MOTOR CITY MOOD: Trump let this temper flare during his trip to Michigan for a speech on affordability as he continues to sell his economic message to the American people.
The president slammed Republican senators who have voted against his agenda during his speech Tuesday at the Detroit Economic Club.
"[Democrats] don't have a Mitt Romney that votes against everything. They don't have a Rand Paul that votes against everything," Trump said, referring to the former Utah GOP senator and current Kentucky senator.
Trump called Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) "disasters" and suggested Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) "can't give you an answer" on votes breaking with the president.
The GOP senators, along with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), voted to advance a war powers resolution last week that would block the administration from using military force in Venezuela.
Trump has bristled at the move ahead of a final vote this week and questioned the opposition following the U.S. raid to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
"It's like, why are they against the attack on Venezuela? They're against the attack after they found out. It was the most successful attack, probably," the president said Tuesday.
A video of Trump flipping off a Ford worker during a walkthrough of the company's factory Tuesday has also gone viral. TMZ reported that the worker called the president a "pedophile protector," seemingly a reference to the controversy surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The president appeared to respond by mouthing to the worker "f--- you" and giving them the middle finger.
The White House defended Trump after the incident, with communications director Steven Cheung telling news outlets, "A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response."
"As far as calling him out, definitely no regrets whatsoever," 40-year-old auto worker TJ Sabula told The Washington Post, saying he was the one shouting at the president.
The worker, who said he identifies as politically independent and has supported some Republicans but never voted for Trump, told the Post he has since been suspended from work pending an investigation.
The president's allies have touted his reaction to the heckling and posted memes joking about it.
"I VOTED FOR THIS!!!" former Trump adviser Jason Miller said in a post on X with an emoji of a hand giving the middle finger.
During his speech earlier Tuesday, Trump continued to try to make the case that his administration is helping to lower the cost of living. He's visited other battleground states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina as part of a ramped-up effort to speak directly to voters ahead of the midterms.
He declared he "defeated" inflation despite a report released earlier in the day showing an annual price growth of 2.7 percent, above the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target. But many of the president's critics remain skeptical.
A Detroit News/WDIV poll released Tuesday found 48 percent of Michigan respondents said Trump's economic policies have made the national economy weaker.
PROSECUTOR RESIGNATIONS: Several federal and local officials have resigned in protest in the aftermath of the shooting death of a woman in Minnesota by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer last week.
Multiple outlets reported a half-dozen federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned over the Department of Justice's (DOJ) attempt to launch an investigation into the widow of the woman, 37-year-old Renee Good, and a lack of interest in investigating the officer who shot her.
That includes Joseph H. Thompson, the U.S. attorney who has been the DOJ's lead prosecutor on the social services fraud probe in the state. The scandal has been the catalyst for the surge of ICE officers being deployed specifically in the Twin Cities, which preceded the shooting.
Good was killed while ICE officers were carrying out an operation in Minneapolis last week. Members of the Trump administration alleged she tried to run over the officer with her car and maintain the shooting was self-defense.
But local officials rejected this, and eyewitness videos of the incident appear to show her veering away from the officer.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) praised Thompson as a "principled public servant" and slammed the administration, accusing it of pushing out those who don't follow orders.
"This is a huge loss for our state," Walz said in a post on X. "It's also the latest sign Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the justice department, replacing them with his sycophants."
A half-dozen leaders from the DOJ's Civil Rights Division have also reportedly resigned to protest the administration's handling of the shooting. People familiar with the departures told MS NOW that they chose to leave over frustration that Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon chose not to investigate the officer.
Some of those who resigned had signaled they planned to retire before the shooting happened, but they moved their departures up because of the aftermath, the outlet reported.
The resignations mark the largest mass resignation within the DOJ since five resigned from the Public Integrity Unit in February over an order to drop the bribery case against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams, MS NOW reported.
▪ The Hill: Officials end protected status for Somali immigrants.
▪ Politico: Trump warns Minnesota Dems.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: Trump slams federal prosecutors as weak.
AGENT ON LEAVE: A Secret Service agent has been placed on administrative leave after an undercover video showed him discussing sensitive parts of his job, NewsNation's Kevin Bohn reported Tuesday.
