only hours before the protest commenced, ICE agents were recorded handcuffing a man and removing him in an unmarked black car — detaining what was reportedly a legal resident seeking asylum from Venezuela. The mayor of Oneonta, Mark Drnek, relayed the news to the crowd. “ICE! We see you!” boomed Drnek from the truckbed. “We recognize you for what you are, and we understand, and we reject your vile purpose.”The crowd cheered furiously. The stars and stripes waved.- Adi RobertsonSee More: Policy

“I want to make a big announcement,” said Faryar Shirzad, the chief policy officer of Coinbase, to a nearly empty room. His words echoed across the massive hall at the Bitcoin Conference, deep in the caverns of The Venetian Expo in Las Vegas, and it wasn’t apparent how many people were watching on the livestream. Then again, somebody out there may have been interested in the panelists he was interviewing, one of whom was unusual by Bitcoin Conference standards: Chris LaCivita, the political consultant who’d co-chaired Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. “I am super proud to say it on this stage,” Shirzad continued, addressing the dozens of people scattered across 5,000 chairs. “We have just become a major sponsor of the America250 effort.” My jaw dropped. Coinbase, the world’s largest crypto exchange, the owner of 12 percent of the world’s Bitcoin supply, and listed on the S&P 500, was paying for Trump to hold a military parade.No wonder they made the announcement in an empty room. Today was “Code and Country”: an entire day of MAGA-themed panels on the Nakamoto Main Stage, full of Republican legislators, White House officials, and political operatives, all of whom praised Trump as the savior of the crypto world. But Code and Country was part of Industry Day, which was VIP only and closed to General Admission holders — the people with the $199 tickets, who flocked to the conference seeking wisdom from brilliant technologists and fabulously wealthy crypto moguls, who believed that decentralized currency on a blockchain could not be controlled by government authoritarians. They’d have drowned Shirzad in boos if they saw him give money to Donald Trump’s campaign manager, and they would have stormed the Nakamoto stage if they knew the purpose of America250. America250 is a nonprofit established by Congress during Barack Obama’s presidency with a mundane mission: to plan the nationwide festivities for July 4th, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “Who remembers the Bicentennial in 1976?” the co-chair, former U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios, asked the crowd. “I remember it like it was yesterday, and this one is going to be bigger and better.” But then Trump got re-elected, appointed LaCivita as co-chair, and suddenly, the party was starting earlier. The week before the conference, America250 announced that it would host a “Grand Military Parade” on June 14th to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, releasing tickets for prime seats along the parade route and near the Washington Monument on their website, hosting other festivities on the National Mall, and credentialing the press covering the event. (Their celebrations and events are a different operation from the U.S. Army, which had never planned for a parade to celebrate its 250th birthday, much less a military parade, but is now spending up to $45 million in taxpayer dollars to make the parade happen.) According to the most recent statements from Army officials, the parade will include hundreds of cannons, dozens of Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters, fighter jets, bombers, and 150 military vehicles, including Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Stryker Fighting Vehicles, Humvees, and if the logistics work out, 25 (or more) M1 Abrams tanks. Trump had spent years trying to get the government to throw a military parade — primarily because he’d attended a Bastille Day parade in France and became jealous — and now that he was back in office, he’d finally eliminated everyone in the government who previously told him that the budget didn’t exist for such a parade, that the tank treads would ruin the streets and collapse the bridges, that the optics of tanks, guns and soldiers marching down Constitution Avenue were too authoritarian and fascist. June 14th also happens to be Donald Trump’s birthday.And Coinbase, whose CEO once told his employees to stop bringing politics into the workplace, was now footing the bill — if not for this military parade watch party, then for the one inevitably happening next year, when America actually turns 250, or any other festivities between now and then that may or may not fall on Trump’s birthday. (This wasn’t the first party they helped fund, though. Earlier this year, Coinbase wrote a $1 million check to Trump’s inauguration committee. One month later, the SEC announced that it was dropping an investigation into Coinbase.) I had to keep reminding myself that I was at the Bitcoin Conference. I’d been desperately looking for the goofy, degenerate party vibes that my coworkers who’d covered previous crypto conferences told me about: inflated swans with QR codes. Multimillionaires strolling around the Nakamoto Stage in shiba inu pajamas. Folks who communicated in memes and acronyms. Celebrity athletes who were actual celebrities. “Bitcoin yoga,” whatever that was. Afterparties with drugs, lots of drugs, and probably the mind-bending designer kind. And hey, Las Vegas was the global capital of goofy, degenerate partying. But no, I was stuck in a prolonged flashback to every single Republican event I’ve covered over the past ten years – Trump rallies, conservative conferences, GOP conventions, and MAGA fundraisers, with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” playing on an endless loop. There was an emcee endlessly praising Trump, encouraging the audience to clap for Trump, and reminding everyone about how great it was that Trump spoke at the Conference last year, which all sounds even stranger when said in an Australian accent. In addition to LaCivita, there were four GOP Congressmen, four GOP Senators, one Trump-appointed SEC Commissioner, one Treasury Official, two senior White House officials (including David Sacks, the White House crypto and A.I. czar), and two of Trump’s sons. All of them, too, spent time praising Trump as the first “crypto president.” (Vice President J.D. Vance would be speaking the next day to the general admission crowd, but he was probably going to praise Trump, too.) The titles of the panels seemed to be run through some sort of MAGA generative AI system: The Next Golden Age of America. The American Super Grid. Making America the Global