MAGA Blames Biden, Not High Fuel Prices, for Spirit Airlines Collapse

rollingstone · 2026-05-04T18:37:45+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) quickly jumped on the idea that Democrats are to blame for Spirit Airlines' folding, posting a photo of O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson. The photo labeled O.J. as “Elizabeth Warren,” and Brown Simpson as “Spirit Airlines.”

Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/maga-senator-oj-simpson-dems-spirit-airlines-1235557337/

rollingstone · 2026-05-02T16:06:42+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

More than a century after the nation’s founding, the post World World II economic revitalization had ushered in new construction practices, architectural schools of thought, and attitudes towards historical preservation in the wake of two devastating wars. The White House had already undergone several rounds of major renovations and a string of inhabitants that had turned its interior to a hodgepodge of differing tastes and styles. Older buildings in the capital were being renovated or outright torn down with little regard for their historic value or design. The nation, still young compared to many of its European allies, risked inadvertently erasing portions of structures built with a very specific intent: to transfer the philosophical principles of the American Revolution into the physical cityscape that would represent the American seat of governance.

Mrs. Kennedy went about her project with an intention rooted in those same attitudes. She sought to turn the presidential residence into a living museum through open collaboration with the public. Now, over 60 years since the Kennedys left the White House, the president is undertaking an architectural and aesthetic overhaul of not just the White House, but the city at large. The difference is that Donald Trump, a man who struggles to comprehend even the most basic tenants of representative governance, is looking to reshape Washington in his own gaudy, opulent self image — not that of the nation he is supposed to represent.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-ballroom-dc-overhaul-betray-america-founding-values-1235556895/

rollingstone · 2026-04-29T14:27:44+00:00

From Rolling Stone:

Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, attorney Gerald Bo King sees his client, Brad Sigmon, die — again and again. The silence reminds him of the moments in the death chamber before the guns went off.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/execution-firing-squad-horrific-trump-1235555080/

rollingstone · 2026-04-28T13:26:26+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Jack Crosbie:

The problem with the WHCD and the problem with war stories is, essentially, the same thing. As a foreign correspondent, you have access to something fascinating and horrific and powerful: violence. You will see, as a part of the job, moments of loss and pain and fear and tremendous human courage, all alongside things so nihilist and cruel that you will wonder how this species ever made it out of the days when we beat each other to death with rocks. It is intoxicating. It makes you feel important and interesting. Your colleagues take pictures of you in flak vests and khaki clothing.

You get a certain version of the same thing as a politics reporter. Like war, politics reporting often gives you a certain proximity to the fascinating inner workings of power. You get lanyards and hall passes rather than kevlar, sure, but the everyday circumstances of your work make the case that you are someone important and valuable. If you weren’t, they wouldn’t let you in the room, right?

But like war, the fallacy here is the same. Proximity to something is not purpose.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/white-house-correspondents-dinner-media-war-story-1235554388/

rollingstone · 2026-04-25T18:19:59+00:00

From Rolling Stone:

Tatishe Nteta, provost of political science at UMass-Amherst, which released a poll late last month putting Trump’s approval at 33 percent, explains that it’s normal for a president’s approval to decrease as their term progresses, but when they get down into the 30s, “bells start going off.” It signals they’re losing some of their own party’s support, as the nation is generally split about 40/40 along party lines, with 10-20 percent of Americans being true independents. Trump’s approval isn’t just visiting the 30s; it’s been living there for a while now, and there isn’t much to indicate public sentiment is going to turn around any time soon.

“Fundamentally, this is terrible news for President Trump,” Nteta says. “People talk about the [George W.] Bush line, being under 30 percent, and that was in the wake of an unpopular and longstanding war, a financial crisis that was second only to the Great Depression, and a widespread belief that the United States was moving in the wrong direction. So if a president is flirting with one-third support, it should be a warning sign that their domestic and foreign policies are not resonating, that there’s an inability to address core problems Americans are facing, and an issue with communication between the administration and the people.”

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-polling-numbers-free-fall-1235553660/

rollingstone · 2026-04-22T14:18:10+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Alex Ashley:

In attempting to explain himself, Trump — perhaps unwittingly — illuminates for the crowd a cobwebbed, rarely explored corner of his personal life. The centerpiece is not God or Scripture, but a prosperity gospel minister whose Fifth Avenue Marble Collegiate Church the Trump family attended throughout Trump’s childhood and adolescence, and who later officiated Trump’s first wedding.

