Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday said Elon Musk’s sharp criticism of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” was “flat wrong,” but that he did not take it personally.

Musk on Tuesday torched the GOP spending package on X, calling it “a disgusting abomination,” which the speaker said was a complete 180 from what he had indicated in private just a day earlier.

Johnson and other House Republicans spoke to reporters Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill, where they addressed a variety of topics, including the future of the spending bill.

“I consider Elon a friend,” Johnson told reporters. “It’s curious to me what happened this week. Elon and I had a great conversation—about a half hour long talk— on Monday,” Johnson explained. “We talked about the Big Beautiful Bill.”

He recalled that Elon had questioned how a spending bill could be both big and beautiful, and that he had tried to answer the question.

Johnson said he pointed out that there is an unprecedented $1.6 trillion in spending cuts in the bill and a “record level of savings,” as well as “great policy prescriptions.”

“I explained to him what we’re doing, and that this is just the beginning—you can’t do it all in one bill!” Johnson exclaimed. “It took Congress decades to get to this situation, it’s going to take us a little while to get out of it,” the speaker added. “But we have a very specific plan to do that.”

Johnson told reporters that Musk seemed “encouraged” by his words, and when the conversation turned to the midterm elections, the billionaire said, ‘I’m gonna help. We’ve got to make sure the Republicans keep the House majority.”

The speaker said Musk had expressed concern that if Democrats take the majority in 2026, they’ll immediately move to impeach President Trump.

“The president needs four years to do all this reform—not two years,” Johnson said.

“Elon and I left on a great note,” the speaker continued, “and then yesterday, 24 hours later, he does a 180, and he opposed the bill. It surprised me, frankly. I don’t take it personal.”

Johnson said that policy differences should not be taken personally, but stressed “I think he’s flat wrong. He’s way off on this.”

The speaker also told reporters that he feels very confident about the midterm elections because when the “Big Beautiful Bill” is passed, “every single American is going to do better.”

“I have NO concern whatsoever, I am absolutely convinced we are gonna win the midterms and grow the House majority because we are delivering for the American people and fulfilling our campaign promises,” he said.

Johnson said he called Musk last night, but he didn’t answer.

“I hope to talk to him today,” he told reporters, insisting, “I’m not upset about this.”

The speaker added that he speaks with President Trump “multiple times a day” and that the president “is not delighted that Elon did a 180” on the Big Beautiful Bill.

“I don’t know what happened in 24 hours,” Johnson said. “Everyone can draw their own conclusions about that.”

Meanwhile, on X Wednesday, Musk posted a series of tweets expressing concern about the national debt.

“Interest payments already consume 25% of all government revenue,” the former DOGE chief wrote in response to a post about the United States’ annual budget deficit skyrocketing to over $2 trillion per year. “If the massive deficit spending continues, there will only be money for interest payments and nothing else! No social security, no medical, no defense … nothing.”

In response to Musk’s post, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) pointed out that “Congress continues to add to the debt at an astounding rate of $2 trillion per year—with our national debt growing faster than our economy.”

The senator added, “unless we turn this around quickly, our debt and deficit will increasingly threaten our ability to fund the basic operations of government.”

Musk responded: “This is debt slavery for the American people.”

Update:

In a mid-afternoon X post Wednesday, Musk made clear that he was unpersuaded by any GOP defenses of the Big Beautiful Bill.

“Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok!,” Musk wrote. “KILL the BILL.”

Debra Heine, American Greatness

The Senate has opened its hearing process to decide whether to approve President Donald Trump’s nominations of judges to the federal bench.

Senators on the Judiciary Committee opened the review of a judge appointed to an appeals court and several others to district courts.At the outset, reported Politico, political posturing got underway with Republican Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, reminding Democrats that former President Joe Biden often had the support of opposition Republicans for his nominees. “Elections, as we all know, have consequences,” said Grassley. “I worry that partisanship will hamper these efforts.”

His comments may have been a dig at Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the ranking Democrat on the committee who previously commented he might attempt to hinder the nomination process for Trump appointments.

Durbin and Grassley also got into a back-and-forth over the Trump administration’s decision to prevent the American Bar Association from providing official input into the selection process. The administration characterized the bar as favoring liberal candidates.

Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to ABA President William Bay, “Unfortunately, the ABA no longer functions as a fair arbiter of nominees’ qualifications, and its ratings invariably and demonstrably favor nominees put forth by Democratic administrations.”

