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‘Staggering Refusal to Govern’: Johnson Sparks Outcry for Tying Any Border Fix to a Trump Win
Speaker Mike Johnson is under fire once again after saying House Republicans “can’t” support a solution addressing the border until either Donald Trump or another Republican is elected to the White House.
Johnson reportedly made his remarks on a Sunday evening call with House Republicans, saying he will not accept the Senate border deal crafted by U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-OK) with the support of Senate GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman Sunday night reported, “Johnson says house gop position is hr2. And reiterated he won’t take the senate deal.”
HR2 is the House’s far-right anti-immigrant legislation. It reportedly has no chance of passing in the Senate. It is opposed by immigration advocates, the Biden White House, Senate Democrats and some Senate Republicans, and other groups including Catholic Bishops.
House Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Sherman added, “says senate bill is DOA in house,” meaning “dead on arrival.”
READ MORE: DeSantis Tells Iowans He’s ‘Upset’ About a Mosque in ‘Pigsty’ Bethlehem
But Sherman also added news that spurred outrage: “Johnson says congress can’t solve border until Trump is elected or a republican is back in the White House.”
Democratic members of Congress, political observers, and immigration advocates were furious.
“There it is! They don’t want to actually fix anything. Immigration and the border are just talking points to campaign on,” wrote U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL).
“Congress could of course act but House Republicans, notwithstanding their relentless demagoguery about it, don’t want to act they don’t want to act because acting might help Biden,” observed veteran journalist John Harwood.
“Wow. Only days after he suggested the border could be solved ‘overnight’ with executive action alone, Johnson seemingly refuses to let ANY law responding to the situation at the border be passed. It’s a staggering refusal to govern and in some ways an open embrace of chaos,” said attorney and American Immigration Council policy director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.
READ MORE: Indiana GOP Targets LGBTQ Hoosiers With Sweeping Rewrite of State Laws
Reichlin-Melnick, a former NYC Legal Aid attorney, also responded to the HR2 portion of Johnson’s remarks: “If Johnson’s demand is HR2 or shutdown, there will be a shutdown. HR2 was primarily a messaging bill not ever intended to become a law, and I say that as someone who has read all 213 pages of it multiple times. There are some WEIRD things in there.”
The right-leaning news outlet The Hill calls HR2, “a sweeping bill that would drastically restrict the asylum process while establishing a vast new surveillance system to forcibly freeze regional migration and crack down on the existing undocumented population.” It also says the legislation “Purges the U.S. workforce of undocumented workers,” “Build[s] a wall while slashing immigrant services,” “Ends protections for migrant children,” and “Doesn’t address legal immigration.”
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) said the House Republican Leadership “never wanted to fix our broken immigration system. In fact, they want to make things worse. Their one bill, HR2 is a farce because it depends 100% on Mexico.”
Joshua Breisblatt, the Democratic Chief Counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee also weighed in on the HR2 issue:
“Just as a reminder this bill has bipartisan opposition in the House and Senate when it got a vote. Given their small margin, it’s unclear if the House could even pass HR2 today.”
READ MORE: ‘Close Friends’: Johnson’s Grip Slips as Far Right Feuding Intensifies
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
