Author name: moderat ereport

President Donald Trump showed up at the FIFA Club World Cup Finals in New Jersey on Sunday, and it was just embarrassing all around. From the stadium booing him to his comically try-hard attempt to insert himself into the victory celebration, the whole thing made him look like the grasping buffoon he is.  After Chelsea FC pulled off an upset, beating Paris Saint-Germain FC, the expected winners, 3-0, they took to the pitch for the award ceremony. Enter Trump, who decided he should hand out medals and shove himself into the middle of the Chelsea squad as they gathered to receive the trophy for winning the Club Cup.  FIFA President Gianni Infantino eventually had to pull him back so the players could celebrate without Trump. Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, named the top player of the tournament after scoring two of Chelsea’s three goals, was as perplexed as everyone else about this, the Associated Press reported. “I knew he was going to be here, but I didn’t know he was going to be on the stand when we lifted the trophy, so I was a bit confused.” Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, named the top player of the tournament after scoring two of Chelsea’s three goals, was as confused as everyone else about Trump handing out trophies. You know what else is confusing? That the trophy Chelsea was hoisting may be a replica, because according to Trump, Infantino gave him the real trophy during a March White House visit and told him he could keep it. Sure, seems fine.  Trump was booed when he walked onto the pitch. He was booed when he was shown on the Jumbotron. He was booed during the national anthem. Despite this, wannabe state media outlet the New York Post ran with a piece saying Trump was greeted by huge applause.  This isn’t the first time Trump’s insertion of himself into the world of sports was equal parts comical and gross. Who can forget his trip to the 2025 Super Bowl, where he apparently left, pouting, at halftime?  And last month, at the start of the FIFA Club World Cup, Italian soccer powerhouse team Juventus visited the White House, where Trump buttonholed them about trans athletes, asking whether a woman could make their team. When the team’s general manager explained that Juventus also had a very good women’s team, Trump responded: “But they should be playing with women, right? You know, one of those things.” Trump showing up at the FIFA Club World Cup was pretty rich after his administration declared that Customs and Border Patrol agents would act as security for the first Cup game in Miami; An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told the media that non-Americans should bring papers documenting their immigration status. Or that federal agents tried to bully their way into Dodger Stadium before a scheduled game while in the midst of terrorizing Los Angeles. Or that the administration insists that soccer-related tattoos are proof of membership in the notorious MS-13 gang and justifies deporting people.  Trump’s immigration crackdown means that even American sports teams now have to warn their non-American players to carry papers documenting their status. Who doesn’t love their sports events with a side of “papers, please?” and the continual looming threat of deportation? When your entire administration is focused on eradicating multiculturalism and making white supremacy the law of the land, showing up at sporting events that celebrate that very thing is ridiculous. Stay the hell home, man.

While on a trip to Disneyland in California on Saturday with his wife and children, Vice President JD Vance rode the theme park’s ride that’s most associated with racial reconciliation, despite Vance railing for years against “woke” culture. Vance was caught on video jogging toward his children—and was mocked for not having an “alpha male” running style despite the right’s obsession with phony masculinity—and riding  “Tiana’s Bayou Adventure,” which opened in November 2024. Vice President JD Vance riding Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Disneyland this morning pic.twitter.com/In7ZWQBedB — Matt (@DisneyScoopGuy) July 12, 2025 The ride, which is based on the film “The Princess and the Frog” featuring the Black princess Tiana, replaced “Splash Mountain,” which was based on the classic Disney film “Song of the South.” Disney decided to refurbish the ride to make a break with that film’s racist past. “Song of the South” has been controversial since it was first released in 1946 for depicting a falsely idyllic setting on a southern plantation following slavery. According to the NAACP, the film “helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery.” When it announced that Tiana would become the new theme of the ride, Disney said, “The new concept is inclusive—one that all of our guests can connect with and be inspired by, and it speaks to the diversity of the millions of people who visit our parks each year.” People riding “Tiana’s Bayou Adventure” This is precisely the sort of inclusive racial reconciliation that has been under sustained attack by the Trump administration since Day 1. President Donald Trump and Vance have used the terminology “woke,” which was originally used by Black activists to discuss racial awareness, as pejorative, falsely claiming that addressing racism is discriminatory. And they’ve used their war on “wokeness” as a cover for attacking government efforts to address racism and to push