Let's all say it... "HE IS A FUCKING IDIOT!"

NATO allies temper expectations for summit after Trump’s angry entrance

Whether the summit ends in reassurance or rupture may come down to Wednesday, when Trump meets Ukraine’s president and weighs in on the future of U.S. forces in Europe.

By Felicia Schwartz, Paul McLeary and Jack Detsch

America’s NATO allies had hoped President Donald Trump would arrive in Turkey’s capital in a dealmaking mood. Instead he came out swinging, leaving allies once again guessing at his commitment to their defense.

Trump revived a host of grievances against NATO within hours of landing. He said what happens in Ukraine doesn’t affect Washington and repeated his assertions that Greenland should be controlled by the United States.

NATO allies announced billions in new weapons deals and laid out plans for increased spending. And across the grounds of the Bestepe Presidential Compound, many attendees were hanging on to hope that the outcome of the summit could still be positive — but frustrated that the mood had soured so quickly.

“We’re all doing exactly what the Americans demanded and what we have to do for our own security,” a NATO diplomat said. “But a morning of big new defense spending is now overshadowed by complaints over Greenland.”

Allies were especially surprised given Trump’s aides had said ahead of the summit that the U.S. was looking for a constructive two days.

“He’s already taken us off a unifying positive objective,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D.-Del.) “It is so often the case that the president provides his own counter-programming to his own administration.”

NATO’s members have made considerable effort to keep this week’s summit low-key, hoping like last year, that Trump will leave striking a positive tone and without causing any lasting damage to the alliance.

A number of attendees at the meeting of the 32-member alliance worried that Trump’s sour mood would carry over into Wednesday, when they are looking for him to clarify Washington’s intentions for troop pullbacks in Europe, voice support for Ukraine at a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and hold a news conference before he returns to Washington.

Even if Trump’s comments cast a shadow over the proceedings, his grievances and posturing are not a surprise, said a former NATO official, who like others, was granted anonymity to to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

“It’s all priced in by this point. Everyone expects it,” the official said.

Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen said her country’s position on Greenland hasn’t changed, even as Trump has continued to advocate for American control of the strategic territory.

“I hope it is just as well known that the position of the Kingdom of Denmark is that this is not going to happen,” she said, adding that Denmark wants to expand its cooperation with the U.S. in the Arctic.

Allies are hoping this year’s summit will be successful like last year’s, a second former NATO official said.

Last year after a combination of charm and flattery from Rutte, an alliance commitment to 5 percent defense spending and a similarly short program, Trump went home declaring the summit a win.

The former official noted that in Trump’s first term, the second NATO summit he attended was the toughest. Trump berated Germany as “captive” to Russia in that meeting, escalated his spending demand to 4 percent, and privately warned allies he’d “go it alone” if they didn’t pay up. Then he went to Helsinki and embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Is the same happening?” the former official said. “Everyone will try to bury it/ignore it because the priority is to avoid tensions and let it pass.”

The NATO leaders’ statement is longer than last year’s but still shorter than the summits of years past. A draft viewed by POLITICO contains only six points. The participants, including Trump, reaffirmed their commitment to the Article 5 mutual defense pact and agreed that Russia poses a long-term threat to NATO’s members. It also states that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.

Some attendees focused on the bright spots. Even if Trump threw out early punches on Tuesday evening, his mere presence sends a strong positive signal, said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, a former NATO official and Lithuanian parliamentarian.

“The bigger message of reassurance is a simple fact that President Trump is in Ankara for the leaders’ summit,” Jeglinskas said. “There is a positive momentum in Ukraine, which received Trump’s nod. The summit declaration is short and sweet and, importantly, touches on all the right themes.”

Is he dead?

Mitch McConnell’s absence is throwing Trump’s Pentagon budget boost in doubt

The former GOP leader has been absent as the bipartisan appropriations process he helps oversee has run aground.

