Russia, Ukraine resume talks for first time in years — all thanks to Trump



Negotiators from Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul, Turkey, on Friday, marking the first meeting between the two countries since 2022 due to mounting pressure from President Donald Trump.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan addressed the negotiators at Dolmabahce Palace on Friday, urging the two countries to reach a ceasefire agreement as soon as possible.

"There are two paths ahead of us: One road will take us on a process that will lead to peace, while the other will lead to more destruction and death," Fidan said. "The sides will decide on their own, with their own will, which path they choose."

'Although tensions ran high, progress has been made.'

RELATED: Trump earns unlikely praise from House Democrat: 'I got to give him some kudos there'

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The war officially began under former President Joe Biden, but there was little movement throughout his term. Now, Trump has taken the lead to resolve the conflict.

Up until Trump's inauguration in January, Ukraine was essentially bankrolled by the United States. That all changed during the infamous Oval Office meeting with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Although tensions ran high, progress has been made with various proposed peace deals, though none have yet been agreed to by all parties involved.

RELATED: Trump pledges to lift 'brutal and crippling' sanctions on Syria, pushes for Middle East peace talks

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

The Russia-Ukraine War is not the only conflict Trump is trying to resolve. The president spent the week touring the Middle East and meeting with various leaders, like President Ahmed al-Sharaa of Syria, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

During these meetings, Trump encouraged the leaders to sign onto the Abraham Accords alongside Israel in order to restore peace in the Middle East. Trump also urged the leaders to expel foreign terrorists from Syria, to deport Palestinian terrorists, to aid the United States and prevent the resurgence of ISIS, and to take responsibility for the ISIS detention centers in Syria.

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Democrat lawmakers completely flip on Biden's mental acuity



Throughout former President Joe Biden's term, Americans watched as their commander in chief tumbled down stairs and fumbled through lines often fed to him from a teleprompter.

Everyone could see the truth: Biden was not mentally fit for office. Although his decline was blatantly obvious to onlookers, Biden's political allies in Congress, in media, and even in the White House bent over backwards to conceal it, essentially gaslighting Americans for four years.

Even after Biden's infamous debate performance in 2024 against now-President Donald Trump, Democratic lawmakers turned a blind eye.

Now that the dam has broken, Democrats are flooding social media and news articles recanting their views on the former president's condition.

RELATED: The Great Biden Book War has finally begun

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Just months after the consequential election, Democrats are finally admitting that Biden may not have been as young and spry as they all claimed he was. This shift has largely been greenlit by the upcoming book "Original Sin," penned by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson, detailing Biden's decline during his presidency and on the campaign trail. Notably, Tapper was complicit in the cover-up that he is now credited with unveiling.

Now that the dam has broken, Democrats are flooding social media and news articles recanting their views on the former president's condition.

On the topic of Biden's cognitive decline, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut recently said there was "no doubt about it." Ironically, Murphy was one of the most outspoken allies defending Biden's fitness throughout his presidency and his re-election campaign, calling reports of his decline a "Fox News trope."

RELATED: Trump earns unlikely praise from House Democrat: 'I got to give him some kudos there'

Ken Cedeno/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Similarly, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California recently conceded that Democrats should not have allowed Biden to run in 2024 in light of "facts that have come out." If there was any confusion about Biden's health leading up to the election, his disastrous debate made it clear as day, Khanna indicated.

Khanna sang a different tune less than a year ago, defending Biden immediately after the debate and even likening him to fictional boxing champion Rocky Balboa.

"Rocky wasn't the most eloquent in speech," Khanna said. "But he was a fighter. His character conveyed his eloquence. Our message: Biden's character is his eloquence."

Other lawmakers complicit in the cover-up are looking for another off-ramp.

RELATED: Joe Biden was a puppet, not a president. So who signed the pardons?

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg admitted that Democrats "maybe" would have done better if Biden had never made a re-election bid but stopped just short of confessing culpability. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of the swing state of Michigan deflected altogether, saying she was "halfway across the country" in 2024 and was "busy working."

Whether or not they're willing to admit it, it's clear Democrats are still trying to recover from a serious misstep.

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Soros and McCain: The unholy alliance hidden in plain sight



Have we been missing a Soros-McCain family connection in front of our very eyes all this time?

Unlike his father, George, who operated behind the scenes and dismissed scrutiny as conspiracy theory, Alexander Soros flaunts his influence openly on social media. He’s proudly posted photos with Vice President Kamala Harris, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Democratic leaders like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) — to name just a few. He’s also showcased meetings with newer faces, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), whom he called a “rising star.” Let’s hope he’s right.

What started as a quiet alliance between George Soros and John McCain has now become a visible partnership between their heirs, Alex and Cindy.

To paraphrase “The Big Short”: Alex isn’t confessing — he’s bragging.

