Despite still not being seen in public for a week, Trump has threatened to leave his UFC cage outside the White House forever, apparently dumped his slush fund plan and let slip the reason acts are quitting his festival – here’s everything you need to know today
Don’t Panic. David Cameron’s weirdest advisor might be the biggest goober in California, but he’s probably not going to win the Gubernatorial race in California.
With Donald Trump still mostly AWOL, with no public-facing engagements until later tonight, let’s have a quick look at the California primary.
If you were only half watching the California Primary, which is an entirely sensible position to take, you might have woken up this morning with a fright. As we noted yesterday, California has been to the polls to decide the two people who will be on the ballot for November’s election to replace outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom. And the alarming early results put Steve Hilton, currently a Fox News host, formerly David Cameron’s blue-sky thinking guru and all-round figure of ridicule this side of the pond, in pole position.
Well, let me soothe your fears. First of all, they count REALLY slow in California. Don’t expect an actual result for a week or so. Second, Democrats will have voted late. There has been a good deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth about how to vote tactically in this election in particular – lots of people say they didn’t decide on which Democrat candidate to back for the best, and postal ballots will count as long as they were received by close of play yesterday. They won’t be counted for a few days yet (which will give Trump an excuse to bleat about votes “appearing” late in the count, but that’s another issue entirely).
Republicans traditionally vote in person. And in person votes generally get counted first. So despite early voting suggesting a lead for Hilton, it’s unlikely he’s going to win in November. It’s still entirely possible he won’t even be on the ballot – the top two candidates from the primary will go ahead to the general election…even if they’re from the same party. That would be a pretty happy situation for Democrats, who would most likely benefit elsewhere in California’s midterms from dejected Republicans staying at home because nobody from their team is at the top of the ballot.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s get back to the wildest happenings in Trumpworld in the last 24 hours.
- Trump lets slip real reason artists are pulling out of his big festival
- He officially dumps slush fund plan
- He threatens to leave UFC cage up outside White House forever
- Fired 60 Minutes host accuses bosses of ordering him to repeat falsehoods
- Hegseth accused of blocking promotions for women and minorities
- Republican Congressman deletes tweet saying “homosexuality has no place in America”
Here’s what you need to know.
1. Trump lets slip the real reason artists are pulling out of his big festival
Trump was embarrassed last week after a string of artists pulled out of a week-long festival planned for Washington DC later this month. After basically everyone except for Vanilla Ice quit the event, part of events to mark America’s 250th Anniversary, Trump threw his toys out of the pram and announced he’d be doing a rally instead. The event is supposed to be an apolitical celebration of the Semiquincentennial, but many musicians booked to appear feared it would turn into a partisan rally, and that taking part would imply that they supported Trump and his agenda.
And in an interview filmed yesterday, Trump claimed he’d “never heard” of any of the acts who pulled out, and branded them “boring”. Then he let slip that their fears were probably well founded.
“A couple of them said, “We don’t want anything that’s partisan.” I said, “That’s okay. Go someplace else.””
A moment later he caught himself and claimed “We’re not looking to be partisan”…before describing the event to replace the abandoned festival as a “big beautiful rally”.
2. Trump officially dumps slush fund plan
Donald Trump has officially dumped his plan to create a slush fund to hand out $1.8 billion of taxpayers cash to his supporters and allies. The fund had sparked widespread revulsion in the Senate – including from Republicans who threatened to stall a major immigration bill until Trump agreed to scrap the plan. “We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” Attorney General Todd Blanche told a House Committee last night.
3. …but you know that’s not the whole story, right?
The slush fund wasn’t the only element of the entirely spurious deal to settle Trump’s equally spurious lawsuit against his own government. You may recall that the day after the settlement was published, Blanche himself tacked on an extra bit in a memo which effectively banned the American taxman from investigating Trump or his family over existing tax violations until the end of time. It has been widely reported that an “audit” of Trump’s taxes could leave him facing a bill for tens of millions of dollars. Yeah, Blanche told Congress that bit of the settlement is staying right where it is.
4. Trump threatens to leave UFC cage up outside White House forever
Regular readers will know that next Saturday is Donald Trump’s 80th Birthday, and that the only way they could think of to top the massive tank parade they laid on for his 79th was to put on a night of brutal gladiatorial combat on his front lawn. That’s right, there will be a UFC match – a title fight, no less – on the White House South Lawn next weekend. The first major sporting event ever to take place outside the People’s House, in a giant, spider-like cage which has been under construction for several weeks now.