By Leo Shane III, Connor O'Brien and Jordain Carney

Sen. Mitch McConnell’s three-week hospitalization and uncertain health status is threatening to upend the defense budget process at a critical moment ahead of the midterm elections.

The 84-year-old Kentucky Republican was admitted to a Washington hospital June 14 for undisclosed medical issues. His staff maintain that McConnell remains engaged in Senate work but have not offered any information on when he will return to Capitol Hill.

His absence, and a lack of details around what caused his hospitalization, has prompted speculation on social media about the severity of his condition and his ability to serve out the rest of his term. And it comes at a pivotal moment for President Donald Trump and defense hawks’ often conflicting visions for building up the military.

McConnell — who chairs the Senate Appropriations panel that controls Pentagon spending — has been a powerful critic of the administration’s approach to securing a $1.5 trillion boost for the military. His support will be key in moving any funding plan forward, and his absence could stall or kill those hopes.

In an email to reporters Tuesday, McConnell spokespeople pointed back to a statement released Thursday that said the senator was still in the hospital but “continues to improve and is working closely with his staff.”

After finishing 18 years as top Republican leader, McConnell announced in February 2025 that he would step down from his seat in January 2027, ending his four-decade career in the chamber.

GOP colleagues have largely said they are in the dark about his health. But the top two Senate Republicans — Majority Leader John Thune and Majority Whip John Barrasso — said Tuesday that they had spoken with McConnell this week after initially speaking with the Kentucky Republican a day after his hospitalization. Neither spokespeople for Thune or Barrasso, nor McConnell’s staff, indicated Tuesday when McConnell would return. They “discussed the Senate’s July work period, including the need to pass the NDAA,” said Kate Noyes, a spokesperson for Barrasso.

This is not his first major medical scare. McConnell spent several weeks in the hospital after a fall in March 2023. Later that year, he froze during a news conference, prompting questions about his mental acuity and overall health. Since then, he has frequently relied on a wheelchair and his Capitol Police detail to get around given his mobility issues.

“Our prayers are with him,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told reporters late last week when asked if he had heard from McConnell. “Again, it’s sad. I will say, there’s nothing good about getting old. It’s been hard to watch, you know, kind of what happened after his fall and stuff.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), responding to the online speculation, said in an X post Tuesday, “Many of us aren’t speaking about Mitch McConnell’s condition because we know nothing about his condition.”

His hospitalization coincides with the administration’s latest push for a third party-line budget reconciliation measure, one that would supply about $350 billion in extra funding for the Defense Department. Lawmakers are already moving a fiscal 2027 spending bill that would provide a record $1.15 trillion budget for the military.

Trump wrote on social media Tuesday that he is “calling on House and Senate Leadership to make this their Number One Priority, and ensure that 350 Billion Dollars in Recon 3.0 moves out of the Budget Committee as soon as Congress is back in session.”

But McConnell has downplayed the idea, saying at an Air Force budget hearing just days before his hospitalization that “it’s safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill.”

Since stepping down from GOP leadership last year, McConnell has frequently advocated for increased defense spending. But that approach has focused on growing the Defense Department’s base budget, not using reconciliation or other nontraditional funding gambits to boost military funding.

Over a series of budget hearings, McConnell has highlighted concerns about several major priorities — including the development of advanced fighter jets and missile production — that administration officials have proposed funding through the complex budget reconciliation process.

The senior senator has argued that taking those out of the traditional bipartisan appropriations process risks forgoing proper oversight and prioritization of those critical items, given the political uncertainty associated with a GOP-only path.

“The reliance of this budget request on one-time reconciliation spending is really quite a risky approach,” he warned Army leaders during a May hearing on their funding requests.

Trump lashed out at McConnell during a June 11 Oval Office meeting with reporters, calling him an “angry man” who is “disloyal” to the Republican Party.

The White House doesn’t necessarily need McConnell’s vote to advance a third reconciliation bill. But his absence is another complication for GOP leaders, who are already facing a tough path to convincing 50 of their 53 members to rally behind a plan. With McConnell absent, Thune can only lose two senators.

