Hey everyone. Welcome back and happy Monday. Good to have you here.
Our top story today: one of the biggest banks in America has said that it shut down hundreds of Donald Trump’s business accounts over money-laundering concerns. This wasn’t a rumor or leak, it was a filing in court. And it comes after Trump sued the bank and said they did it for political reasons. How about that for a backfire?
We’ll also get into how two retiring Republican senators caved yet again and cleared the way for Todd Blanche’s confirmation, RFK losing his mind on live TV, Trump blaming Minnesota for Iran’s apparent cyberattack, and an update on the ridiculous reflecting pool saga that just doesn’t seem to end.
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Let’s get to it.
1. Capital One Says It Closed Trump's Accounts Over Money Laundering Concerns
The bank, which happens to be one of the largest in the country, says it shut down Trump’s accounts after a months-long review by its financial-crimes team, a unit staffed by people with decades of law enforcement experience. And they said they closed the accounts for, quote, “anti-money-laundering reasons.”
This started because the Trump Organization is suing Capital One, claiming the bank cut them off for political reasons after January 6th. But Capital One says this had nothing to do with politics. It says its compliance team flagged the kinds of transaction patterns that federal banking rules require them to flag, and did what they would do in any other situation.
The funny thing is that Trump did this to himself. Until now, we had no idea why Capital One closed these accounts. The bank never said a word. In fact, they legally couldn’t. But then he sued them and forced the bank to put it on the record in federal court that this was about money laundering concerns. Nobody leaked this. His own lawsuit dragged it into the open.
And by the way, Capital One isn’t alone here. Trump is suing JPMorgan too, because they closed his personal accounts back in 2021 as well. Now, JPMorgan hasn’t said why, at least not yet. But when bank after bank decides they’d rather lose the President of the United States as a customer than keep his business, maybe the problem isn’t the banks.
2. Cornyn and Tillis Cave and Clear the Way for Todd Blanche
Last week, Todd Blanche’s confirmation for Attorney General looked like it was in real trouble. Republican Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, both of whom are retiring, wouldn’t budge on his nomination. The committee canceled Blanche’s confirmation vote, and for a few days there, it looked like two Republicans might actually hold the line.
Their problem was the settlement Trump got by suing his own IRS. That deal created the two billion dollar anti-weaponization fund. It also gave Trump immunity from IRS audits on his past taxes. A few weeks ago, a judge killed the slush fund. But the immunity part of the deal survived.
Going into the weekend, Tillis and Cornyn had two demands. Put it in writing that the fund is dead. And narrow the tax immunity, because the President should not be shielded from the audits you and I face every year. But that second part is really the one that mattered.
Then late last night, Blanche formally rescinded the fund. But no changes to the tax immunity part of the settlement. In fact, it wasn’t even mentioned. And then this morning, Cornyn and Tillis put out a statement saying they look forward to voting for him.
So the President gets to keep the part he actually cares about. And Cornyn and Tillis didn’t get what they were demanding last week. And in exchange, Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s personal defense lawyer, gets confirmed as the Attorney General of the United States.
Look, Cornyn and Tillis are retiring. They had nothing to be afraid of. And they had an opportunity to actually do something meaningful against the President they sold their souls for a decade ago. And what did that loyalty buy them? Trump endorsed Cornyn’s opponent and ran him out of his own primary. He threatened to run Tillis out too. He ended both their careers. And they still caved.
So we have to ask ourselves, what are they protecting? Not their seats. Those are gone. Not their reputations. Those went years ago. When two Republican senators finally had nothing to lose, they still couldn’t bring themselves to cross Donald Trump.
3. RFK Loses It on CNN
On Sunday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat down with Dana Bash on CNN. And she asked him what should be an easy question for the nation’s top health official. How would you prepare us for the next pandemic?
He literally couldn’t answer it. Instead, he said something about constitutional rights being stripped during Covid. Take a look at this:
So that was towards the beginning of the interview. Let’s look towards the end to see just how much this guy unraveled over the course of fifteen minutes:
And when Bash pushed back on his actual claims with facts, he crashed even more. He claimed America had the highest COVID death rate of any nation on earth. But Johns Hopkins data shows at least 13 countries had higher rates. When he defended the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism, Bash noted that’s just not true.