Grassley reminded senators that while the bar has no official standing in the process, it is always free to submit information it deems important, and senators could consider or ignore the bar as they desired.

Trump’s nominee for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, Whitney D. Hermandorfer, faced intense scrutiny in the opening hearing. The position on the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court bench is one of only a few appeals court seats Trump may be able to nominate. Democrats pointed to what they saw as her limited experience at the appellate level, while Republicans appeared pleased at her overall legal experience.

Hermandorfer currently works as the director of the strategic litigation unit for the Tennessee attorney general.

Jim Mishler ✉

Jim Mishler, a seasoned reporter, anchor and news director, has decades of experience covering crime, politics and environmental issues.

Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes you might blindly attempt to indulge. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy—a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.

Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury or the favor of others, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires—so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal’s lust, men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them.—Ayn Rand

Freedom requires a price to be paid by every generation.

1. While most of America remains blissfully uniformed by our establishment press, the world’s two greatest superpowers are being manipulated by Dark Forces inside and outside our government, into a major military confrontation that no country wants, and no sane person would ever want.

2. I have no role in the Trump Administration, but over a long career in the active uniformed military, specifically military intelligence, I have made it a point to cultivate many sources of information around the world. From what I can piece together, I want to share my deep concerns about who is behind this march to war, and my recommendations for how our nation and the West can avoid a major military confrontation with Russia.

3. I believe that the American Deep State is staffed by those with a deep, visceral, and irrational hatred for Russia, and these persons have conspired to box in President Trump’s decision making through the Russiagate Hoax. During the time the Soviet Union was expanding and infiltrating our government, I was an outspoken anti-communist, but, despite the lies told by our Deep State, Russia is not the Soviet Union and Putin is not Stalin. Even today, years after the Russiagate Hoax has been exposed, President Trump’s efforts to bring peace are met with resistance. The Establishment Press, deeply influenced and even sometimes controlled by our Deep State, labeled President Trump and those who work for him “Putin’s Puppets” to goad him into taking unwarranted and aggressive steps against Russia. These voices from the establishment press reflect the views of the Deep State, not the American People, and not the MAGA movement, and should be completely disregarded, if not mocked.

4. During almost all of the post-World War II period, and certainly since the establishment of the CIA in 1947, these unelected dark establishment forces have acted to destabilize the world, bringing death, famine, assassinations, violence, coups, riots, revolutions, and destruction to our planet. Currently, these forces are working to provoke Russia into a major — perhaps a final — military conflict with the West.

5. This provocation has many forms. Most recently, it involves the surprise drone attack on the Russian federation strategic arsenal, said to affect 40 bombers, or about a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. Since Russian and American strategic bombers are generally required by agreement to be visible to satellite surveillance, never before has anyone engaged in an attack on these visible targets. If Russian bombers can be attacked with impunity, so can American bombers. By this action, the Ukrainian Government has not just weakened Russia, it has jeopardized America. Thus, those in the Ukrainian government who ordered these strikes have made themselves enemies not just of Russia, but of the United States. Making matters worse, this unwarranted attack was followed by Ukrainian attacks on the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Russia and Crimea.

6. I do not believe that the recent escalation against Russia’s strategic bomber fleet was authorized by or coordinated with President Trump. Rather, it is my view that the Deep State is now acting outside of the control of the elected leadership of our nation. I believe that these persons in our Deep State are engaged in a deliberate effort to provoke Russia into a major confrontation with the West, including the United States. The time is now to take aggressive action against those who abuse their authority as government employees to manipulate the elected leadership of our nation.

7. Growing up in an Irish Democrat family in Rhode Island, I was only about five when John Kennedy was assassinated, but our family viewed John Kennedy as a hero. Not just for my family, one of our most beloved Presidents, John F. Kennedy, in 1961, found himself manipulated by earlier versions of these same Deep State forces when they attempted to manipulate President Kennedy to launch Air Force planes to attack Cuba after the failed invasion, resulting in an open conflict with both Cuba and the Soviet Union. In President Kennedy’s June 1963 speech at American University declaring his vision of peace with the Soviet Union, he declared himself to be an enemy of this Deep State, which by all indications then retaliated by participating in his assassination five months later in Dallas. The American Deep State is not only a threat to peace, but a threat to the President.

