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UPDATING: Steve Bannon Cut From National Security Council

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Big Shakeup?

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has been cut from the Trump administration’s National Security Council in a shakeup orchestrated by President Donald Trump, according to Bloomberg News and an official White House memo. (See updates below.) Newly-appointed National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster appears to have been designated as head of the National Security Council, as is appropriate.

McMaster, who assumed office late last month, reportedly is seeking to remove from her position his Deputy National Security Advisor, controversial former Fox News national security analyst K. T. McFarland. McFarland, who was hired by the now fired Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, reportedly has been offered a state Department job as U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, according to CNN.

Bannon had been named to the National Security Council early on, in a move that drew outrage and concern from many tenured House and Senate lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Bannon, who is also an Assistant to the President, holds largely a political job, not a national security job. Trump effectively had politicized national security by placing Bannon in the key role.

Bannon remains a top Trump advisor.

UPDATE I: 12:00 PM EDT –
Shakeup engineered by H.R. McMaster, not by Trump, according to multiple reports.

 

UPDATE II: 12:03 PM EDT –
Washington Post’s Robert Costa Delivering Trump administration’s spin:

UPDATE III: 12:10 PM EDT –
More on why this wasn’t Trump, it was McMaster:

 

More to come.

This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change. This story will be updated, and NCRM will likely publish follow-up stories on this news. Stay tuned and refresh for updates.

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Trump Slammed for ‘Bragging’ He Kicked Millions Off Food Stamps

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President Donald Trump was blasted during his State of the Union address after he declared that he has “lifted 2.4 million Americans — a record — off of food stamps.”

Critics noted that in his 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump cut billions of dollars from food stamps, also known as SNAP, and put in regulations making it harder for recipients to stay on the program.

“Trump didn’t ‘lift’ anyone off food stamps—he kicked them off,” wrote U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). “He’s forcing millions to go hungry. She also noted that SNAP is “not charity, it’s an investment.”

“Interesting way to say he kicked people off of SNAP,” said Democratic Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois.

Senate Budget Committee Democrats also slammed the president’s remarks.

“Republicans *cut* food funding for 3 MILLION hungry Americans making it harder for struggling families to put food on the table. All to fund more tax breaks for billionaires,” they wrote.

“Trump cut millions of people’s food assistance and is bragging about it,” said U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo (D-RI).

The progressive social media account The Tennessee Holler added, “He spelled ‘kicked’ wrong.”

Image via Reuters

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Trump Confronted With Sign Saying ‘Black People Aren’t Apes’ at State of the Union

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President Donald Trump was confronted with a sign held by a Democratic congressman that read, “Black People Aren’t Apes,” as he entered the chamber and began to deliver his State of the Union address.

U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) held up the sign before House Majority Leader Steve Scalise tried to remove it from him. Minutes later, as the president was speaking, Green was reportedly removed from the chamber.

The sign apparently referred to video President Trump posted to his Truth Social account that included a meme of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama depicted as apes. The video received widespread bipartisan condemnation before Trump removed it. He refused to apologize for it.

 

 

 

 

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GOP Infighting Threatens to Derail Party’s 2026 Agenda

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Republicans in Congress are so divided they may not be able to pass legislation to further President Donald Trump‘s and the Republican Party’s agenda — namely, a budget reconciliation bill that builds on Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

GOP lawmakers are attempting to stuff a legislative package with a wide variety of goals, including health care reform, tax cuts for the working class, voting legislation, and methods to reduce the deficit.

According to The Hill, “none of those legislative goals has the same support across the Senate and House GOP conferences that tax reform and major defense and homeland security spending initiatives had last year.”

A massive budget reconciliation bill does not appear to appeal to the president.

“It’s a tacit recognition that Trump is unlikely to muster the near-unanimous votes he needs to pass major partisan bills through Congress at a time when the federal debt has ballooned to nearly $39 trillion and Republicans up for reelection in swing states are worried about facing Democratic attack ads in the fall,” The Hill noted.

READ MORE: Top Dems Sound Alarm After Intel Briefing: Middle East Wars ‘Don’t Go Well for Presidents’

“It doesn’t seem to me that there’s a plan for a second reconciliation bill and I don’t know how you could do one in the House,” a Republican senator, referring to the GOP House’s razor-thin majority, told The Hill. “The president says it’s not a good idea. At the moment, I don’t see reconciliation as a likely aspect of the remaining months this year.”

Some Republicans in the Senate appear to be ignoring the odds and are pushing forward — they just can’t agree on what they want to include in the legislative package.

“I don’t care how we do it but we’ve got to get health care costs down. The best way to do it is get the consumer involved,” said U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who wants to funnel taxpayer dollars into individual health savings accounts called Trump Health Freedom Accounts.

“I believe that we can do this. We’re going to be up here the rest of the year. We got to get some things done,” Scott added. “The American public demands that we accomplish some things.”

U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) wants to go in a different direction — finding funding to restore the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies that Republicans let lapse in the fall against Democratic support for the programs.

“I do want them addressed. I’m very concerned that people are losing their insurance, they simply can’t afford it. We do need to reform the whole health care system and bring down the costs,” Collins said.

It may all come down to process.

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune “doesn’t want to risk a protracted negotiation over a budget reconciliation bill only to have it blow up on the Senate floor — an embarrassment that befell the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act during the first year of Trump’s first term in 2017.”

READ MORE: ‘Orwellian Gaslighting’: Trump CIA Slammed for Retractions of ‘Biased’ Reports

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

 

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