For weeks we’ve heard of Donald Trump’s plans to import 300,000 tons of foreign beef, pausing tariffs on it and discounting it by 25%, trying to bring down the price of beef before the midterms. The move has enraged cattle ranchers, whose business has been affected by Trump administration actions, from tariffs to concerns about parasite control. Now we’re learning a bit more about where the beef is coming from, though it’s still sketchy as he declined to list all the places. Trump claims the beef is “very clean,” but there is a lot of concern, particularly since he’s cut a deal with a foreign billionaire meatpacker whose company has a history of corruption and whose business interests are connected to Trump donors.
Democratic politicians and voters across Pennsylvania and the U.S. are expressing outrage after a Wall Street Journal investigation of Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman revealed a senator who appears deeply disengaged from much of the work of his office. Fetterman routinely blows off pre-planned meetings with constituents—from wheelchair-bound veterans to officials concerned about Medicaid cuts—and has skipped many hearings, while making Fox appearances to defend Israel. I read from the WSJ piece on my SiriusXM program yesterday, and I’m going to post a lot of it here so you all know the exact details. Some Democrats are now calling for him to resign, while a group claiming to be former staffers is threatening to release his private text messages.
It’s not shocking, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has fired a slew of officers he deemed insufficiently aligned with his leadership, is now overseeing a Pentagon where roughly 50 members of the Joint Staff have been subjected to lie-detector tests. The extraordinary investigation concerns leaks to the media about military operations and dwindling U.S. munitions stocks during the war in Iran. Military experts say mass polygraphs of senior members of the military are unprecedented in modern history.