While Thune hasn’t ruled out a third bill, he’s also been clear that he doesn’t yet see a plan that can pass — and most Senate Republicans want to see what can first get through the House.

McConnell has aggressively advocated for an internationalist approach to national security, particularly defending U.S. involvement in NATO, as Trump pursues more isolationist policies. He has backed efforts to arm Ukraine and criticized the president’s efforts to negotiate an end to the war with Russia.

McConnell’s hospitalization coincides with a partisan standoff over defense spending that has ground the appropriations process to a halt in the Senate.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) delayed a markup scheduled for late June because McConnell’s absence meant Republicans could not advance their proposals on party lines with Collins and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Appropriations Democrat, at loggerheads over spending levels.

The setback came after Collins initially delayed an early June markup for the measures, which cover the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Commerce and Justice, among other agencies, because of the standoff with Democrats over defense and nondefense spending levels.

Asked Tuesday about the status of the defense bill, a McConnell aide, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, pointed back to the larger appropriations stalemate, not the Kentucky Republican’s absence, as the holdup.

His absence has impacted other chamber business. The Senate last month approved a resolution to cut off military operations against Iran, a major, if symbolic, rebuke that could have been defeated with full GOP attendance. McConnell was one of two Republicans to miss that vote.

He, too, could be a key Republican vote in favor of the administration’s proposed $88 billion supplemental funding package, which would help cover the costs of the Iran war, as well as aid for farmers and Ebola virus prevention.

Though he was already hospitalized when the White House made that funding request, McConnell had previously voiced his support for the Iran war and the necessity of paying for military expenditures associated with it.

“With more funding, there’s spare production capacity to be tapped this year, in FY26. We can build more munitions, produce more spare parts for airplanes, repair ships, invest in dilapidated military infrastructure, and deepen our cooperation and co-production with allies. We shouldn’t wait another year to seize these opportunities,” McConnell said March 4 during one of only five floor speeches he has given this year.

G189.6+3.3

What happens when one of the stars in a binary goes supernova? This image combines visible (yellow), ultraviolet (purple) and infrared light (cyan, red and orange) to show two supernova remnants and their surrounding environment, about 6,000 light-years away. The younger one is the well-known Jellyfish Nebula in the center (mostly in yellow). If we could see it by eye, it would appear larger than the full moon in the sky. The filament shown in purple is part of an older, overlapping supernova remnant, G189.6+3.3. A new study used data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to piece together their story. Astronomers believe that there were two stars in a binary system, then the first one exploded as a supernova, kicking away its companion, which also exploded as a supernova tens of thousands of years later, creating the superimposed supernova remnants we see today. The bright star on the right is actually a triple star system named Propus.

NGC 6769 and NGC 6770

Some 190 million light-years away, far beyond the bright stars and nebulae of the Milky Way, these three galaxies are drawn together by gravity in a mesmerizing cosmic dance. Clearly distorted by galactic-scale gravitational interactions, large spiral galaxies NGC 6769 and NGC 6770 are seen face-on, with luminous galactic disks scarred by obscuring interstellar dust lanes. Their young blue star clusters along drawn out spiral arms are spawned in star forming regions that resulted from collisions of massive molecular clouds. Below, spiral NGC 6771 presents a more edge-on perspective, its boxy central bulge due to tidal star streams. Of course, in the distant future a merger of the three galaxies is inevitable. At the estimated distance of this galaxy trio, known to some as the Devil's Mask, the sharp telescopic frame spans over 300 thousand light-years within the boundaries of the far southern constellation Pavo.

NGC 6188

Where can you find dragons fighting in the night sky? In the southern constellation of the Altar: Ara. The dragons are, of course, actually made of suggestively shaped gas and dust. The celestial home of the mythological battling beasts is cataloged as NGC 6188 and located about 4,000 light years away near the edge of a large molecular cloud. Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed there only a few million years ago, sculpting the dark shapes and powering the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation. Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas, visible toward the lower right, is unusual emission nebula NGC 6164, also created by one of the region's massive stars. This impressively wide field picture, captured from Queensland, Australia, spans over 2 degrees (four full Moons).