Bitcoin Superpower. The New Declaration of Independence: Bitcoin and the Path Out of the U.S. National Debt Crisis. (Speaker: Vivek Ramaswamy.) Uncancleable: Bitcoin, Rumble & Free Speech Technology. (Speaker: Donald Trump Jr.) The only difference was that this MAGA conference was funded by crypto. And if crypto was paying for a MAGA conference, and they had to play “God Bless the USA,” they were bringing in a string quartet.Annoyed that I had not yet seen a single Shiba Inu — no, Jim Justice’s celebrity bulldog was not the same thing — I left Nakamoto and went back to the press area. It hadn’t turned into Fox News yet, but I could see MAGA’s presence seeping into the world of podcasters and vloggers. A Newsmax reporter (great blowout, jewel-toned sheath dress, heels to the heavens, very camera-ready) was interviewing White House official Bo Hines (clean-cut, former Yale football player and GOP congressional candidate, nice suit), right before he was hustled onstage for a panel with a member of the U.S. Treasury. Soon, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) was doing an interview gauntlet while his senior aides stood by, one wearing a pink plaid blazer that could have easily been Brooks Brothers. Over on the Genesis Stage, the CEO of PragerU, a right wing media company that attacks higher education, was interviewing the CEO of the 1792 Exchange, a right-wing nonprofit that attacks companies for engaging in “woke business practices” such as diversity initiatives. (Leveraging Bitcoin’s Values to Shift the Culture in America.) I walked into the main expo center, past a crypto podcaster in a sequined bomber jacket talking to a Wall Street Journal reporter. For some reason, his presence was a relief. Even though he was clearly a Trump supporter — his jacket said TRUMP: THE GOLDEN AGE on the back — there was something more janky and homegrown, less corporate, about him. But the moment I looked up and saw a massive sign that said STEAKTOSHI, the unease returned. A ghoulish-looking group of executives from Steak ‘n Shake, the fast food company with over 450 locations across the globe, had gathered under the sign in a replica of the restaurant. They were selling jars of beef tallow, with a choice of grass-fed or Wagyu, and giving out a MAKE FRYING OIL TALLOW AGAIN hat with every purchase an overt embrace of the right-wing conspiracy that cooking with regular seed oils would lower one’s testosterone. (Relevant to the conference: they were also advertising that their restaurants now accepted Bitcoin.)Andrew Gordon, the head of Main Street Crypto PAC, had been to five previous Bitcoin Conferences and worked on crypto tax policy since 2014. He’d seen Trump speak at the last conference in Nashville during the election, and the audience – not typically unquestioning MAGA superfans – had melted into adoring goo in Trump’s presence. But now that Trump was using his presidential powers to establish a Bitcoin reserve, roll back federal investigations into crypto companies, and order massive changes to financial regulatory policies — in short, changing the entire market on crypto’s behalf with the stroke of a pen — Gordon clocked a notable vibe shift this year. “There are people wearing suits at a Bitcoin conference,” he told me wryly back in the press lounge. (He, too, was wearing a suit). The change wasn’t due to a new breed of Suit People flooding in. It was the Bitcoin veterans the ones who’d been coming to the conference for years, dressed in loud Versace jackets or old holey t-shirts – who were now in business attire. “They’re now recognizing the level of formality and how serious it is.”According to the Bitcoin Conference organizers, out of the 35,000-plus attendees in Vegas this year, 17.1 percent of them were categorized as “institutional and corporate decision-makers” — a vague way to describe politicians, corporate executives, and the rest of the C-suite world. Whenever they weren’t speaking onstage, they were conducting interviews with outlets hand-selected from dozens of media requests that had been filtered through the conference organizers, or in Q&A sessions with people who’d bought the $21,000 Whale Pass and could access the VIP Lounge. (Yes, the industry-only day of the conference had an even more exclusive tier.) They were sidebarring with crypto CEOs outside the conference for round tables, privately meeting Senators for lunch and White House officials for dinner. Gordon himself had just held a private breakfast for industry insiders, with GOP Senators Marsha Blackburn and Cynthia Lummis as special guests. And for the very, very wealthy, MAGA Inc., Trump’s primary super PAC, was holding a fundraising dinner in Vegas that night, with Vance, Don Jr., and Eric Trump in attendance. That ticket, according to The Washington Post, cost $1 million per person.It was the kind of amoral, backroom behavior that would have sent the General Admission attendees into a rage — and they did the next day, when the convention opened to them. During one extremely packed talk at the Genesis Stage called Are Bitcoiners Becoming Sycophants of the State?, a moderator asked the four panelists what they’d like to say to Vance and Sacks and all the politicians who’d been there yesterday. And Erik Cason erupted.“‘What you’re doing is actually immoral and bad. You hurt people. You actively want to use the state to implement violence against others.’ 
That’s like, fucked up and wrong,” said Cason, the author of “Cryptosovereignty,” to a crowd of hundreds. “If you personally wanna like, go to Yemen and try to stab those people, that’s on you. But asking other people to go do that – it is a fucked up and terrible thing.” He grew more heated. “And also fuck you. You’re not, like, a king. You’re supposed to be liable to the law, too. 
And I don’t appreciate you trying to think that that you just get to advance the state however the fuck you want, because you have power.”“These are the violent thugs who killed hundreds of millions of people over the last century,” agreed Bruce Fenton of Chainstone Labs. “They have nothing on us. All we wanna do is run some code and trade it around our nerd money. Leave us alone.”The audience burst into cheers and applause. Bitcoin was the promise of freedom from the government, who’d murdered and stolen and tried to control their lives, and now that their wealth was on the blockchain, no one could take their sovereignty. “Personally, I don’t really care what they [the politicians] think,” said American HODL, whose title on the conference site was “guy with 6.15 bitcoin,” the derision clear in his voice. “They are employees who work for us, so their thoughts and opinions on the matter are irrelevant. Do what the fuck we tell you to do.