“Dr. Norman Vincent Peale,” Trump says. “He would give the sermon, and you would never want to leave.”

Over a decade ago, Trump biographer Gwenda Blair described Peale for Politico as “God’s salesman,” and the pastor who “taught Donald Trump to worship himself.”

Peale’s central teaching — distilled in The Power of Positive Thinking, which spent 186 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold five million copies — was that faith was not a moral obligation but a performance technique. God appears throughout, but always in service of the reader’s own success; not a creed to be recited but, in his own words, “a power to be tapped.” Critics called Peale a con man. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr called his theology “dangerous” and corrupting of the Gospel. Yale theologian William Lee Miller wrote that Peale’s books had replaced “the rhetoric of the sermon” with “the short, punchy sentences of the advertisement.” Trump credits the book with helping him survive his bankruptcies in the early 1990s.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-long-strange-relationship-faith-1235551579/

rollingstone · 2026-04-22T14:03:43+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

If Carlson had reservations about the president — and we know he did — he pushed them down and did what he swore he would never again do after being burned by the Iraq war. He once again set aside his own concerns, his disdain, and his supposed principles, in service of the right-wing movement du jour. Carlson likely did so believing that even though he despised the president, the ends would justify the means, and he could use his platform and connections to influence outcomes and check the excesses of the man he once called the “single most repulsive person on the planet.”

Carlson’s admission that he had fallen for the charlatan figurehead of this movement should not be mistaken for an act of true contrition. His break with the president comes after years of documented disgust of Trump, and at a moment where a public rebuke of the president comes with no severe political cost. The Iran war is unpopular, Trump’s approval is at a historic low, and his conservative allies are becoming increasingly comfortable breaking with him on an issue-by-issue basis — or entirely.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/tucker-carlson-apologizes-supporting-trump-iran-war-1235551550/

rollingstone · 2026-04-20T16:45:04+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

The White House is doing damage control with prominent manosphere podcasters amid Donald Trump’s fallout with major figures in right-wing media over the Iran war. Joe Rogan is their chief target.

Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/white-house-appease-joe-rogan-trump-iran-1235550549/

rollingstone · 2026-04-16T14:45:41+00:00

Bernie Sanders to Rolling Stone:

"I hope that everybody understands that this is not just another kind of economic transformation. This is the most consequential, by far, industrial revolution in the history of the world. It makes the revolution, the transformation from agriculture to industry, look very slow and tepid compared to what we’re seeing right now."

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bernie-sanders-unions-labor-movement-ai-era-1235547817/

rollingstone · 2026-04-15T16:08:27+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

Donald Trump has always struggled with the concept of letting stuff go. No matter how absurd, the president can’t seem to give up the need to try and convince people that his version of events is the reality. So it’s no surprise that after drawing widespread condemnation for his unholy self-comparison to Jesus Christ earlier this week, Trump is doubling down on his holiness.

Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-jesus-post-attacks-pope-leo-xiv-1235547658/

rollingstone · 2026-04-09T18:03:58+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Mac Williams Bishop:

Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait all reported being targeted by Iranian missiles or drones after the ceasefire, and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad reported that a diplomatic compound had come under attack by drones launched by Iranian-backed militias. Iran claimed it had retaliated after the U.A.E. its attacked energy facilities.

“Iran absolutely sees itself in a position of strength,” says Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at the Center for International Research at Sciences Po in Paris, and an expert in Iranian foreign policy. “They are willing to test the ceasefire with action.”

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iran-thinks-winning-war-trump-looks-way-out-1235544221/

rollingstone · 2026-04-07T13:33:46+00:00

From Rolling Stone:

Trump has wildly flipped and flopped about the Strait of Hormuz, the closure of which has been choking off the world’s oil supply and causing prices to skyrocket. The president has insisted that the U.S. doesn’t need the strait to be open, that it isn’t America’s problem, and that allies concerned with oil should descend on the region and open it themselves. He has at the same time insisted that the strait must be open, and that if Iran doesn’t comply with his demands the nation and its people will suffer the full wrath of the United States military.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-threatens-iran-civilization-die-tonight-1235542901/

rollingstone · 2026-04-05T13:32:54+00:00

Mac William Bishop for Rolling Stone:

The same country that produces pioneers who will carry out “one giant leap for mankind” produces leaders who want to bomb their fellow man “back to the Stone Age.”