Holiday and stuff

 Been out for the holiday and other things.. What did I miss?? Is Mitch dead yet?

Iran spending bill

GOP rebels threaten Iran spending bill over Poland troop fight

A small but influential group of defense-minded Republicans is looking to extract concessions from the Trump administration on American defense of Europe.

Mark Satter

A splinter group of moderate House Republicans is threatening to derail an $88 billion Iran war spending bill unless American troops are returned to Poland.

Led by frequent Trump critic Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), the small cadre of GOP lawmakers could scuttle the emergency spending bill, which also includes farm aid and money to counter the Ebola virus. Bacon and his allies are trying to force the White House to make good on its plan to replace 4,200 American troops abruptly pulled out of Poland last month.

Just three defections could lead to serious trouble for Speaker Mike Johnson, given the narrow Republican House majority and expected widespread Democratic opposition to the measure, and concerns from GOP fiscal hawks about writing such a huge check.

The standoff is the latest clash between Republican defense hawks and a Trump administration that has largely ignored GOP worries about pulling forces from Europe — part of a larger push by the White House to force European nations to shoulder more of their own national security burden.

“We had five brigades, and we’re three now,” Bacon said about U.S. forces in Poland, considered a key ally of the United States. “It’s unsatisfactory. … If they want my support on the supplemental, they better come up and address it,” added Bacon, who described himself as the effort’s “spokesman.”

This month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Pentagon would conduct a six-month review of American forces in Europe, and lashed out at NATO allies who declined to throw military support behind the U.S. during the Iran war.

“I stand with Don,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, (R-Penn.), adding that he wanted answers from the Pentagon on why the department is changing course on “unquestionable policy” that has lasted for generations.

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), also a member of the Armed Services panel, said while he would still support the supplemental, “we won’t have the votes to pass it without those two.”

The White House, Defense Department and Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The abrupt cancellation of a deployment of 4,200 Army soldiers to Poland in May caught American lawmakers, Army leaders and Polish officials by surprise. Two senior Polish defense ministry officials were immediately dispatched to Washington as Warsaw raced to figure out what had happened.

At the time, Bacon said it was “a slap in the face to the Armed Services Committee,” and panel Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) told Army Secretary Dan Driscoll that his committee was “not happy.”

In the days following the Pentagon’s announcement, President Donald Trump said he would send an additional 5,000 troops to Poland “based on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse.”

But those troops have yet to be deployed.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said he hoped withholding votes from the supplemental would not be necessary, and that the Pentagon would soon replace the troops.

“I think it’s going to come through,” he said.

Compelling the public release of records

House votes to disclose which members settled sexual misconduct allegations with taxpayer funds

Rep. Nancy Mace was the only member to vote “present.”

Hailey Fuchs

The House approved a measure Tuesday compelling the public release of records showing which House members have used taxpayer dollars to settle sexual misconduct charges levied against them and how much money was spent.

The resolution, offered by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), directs the House Ethics Committee and the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights — which also handles claims of misconduct — to produce such information within 60 days. It passed nearly unanimously, 420-0, with only Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) — an outspoken advocate for victims of sexual harassment and assault — voting present.

“We need to know what’s been going on here in the House of Representatives in order to convince the people and assure the people that we are conducting the people’s business with the utmost integrity and treating the officers and employees of this institution with the respect that they deserve,” said Massie, in remarks on the chamber floor imploring his colleagues to support the measure.

Massie’s effort comes after Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) were, earlier this year, forced to resign under the cloud of serious sexual misconduct allegations. The incidents forced a reckoning in the House, where members have historically struggled to show they take sexual assault allegations within their ranks seriously and to show they are prepared to root out bad behavior when necessary.