His photos with high-profile Democrats have grabbed headlines, but it’s his posts featuring Cindy McCain that reveal something even more telling: a decades-long relationship between the Soros and McCain families.

On May 6, 2024, Alex shared a photo with Cindy at the McCain Institute Sedona Forum. The topic of the forum was “Securing Our Insecure World,” which used the “climate crisis” as a backdrop, and had a roster of speakers that included Democrats and RINOs such as Mitt Romney, Janet Yellen, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), David Axelrod, and former Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In another tweet with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Alex indicated that stopping Trump was a topic of discussion, referring to Kelly as “inspiring as ever and attentive to the threat posed in November if Trump wins.”

Alex has also shared a photo of himself with Cindy McCain and his father at the Munich Security Conference. The two also appear in a photo discussing the World Food Programme. The earliest image of them together dates back to 2020, when Cindy served as chairwoman of the board of the Munich conference and Alex sat on the advisory council, according to the conference’s annual report.

The McCains have never hidden their disdain for Donald Trump or the modern Republican Party — views that earned them the “RINO” tag and de facto exile from today’s GOP.

RELATED: Alex Soros admits he’s more powerful than elected officials

Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images

Their ties to the Soros network don't mark a new alliance, but they do prompt questions about how the relationship began. The answer may lead directly back to John McCain himself.

To understand the dynamic between Cindy McCain and Alex Soros, you first need to understand the relationship between John McCain and George Soros.

In 2001, McCain launched the Reform Institute — a nonprofit think tank that operated as a convenient loophole for accepting unlimited, unregulated donations. Many of the Reform Institute’s funders also contributed to McCain’s presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2008 as well as to his Straight Talk America PAC.

Hypocritically, the Reform Institute has claimed it wants to “clean up” campaign finance. In 2008, the Reform Institute even sent out a fundraising appeal blasting George Soros as a Democratic mega-donor. Yet, it was taking Soros’ money as it criticized others for doing the same.

The Reform Institute accepted multiple contributions from George Soros — some as high as $100,000 — as well as from the Soros-backed Tides Foundation. The maverick also took money from Teneo, a firm co-founded by Bill Clinton’s longtime “bag man” Doug Band.

What started as a quiet alliance between George Soros and John McCain has now become a visible partnership between their heirs, Alex and Cindy. Their shared disdain for Trump and mutual investment in globalist initiatives reveal what many prefer to ignore: Real political power often hides in plain sight — until it doesn’t.

With his ascension to the helm of his father’s Open Society Foundations, Alex Soros inherits a political infrastructure from the Democratic Party — and from RINOs like John and Cindy McCain.

Editor’s note: This article, part of a series, has been adapted from Matt Palumbo’s new book, “The Heir: Inside the (Not So) Secret Network of George Soros.”

The Republicans who could derail reconciliation



Reconciliation talks are beginning to boil over as Republican factions begin attacking the "big, beautiful bill" from all angles.

Up until this week, critics have been relatively quiet about reconciliation while the majority of Republicans embraced the bill, meant to codify President Donald Trump's agenda.

To be clear, the bill does so to an extent. The tax policy is studded with pro-family provisions and includes the incredibly popular "no tax on tips" policy Trump floated during his campaign. There are Medicaid reforms intended to trim the fat and reduce fraud by enforcing work requirements. It even increases the endowment tax on elite universities like Harvard, subjecting the largest endowments to the 21% corporate rate.

But what was supposed to be the centerpiece in the Republican-led Congress has become a focal point for conflict, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is doing what he can to plug as many leaks as possible.

'I understand that we have a thin majority, but we should deliver.'

RELATED: Vance tells Glenn Beck Congress needs to 'get serious' about codifying DOGE cuts

Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Some defectors who have been the most difficult to please are the SALT Caucus, a bipartisan bunch pushing to eliminate the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions. The blue-state Republicans in the caucus, like Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, have been particularly stubborn during these closed-door negotiations.

During one of their many meetings this week, the members even threw out their colleague Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York because she supported the proposed $30,000 cap increase that came out of the Ways and Means Committee. Notably, Malliotakis is the only SALT Caucus member on the committee and therefore the only member with direct influence over tax policy, the very thing the SALT Caucus is trying to change.

Even after holding several meetings throughout the week, Johnson said that he will likely have to work through the weekend to strike a deal with SALT Caucus Republicans.

RELATED: Big, beautiful bill advances after 18-hour markup marathon while SALT talks go south

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

Predictably, Johnson is also facing an uphill battle against conservatives on Capitol Hill, most notably those on the Budget Committee. The committee is the last to hold a markup on Friday morning, which consists of piecing together all the reconciliation portions that have come out of the 11 House committees' markups.