8. President Trump has already faced at least two assassination attempts. If there is one person who I believe has the character and love for our nation to rid our government of these forces, it is President Trump. After the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, President Trump displayed the type of personal courage that those of us who have served in the military deeply admire. With great affection for the President, I now urge him to risk the wrath of the Deep State once again by taking actions to purge enemies of our nation within our agencies and departments. Removing such persons from power is absolutely necessary to achieve the type of peace he described during his campaign and the beginning of his Administration.

9. Once President Kennedy realized he was being manipulated, and opposed because he sought peace, he removed Allen Dulles as Director of Central Intelligence, and several of his assistants. I urge President Trump to immediately clean house of any in government who had prior knowledge of or participated in any way in the Ukrainian attack on the Russian federation strategic bombers, and to go further by immediately declaring an end to any support for the Ukraine War. President Trump is right: this is not “his” War. I urge him to recall all open and covert military and other government personnel from Ukraine. I urge him to have all those personnel removed and interrogated by the FBI or the military to learn of their possible participation in unauthorized military activities. Any Americans who have aided and abetted Ukraine’s attacks should be investigated for violation of American law, and prosecuted as necessary.

10. I also believe President Trump should distance himself from certain Western leaders such as German Chancellor Fred Merz, who have acted and spoken in an irresponsible manner with respect to the Ukraine War. If there are countries in Europe who wish to provide military assistance to Ukraine, that is their concern, and they should not be surprised by President Putin’s response to their actions against Russia. If such leaders want to lead their nations to war by persisting in such irresponsible behavior, they will go it alone.

11. I urge President Trump to also distance himself from demonstrated war mongers in our own government, chief among whom is U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham. Those who love wars fought by others are no friends of America, and have no entitlement to be friends of the President.

12. Finally, I urge the American people to stand prayerfully and resolutely with President Trump as he cleans house and acts in pursuit of the type of peace which President Kennedy embraced. Peace is not the normal state of man. Freedom requires a price be paid by every generation. It is time to recommit our nation to both.

Ltd. General Michael T. Flynn (Ret.)

The “true sign of adulthood” is multifaceted and subjective, but generally revolves around taking responsibility for one’s actions, becoming financially independent, and developing a sense of self-awareness. It’s about embracing independence, managing personal finances, and making informed decisions that shape one’s life and impact others. 

Elaboration:

• Financial Independence: This includes managing your own income, paying bills, budgeting, and saving for the future. 
• Responsibility: Taking ownership of your actions, their consequences, and the decisions you make. 
• Self-Awareness: Understanding your own desires, feelings, and biases, and how they influence your behavior. 
• Emotional Maturity: Developing the ability to regulate emotions, handle stress, and build healthy relationships. 
• Personal Growth: Continuously learning, adapting, and evolving as an individual. 
• Physical and Mental Well-being: Prioritizing health, rest, and overall well-being. 

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The Trump administration has taken steps to free police and fire departments from the Biden administration’s onerous consent decrees.

The Trump administration has dropped the Biden administration’s push for onerous consent decrees on police and fire departments. These legal settlements micromanaged police operations and mandated DEI-based hiring and promotion practices.

“These radical requirements seem disconnected from how police departments actually work,” said Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon on Friday. “They tie officers’ hands and make communities less safe.”

The proposed consent decrees required departments to change how they tested prospective hires, increasing the share of black and female candidates hired.

Dhillon also warned that consent decrees drain resources, saying, “Once a judge imposes a consent decree, cities typically spend $10 million or more each year to comply with endless legal demands.”

Such money could instead go toward actually policing our streets.

Data on DEI

DEI practices have been pushed on police departments by Democrat presidents for decades, and economists have studied how such decrees impact the effectiveness of police forces, particularly when they change or eliminate testing standards to reshape the racial or gender makeup of departments.

There can, however, be advantages to hiring minority officers. In many cases, residents of minority communities are more likely to cooperate with officers who share their background. Minority officers can also serve undercover more effectively.

Consent decrees increase minority hiring by eliminating or reducing intelligence test standards. Since all new hires take these tests, the practice risks lowering the quality of new hires across the racial spectrum. Such recruiting has led to increased crime rates, and the largest increases have occurred in more heavily minority areas.

The effect is quite significant. On average, cities that had consent decrees for hiring imposed on them saw their violent and property crime rates falling relative to other cities before the consent decrees and rising relative to other cities afterward. The average yearly decline relative to other cities before the consent decree was -5.3 percent for violent crime, and the average yearly increase afterward was 4.8 percent.