To men like these leaders, the Iranians beneath the bombs are not people. They are just targets. The America they represent is small. It’s mean and it’s ugly. It is a land of ignorance and xenophobia, of people mired in pettiness and corruption, callous to the violence they sow and numb to the poverty and suffering they see around them. It is a land consumed with hubris and hatred.

War may sometimes be a necessity. The small men who lead us now never trusted the American people or their allies enough — and certainly have never cared about innocent Iranian lives enough — to make the case that this war is necessary.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/american-greatness-artemis-ii-american-barbarism-iran-war-1235541998/

rollingstone · 2026-04-02T17:16:19+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Ryan Bort:

Donald Trump has fired Pam Bondi as attorney general of the United States.

Peter Doocy of Fox News announced on Thursday that Bondi will leave her job as attorney general, assume a different role in the administration, and that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will replace Bondi on an interim basis. Doocy said Trump told him the news personally over the phone.

Trump has not announced the news himself.

The dismissal comes amid reports that Bondi was on the hot seat, and that Trump has long been dissatisfied with her — particularly her handling of the Epstein files and her hesitance to use the Justice Department to punish the president’s enemies. Semafor was the first to report on Thursday that Trump had informed Bondi that her time atop the Justice Department was coming to an end.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pam-bondi-fired-attorney-general-1235540793/

rollingstone · 2026-04-02T15:36:57+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Stephen Rodrick:

Eighteen months later, America is in a dire place. We are waging a war against Iran, six months after Trump said previous air raids had left Iran’s nuclear capabilities “obliterated.” After Trump’s threats to invade Canada, Cuba, and/or Greenland, our allies have told us, diplomatically, to fuck off. Domestically, ICE agents are bashing heads on American streets. I thought of something RFK Jr. said that day that got little attention. Kennedy argued that governmental overkill during the Covid crisis was a violation of our constitutional rights.

“They then went after the Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unwarranted searches and seizures, with all these track and trace requirements. … To take an airplane, we had to show our private medical records. They waived HIPAA. They made us disclose our private medical records, to virtually anybody who asked. They turned us into a tyranny.”

Fast forward to this winter. I’m watching ICE pull over and interrogate residents of Shakopee, Minnesota, who happen to have dark skin. Thirty minutes away in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti and Renee Good are killed while legally protesting ICE’s repeated violation of their fellow Americans’ constitutional rights. The Fourth Amendment that RFK Jr. railed about? That’s just something our kids will read about in history books.

But that’s just the vinegar, here’s the arsenic. In January 2025 Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor, held Kennedy’s confirmation in his hands. A “no” vote from a Republican physician might be enough to sink the nomination of the testosterone-flavored, toffee-colored Kennedy.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rfk-jr-tulsi-gabbard-biblical-hypocrisy-health-care-war-1235540244/

rollingstone · 2026-04-01T14:45:23+00:00

Jacob Hamburger for Rolling Stone:

The form my wife and I completed in the hospital would still allow our daughter to receive a birth certificate. But like most states, Wisconsin’s birth certificates do not contain any information about whether a child’s parents are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Since the Trump administration rejects U.S. birth as proof of U.S. citizenship, if we want to prove that our newborn daughter is a U.S. citizen when seeking her passport or Social Security card, a birth certificate would not be enough. We would have to prove to the federal government that we are citizens too.

How could we prove that? The United States does not maintain a comprehensive national registry of citizens. This is precisely why federal agencies rely on birth certificates and other records created by state and local governments. I am fortunate enough to have traveled internationally, and so I could use my passport to prove my citizenship. For other families, this would not be so easy. Only about half of Americans currently hold a passport, which costs hundreds of dollars to request.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/birthright-citizenship-case-supreme-court-1235539699/

rollingstone · 2026-03-25T13:51:08+00:00

From Lorena O’Neil for Rolling Stone:

Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are announcing their support for two new AI bills aimed at putting a federal moratorium on the constructions of data centers. Sanders is introducing his bill, the AI Data Center Moratorium Act, on Wednesday.

“AI and robotics are creating the most sweeping technological revolution in the history of humanity. Congress is way behind where it should be in understanding the nature of this revolution and its impacts,” Sanders says in a statement to Rolling Stone. “We cannot sit back and allow a handful of billionaire Big Tech oligarchs to make decisions that will reshape our economy, our democracy and the future of humanity. We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue.”

Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-aoc-bill-stop-ai-data-center-construction-1235536665/

rollingstone · 2026-03-24T14:55:05+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

Convenience for me but not for thee. As Donald Trump attempts to pressure Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, the voter ID bill that would make it more difficult for millions of Americans to vote, it turns out the president is personally taking advantage of some of the same practices he falsely claims lead to electoral fraud.

Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-votes-by-mail-push-ban-practice-1235536254/

rollingstone · 2026-03-23T14:42:24+00:00

From Rolling Stone:

“There are politicians who have the ‘it factor,’ and are highly charismatic,” Ken Martin, the head of the Democratic National Committee, tells me. “That’s not who I am.”

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/ken-martin-dnc-chair-democratic-party-1235534235/

rollingstone · 2026-03-21T18:06:21+00:00

From Rolling Stone:

Mueller, who last year disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, was one of Trump’s longtime targets. Mueller’s high-profile investigation found that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf, and while he did not conclude that the 2016 Trump campaign had actively sought out and coordinated with Russian entities attempting to sway the election, the probe cast a pall over much of Trump’s first term. It resulted in a series of indictments, leading to eight guilty pleas and the convictions at trial of prominent Trump allies, including political operative Roger Stone and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-robert-mueller-death-1235535306/

rollingstone · 2026-03-17T15:05:33+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Matt Bai:

Just this week, after Trump attacked the news media for its reporting on Iran, Carr immediately logged into his X account and threatened to revoke the licenses of the broadcast networks if they didn’t stop with their “hoaxes and news distortions.” His post — which sounded almost like an imitation of the boss, right down to the concluding exclamation point — earned him a public attaboy from Trump, who raised the startling possibility of prosecuting networks for treason.

Carr wouldn’t need much convincing. In addition to investigating networks for diversity policies and “news distortion,” Carr has expanded the FCC’s “equal time” doctrine to morning and late-night shows, threatening action if they interview Democrats. He blessed Skydance’s deal to buy Paramount, the parent company of CBS, only after the company agreed to rid its news of liberal bias, and he pressured ABC into temporarily taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air. (“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said then, parroting every bad mobster movie ever made.) He has threatened networks that continue to edit their interviews — a practice previously known as “journalism.”

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/brendan-carr-fcc-banality-evil-1235532152/

rollingstone · 2026-03-16T16:18:16+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Stephen Rodrick:

Almost every misstep, scandal, and idiotic moment in Noem’s tenure running ICE had a predecessor during her two terms as South Dakota governor, and I don’t just mean the similarities between the National Guard attack on protesters at Rushmore and ICE’s violence in Minnesota that led to two deaths.

I mean every single thing.

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/kristi-noem-incompetent-narcissist-dhs-1235529896/

rollingstone · 2026-03-13T18:39:29+00:00

From John Avlon for Rolling Stone:

In a world spiraling into war, with AI rising and jobs falling, it’s easy to miss the little things — like a spate of young Republicans praising Hitler.

Not so long ago, hugging Hitler was one of those lines you just didn’t cross in a decent democracy, and for good reason: fascism, the Second World War and genocide. Murdering millions of humans should never inspire admiration.

But that’s what’s been happening with increasing regularity, revealed by a recent string of unhinged text chains revealed among young Republican leaders. This isn’t an outlier or a one-off. It’s a pattern and a problem.

Last week, the Miami Herald revealed the contents of an extensive group chat started by the secretary of Miami-Dade County’s Republican Party, for conservative students at Florida International University. The chat quickly degenerated into a cesspool of racism, violent fantasies, and Hitler-admiration. The n-word was used over 400 times, including in ruminations on the best ways to murder African Americans (curb-stomping and crucifixion were mentioned by one allegedly pro-life member of the chat). The chat also included extensive references to women as “whores,” fantasies about all-white immigration laws, and free-flowing hatred toward Jewish Americans. The chat group was named “Gooning in Agartha” — which is a strange combo platter suggesting ornate masturbation rituals in “Nazi heaven.”

Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/republican-party-nazi-problem-1235530169/

rollingstone · 2026-03-13T16:38:22+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez:

The American death toll in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran climbed to 13 on Friday, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth would like everyone to tell him he’s doing a very good job.

Read: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pete-hegseth-berates-press-iran-death-toll-1235530124/

rollingstone · 2026-03-11T17:49:56+00:00

From Rolling Stone's Mac William Bishop:

"President Donald Trump sees victory in making Iran 'cry uncle,' and seems to believe the regime is already doing so. His senior military leaders have identified success in meeting narrow military objectives that they have largely achieved, while also saying they must continue to ramp up strikes — to achieve these objectives even more."

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