Facing such renewed public pressure, the House Ethics panel publicly reiterated its commitment to investigating claims of sexual misconduct among lawmakers. But in a statement in April, the committee also noted that it “does not handle sexual harassment lawsuits or have any involvement in settlements of such claims.”

In March, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to subpoena the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights for related settlements, and those materials revealed that the federal government paid more than $300,000 to settle claims against House lawmakers or their offices.

Congress ended the practice of the government footing the bill on members’ behalf in 2018, and the Ethics Committee has said it has, since that time, “not been notified of any awards or settlements relating to allegations of sexual harassment by a Member.”

In an interview during the vote Tuesday, Ethics chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) said he believed the information compelled by the resolution had already been shared. But he would still support the measure, he added, because there was “nothing problematic” about Massie’s proposal.

“Anything we can do to make sure that that information is readily available, we want to make that happen,” Guest said.

The House previously rejected a related measure from Mace that would have forced the Ethics Committee to release information on its investigations of lawmakers who have been accused of sexual misconduct. The top Republican and Democrat on the Ethics panel — Guest and Mark DeSaulnier (D.Calif.) at the time released a rare public statement to condemn the resolution, arguing it would have a chilling effect on victims.

In a video posted on X Tuesday afternoon, Mace questioned why the House was voting on Massie’s resolution, when the Oversight subpoena she championed had already compelled materials about the settlements to be shared with Congress.

“I guess it’s just political theater,” she said.

Medicaid Work Requirements

States Sue to Block Medicaid Work Requirements

RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz’s harsh new rules “punish those who cannot fend for themselves,” Democratic officials argue.

Julia Métraux

On Monday, officials in 25 states and Washington, DC sued Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz over the interim final rule for Medicaid work requirements established by President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The new rule, their lawsuit contends, “will create unnecessary bureaucracy and lead people who are either already working or eligible for an exclusion to lose or be denied coverage.”

As I previously reported, the rule released near the beginning of June was even more onerous than many state officials feared. It was a surprise to states that individuals already on Medicaid with serious health conditions would have to jump through further hoops to prove that they were unable to work:

State officials were blindsided by this medical frailty definition outlined in the new federal rule, which was never brought up in discussions between states and the federal government, Jennifer Wagner, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ director of Medicaid eligibility and enrollment, told me. “We have heard that this was driven more by the White House,” Wagner said. “I don’t think it was CMS intentionally misleading states.”

The lawsuit specifically raises the point that CMS “provided no indication

that it intended to place specific limits on States’ ability to rely on self-attestation” rather than requiring health care workers’ certification in all circumstances.

In a press release, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, who helped lead the suit, said that the “abrupt changes in [federal] implementation of the statute leave states insufficient time to adjust…or effectively communicate to members what is required.”

“This eleventh-hour attempt to further narrow protections for medically frail Medicaid recipients seeks to punish those who cannot fend for themselves,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha, who is also joining the suit, in a press release.

The lawsuit asks that a federal judge stay the interim final rule and vacate parts of it. The rule would otherwise go into effect in states with Medicaid expansion by January 1.

Attempt to Fire Fed’s Lisa Cook

Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Trump’s Attempt to Fire Fed’s Lisa Cook

The decision preserves the central bank’s independence—at least for now.

Pema Lev

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled against President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, dealing a setback to Trump’s campaign to take control of monetary policy. The court’s 5-4 decision preserves Cook’s job as she continues to fight her removal, but it is not the final word on Trump’s bid to fire her. The narrow decision almost guarantees that this same dispute will return to the high court soon.

The majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts expresses explicit support for Fed independence. As an independent bank regulator, the Fed is run by a board of presidentially appointed governors who serve 14 year terms and are only removable for cause. The Trump administration argued that it had cause and that the Supreme Court could not review its removal decision. But the majority found the government’s arguments at odds with an independent Fed.

“To accept any one of those arguments would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment—an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference,” Roberts wrote.