 I don’t work for you. I’m not underneath you. You’re underneath me.” But the politicians weren’t going to listen to them, much less talk to them. The politicians spent the conference surrounded by aides and security who stopped people from approaching – I’m sorry, the Senator has to leave for an engagement now – or safely inside the VIP rooms with the $21,000-dollar Whale Pass holders and the million-dollar donors. By the time American HODL said that the politicians worked for him, they were on flights out of Vegas, having gotten what they wanted from Code and Country, an event that was closed to General Admission pass holders.Coinbase’s executives were at Code and Country, however. Coinbase held over 984,000 Bitcoin, more coins than American HODL could mine in a lifetime. And Coinbase was now a sponsor of Donald Trump’s birthday military parade. The Nakamoto Stage during Code + Country at the Bitcoin Conference.After David Sacks and the Winklevoss twins finished explaining how Trump had saved the crypto industry from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (or as one Winklevoss called her, “Pocahontas”), I was jonesing for a drink. A few other reporters on the ground had told me about “Code, Country and Cocktails,” the America250 afterparty held at the Ayu Dayclub at Resort World, and I signed up immediately. Reporters at past Bitcoin Conferences had promised legendary side-event depravity, and I hoped I would find it there. As I entered the lush, tropical nightclub, I saw two white-gloved hands sticking out the side of the wall, each holding a glass of champagne at crotch level. I reached out for a flute, thinking it was maybe just a fucked-up piece of art, and gasped as the hand let go of the stem, disappeared into the hole, and emerged seconds later with another full champagne glass. Past the champagne glory hole wall — there was really no other way to describe it — was a massive outdoor swimming pool, surrounded by chefs serving up endless portions of steak frites, unguarded magnums of Moët casually stacked in ice buckets, the professional Beautiful Women of Las Vegas draped around Peter Schiff, the famous economist/podcaster/Bitcoin skeptic. When not booked for private events, the crescent-shaped pool at Ayu would be filled with drunk people in swim suits, dancing to DJ Kaskade. No one was in the pool tonight. Depravity was not happening here. In fact, there was more networking going on than partying, and it was somehow more engaging than Bone Thugs-N-Harmony suddenly appearing onstage to perform. And it was distinctly not just about making money in crypto. A good percentage of this crowd wore some derivative of a MAGA hat, and anyone who could show off their photos of them with Trump did so. This, I realized, was how crypto bros did politics — a new game for them, where success and influence was not necessarily quantifiable. “Crypto got Trump elected,” Greg Grseziak, an agent who manages crypto influencers, told me, showing me his Trump photo opp. “In four years, this is going to be the biggest event in the presidential race.”Grzesiak walked off to do more networking, I finished my glory hole champagne, and in the meantime, Bone Thugs had started performing “East 1999”. A fellow reporter leaned over. “Who do you think those guys are?” he asked, pointing to a group of extremely tall white men in suits and lanyards, standing behind a velvet rope to the left of the stage.I walked over to investigate. They looked like the group of Steak ‘n Shake executives I met at the Expo Hall — the ones with the beef tallow jars and derivative MAGA hats — and they were lurking next to the stage, watching the rappers like vultures but barely moving to the music. This scene was too preposterous to actually be real: Steak ‘n Shake executives, at the Bitcoin Conference, attending a party for America250, in the VIP section, during a Bone Thugs-n-Harmony set? “Shout out to Steak ‘n Shake for being the first fast food restaurant to accept Bitcoin!” announced one of the Bones. The company logo appeared on a screen above his head.No flashy Vegas magic (or dancers in cow costumes, now shimmying onstage with Steak ‘n Shake signs) could mask what I just saw. This party was co-sponsored by a MAGA-branded fast-food chain owned by Sardar Biglari, a businessman who had purchased Maxim, became its editor-in-chief, and used the smutty magazine to endorse Trump in 2024. So was Frax, the stablecoin exchange, and Exodus, one of the biggest crypto wallet companies in the market. Bitcoin Magazine’s logo flashed across the stage at one point, as editor-in-chief David Bailey, in his own derivative MAGA hat, tried to hype up the crowd for J.D. Vance’s speech the next day. (“You only get to live history once,” he said, to faint cheers.)For some unknown reason, these companies were all putting their money into America250, and as I had to keep reminding myself, America250 — the government nonprofit in charge of planning the country’s celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration’s signing — was currently working to get tanks in the streets of Washington DC for Donald Trump’s birthday. I went for one last champagne flute from the glory hole, just for the novelty, and as the hand disappeared back into the wall, I caught something I’d missed earlier: above the hole was a logo for TRON, the blockchain exchange run by billionaire Justin Sun. He had faced several fraud investigations from the SEC that magically disappeared after he invested $75 million in a Trump family crypto company, and seemed more than happy to keep throwing crypto money at Trump. Recently, he won the $TRUMP meme coin dinner, spending over $16 million on the token in exchange for a private and controversial dinner with the president.TRON was also cosponsoring the America250 party.Earlier, I’d run into the Australian emcee in the elevator of The Palazzo. She’d spent the day teetering across the Nakamoto Stage in dainty kitten heels, a pinstriped blazer and miniskirt suit set, and given the gratuitous Trump praising and the fact she was blonde, I had stereotyped her as MAGA to the core. But the program was over and she was holding her heels by their ankle straps, barefoot and sighing in relief. This was not her usual style, she told an attendee. She’d take a pair of sneakers over heels if she could. But the conference organizers had told her to dress up because there were senators in attendance. “Tomorrow, the real Bitcoiners are coming,” she said, and she’d get to wear flat shoes. And the next morning, on the day of Vance’s speech, I found myself stuck outside the conference with the “real Bitcoiners.” In spite of all the emails that the conference had sent me reminding me of how strict security measures would be, possibly to overcorrect from last year’s utter shitshow around Trump’s appearance, I’d woken up too late, eaten my bagel too leisurely, got sidetracked by a police officer-turned-Bitcoin investor excited I was wearing orange (whoops), and barely missed the cutoff for the Secret Service to let me in. But the conference had set up televisions with a live feed of Vance’s speech, and the rest of the general admission attendees were remarkably chill about it, opting to mingle in the hallways until the Secret Service left. I found myself in a smaller crowd near the expo hall door, next to a young man carrying a live miniature Shiba Inu (“It’s a tiny doge!” he said proudly), and the podcaster I’d seen earlier in the sequined bomber jacket. He introduced himself as Action CEO, and with nothing else to do but wait — “You can watch the [Vance] replay,” he reassured me, “these events are mainly about networking” — we got to talking. “I’m actually excited that Trump isn’t even here, I’ll be honest with you,” he said, speaking with a rapid cadence. Trump was ultimately just one guy, and the fact that he sent his underlings and political allies — the ones who could actually implement his grand promises for the crypto industry — proved he hadn’t just been paying lip service. That said, it had come with some uncomfortable changes, including the re-emergence of Justin Sun. “It’s a little bit concerning when you say, All right, we don’t care what you did in the past. Come on out, clean slate,” he continued. “That’s the concern right now for most people. Seeing people that did wrong by the space coming back and acting like nothing happened? That’s a little concerning.” And not just that: Sun was back in the United States, having dinner with Trump, and giving him millions of dollars. “If you’re sitting in a room and having a conversation, people are literally gonna go, yeah, it’s kind of sketch that this guy is back here after everything that’s happened. You’re not gonna see it published, because it’s not a popular opinion, but we’re all definitely talking about it.” If Action’s friends weren’t comfortable talking about it openly, that fraudsters with enough money were suddenly back in the mix, it was certainly not the kind of conversation the CEOs were going to have in front of the General Admission crowd. (Though it did mean that the emcee, looking much happier than she did the day before, got to wear low-heeled boots and shorts.) But behind closed doors — or at least at the Code and Country panels, where the base pass attendees couldn’t boo them — they gave a sense of what their backroom conversations with the Trump administration did look like.