On the night, fighters will literally walk out of the Oval Office, down the new path Trump just had laid, which definitely wasn’t just for this, and into the ring to pummel each other senseless. Just as the founders imagined. If you’re wondering why any of this is happening, here’s a thing I did a few weeks ago explaining it as best I can. Anyway, last night, Trump posted a video on TikTok, in which he compared the godforsaken edifice on the South Lawn to the Eiffel Tower, which he said was only intended to be in place for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris and then taken down. Which is half true, it was supposed to be a 20-year installation. He then mused that the UFC cage on the South Lawn was so beautiful, he might leave it up.
5. Fired 60 Minutes host accuses bosses of ordering him to repeat falsehoods to curry favour with Trump administration
Not many people in the UK will know Scott Pelley, but he’s been one of the most familiar and trusted faces on US television for decades. Imagine an American version of David Dimbleby in his prime. A journalist for CBS News since 1989, Pelley been a correspondent for 60 Minutes, America’s biggest current affairs show – covering news and politics in successive administrations without fear or favour. Last night he was fired.
About a year ago, Bari Weiss, a Trump-sympathetic former blogger and columnist was installed as Editor-In-Chief of CBS News despite having no broadcast journalism experience by David Ellison, the head of parent company Paramount Skydance. Entirely coincidentally, Ellison was at the time very keen to ensure a smooth regulatory journey for the 2024 merger that added the Skydance bit to the company letterhead. So last night, Scott Pelley was fired by CBS News, following reports of a fiery showdown in an all-hands meeting, where the veteran reporter took aim at Weiss (who was not present) for “murdering” 60 Minutes, and accusing her of being sent to “kill” CBS News. It followed reports that Weiss had intervened to put roadblocks in the way of reporting that was critical of the Trump regime.
So last night he was fired – and he made a statement that was somehow fiery and entirely chilling at the same time, claiming the new management had instructed him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” and to “include assertions that are unverified” – which he said he had managed thus far to ignore.
He went on: “Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”
Imagine David Dimbleby being fired by the BBC and throwing that kind of grenade behind him on his way out the door. Extraordinary stuff.
6. Trump mulls pardon for congressman jailed for insider trading
Suggestions have been bubbling for a few days that Trump is considering bestowing a pardon on former Indiana Republican congressman Steve Buyer. Buyer was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023 for insider trading after profiting from privileged information by buying shares in companies just before their takeovers were announced.
Trump had already fuelled speculation that he was going to let Buyer off by posting a letter on Truth Social signed by 42 former Members of Congress and another signed by 5 current members, both dated last year, asking him to pardon him. And then last night he added more fuel, posting a letter – again from last year – signed by lawyer former Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson.
You can probably write this one down.
7. Hegseth accused of blocking promotions for women and minorities
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s “Secretary of War”, has been accused of blocking promotions of women and ethnic minorities. According to the New York Times, the 22-person list of nominees for one-star officers contains no women and only two are non-white men. And the shortlist was produced from a list put forward by senior Navy admirals – from which Hegseth struck three women, two black men and just four white men. The Times reports the final list appears to violate the rules governing the promotion system, which is supposed to be merit-based, and said the interventions “appear to be driven by his anti-diversity politics rather than the officers’ performance.” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, refused to say why Hegseth pulled the officers off the Navy one-star list. But he said: “Military promotions are given to those who have earned them. The department will never consider the colour of a service member’s skin or their gender as a factor in promotions.”
8. Republican Congressman deletes tweet saying “homosexuality has no place in America”
Andy Ogles, a sitting Republican congressman from Tennessee, tweeted the following yesterday: “Homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month.” The tweet was apparently timed as a response to Pride week, which started on Monday. This, of course, prompted widespread condemnation, including from his Republican colleagues. Ogles later threw an aide under the bus, claiming the post had been written by one of his comms staff without his knowledge and saying the employee “has been reprimanded.”
I wonder if that was the same employee who posted “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie” in March. Or “America and Islam are incompatible. Time for a muslim ban”, earlier in March. Hang on, it can’t have been, because that last one included a video of him saying it.