There are no amendments allowed in the Budget Committee. They will simply vote to advance the bill in its entirety.

The problem is that several Republicans on the committee have already committed to voting against the bill's advancement. There are 21 Republicans and 15 Democrats on the House Budget Committee, meaning Republicans can afford to lose only two votes if they want to get the bill across with a simple majority. Yet among those 21 Republicans, four of them said they are willing to tank the bill.

Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told Blaze News earlier in the week that he couldn't get behind the bill because it doesn't do enough to rein in spending and address fraud in the Medicaid system.

"It has to be amended," Roy told Blaze News. "I'm not going to be able to support it as it's currently drafted, and those amendments are going to need to be, you know, relatively significant."

"I didn't come here to perpetuate a broken system," Roy added. "I understand that we have a thin majority, but we should deliver."

RELATED: Exclusive: Why Chip Roy can't support the 'big, beautiful bill': 'The swamp does what the swamp does'

Republican Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma echoed Roy's concerns, saying they too intended to vote against the bill in committee.

Despite these naysayers, leadership is pushing on, with Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) saying he is confident the bill will pass committee on Friday.

"We did the hard work of setting real targets to restore fiscal sanity, and I’m confident we will have the votes in the Budget Committee tomorrow," Arrington said in a statement. "The Republican conference is working in good faith through a few scoring and policy clarifications. With something this big and beautiful, you’ve got to get it right."

If the bill manages to scrape by in the Budget Committee, it will be headed to the Rules Committee on Monday before eventually being put up for a vote on the floor before the Memorial Day target. Unlike the Budget Committee, the Rules Committee allows amendments, which Johnson, who has a historically narrow House majority, will likely need to make if he wants to get enough votes to pass the bill.

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Will Trump’s Free-Market Drug Pricing Solution Cut Out Greedy Middlemen?

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Why Trump's religious liberty agenda terrifies the left — but tells the truth



In a Rose Garden ceremony on May 1, the National Day of Prayer, President Donald Trump announced the creation of a Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty. Even though I couldn’t be there, I knew about the commission because I have the honor of being one of its members.

I can hardly say how much religious liberty means to me, and I was thrilled to know we have a president who understands its vital importance — and sees how scandalously it has been under attack in recent years.

This is the very soul of our republic: a nation grounded in God-given rights, moral clarity, and the enduring belief that freedom begins with the liberty of conscience.

But one is hardly surprised the secular left did not respond well to the announcement, carping that the commission was formed for ulterior motives, hidden agendas, and division.

The folks at Politico, for example, accused the president of “brushing aside separation of church and state,” thereby trumpeting their willful misunderstanding of the famous phrase.

Of course, “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution, but it does appear in a letter President Thomas Jefferson wrote to a Baptist congregation in my hometown of Danbury, Connecticut, in 1802. It represents an utterly central idea about religious liberty, one that is precisely the opposite of what secularists have been twisting it to mean for decades.

Religious liberty means that churches must be protected from the state, not that the state needs to be protected from churches. Jefferson was reassuring the Danbury Baptists that the government would never interfere with their right to worship — nor banish religion from public life.

But secularists persist in pretending that it means the opposite.

The Constitution itself says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This idea underscoresthe centrality of the “exercise” of religion in public life and clarifies that government cannot mandate what kind of religion people practice.

It is that simple.

Far from erasing religion from public life, or preventing believers from shaping public policy or living out their faith in society, the Constitution protects these things.

The origins of our country tell a beautiful story: It was founded as a safe haven from government-mandated worship.

Those who seek to denude our country of religious influence are at odds with our history, our Constitution, and our founders’ vision. Fundamentalist secularists put forth a destructive distortion of our founders’ vision and undermine precisely what has made our country a beacon of hope and justice for people of every faith.

This commission’s goal is to strengthen the liberty of every single American — regardless of that person’s faith and even of whether that person has any faith. It also aims to restore those liberties attacked by hostile and misguided secularists.

Our Declaration of Independence states that our liberties come from God — not from government. It says that “we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and “among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

What could be clearer?

In my book "If You Can Keep It," I discuss how the founders understood that self-government and liberty presupposed a virtuous citizenry, a virtue that comes from religious faith. Power corrupts, so without faith and virtue, freedom would eventually turn on itself.

The idea is this: While the government must never mandate faith, it must vigorously preserve religious liberty so that faith is not crushed by government power.

Trump's Religious Liberty Commission gets this right. Government must be kept out of religion. His EO declares: “It shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce the historic and robust protections for religious liberty enshrined in Federal law.”

This is not about establishing any religion but about protecting the freedom to believe, to speak, and to live according to one’s conscience. Nowhere does the EO limit what religion this is to be.