Police departments that hired more black officers after changing their hiring rules also tended to lower their hiring standards the most. A 1 percent increase in the share of black officers correlated with a 4 percent rise in property crime and an almost 5 percent increase in violent crime. These crime spikes hit hardest in areas with the largest black population.

Affirmative Action for Women

In contrast to race-oriented affirmative action, which lowers standards for everyone, affirmative action for women sets lower strength, speed, and size standards that apply only to female applicants. Last year, as Los Angeles battled its worst fires in history, the fire department’s highly paid diversity head faced backlash when asked if she was strong enough to carry someone’s husband out of a fire. Her response: “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”

For police, changing strength standards has some offsetting effects. Hiring more women for male-designated positions reduces the number of available slots for men, so lowering physical standards for women results in more competition for the remaining slots for men and thus tends to result in men meeting stricter standards.

Affirmative action for women does not significantly affect crime rates. The change in the quality of male recruits helps offset the lower requirements for women.

Technology and new operating procedures can offset some differences between men and women. Cars can replace foot and bicycle patrols. Two-officer units can replace single-officer units, but that shift reduces the area law enforcement can cover. Eliminating foot patrols also weakens local connections, as officers spend less time building relationships with the communities they serve.

My research suggests that increasing the number of black male cops slightly reduces police shootings of civilians. But more female officers increased shootings of civilians.

Why? Criminals are more likely to assault officers whom they think they can overpower. Every 1 percent increase in the share of women on a police force is associated with a 15 to 19 percent increase in the number of assaults on police..

John R. Lott, Jr., The Federalist

A recently released study that’s making the rounds in political circles confirms what’s been apparent for years: A significant percentage of leftists are mentally ill.

Conducted by researchers from Tufts and Yale Universities, the study published April 30 found that conservatives self-reported having higher rates of “positive” mental health than their liberal counterparts. According to a graphic summarizing the data released by left-wing election statistician Nate Silver, 51 percent of conservatives described themselves as having “excellent” mental heath, while only 20 percent of liberals said the same.

A similar dynamic also exists among those who self-reported having bad mental health. A whopping 45 percent of self-described liberal respondents described their mental well-being as “poor,” while just 19 percent of self-described conservatives offered the same response.

The data “comes from the 2022 and 2023 Cooperative Election Study (CES) surveys,” according to the analysis.

The study’s authors noted, “While conservatives report much higher mental health ratings, asking instead about overall mood eliminated the gap between liberals and conservatives.” They offered multiple explanations for this, saying “that rather than a genuine mental health divide, conservatives may inflate their mental health ratings when asked, due to stigma surrounding the term,” and “that ideological differences persist for some aspects of mental well-being, but not others.”

The authors acknowledge, however, that “overall mood” and “mental health” are “not synonymous,” and that the former is “a more short-term state.”

“It is possible, then, that overall mood, given its shorter term nature, can be influenced by daily stressors and emotional fluctuations that are less tied to ideology,” the study reads. “Asking an individual about their ‘overall mood’ might capture a more immediate response to an individual’s life events, or current state of being. ‘Mental health,’ given its longer term nature, might reflect an individual’s ability to cope with these daily stressors.”

The self-reported numbers aren’t exactly shocking. A quick glance at the current state of the Democrat Party reveals anything but a mentally sound political movement whose members are in touch with reality.

Consider leftists’ unhinged obsession with chemically and surgically castrating minors and allowing female-identifying men to compete in women’s sports. Or their addiction to blaming “racism” on any disparity between white and non-white Americans, the latter of whom they view as “oppressed.” Or their willingness to vilify traditional forms of masculine behavior as “toxic” and tout feminists’ “girl boss” attitude.

Under this “social justice warrior” lifestyle, the “cause” takes precedence above all else.

Contrast that with conservatives, many of whom prioritize their religion, family, and communities. Especially for conservative Christians, faith in Christ is a major blessing when confronted with challenging moments and provides a broader perspective on life itself.

Despite their insistence to the contrary, leftists’ dedication to a worldview built on lies is a recipe for personal disaster. They are a people in desperate need of spiritual revival, and hopefully, one day they receive it.

---

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

By Silvio Canto, Jr., American Thinker

Over the last month, we’ve seen an attack on Governor Josh Shapiro’s home, the killing of a young couple in D.C., and now a Molotov cocktail thrown at people peacefully protesting. By the way, what do these incidents have in common? The targets are all Jewish and the guy in Boulder, Colorado somehow managed to get a work permit after his visa expired.