bigoted policies and rhetoric. Before he rode the log flume ride, enjoying the newly “woke” theme park attraction, Vance attacked Disney for being culturally aware. Vance was part of the right-wing attack on Disney led by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of his failed presidential campaign. In 2022, Vance claimed that Disney had “declared war on America’s children” and complained a year later that Disney was “woke” and supported immigration policies that stole from U.S. citizens. California Gov. Gavin Newsom mocked Vance’s Disney trip, writing, “Tired: trashing California for political purposes. Wired: visiting & vacationing in California more than your home state this year.” Newsom also noted that many of the people who work at Disneyland are immigrants and contrasted that with the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant communities. Vance’s visit also attracted the attention of protesters against the Trump administration’s ongoing abuse of immigrant communities. Protesters outside the Grand Californian Hotel at the Disneyland Resort today where Vice President JD Vance is staying for the weekend. 🎥: @huntersowards — Matt Desmond (@disneyscoopguy.bsky.social) 2025-07-12T03:46:58.172Z The Disney trip underlined another facet of Vance’s character that has triggered mockery and criticism in the past: his lack of principles. He once called Trump “America’s Hitler” and described himself as a “never Trump guy,” but he threw those criticisms to the side when he was given a shot at being Trump’s vice president. Now, despite being part of the right’s disingenuous anti-Disney campaign, Vance was clearly happy to enjoy a “woke” moment at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Andrew Cuomo just won’t stop. The disgraced former governor of New York announced Monday that he is pursuing a third-party run for New York City mayor, despite having faced a tough loss to Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary last month. “As my grandfather used to say, when you get knocked down, learn the lesson and pick yourself back up and get in the game, and that is what I’m going to do,” Cuomo said in a new campaign video.  Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a rally in New York on July 2. Cuomo will appear on the general election ballot under the independent “Fight and Deliver” party—a fallback name he created in case he lost the Democratic nomination. His return sets the stage for a hectic five-way general election against Mamdani, embattled Mayor Eric Adams (now running as an independent), Republican Curtis Sliwa, and independent Jim Walden. The former governor is expected to compete primarily with Adams for moderate and business-minded voters who might be worried about Mamdani’s democratic socialist platform, which includes a rent freeze for stabilized apartments and free citywide bus service. Cuomo entered the Democratic primary as the front-runner. He had widespread name recognition, major labor endorsements, and backing from the real estate industry. But his limp comeback pitch, in which he rarely engaged in interviews or unscripted interactions with voters, crumbled under Mamdani’s energized progressive base and a surge of grassroots support. A coordinated “Don’t Rank Cuomo” campaign also hurt his chances in the race, which used ranked-choice voting. (The general election will not use ranked choice.) In the end, Mamdani beat Cuomo by more than 12 percentage points in the final round of voting. Datawrapper Content Now Cuomo is counting on a broader general-election coalition—independents, disillusioned Democrats, and institutional allies—to block Mamdani’s path to Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence. But the journey ahead is difficult. Cuomo carries baggage that led to his resignation as governor in 2021, including numerous sexual harassment allegations and a revived Justice Department probe into his COVID-19 crisis management. In his latest video, Cuomo focused on Mamdani, ignoring the other candidates altogether. “Only 13% of New Yorkers voted in the June primary. The general election is in November, and I am in it to win it,” Cuomo said. “My opponent, Mr. Mamdani, offers slick slogans but no real solutions.” Meanwhile, Mamdani’s team brushed it off. New York Mayor Eric Adams, shown on Feb. 11. “While Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams are tripping over themselves to cut backroom deals with billionaires and Republicans, Zohran Mamdani is focused on making this city more affordable for New Yorkers,” said a Mamdani campaign spokesperson. “That’s the choice this November.” Still, Cuomo’s spot on the ballot isn’t guaranteed. According to The New York Times, sources close to his campaign say he might withdraw by early September if polling shows he isn’t the strongest opponent to Mamdani. If that happens, he’s expected to push other challengers to do the same. (Adams and Sliwa have both said they’ll stay in regardless.) With Democrats outnumbering Republicans nearly 6 to 1 in the city, Mamdani remains the favorite. And some of Cuomo’s former allies have jumped ship and backed Mamdani. Others, especially among the city’s wealthiest and the luxury real estate industry, are still looking for the best way to stop the democratic socialist and prefer to see the field narrow behind either Adams or Cuomo. The general election is scheduled for Nov. 4. Whether Cuomo will still be in the race by then remains to be seen.

