The Dictatorship
Ukraine balks at White House’s call to give up its rare earth minerals
Over the course of the last decade, Donald Trump’s line on the 2003 invasion of Iraq has evolved more than once, but there’s one claim he’s repeated ad nauseum: The United States, the Republican has long argued, should’ve kept Iraq’s oil as part of the war. After the president deployed U.S. troops to Syria, Trump insisted that his administration actually did take and keep Syrian oil.
He was, of course, brazenly lyingbut the false claims reflected a sentiment he appeared to take quite seriously: Foreign policy interventions, from Trump’s perspective, should be inherently transactional. If the United States deploys military resources abroad, the argument goes, then it stands to reason that American officials are entitled to other countries’ natural resources.
That’s not at all how U.S. foreign policy has ever worked in this country, and just an approach isn’t altogether legal under international law. By all appearances, Trump has never cared.
With this in mind, it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Republican White House believes Ukraine should also turn over some of its natural resources to the United Statesin exchange for the security aid we’ve provided to our ally.
At least for now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy didn’t appear especially receptive to the idea. NBC News reported:
The Trump administration has suggested to Ukraine that the United States be granted 50% ownership of the country’s rare earth minerals, and signaled an openness to deploying American troops there to guard them if there’s a deal with Russia to end the war, according to four U.S. officials. Rather than pay for the minerals, the ownership agreement would be a way for Ukraine to reimburse the U.S. for the billions of dollars in weapons and support it’s provided to Kyiv since the war began in February 2022, two of the officials said.
When presented with proposed deal, Zelenskyy declined to sign it. The Ukrainian president did, however, say that he would examine the offer in more detail.
Of course, the fact that the Trump administration even put such a proposal on the table is quite extraordinary. The United States didn’t defend our ally against a deadly invasion because we expected Ukrainians to give up its natural resources; we defended our ally because it was in our geopolitical interests to do so.
There was no need for a transaction — at least until Trump returned to power.
Time will tell what, if anything comes of this, but in the meantime, the Republican president and his administration are moving forward with plans for peace talks, beginning with negotiations in Saudi Arabia. There’s some uncertainty about the degree to which Ukrainian officials will be involved in the process, but Zelenskyy declared at a security conference in Germany over the weekend, “Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs.”
For his part, Trump said a day later that Zelenskyy “will be involved” in the negotiations — he didn’t say when, how, or to what degree — and went on to talk about how impressed he is with Russian military might.
“They have a big, powerful machine, you understand that?” the American president saidreferring to Putin’s military. “And they defeated Hitler and they defeated Napoleon.”
It was the latest in a series of pro-Russia comments that Trump has made in recent days.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
As a rule, JD Vance seems to go out of his way to say whatever Donald Trump wants him to say, but from time to time, contradictions emerge between the president and the vice president.
Take the recently passed housing bill, for example, which arrived at the White House earlier this week.
As part of an interview Tuesday night with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, the Ohio Republican said, “Frankly, Laura, I would love it if Democrats were willing — you know, not that they will agree with Republicans all the time — but if they were willing to work with us on lowering housing prices, on lowering gas prices, on actually making the lives of American citizens better. You know, we could have some real bipartisan compromise. That’s not what they’re talking about.”
I realize the vice president must be very busy, but it really isn’t that difficult to keep up with the basics of current events. In this case, when Vance said Democrats are unwilling to work with Republicans on priorities such as “lowering housing prices,” he turned reality on its head. It was literally last week when Democrats offered unanimous support for a bipartisan bill to address housing prices — legislation that members such as Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts helped to write.
Democrats recognized that doing so would offer the GOP some election-season bragging rights, but Democrats did it anyway because they have prioritized governing and “actually making the lives of American citizens better” over partisan considerations.
But Vance didn’t just contradict reality; he also contradicted his boss.
Just one day before the vice president brazenly misled a national television audience, Trump was asked about the pending housing bill. “It’s very bipartisan; that means the Democrats like it,” the president saidwhile acknowledging that he hasn’t yet decided whether to sign it.
In other words, when Vance said policymakers “could have some real bipartisan compromise,” he seemed indifferent to the fact that we’ve already had some real bipartisan compromise — a detail that even Trump was willing to acknowledge a day earlier.