Look, the theatrics are expected with this administration. But the Secretary of Health and Human Services was asked how he would protect Americans from the next pandemic, and he couldn’t answer. He attacked the person asking instead.
This is the man in charge of your family’s health while measles roars back to a 35-year high. And the first people have died today from the cyclospora outbreak, two people in Michigan. These outbreaks affecting the health of the country are no joke. When the simplest question about his actual job makes him lunge across a table and start yelling, that tells you that this man has zero plan. He is quite literally the worst man for the job.
4. Trump Blames Minnesota for a Cyberattack Investigators Pin on Iran
Last week, a coordinated cyberattack hit more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota, part of a wave that struck seven states. Federal and state officials quickly zeroed in on a prime suspect: Iran. It fit a known pattern, because Iranian-linked hackers have hit American water systems before.
So in the middle of a war, investigators think America’s enemies hit our infrastructure. Makes sense, right? Well, maybe not to the President:
Trump’s theory is that Minnesota hacked itself, blaming Tim Walz in an escalation of his feud with the state. That grudge apparently matters more than his war against the Iranian regime, which he’s called “a vicious group of very hard, terrible people” and threatened with “complete destruction and certain death.” And it certainly matters more than his administration’s gutting of CISA, the agency that defends us from cyberattacks like these.
Look, when a hostile foreign power attacks American infrastructure, the President of the United States stands up for America. Full stop. But after this President started a war and cut our defenses, he didn’t say a word when Iran may have hit us back. Instead he blamed the Americans that got hit, because he cares about getting cheap political points against his opponents at home more than our enemies abroad.
5. Trump Turns on Jeanine Pirro Over the Reflecting Pool
After Trump called for the arrest of supposed Reflecting Pool vandals, former Olympian David Hearn was charged with a felony for allegedly ripping up the pool liner during a protest. But this Friday, the Justice Department dropped that entire case, admitting the damage actually came from a botched installation by the contractor. In their words, it was “difficult to attribute the widespread damage to vandalism.”
Now, a normal person would accept that and move on. But Trump responded by publicly attacking Jeanine Pirro, the Fox News host he appointed as US Attorney for our nation’s capital. He posted on Truth Social that he disagreed with Pirro “100 percent” and insisted the damage was still “caused by VANDALS.”
So now, the President is fighting his own Justice Department to keep the lies going. And even Republicans are skeptical:
Faced with his own government, his own appointee, and the plain evidence against him, Trump could not do it. He could not say the three hardest words in his vocabulary: I was wrong. Whether it’s about a pool liner, Iran, or the 2020 election, we have never heard them. And I doubt we ever will.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
Ohio Rep. Max Miller announced yesterday that he is staying in his reelection race, three days before Ohio’s Wednesday deadline to trigger a special election and put someone else on the ballot. Within hours, his former father-in-law, GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno, publicly called him a danger to his own daughter, said he needed professional help, and said he should not serve in the House. Emily Moreno’s court filings accuse Miller of hitting and threatening her during their marriage, and she has said their daughter’s collarbone was broken while in his custody, which he denies. Miller has also faced abuse allegations from former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who he sued for defamation before dropping the case in a 2023 settlement. Asked aboard Air Force One whether Miller should resign, Trump said he would look at it but “so far it’s accusations.” Miller’s seat went for Trump by 11 points in 2024, but Democrats now think they can flip it.
New reports revealed yesterday that President Trump is not worried about losing Congress this November, because he doesn’t plan to use it. The President’s closest advisers indicated that he’d prefer a win but is largely indifferent to the outcome, including the prospect of two years of Democratic investigations into his family and his finances. The final stretch of his term will rely on executive action and pardons rather than legislation, which was always his preferred method anyway, and the incoming Republican class is expected to be more aligned with him than the one it replaces. Senate Republicans have picked up on this, increasingly describing him privately as a political liability. They point to his insistence on a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund for MAGA allies and his demands that they pass the SAVE America Act, a bill with no realistic path into law. Republicans started this cycle with 53 seats and a map that was supposed to be comfortable, but are now looking at a map with more states seemingly in play for Democrats.