“I was actually at a dinner last night and one of the things that someone from the admin said was, What if we give you guys everything you want and then you guys forget? Because there’s midterms in 2026, and hopefully 2028, and beyond,” said Sam Kazemian, the founder and CEO of Frax, which had sponsored the America250 party. “But one of the things I said was: We as an industry are very, very loyal. The crypto community has a very, very, very strong memory. And once this industry is legalized, is transparent, is safe, all of the big players understand that this wasn’t possible without this administration, this Congress, this Senate. We’re lifelong, career-long allies.”“Loyalty” is a dangerous concept with this president, who’s cheated on his three wives, stopped paying the legal fees for employees who’d taken the fall for him, ended the careers of sympathetic MAGA Republicans for insufficiently coddling him, withdrew security for government employees experiencing death threats for the sin of contradicting him in public by citing facts. It was only weeks ago that he and Vance were publicly screaming at Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, who was at the White House to request more aid in the war against Russia, for not saying “thank you” in front of the cameras. It would be less than a week before he began threatening to cancel all of Elon Musk’s government contracts when the billionaire criticized the size of Trump’s budget, even though Musk had given him millions and helped him purge the government. And if you were to find a photo of any political leader, billionaire or CEO standing vacant-eyed next to Trump and shaking his hand, the circumstances are practically a given: they had recently made him unhappy, either for criticizing him, making an imagined slight, or simply asserting themselves. The only way they could avoid public humiliation, or their businesses being crushed via executive order, was to go to Mar-a-Lago, tell the world that the president was wonderful, and underwrite a giant party for his birthday military parade. Maybe Kazemian knew he was being tested, or maybe the 32-year old Ron Paul superfan had no idea what the administration was asking of him. Either way, he responded correctly. At least one person at the conference was thinking about ways that the government could betray the Bitcoin community. As the panel on Bitcoiners becoming sycophants of the state wrapped up, and the other panelists finished telling the government pigs to go fuck themselves and keep their hands off their nerd money, the moderator turned to Casey Rodarmor, a software engineer-turned-crypto influencer, for the last question: “Tell everyone here why Bitcoin wins, regardless of what happens.”“Oh, man, I don’t know if Bitcoin wins, regardless of what happens,” he responded, frowning. He had already gamed out one feasible situation where Bitcoin lost: “If we all of a sudden saw a very rapid inflation in a lot of fiat currencies, and there was a plausible scapegoat in Bitcoin all over the world, and they were able to make a sort of marketing claim that Bitcoin is causing this — Bitcoin is making your savings go to zero, it’s causing this carnage to the economy — 
If that happens worldwide, I think that’s really scary.” The moderator froze, the crowd murmured nervously, and I thought about the number of times Trump had blamed a group of people for problems they’d never caused. An awful lot of them were now being deported. “I take that seriously,” Rodarmor continued. “I don’t know that Bitcoin will succeed. I think that Bitcoin is incredibly strong, it’s incredibly difficult to fuck up. But in that case… man, I don’t know.” I had asked Action CEO earlier if Kazemian, the Frax CEO, was right — if the crypto world was unquestioningly loyal to Trump, if their support of him was unconditional. “Oh, it’s definitely conditional,” he said without hesitation, as his Trump jacket glittered under the fluorescent lights. “It’s a matter of, are you going to be doing the right things by us, by the people who are here?” We walked down the expo hall, past booths promising life-changing technological marvels, alongside thousands of people flooding into Nakamoto Hall, ready to learn how to become unfathomably rich, who paid $199 to be there.The audience of “Are Bitcoiners Becoming Sychophants of the State?”, Day Two of the Bitcoin ConferenceSee More:

June 3, 20258 min readWhite House Budget Plan Would Devastate U.S. Space ScienceScientists are rallying to reverse ruinous proposed cuts to both NASA and the National Science FoundationBy Nadia Drake edited by Lee BillingsFog shrouds the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in this photograph from February 25, 2025. Gregg Newton/AFP via GettyLate last week the Trump Administration released its detailed budget request for fiscal year 2026 —a request that, if enacted, would be the equivalent of carpet-bombing the national scientific enterprise.“This is a profound, generational threat to scientific leadership in the United States,” says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a science advocacy group. “If implemented, it would fundamentally undermine and potentially devastate the most unique capabilities that the U.S. has built up over a half-century.”The Trump administration’s proposal, which still needs to be approved by Congress, is sure to ignite fierce resistance from scientists and senators alike. Among other agencies, the budget deals staggering blows to NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), which together fund the majority of U.S. research in astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science, heliophysics and Earth science —all space-related sciences that have typically mustered hearty bipartisan support.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The NSF supports ground-based astronomy, including such facilities as the Nobel Prize–winning gravitational-wave detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), globe-spanning arrays of radio telescopes, and cutting-edge observatories that stretch from Hawaii to the South Pole. The agency faces a lethal 57 percent reduction to its $9-billion budget, with deep cuts to every program except those in President Trump’s priority areas, which include artificial intelligence and quantum information science. NASA, which funds space-based observatories, faces a 25 percent reduction, dropping the agency’s $24.9-billion budget to $18.8 billion. The proposal beefs up efforts to send humans to the moon and to Mars, but the agency’s Science Mission Directorate —home to Mars rovers, the Voyager interstellar probes, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Hubble Space Telescope, and much more —is looking at a nearly 50 percent reduction, with dozens of missions canceled, turned off or operating on a starvation diet.“It’s an end-game scenario for science at NASA,” says Joel Parriott, director of external affairs and public policy at the American Astronomical Society. “It’s not just the facilities. You’re punching a generation-size hole, maybe a multigenerational hole, in the scientific and technical workforce. You don’t just Cryovac these people and pull them out when the money comes back. People are going to move on.”Adding to the chaos, on Saturday President Trump announced that billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman was no longer his pick for NASA administrator—just days before the Senate was set to confirm Isaacman’s nomination. Initial reports—which have now been disputed—explained the president’s decision as stemming from his discovery that Isaacman recently donated money to Democratic candidates. Regardless of the true reason, the decision leaves both NASA and the NSF, whose director abruptly resigned in April, with respective placeholder “acting” leaders at the top. That leadership vacuum significantly weakens the agencies’ ability to fight the proposed budget cuts and advocate for themselves. “What’s more inefficient than a rudderless agency without an empowered leadership?” Dreier asks.Actions versus WordsDuring his second administration, President Trump has repeatedly celebrated U.S. leadership in space. When he nominated Isaacman last December, Trump noted “NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration” and looked to a future of “groundbreaking achievements in space science, technology and exploration.” More recently, while celebrating Hubble’s 35th anniversary in April, Trump called the telescope “a symbol of America’s unmatched exploratory might” and declared that NASA would “continue to lead the way in fueling the pursuit of space discovery and exploration.” The administration’s budgetary actions speak louder than Trump’s words, however. Instead of ushering in a new golden age of space exploration—or even setting up the U.S. to stay atop the podium—the president’s budget “narrows down what the cosmos is to moon and Mars and pretty much nothing else,” Dreier says. “And the cosmos is a lot bigger, and there’s a lot more to learn out there.”Dreier notes that when corrected for inflation, the overall NASA budget would be the lowest it’s been since 1961. But in April of that year, the Soviet Union launched the first human into orbit, igniting a space race that swelled NASA’s budget and led to the Apollo program putting American astronauts on the moon. Today China’s rapidprogress and enormous ambitions in space would make the moment ripe for a 21st-century version of this competition, with the U.S. generously funding its own efforts to maintain pole position. Instead the White House’s budget would do the exact opposite.