PoliticusUSA is reader-supported news that you can rely on. You can support our work by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now House Democrats aren’t going to sleep. They are going to work. That is the message that is being sent by how Democrats plan to spend their time trying to win back the majority on the ground by hammering House Republicans in their districts for supporting Trump’s wildly unpopular “Big Beautiful Bill. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told Punchbowl News what Democrats will be doing as he visited Louisiana, which is the home state of Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Punchbowl News reported: Jeffries said Democrats will hold more speeches, rallies and marches, plus town hall events in GOP districts. Jeffries is planning to visit districts in New York, New Jersey, California and the Midwest. We asked Jeffries if the reconciliation vote changes the size of the House battlefield by bringing redder districts into reach for Democrats. The DCCC has identified 35 GOP-held districts on their target list. Jeffries said the bill would “further complicate” Republicans’ efforts to hold the House but declined to say if it would change the map. “That vote will haunt them and we’re gonna tattoo their support for the One Big Ugly Law on the forehead of every single vulnerable House Republican in America,” Jeffries asserted. Republicans have the majority in the House because they won districts in blue states like Illinois, New Jersey, California, and New York. If Democrats win some districts in red states, they could build a massive majority, but winning the majority itself will involve taking back seats in blue states that slipped away in 2022 and 2024. The strategy of putting House Democratic leaders and well-known faces on the ground in Republican-held districts appears to be a good one that is working. When a Jeffries, Jamie Raskin, AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, or any others come to Republican-held districts, they get local media attention and they motivate Democrats along with Independents while having conversations that Republicans don’t want to have about their decision to choose Trump over their constituents. Data shows that face-to-face contact with voters is the most effective way to secure their support. There will be plenty of time to run ads in 2026, but the Democrats are laying the groundwork in 2025 and doing what needs to be done to win back the majority in 2026. What do you think about the Democratic plan to hold marches, rallies, and town halls in GOP districts? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Leave a comment

The World Witnessed A Declining President Trump’s meeting at the White House was supposed to be about aid to Ukraine. While NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was able to keep the president focused on Ukraine, everything was okay. Trump announced that the US is providing more weapons to Ukraine through NATO, but it was when Trump was asked if he viewed providing more assistance to Ukraine as a path to peace that the floodgates opened. Video: The president said: I think this is a chance at getting peace or it’s just going to be the same thing. And I have to tell you, Europe has a lot of spirit for this war. A lot of people, you know, when I first got involved, I really didn’t think they did, but they do. And I saw that a month ago when you were there, most of you many of you were there. The level of esprit de corps spirit that they have is amazing. They really think it’s a very, very important thing to do or they wouldn’t be doing. Look, they’re agreeing to just, you know, they’re paying for everything. We’re not paying any more. We have an ocean separating us. I said, we have a problem. We have. We make the best stuff, but we can’t keep doing this. And Biden should have done this years ago. He should have done it from the beginning. But he didn’t. Read more

PoliticusUSA is independent news that you can depend on. Please support our work by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now House Republicans aren’t done cutting Medicaid, and they have added a new target to their hit list. By the end of the year, House Republicans are also planning to cut Medicare. Bloomberg reported: House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington in an interview with Bloomberg said Republicans will seek deeper cuts to Medicaid, new spending reductions in Medicare and fix any errors inserted into the US tax code by the “Big, Beautiful Bill.” “I think we will do one before the end of the year,” Arrington said. “It’s going to be a more targeted set of reforms.” The budget chairman said sees the follow-on legislation as a chance to secure Medicare spending cuts he sought but couldn’t win in the Trump tax and spending package. High among his goals, he said, is reducing reimbursements to hospitals through a site-neutral payment system that pays the same rate whether a procedure is done at a clinic or doctor’s office. PoliticusUSA is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. By ‘reforms,’ Arrington means cuts in healthcare. If Medicare reimbursements get cut, that would be a death sentence for many rural hospitals. If you thought that the last reconciliation bill that Republicans passed and Trump signed into law was the worst of it, you were wrong. It is as if taking healthcare away from 17 million Americans wasn’t enough, so Republicans are moving on to attacking the remaining people on Medicaid and coming for Medicare. These cuts could cost Republicans their House majority, but these are ideologues who are on a mission to destroy the social safety net and seemingly won’t stop until all national wealth has been redistributed to the top 1%. What do you think about the House GOP plan to come for Medicaid next? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Leave a comment