Where else is stuff like this happening? Let’s check out Brussels, once a very traditional European city that tourists loved to visit. Well, check again because Brussels may be exhibit A of Europe’s disintegration and where uncontrolled immigration is running wild.

This is from Drieu Godefridi:

Brussels, the self-proclaimed capital of the European Union, is no longer the beacon of a united Europe, but an advanced symptom of its disintegration.

The normalization of radical Islamic and anti-Semitic discourse we are witnessing in Brussels is the result of 15 years of leaders abrogating their responsibility. Brussels, through its inability — or unwillingness — to make unpleasant but necessary choices, is setting itself up as the first potential locus of protracted European unrest.

The Islamist Team Fouad Ahidar party embodies a new situation: a political Islam that no longer hides its identity. Instead, it advocates that a religious identity be the underpinning of national cohesion. This fragmentation reflects a profound breakdown in the social contract, between the old European society, which confines religion to the private sphere, and the “new Europeans” (Muslims), who want everything to be subject to their religious doctrine.

Crime rates are rising everywhere in Brussels, particularly in an area in the spotlight for its frequent shootings: the Bruxelles-Midi Zone (Saint-Gilles, Forest, Anderlecht). Between 2022 and 2023, notes the newspaper L’Echo, robberies and extortion rose by 23%, robberies without weapons by 34%, pickpocketing by 27%, and armed robberies by a staggering 53%.

Jew-hatred, often marketed in unconvincing, transparent disguises as “anti-Zionism,” flourishes in many other Islamic-centered and radical left-wing circles…. in Brussels, Jew-hatred enjoys almost total impunity.

As of 2023, 74% of Brussels’ population is of foreign background, compared to a European average of 10%… This demographic transformation or “great replacement,” far from being accompanied by an effective integration policy, has saturated Brussels — overcrowded schools, overwhelmed hospitals, sorely inadequate housing — and exacerbated communal tensions.

In 2022, a report revealed that 35% of young people with an immigrant background in Brussels were living in households where nobody has a job — a breeding ground for delinquency and radicalization.

Brussels is not only a city in crisis, it is a city on the brink of implosion.

Jew hatred? No kidding. It’s more than that. It’s what happens when societies don’t reproduce and eventually have to bring in people to do the work. It makes matters worse when the new kid on the block doesn’t respect your culture and is committed to undermine it. Chaos is the word.

The bad news is that Brussels is no longer Brussels. The good news is that this is our “ghost of the future,” the warning that it does not have to happen here. It does not have to happen here if we commit ourselves to preserving the West and what it stands for.

Yes, it is a battle of civilizations and cultures and we need to be ready for the fight.

P.S. Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos.

Image: AT via Magic Studio

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Progressive filmmaker and activist Michael Moore rewrote the words of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance on Monday, asking his readers to unite against President Donald Trump and “MAGA-heads” in the country.

“I pledge allegiance to the people of the United States of America. And to the democracy for which we all stand: One person, one vote, one nation, part of one world, everyone! A seat at the table! Everyone! A slice of the pie! With liberty and justice, equality, and kindness and the pursuit of happiness for all,” Moore wrote on his Substack account.

The “Fahrenheit 9/11” director said he wrote the new pledge “[f]or the people and for the country that deep down — in spite of its MAGA-heads, in spite of its insanity — we’ve decided to fight for its survival, holding onto a belief that we can make it better, that we can fix it, that we can end the madness and create a true Democracy for which it stands.”

After providing his pledge, Moore called on readers to act and offered several actions that would take just a few minutes, including emailing a one-sentence message to an elected official, calling a member of Congress, signing up for a local progressive group or creating a sign for an upcoming rally.

He implored readers to take at least one political action every day.

“Our hearts do not go more than a second without creating a beat. Our lungs do not skip more than 3 seconds without taking a breath. Can we all, all of us, together, pledge to not skip a day right now without taking some simple sort of political action?” Moore wrote.

Moore has come out against staples of the United States in the past but has usually targeted the Second Amendment, which protects the right to gun ownership. In 2022, he proposed a “28th Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution to repeal the Second Amendment and enforce nationwide gun control.

The inalienable right of a free people to be kept safe from gun violence and the fear thereof must not be infringed and shall be protected by the Congress and the States. This Amendment thus repeals and replaces the Second Amendment,” Moore wrote at the time.

Lindsay Kornick is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to lindsay.kornick@fox.com and on Twitter: @lmkornick