“The seesaw is sort of unbalanced,” says Tony Beasley, director of the NSF-funded National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). “On the one side, we’re saying, ‘Well, China’s kicking our ass, and we need to do something about that.’ But then we’re not going to give any money to anything that might actually do that.”How NASA will achieve a crewed return to the moon and send astronauts to Mars—goals that the agency now considers part of “winning the second space race”—while also maintaining its leadership in science is unclear.“This is Russ Vought’s budget,” Dreier says, referring to the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), an unelected bureaucrat who has been notorious for his efforts to reshape the U.S. government by weaponizing federal funding. “This isn’t even Trump’s budget. Trump’s budget would be good for space. This one undermines the president’s own claims and ambitions when it comes to space.”“Low Expectations” at the High FrontierRumors began swirling about the demise of NASA science in April, when a leaked OMB document described some of the proposed cuts and cancellations. Those included both the beleaguered, bloated Mars Sample Return (MSR) program and the on-time, on-budget Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the next astrophysics flagship mission.The top-line numbers in the more fleshed-out proposal are consistent with that document, and MSR would still be canceled. But Roman would be granted a stay of execution: rather than being zeroed out, it would be put on life support.“It’s a reprieve from outright termination, but it’s still a cut for functionally no reason,” Dreier says. “In some ways, [the budget] is slightly better than I was expecting. But I had very low expectations.”In the proposal, many of the deepest cuts would be made to NASA science, which would sink from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion. Earth science missions focused on carbon monitoring and climate change, as well as programs aimed at education and workforce diversity, would be effectively erased by the cuts. But a slew of high-profile planetary science projects would suffer, too, with cancellations proposed for two future Venus missions, the Juno mission that is currently surveilling Jupiter, the New Horizons mission that flew by Pluto and two Mars orbiters. (The Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan would survive, as would the flagship Europa Clipper spacecraft, which launched last October.) NASA’s international partnerships in planetary science fare poorly, too, as the budget rescinds the agency’s involvement with multiple European-led projects, including a Venus mission and Mars rover.The proposal is even worse for NASA astrophysics—the study of our cosmic home—which “really takes it to the chin,” Dreier says, with a roughly $1-billion drop to just $523 million. In the president’s proposal, only three big astrophysics missions would survive: the soon-to-launch Roman and the already-operational Hubble and JWST. The rest of NASA’s active astrophysics missions, which include the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), would be severely pared back or zeroed out. Additionally, the budget would nix NASA’s contributions to large European missions, such as a future space-based gravitational-wave observatory.“This is the most powerful fleet of missions in the history of the study of astrophysics from space,” says John O’Meara, chief scientist at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and co-chair of a recent senior review panel that evaluated NASA’s astrophysics missions. The report found that each reviewed mission “continues to be capable of producing important, impactful science.” This fleet, O’Meara adds, is more than the sum of its parts, with much of its power emerging from synergies among multiple telescopes that study the cosmos in many different types, or wavelengths, of light.By hollowing out NASA’s science to ruthlessly focus on crewed missions, the White House budget might be charitably viewed as seeking to rekindle a heroic age of spaceflight—with China’s burgeoning space program as the new archrival. But even for these supposedly high-priority initiatives, the proposed funding levels appear too anemic and meager to give the U.S. any competitive edge. For example, the budget directs about $1 billion to new technology investments to support crewed Mars missions while conservative estimates have projected that such voyages would cost hundreds of billions of dollars more.“It cedes U.S. leadership in space science at a time when other nations, particularly China, are increasing their ambitions,” Dreier says. “It completely flies in the face of the president’s own stated goals for American leadership in space.”Undermining the FoundationThe NSF’s situation, which one senior space scientist predicted would be “diabolical” when the NASA numbers leaked back in April, is also unsurprisingly dire. Unlike NASA, which is focused on space science and exploration, the NSF’s programs span the sweep of scientific disciplines, meaning that even small, isolated cuts—let alone the enormous ones that the budget has proposed—can have shockingly large effects on certain research domains.“Across the different parts of the NSF, the programs that are upvoted are the president’s strategic initiatives, but then everything else gets hit,” Beasley says.Several large-scale NSF-funded projects would escape more or less intact. Among these are the panoramic Vera C. Rubin Observatory, scheduled to unveil its first science images later this month, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope. The budget also moves the Giant Magellan Telescope, which would boast starlight-gathering mirrors totaling more than 25 meters across, into a final design phase. All three of those facilities take advantage of Chile’s pristine dark skies. Other large NSF-funded projects that would survive include the proposed Next Generation Very Large Array of radio telescopes in New Mexico and several facilities at the South Pole, such as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.If this budget is enacted, however, NSF officials anticipate only funding a measly 7 percent of research proposals overall rather than 25 percent; the number of graduate research fellowships awarded would be cleaved in half, and postdoctoral fellowships in the physical sciences would drop to zero. NRAO’s Green Bank Observatory — home to the largest steerable single-dish radio telescope on the planet — would likely shut down. So would other, smaller observatories in Arizona and Chile. The Thirty Meter Telescope, a humongous, perennially embattled project with no clear site selection, would be canceled. And the budget proposes closing one of the two gravitational-wave detectors used by the LIGO collaboration—whose observations of colliding black holes earned the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics—even though both detectors need to be online for LIGO’s experiment to work. Even factoring in other operational detectors, such as Virgo in Europe and the Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA) in Japan, shutting down half of LIGO would leave a gaping blind spot in humanity’s gravitational-wave view of the heavens.“The consequences of this budget are that key scientific priorities, on the ground and in space, will take at least a decade longer—or not be realized at all,” O’Meara says. “The universe is telling its story at all wavelengths. It doesn’t care what you build, but if you want to hear that story, you must build many things.”Dreier, Parriott and others are anticipating fierce battles on Capitol Hill. And already both Democratic and Republican legislators have issued statement signaling that they won’t support the budget request as is. “This sick joke of a budget is a nonstarter,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, in a recent statement. And in an earlier statement, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the powerful Senate Committee on Appropriations, cautioned that “the President’s Budget Request is simply one step in the annual budget process.”The Trump administration has “thrown a huge punch here, and there will be a certain back-reaction, and we’ll end up in the middle somewhere,” Beasley says. “The mistake you can make right now is to assume that this represents finalized decisions and the future—because it doesn’t.”