Donald Trump’s ham-fisted reversal on his promise to release a secret list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients has accomplished something long considered impossible by virtually everybody, including Trump himself: He has finally exceeded his followers’ credulity. The Epstein matter is so crucial to Trump’s base, and the excuse offered is so flimsy, that the about-face has raised questions within perhaps the most gullible movement in American history. Over the past decade, Trump’s hold on his fan base has been a mysterious and unchanging fact of American political life, the inspiration for innumerable journalistic diner safaris and the source of agonized self-reflection on the left. Trump understands that his most committed fans will believe almost anything he tells them. Any discomfiting fact is instantly dismissed as a lie coming from the “Radical Left” (Democrats), the “FAKE NEWS” (non-Republican-aligned media), the “Deep State” (any government statistic or official finding), or “RINOs” (whenever a Republican has the temerity to question him). [Kaitlyn Tiffany: Conspiracy theorists are turning on the president] Crucial to this cultlike epistemology is that Trump himself defines what is true, and can alter the nature of that reality at his whim. A journalist or politician may go from Well Respected to Failing Loser and back again as many times as needed. Extravagant promises (to give everybody “terrific” health care, to end the Russia-Ukraine war in a day, to bring down grocery prices) could be issued and then memory-holed. The MAGA-endorsed conspiracy theory that Epstein was blackmailing powerful people with tacit government support was not crazy. (Unproven, yes. Impossible, no.) The crazy part was that this theory had been assimilated into the pro-Trump worldview. Epstein had been Trump’s buddy. Trump had publicly acknowledged more than 20 years ago his awareness of Epstein’s preference for young girls. Epstein came into the custody of the Justice Department and died in prison in 2019, while Trump was president. Trump said “I wish her well” of Epstein’s lieutenant, Ghislaine Maxwell—an odd thing to say of an alleged child sex trafficker. In a rational world, the Epstein saga would have been an obsession of Trump’s enemies, not his supporters. And so Trump naturally must have assumed that his promises to release Epstein’s records would go the same way all his other promises had: straight into the memory hole. Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed in February that she had the fabled Epstein client list on her desk, and that she would release it. After the Department of Justice claimed that there was no client list at all,  Trump instructed his followers that the issue was now dead. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” he scolded a reporter after the DOJ announcement. “This guy’s been talked about for years. You’re asking—we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things, and are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.” When his supporters continued raising questions, Trump floated a new line on Truth Social: The files did exist, but they were anti-Trump disinformation created by the Democrats. “Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more?” he wrote. “They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands. Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files?” Not only did this new line blatantly contradict the repeated promises to release the files that Trump’s allies had made, but it was not even internally consistent. Barack Obama had concocted the Epstein files to smear Trump … but Democrats had refused to make them public, for some reason? And because the “Radical Left Lunatics” had kept them secret, Trump needed to do the same thing? [Read: We still don’t know what to do with the endless stream of Trump’s lies] But whatever. Trump’s lies often lack even the veneer of plausibility. His devotees have generally not made him work very hard to maintain their trust. You could almost picture Trump lazily mouthing the same tropes—“fake news,” “Russia, Russia, Russia”—expecting the same result. Except this time, Trump pushed the buttons, and nothing happened. Trump fans just grew angrier; how could Trump pretend that a pledge to uncover a sinister cabal had never mattered at all? Why, exactly, this reversal dismayed his followers when a thousand precious reversals had bounced right off them is hard to say precisely. One possible reason is that, compared with promises about normal policy issues, the Epstein saga is both easier to understand and generates unusually strong feelings; the sexual abuse of underage girls is more visceral than more abstract harms of, say, taking away peoples’ access to health insurance, and this subject is central to the QAnon movement. The Epstein saga also seems to hold a load-bearing place in the populist mythology, explaining why the “deep state” is out to get Trump. Casually retconning the narrative, so that the Epstein files cease to be the secret document that will expose Trump’s enemies but rather become a libel written by those enemies, is too wrenching a shift for even them to accept. It is probably too much to expect that Trump’s base will defect en masse. But we can be thankful for small victories. After years of complete impunity, Trump has finally discovered that his power to brainwash his idolaters is finite.