The decision comes at a time when the future of Fed independence is in doubt. Trump’s pick for Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, is awaiting confirmation by the Senate. Keeping Cook in her seat steadies the ship, if only a little. The majority’s decision, however, is explicitly “narrow.” It requires that Cook be given proper notice of the cause of her removal and an opportunity to contest those charges. The decision does not lay out what that process looks like. And it saves for another day—which will almost certainly come soon—a court decision on whether Trump’s obviously pretextual allegations will be enough to remove Cook.

In a post on Truth Social Monday, Trump called the Cook ruling “strictly procedural” and pledged to “take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”

In short, this is a loss for Trump at this stage—but it may not be a permanent one.

In its ruling, the court declined to define what for-cause protection requires in order for a firing to be valid. Indeed, it hints that rather than leave it up to the president, it may ultimately be the final arbiter of what constitutes cause on a case-by-case basis. “Only after Cook has had the opportunity to respond to the charges made against her…may a final decision be made…And only then can the courts assess the validity and sufficiency of such charges,” Roberts wrote.

“To be clear, the ultimate question of whether the President can remove Cook for cause will depend in part on the underlying facts,” the chief justice added. “In this opinion, we have not addressed the facts.”

Here are those facts, as we know them.

Last August, the president posted a criminal referral against Cook on Truth Social, his social media platform, and demanded she resign. The accusation—created by Bill Pulte, Trump’s Federal Housing Finance Agency director—is that Cook claimed primary residency on two different mortgage applications. If this charge sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same one Pulte cooked up against two other Democrats—and it has yet to win the day against any of the president’s targets because, at most, Pulte appears to have discovered clerical errors. Five days after Trump’s social media post, the president announced in another post that he was firing Cook.

Trump claimed that the mortgage document discrepancy dug up by a political lackey was sufficient cause to fire Cook, and that the courts couldn’t review his decision to boot her, anyway. In other words, Trump’s argument is that he can state any cause for removal he likes, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It’s an obviously absurd argument because it renders the “for cause” removal restriction meaningless. Cook sued, and a district court judge blocked her removal, as did the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump turned to the Supreme Court, which agreed to decide whether Trump could temporarily remove Cook while her legal challenge to her firing moves forward.

The Supreme Court handed down its ruling Monday in conjunction with a related case—Trump v. Slaughter—in which the court gave Trump the power to remove the commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission and other formerly independent agencies. That decision follows a string of cases in which the court’s this conservative majority found that the president’s power over the executive branch trumped Congress’ attempt to insulate agencies from political pressure. During Trump’s second term, the court had already waved through firings of Democratic commissioners on the National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board, and Consumer Product Safety Commission on its shadow docket.

Logically, it’s hard to reconcile the court’s Cook decision with its rulings in Slaughter and other cases allowing Trump to fire independent agency commissioners. But the Federal Reserve Board’s independence is a pillar of the United States’ economy, and the US’s dominant global position makes that independence critical to the world economy, as well. Allowing Trump to turn interest rates, loans, bailouts, and access to the US banking system into political weapons would fundamentally reshape the economy and our democratic order. The Fed, in other words, is too important for one man to control.

To get out of this bind, Roberts—who wrote both the Cook and Slaughter decisions—insists that the Fed is simply different. Roberts’ opinion cites a history of independent bank regulators going back to the country’s founding and finds this history is relevant in determining whether it should uphold Congress’ legislative choice to make the Fed independent. “We see no reason to leave the public in limbo, or to sow doubt as to the status of one of our Nation’s (and the world’s) most important financial institutions,” Roberts wrote. “We would not so quickly unsettle this ‘special arrangement sanctioned by history.’”

This entire adventure stems from the Roberts Court’s own crusade to empower the president and hinder regulations disliked by big industry. The GOP-appointed majority has pushed forward its view of a “unitary executive” who controls all aspects of the executive branch, creating a roadmap for Trump to turn federal agencies into political weapons. Today, the court blesses Trump’s attempts to take control of most of the regulatory work that Congress deemed should be independent. But, at least to an extent, the Fed will be insulated from the consequences of that crusade.