Whether the vice president will suffer for publicly contradicting the president remains to be seen.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump made more than $1 billion in crypto ventures last year, financial disclosure shows
President Donald Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency-related income in his latest annual financial disclosure released Tuesday, with digital assets emerging as the largest source of his personal earnings during his second term.
The 927-page disclosure, covering 2025 and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, shows Trump earned more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company he co-founded in 2024 with his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. He also reported another $635 million in income tied to sales of the $TRUMP meme coin.
Speaking with reporters Wednesday morning before leaving for events in North Dakota, Trump said that others choose his investments without his input.
“I’ve made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don’t talk to them,” he said. “So, I have many people… I don’t know what they call closed accounts or something. You put your money in, and that’s it. I don’t talk to them. They’re big institutions, and they run it.”
The president also earned hundreds of millions of dollars in income from several of his properties in 2025, including $122 million from Trump Doral, $77.5 million from Mar-a-Lago and $39 million from Trump Tower Chicago.
The filing lists more than $80 million in income from legal settlements with media companies including ABC, CBS, Meta, YouTube and X. Trump also reported at least $8.3 million in royalties from books and branded merchandise, including $4.7 million from Trump watches and more than $200,000 in royalties from the God Bless the USA Bible, a branded edition promoted in partnership with singer Lee Greenwood.
The disclosure illustrates a significant shift in Trump’s business portfolio. While his wealth has long centered on hotels, golf courses and commercial real estate, cryptocurrency has emerged as his largest revenue driver. Reuters previously estimated the Trump family has generated at least $2.3 billionin profits from crypto-related ventures since Trump returned to the presidency.
The report follows additional ethics disclosuresreleased in May showing hundreds of millions of dollars in securities transactions involving major U.S. companies and municipal bonds. At the time, the Trump Organization saidthose investments were managed by outside financial institutions through discretionary accounts and that neither Trump nor his family directed individual trading decisions.
Soorin Kim contributed to this report.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
Soorin Kim is a White House producer with MS NOW.
The Dictatorship
GOP officials eye restrictions on pregnant travelers following Supreme Court ruling
The ruling wasn’t as lopsided as many legal observers expected, but in Trump v. Barbara, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea that a president can override the 14th Amendment to the Constitution with an executive order. Although the 5-4 ruling left in place a status quo that had existed for generations, much of the right did not respond well to the news.
Much of the outrage from conservatives was tiresome and predictable, but one element of the pushback to the high court’s ruling stood out, for unfortunate reasons.
A couple of hours after the decision was issued, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado argued by way of social media that the State Department “should immediately cease to give out visas to pregnant applicants.” Soon after, one of her colleagues went a step further by announcing plans for a legislative solution.
Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee said Tuesday he’s moving forward with plans for legislation that he’s calling the Anchors Away Act, which would ban certain pregnant foreign women from entering the United States.
“So, I have a bill; it will be called ‘Anchors Away,’ which, look, if you’re not a U.S. citizen, if you’re not a green card holder and you have a child on U.S. soil, today, that child will be a U.S. citizen,” Ogles said in a video posted to social media. “Under my bill, under my legislation, we fix that. … So in short, what this bill does is, if you are a pregnant woman, you can’t come into this country. You got to be a citizen, be here, you have to be a green card holder. So if you’re pregnant and you don’t have one of those statuses, no admittance allowed,” he continued.
As HuffPost noted“The ‘anchor’ part of Ogles’ bill refers to the pejorative term, ‘anchor babies,’ used by many conservatives to describe children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants.”
The Tennessee Republican also took his pitch to Fox News. “Look, if you’re pregnant and you’re from a foreign nation, you know what?” Coal says. “It’s time for Congress to pass a law saying you can’t come here.”
And while Ogles and Boebert aren’t exactly known for their legislative prowess, even if the House were to pass such a measure, it would never clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
As the day progressed, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller also appeared on Fox News, and when asked whether the U.S. is prepared to start “banning pregnant women,” Miller didn’t say no, replying instead that there are “a lot of things” the Trump administration will take “a hard look” at.
On Wednesday morning, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin also said the administration is prepared to “look at” restrictions on pregnant travelers to the U.S.
I won’t pretend to know what, if anything, will come of this, but I do have a question for proponents of these restrictions: How exactly would U.S. officials go about determining whether someone entering the country is pregnant?
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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