President Donald Trump is finally taking the fight to Vladimir Putin. Sort of. For now. Trump’s deference to Russia’s authoritarian leader has been one of the most enduring geopolitical subplots of the past decade. But his frustration with Putin has grown. Last week, the president said the United States was taking “a lot of bullshit” from Putin. Today, he authorized a significant shipment of U.S. defensive weapons to Ukraine via NATO and threatened Russia with new tariffs if the war does not end in 50 days. The change, though, is not reflective of Trump adopting a new strategic worldview, two White House officials and two outside advisers to the president told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Trump did not develop a new fondness for Ukraine or its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. He did not abruptly become a believer in the traditional transatlantic alliances prized by his predecessors as a counterweight to Moscow. Rather, Trump got insulted. By ignoring Trump’s pleas to end the war and instead ratcheting up the fighting, Putin has made Trump look like the junior partner in the relationship. The Russian leader has “really overplayed his hand,” one of the officials told me. “The president has given him chance after chance, but enough is enough.” Trump came into office believing that he could deliver a lasting truce between Ukraine and Russia within 24 hours, banking on his relationship with Putin, which he considered good. For months, he largely sided with Moscow in its war against Ukraine, absolving Russia for having started the conflict and threatening to abandon Kyiv as it mounted a desperate defense. He upbraided Zelensky in the Oval Office in February and briefly stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine. He believed that he could, in addition to working with his Russian counterpart to end the war, reset relations and forge new economic ties between the two countries. He even envisioned a grand summit to announce a peace deal. But Putin rejected repeated American calls to stop his attacks. Russia’s talks with Trump’s emissary, Steve Witkoff, went nowhere. Trump pulled back diplomatic efforts. In recent weeks, Trump has grown angrier with Putin and ended a brief pause by the Pentagon in sending weapons to Ukraine. Zelensky, meanwhile, has worked on repairing his relationship with Trump and agreed to a U.S. cease-fire proposal. In Trump’s own words, Putin began “tapping him along” by spurning that same deal while unleashing some of the biggest bombardments of the war. Trump and Putin have spoken a half dozen times in the past six months, and Trump has grown steadily more frustrated, the four people told me. He told advisers this spring that he was beginning to think Putin didn’t want the war to end, an assessment that U.S. intelligence agencies reached more than a year ago. [Read: Trump hands Putin another victory] When Trump recently intensified his calls for a cease-fire—at one point writing on social media, “Vladimir, STOP!”—Putin chose to defy him by escalating attacks on Ukraine yet again. The president was disturbed by his most recent call with Putin, held earlier this month, in which the Russian leader reiterated his goal to “liberate” Ukrainian territory that he believes belongs to Russia, one of the White House officials told me. The conflict’s front line remains largely frozen, but U.S. and European officials believe that Putin is planning a summer offensive and will launch more attacks on civilians in Ukraine’s cities. With Putin continuing to ignore his pleas for a deal, Trump has felt humiliated, fearing that he appears weak, one of the officials and one of the outside advisers told me. “I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done. And then I hang up and say, ‘That was a nice phone call,’ and the missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office today, referring to Putin. “And then after that happens three or four times, you say the talk doesn’t mean anything.” Trump announced today that he would authorize a number of American weapons to be sent to the battlefield, including as many as 17 Patriot missile batteries, which will dramatically bolster Ukraine’s ability to shoot down incoming Russian missiles and drones (and were long sought by Zelensky). Seventeen would be a tall order; so far, the United States has provided two such batteries in three years of war. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, after meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon today, told reporters that Germany would engage in talks with the United States to purchase two Patriot missile batteries to pass on to Ukraine. But Ukraine would likely not receive the systems for months, Pistorius said. The measures announced today will likely not alter the overall trajectory of the war, and they fall short of what some hoped Trump would authorize. But they could blunt Russia’s momentum in the conflict and, in turn, its desire to prolong the war. The moves also offered reassurances to Ukraine and Europe that Washington could still be a partner in their fight; NATO allies will finance the purchase of the American-made weapons, Trump said while sitting next to the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office. “It’s not my war, and I’m trying to get you out of it. We want to see an end to it,” Trump said to Rutte. “I’m disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn’t seem to get there.” Axios reported that Trump might also send some offensive, long-range weapons to Ukraine, but the president made no mention of that today. Since Inauguration Day, two competing camps have pressured Trump on Ukraine and Russia. Isolationists such as Vice President J. D. Vance and Steve Bannon, Trump’s longtime adviser, have pushed the president to walk away from Kyiv; more traditional Republicans, including the Trump-whispering Senator Lindsey Graham and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have pushed