The drama between US president Donald Trump and his former buddy-in-chief Elon Musk is far from over.As ABC reported today, now that he's been summarily retired from the White House, the billionaire SpaceX boss has been privately venting his frustrations at Trump. One particularly stinging betrayal, per the network's reporting: Trump's sudden withdrawal of Musk's buddy and financial benefactor, Jared Isaacman, from consideration to be the next NASA administrator.As the day progressed, Musk's tension with Trump exploded into public view as history's richest man tweeted or amplified no less than 25 posts blasting Trump's "big, beautiful" tax and spending bill, which takes the form of yet another piece of legislation meant to gut assistance for the poorest Americans while siphoning money to the ultra-wealthy.However, that isn't Musk's issue with the package. Instead, his commentary is centered on the bill's impact on the US national deficit — something he tried and failed to curb in any meaningful way during his time as a pay-to-play government operative.On X-formerly-Twitter, Musk's frenzied posts range from Rand Paul interview clips to hysterical conspiracy peddling. ("America is in the fast lane to debt slavery," he fomented at one point.)"Call your Senator, call your Congressman, bankrupting America is NOT ok!" Musk urged his 220 million followers on X-formerly-Twitter. "KILL the BILL."The tech titan also went out of his way to amplify some low-res footage of Warren Buffett explaining his theoretical plan to reduce the deficit. "Anytime there's a deficit of more than 3 percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection," the investor suggested, to which Musk replied that "this is the way."Needless to say, a month ago — or even a week — this type of assault on Trump by Musk would have been unthinkable. The bill is also a baffling hill for the tech mogul to die on, especially considering that government spending is what made his tech dynasty possible in the first place. It's more plausible, as Axios notes, that national debt is a smokescreen for other issues nearer to Musk's heart. Most notably, the big beautiful bill is set to cut the electric vehicle tax credits that made Tesla the automotive giant it is today. (Confusingly, as recently as last year, Musk was publicly calling for an end to the tax credit — but that was before his activities in the White House eviscerated Tesla's brand image and sent it deeply into the red.)Of course, that raises another intriguing possibility: that at least some portion of Musk's rage at Trump is essentially kayfabe, with Musk betting that a break from the president could resuscitate at least some enthusiasm for the Tesla brand among the left-leaning customers that he's successfully turned off over the past year.If so, it's not hard to imagine Musk instead accidentally alienating more or less everybody — failing to get the environmental left back on board, but also creating a powerful enemy with Trump, who holds immense power over the government contracts and policy that keep Musk's business empire afloat.More on politics: Elon Musk’s Dad Slams His Son's Whimpering Failure at PoliticsShare This Article

/May 30, 2025/4:28 p.m. ETTrump Attacks Harvard With Social Media Screening for All VisasThis pilot program will soon be expanded across the country.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesThe Trump administration has begun carrying out its expanded vetting for student visa applicants, surveilling their social media accounts to make sure they aren’t posting anything in support of Palestine, which the administration considers antisemitic. This vetting will start with Harvard visa applicants but is expected to be adopted nationwide.Secretary of Stato Marco Rubio sent a cable to all U.S. embassies and consulates on Thursday ordering them to “conduct a complete screening of the online presence of any nonimmigrant visa applicant seeking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose.” That would apply not just to students but also to faculty, staff, and researchers visiting the university.The Trump administration is taking particular interest in people who have their social media accounts on “private,” an obvious, ominous crossing of boundaries.The State Department has ordered officers to examine “whether the lack of any online presence, or having social media accounts restricted to ‘private’ or with limited visibility, may be reflective of evasiveness and call into question the applicant’s credibility.”This is yet another instance of Harvard serving as a test subject for the administration’s larger crackdown on free speech and international students at American universities. Trump has already revoked billions of dollars in research funding from the Massachusetts school, and even banned it from admitting any international students at all, although the latter policy was temporarily revoked by a judge. Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/3:53 p.m. ETStephen Miller Grilled on Musk’s Drug Use as Wife Lands New GigTrump’s chief adviser seems desperate to avoid questions on Elon Musk. Does that have anything to do with his wife’s new job? Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesStephen Miller had a dismissive response Friday to new reports of Elon Musk’s drug use during Trump’s campaign last year. CNN’s Pamela Brown asked the far-right Trump adviser if there was “any drug testing or requests for him to drug test when he was in the White House given the fact that he was also a contractor with the government.”  A chuckling Miller ignored the question and said, “Fortunately for you and all of the friends at CNN, you’ll have the opportunity to ask Elon all the questions you want today yourself,” before he then segued into the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda. “The drugs I’m concerned about are the drugs that are coming across the border from the criminal cartels that are killing hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Miller said. Perhaps Miller laughed instead of answering because his wife, Katie Miller, has left her job as adviser and spokesperson for the Department of Government Efficiency to work full-time for Musk and his companies. Miller has probably had enough of Musk, as he has also been subtweeting the tech oligarch, trying to refute Musk’s criticisms that the Republican budget bill would raise the deficit. “The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government. It does not finance our agencies or federal programs,” Miller said, in a long X post earlier this week. Is there bad blood between Miller and Musk that has now spiraled because Miller’s wife is working for the tech oligarch and fellow fascism enthusiast? Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/3:19 p.m. ETOld Man Trump Repeatedly Fumbles in Weird Speech Praising Elon MuskDonald Trump couldn’t keep some of his words straight as he marked the supposed end of Elon Musk’s tenure at the White House.