The agent has served on Vance's security detail and worked for the agency for five years. His security clearance has also been suspended.
RECONCILIATION PART 2? The largest caucus of conservatives in the House has unveiled a framework for a second reconciliation bill to address affordability concerns ahead of the midterm elections.
The proposal, released by the Republican Study Committee on Tuesday, calls for housing reforms to boost home ownership; health care reforms, such as a restructuring of the expired enhanced ObamaCare subsidies into health savings accounts and regulation cuts to boost energy production.
The measure would be a follow-up to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Republicans passed last year. If all Republicans back a second megabill, it could get through Congress on a party-line vote through the reconciliation process that only requires a simple majority to pass the Senate.
But The Hill's Emily Brooks reports many are skeptical that a razor-thin Republican majority in the House can get enough votes after approving their top priorities last year.
▪ The Hill: House Speaker questions 10-percent credit card interest rate proposal.
▪ The Hill: House GOP adds to criticism of Jerome Powell investigation.
TRANS ATHLETE CASE: A majority of the justices on the Supreme Court appeared receptive to states' bans on transgender girls and women competing on female school sports teams during arguments Tuesday.
The case centered on bans passed in Idaho and West Virginia but has wide-ranging implications as it could impact the 25 other states that have approved similar laws. Following three hours of arguments, several conservative justices seemed skeptical that the laws broadly discriminate on the basis of sex and gender identity, The Hill's Zach Schonfeld reports.
"Given that half the states are allowing it, allowing transgender girls and women to participate, [and] about half are not, why would we at this point, just the role of this court, jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country while there's still, as you say, uncertainty and debate?" asked Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who spent years as a girls' basketball coach at his daughters' school.
Meanwhile, the three liberal justices appeared sympathetic to the arguments of the transgender athletes challenging the bans.
Trump administration officials also appeared at Tuesday's arguments, backing up the states.
The president has signed various orders targeting protections for transgender people during his second term, including one declaring the U.S. only recognizes two unchangeable sexes and another stripping federal grants from programs that allow transgender girls to compete on sports teams consistent with their identity.
▪ CNBC: Major case on the Fed on court's docket next week.
CLINTONS IN CONTEMPT? The top Republican on the House committee leading the investigation into Epstein said he will launch proceedings to hold former President Clinton in contempt after he refused to respond to a subpoena to testify before the committee.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said he would also push to hold the former president's wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in contempt if she doesn't show up for her scheduled deposition Wednesday. Hillary Clinton is expected to also decline to attend.
Bill Clinton has faced renewed scrutiny in recent months over his past relationship with Epstein, with whom he's seen in multiple photos released by the DOJ.
Clinton hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing, and appearing with Epstein itself isn't considered an indication of guilt.
"No one's accusing Bill Clinton of any wrongdoing. We just have questions, and that's why Democrats voted along with Republicans to subpoena Bill Clinton," Comer told reporters, referencing the subpoenas that the committee sent to Clinton and others in a bipartisan vote.
The Clintons slammed the subpoenas in a statement and said they won't comply, arguing they're "invalid and legally unenforceable." Their lawyer said in a letter to Comer that they have already provided the "limited" information they know about Epstein and called the subpoenas a "distraction" from Congress's work on this issue.
▪ CNN: DOJ pleads with lawyers to get through review of Epstein files.
DEEPFAKE BILL: The Senate has unanimously approved a bill that would allow victims of deepfake porn to sue individuals who produce and distribute the content.
The legislation passed the upper chamber during the last session of Congress, but it failed to advance in the House.
Lawmakers approved the Take It Down Act last year to make posting nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes a federal crime. First lady Melania Trump became a major advocate for the legislation, and the president signed it into law in May.
The legislation that the Senate passed Tuesday would give victims a civil right of action.
Its passage comes as backlash has been rising against Grok, the AI chatbot for the social platform X, which some in recent weeks have used to produce sexualized images of women and children. The platform has restricted image generation to paid subscribers of X in response.
▪ NewsNation: United Kingdom criminalizing nonconsensual deepfakes.
▪ The Hill: Majority say Big Tech has too much influence in D.C.
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