America has been and must continue to be a haven for freedom of speech and thought, which is exactly what the founders envisioned: a country where “religious voices and views are integral to a vibrant public square,” where “religious people and institutions are free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or hostility from the government.”

This vision stretches back to the early settlers: Pilgrims, Quakers, Baptists, and others who fled Europe to escape religious persecution. They sought a land where they could freely choose, follow, and express their faith.

The Religious Liberty Commission honors their legacy by safeguarding that right.

The goal of the Commission is to protect:

  • The First Amendment rights of pastors, religious leaders, houses of worship, faith-based institutions, and religious speakers.
  • Attacks across America on houses of worship of many religions.
  • De-banking of religious entities.
  • The rights of teachers, students, military chaplains, service members, employers, and employees.
  • Conscience protections in health care and vaccine mandates.
  • Parental rights in education and religious instruction.
  • Government displays with religious imagery.
  • The right of all Americans to freely exercise their faith without fear or government censorship.

These are not just Christian issues. These are human liberty issues. They apply to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and those of any or no faith.

Unsurprisingly the biggest concern of the legacy media is the LGBTQ agenda, which, of course, is markedly at odds with many religions. Sharia law reserves some of its harshest punishments for same-sex relationships. So why do these critics describe the commission as a “Christian nationalist” exercise other than as a cynical and calculated smear?

As I’ve written about in several of my books, it was the silence of the churches in Germany in the 1930s that led to the rise of Nazis and opened the door to unspeakable evils. The Religious Liberty Commission simply allows a platform for religious voices to be heard, and it reaffirms that America is a nation where faith can thrive without government interference.

The founders made that promise back in 1791, and while it’s tragic that we’ve come to the point where we need our president to reaffirm this, we must support his action.

The Religious Liberty Commission fulfills what the founders envisioned — a nation where faith is not censored but celebrated. A place where believers are not exiled from the public square but welcomed as full participants in our democracy.

This is the very soul of our republic: a nation grounded in God-given rights, moral clarity, and the enduring belief that freedom begins with the liberty of conscience.

This commission is not merely constitutional. It’s courageous. And it’s exactly what America needs.

I, for one, am immensely humbled that I can work alongside President Trump and the magnificent members of this commission to ensure the religious liberty of every American can be protected so that it can thrive. I pray that our society would lean into our heritage, that we would follow God first, and that liberty would continue to thrive.

May God continue to bless our nation for His purposes in history.

Democrats pick Beijing over Trump in shocking trade war poll



In a development that would have shocked most Americans just a decade ago, a new poll shows more Democrats now hope China wins the trade war with the United States than want their own country to come out ahead. That’s not exaggeration. It’s not spin. It’s a brutal fact.

A national survey I co-authored for the Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports found that 32% of likely Democratic voters want China to prevail, while just 30% say they support the Trump administration in the conflict. Another 38% say they’re unsure.

The poll should serve as a wake-up call. We are not just facing a battle over policy. We’re engaged in a war over the very soul of our country.

By comparison, 88% of likely Republican voters support the Trump administration in the trade war. Among voters who identify as politically unaffiliated, just 16% favor China over the United States.

Think about that. A growing number of Democrats would rather see a repressive communist regime — one that jails political dissidents, censors speech, and persecutes religious minorities — defeat America in an economic showdown, simply to spite Donald Trump.

This isn’t just disturbing. It’s un-American.

The poll results reveal a troubling reality about today’s left. Partisan hatred has overtaken even the most basic sense of national loyalty. It’s no longer about what helps America — it’s about what hurts Donald Trump, even if that means handing a strategic victory to our greatest geopolitical adversary.

This debate isn’t about tariff policy. Reasonable people can disagree on trade. This is about cheering on a totalitarian regime simply because it opposes a U.S. president. That’s not ideology — it’s pure partisan spite. And it should alarm every American who values country over party.

Some might dismiss this as ignorance. But the survey suggests something deeper. Everyone understands what the Chinese communist regime represents. This is the government that covered up the COVID-19 outbreak, steals hundreds of billions worth of U.S. intellectual property annually, and props up its economy with forced labor.

Yet, a large share of Democratic voters would still rather see China win a trade war than watch Trump succeed.

This is the rot at the core of the modern progressive movement: a deep, pathological loathing for everything that even resembles traditional American values — capitalism, strength, independence, and yes, national pride. That’s why so many on the left can’t bring themselves to cheer for a U.S. victory in a confrontation with a foreign adversary.

The poll should serve as a wake-up call. We are not just facing a battle over policy. We’re engaged in a war over the very soul of our country.

It’s no longer enough to assume that all Americans, no matter how fiercely they disagree, are on the same team when it comes to defending our national interest. That assumption is now demonstrably false.

The fight for the future of the United States is not just happening in Washington — it’s happening in the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens. And based on this data, that fight is far from over.

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