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesHours after reports emerged Friday that Elon Musk had been under the influence of heavy drugs during his time advising the president, Musk and Donald Trump stumbled and fumbled their way through a White House press conference recognizing the end of the tech billionaire’s special government employee status.The wildly unusual joint conference featured Musk’s black eye, a giant gold key that Trump said he only gives to “very special people,” cringe-worthy regurgitations by Musk of Trump’s take on his Pulitzer Board defamation suit, and claims that Musk’s unpopular and controversial time in the White House was not quite over.But as Trump continued to praise Musk and his time atop the Department of Government Efficiency, the president’s verbal gaffes became more apparent. He claimed that DOGE had uncovered $42 million in wasteful spending, referring to expenditures related to Uganda, which Trump pronounced as “oo-ganda.” The 78-year-old also mentioned he would have Musk’s DOGE cuts “cauterized by Congress,” though he quickly corrected himself by saying they would be “affirmed by Congress,” instead. Trump’s on-camera slippage has gotten worse in recent weeks: Earlier this month, Trump dozed off while in a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That is despite the fact that the president received a clean bill of health in a medical report released in April that described Trump as being in “excellent health,” including neurological functioning.Musk, meanwhile, refused to acknowledge emerging reports of his alleged drug use. But the news of White House drug use under Trump’s helm is nothing new: In fact, if the reports prove true, it would be little more than a return to form. Last year, a report by the Department of Defense inspector general indicated that the West Wing operated more like a pill mill than the nation’s highest office. Common pills included modafinil, Adderall, fentanyl, morphine, and ketamine, according to the Pentagon report. But other, unlisted drugs—like Xanax—were equally easy to come by from the White House Medical Unit, according to anonymous sources that spoke to Rolling Stone.While other presidents were known to take a mix of drug cocktails to fight off back pain (like JFK) or bad moods (like Nixon), no previous administrations matched the level of debauchery of Trump’s, whose in-office pharmacists unquestioningly handed out highly addictive substances to staffers who needed pick-me-ups or energy boosts—no doctor’s exam, referral, or prescription required.“It was kind of like the Wild West. Things were pretty loose. Whatever someone needs, we were going to fill this,” another source told Rolling Stone in March 2024.Meanwhile, pharmacists described an atmosphere of fear within the West Wing, claiming they would be “fired” if they spoke out or would receive negative work assignments if they didn’t hand pills over to staffers.Read more about the press conference:Trump and Elon Musk Have Ominous Warning About Future of DOGEMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/3:00 p.m. ETElon Musk Gives Strange Excuse for Massive Black EyeMusk showed up a press conference with Donald Trump sporting a noticeable shiner.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesElon Musk sported what looked like a black eye during his DOGE goodbye press conference with President Trump on Friday. When asked about it, he blamed the bruise on his 5-year-old son punching him in the face. “Mr. Musk … is your eye OK? What happened to your eye; I noticed there’s a bruise there?” one reporter finally asked near the end of the press conference.“Well, I wasn’t anywhere near France,” Musk said, in a weak attempt at a joke regarding footage of French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife slapping him in the face.“I was just horsing around with [my son] little X and said, ‘Go ’head and punch me in the face,’ and he did. Turns out even a 5-year-old punching you in the face actually does—”“That was X that did it? X could do it!” Trump chimed in. “If you knew X …”“I didn’t really feel much at the time; I guess it bruises up. But I was just messing around with the kids.”Musk chose an impeccable time to show up to a press conference with a black eye. Earlier in the day, The New York Times reported on Musk’s rampant drug use on and off the campaign trail, as the world’s richest man frequently mixed ketamine and psychedelics and kept a small box of pills, mostly containing Adderall. The shiner only adds to speculation around his personal habits.More on that Times report:Elon Musk Was on Crazy Combo of Drugs During Trump CampaignMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/2:51 p.m. ETTrump and Elon Musk Have Ominous Warning About Future of DOGEElon Musk’s time as a government employee has come to an end, but his time with Donald Trump has not.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesDespite the fanfare over Elon Musk’s supposed departure from the Department of Government Efficiency, Donald Trump says that the billionaire bureaucrat isn’t really going anywhere.“Many of the DOGE people are staying behind, so they’re not leaving. And Elon’s not really leaving. He’s gonna be back and forth, I think. I have a feeling. It’s his baby, and he’s gonna be doing a lot of things,” Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office Friday.The press conference was held to mark the end of Musk’s time as a so-called “special government employee,” a title that allowed him to bypass certain ethics requirements during his 134-day stint in Trump’s administration. The president made sure to give Musk a gaudy golden key—what it actually unlocks went totally unaddressed—to make sure he could get back into the White House. “This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning,” Musk said, promising that DOGE’s “influence” would “only grow stronger” over time.Earlier Friday, the billionaire bureaucrat shared a post on X asserting that the legacy of DOGE was more psychological than anything else. Surely, it will take longer than four months to forget the image of Musk running around with a chainsaw. Read more about Musk:Elon Musk Was on Crazy Combo of Drugs During Trump CampaignMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/1:21 p.m. ETDem Governor Vetoes Ban on Surprise Ambulance Bills in Shocking MoveThe bill had unanimous support in both chambers of the state legislature.Michael Ciaglo/Getty ImagesColorado’s Democratic Governor Jared Polis has vetoed a bill that would ban surprise billing by ambulance companies, over the unanimous objections of both chambers of the state legislature. Why would Polis veto a bill that’s popular with everyone, even Colorado Republicans? The governor wrote in his veto statement that drafting errors in the bill made it “unimplementable” and estimated that it would make insurance premiums go up by as much as $0.73 to $2.15 per person. “I am committed to working with proponents and sponsors to protect Coloradans from surprise bills, but I encourage all parties to work towards a more reasonable reimbursement rate that mitigates premium impacts and nets a better deal for Colorado families,” Polis wrote. In Colorado, if legislators in both chambers repass the bill with a two-thirds majority, they can override the governor’s veto, especially considering that the bill passed with the support of every single legislator. But the legislature adjourned on May 7, meaning that the bill has to be passed again when the legislature reconvenes in January.  For some reason, ending surprise ambulance billing nationally is not the slam-dunk issue it should be. Congress ended most surprise medical bills in 2020 but exempted ground ambulances from the bill. Was Polis’s veto due to badly drafted language and a (seemingly modest) price hike in insurance premiums, as he said, or was it for a different, more nefarious reason? We might not know unless and until the bill is reintroduced next year. More on surprise ambulance bills:Congress Doesn’t Care About Your Surprise Ambulance Bill Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/12:21 p.m. ETTrump’s Pardons Since Jan 6 Spree Show an Infuriatingly Corrupt TrendSince his January 6 pardon spree, Donald Trump has tended to grant clemency a little closer to home.Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty ImagesA good chunk of the white-collar criminals pardoned by Donald Trump after his massive “Day One” pardoning spree either have a political or financial tie to him.The president has issued 60 pardons since he offered political forgiveness to some 1,600 individuals charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. But out of those subsequent 60 unrelated to the attack, 12 people—or roughly one in five—were already in Trump’s orbit, according to ABC News.They included several politicos, including former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted on several counts of corruption, including for an attempt to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat after he left the position for the White House; former Republican Representative Michael Grimm, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud; former Nevada gubernatorial candidate Michele Fiore, who allegedly stole public funds intended to commemorate a slain police officer; and former Tennessee state Senator Brian Kelsey, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud in 2022.Trump also pardoned major financiers of his presidential campaigns. Trevor Milton, the founder of the Nikola electric vehicle company, donated nearly $2 million toward Trump’s 2024 campaign. Imaad Zuberi, who has donated to both parties, issued “at least $800,000 to committees associated with Trump and the Republican Party,” ABC reported.Others helped Trump advance his retribution campaign against his political enemies, or helped advance his own image in the broader Republican Party. Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, both former business partners of Hunter Biden, accused the younger Biden of leveraging his father’s name and influence in order to conduct business overseas. Archer had defrauded a Native American tribal entity, while Galanis was serving time for multiple offenses. Trump also forgave Todd and Julie Chrisley—reality TV stars known for their show Chrisley Knows Best who were sentenced to a combined 19 years on fraud and tax evasion charges—after their daughter Savannah Chrisley spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention.Speaking to press Friday after her parents’ release, Savannah Chrisley said that the “biggest misconception right now is I either paid for a pardon or slept for a pardon—,” but she couldn’t finish her sentence before Todd interjected: “That’s something I would have done,” he said.Read who else Trump is thinking of pardoning:Trump Considering Pardons for Men Who Tried to Kill Gretchen WhitmerMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/12:04 p.m. ETTrump Knew He Was Deporting Innocent People to El Salvador All AlongMany of the people deported to El Salvador have no criminal record, and Donald Trump knew it.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesDonald Trump’s administration was well aware that many of the 238 Venezuelan immigrants it shipped off to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador had no criminal records at all, according to a Friday report from ProPublica.  While Trump officials claimed that the deportees were brutal gang members and “the worst of the worst,” only 32 of the deportees had actually been convicted of crimes, and most of them were minor offenses such as traffic violations, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security reviewed by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, and a team of journalists from Venezuelan media outlets. One of the men, 23-year-old Maikol Gabriel López Lizano, faced a misdemeanor charge after he was arrested in 2023 for riding his bike and drinking a can of beer.Little more than half of the deportees, 130 of the 238, were charged only with violating U.S. immigration laws. Twenty of them had criminal records from other countries. The U.S. government data showed that 67 individuals had pending charges, with only six being for violent crimes. In several cases, the government data about the pending charges differed from what ProPublica was able to find. In some cases, the men had actually been convicted, and in one, the charges had been dropped. But in many cases, these individuals were remanded to a foreign prison before their criminal cases were ever resolved. The Trump administration has touted allegations of gang affiliation as a justification for denying the deportees their due process rights. But none of the men’s names appeared on a list of roughly 1,400 alleged Tren de Aragua members kept by the Venezuelan government, ProPublica reported. Trump’s border czar Tom Homan tried desperately in March to downplay reporting that many of these individuals did not have criminal records. “A lot of gang members don’t have criminal histories, just like a lot of terrorists in this world, they’re not in any terrorist databases, right?” Homan said on ABC News. But the methods the government relies on to classify individuals as gang members—such as identification of gang-affiliated tattoos—have been disproven by experts. Not only were many of the men who were deported not proven gang members, they weren’t even criminals, and by denying them the right to due process, they were remanded to a foreign prison notorious for human rights abuses without ever getting to prove it. Trump has continued to pressure the Supreme Court to allow him to sidestep due process as part of his massive deportation campaign, claiming that the judiciary has no right to intrude on matters of “foreign policy.” But immigrants residing on U.S. soil—who are clearly not the bloodthirsty criminals the administration insists they are—are still subject to protections under U.S. law. Read more about the deportations:Trump Asks Supreme Court to Help Him Deport People Wherever He WantsMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/11:41 a.m. ETJoni Ernst Stoops to Shocking Low When Told Medicaid Cuts Will KillSenator Joni Ernst had a disgusting answer when confronted by a constituent at her town hall about Trump’s budget bill.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesRepublican Senator Joni Ernst had a particularly unhinged response to questions from her constituents at a town hall in Parkersburg, Iowa, on Friday.Ernst was asked about the GOP’s budget bill kicking people off of Medicaid, and her condescending answer quickly became callous and flippant as the Iowa politician smirked at the audience.“When you are arguing about illegals that are receiving Medicaid, 1.4 million, they’re not eligible, so they will be coming off, so—” Ernst began, before an audience member shouted, “People are going to die!”“People are not—well, we all are going to die,” Ernst responded, as the audience drowned her in loud protests.What was Ernst thinking with that answer? Almost every Republican town hall this year has gone badly for the politician holding it, thanks to President Trump upending the federal government, and Ernst surely knew that choosing death over Medicaid wouldn’t go over well with the crowd. Earlier this week in Nebraska, Representative Mike Flood was heckled after he admitted that he didn’t read the budget bill.Ersnt’s town hall wasn’t even the first one in Iowa to go badly for a Republican. On Wednesday, Representative Ashley Hinson was met with jeers and boos, with audience members in Decorah, Iowa calling her a fraud and a liar. But at least Hinson had the good sense not to seemingly embrace death over a vital, lifesaving government program. More on Trump’s bill:Here Are the Worst Things in Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/11:35 a.m. ETKetanji Brown Jackson Blasts “Botched” Supreme Court Ruling on TPSSupreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a scathing disssent, called out the rest of the court for allowing Trump’s harmful executive order to stand.Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesSupreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson thinks the Supreme Court “botched” a decision to allow the Trump administration to revoke the Temporary Protected Status protections of about 500,000 Haitian, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan immigrants.Jackson and fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor were the only two dissenters.“The Court has plainly botched this assessment today. It requires next to nothing from the Government with respect to irreparable harm,” Jackson wrote in the dissent. “And it undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives of and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”TPS is a long-standing program that allowed those 500,000 immigrants to stay in the U.S. after they fled violence and risk in their home countries. After the Supreme Court’s ruling, all of them are at high risk of sudden deportation. “It is apparent that the government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum predecision damage,” Jackson wrote.Read the full dissent here.View More Posts