BREAKING: Republicans are panicking about the midterms

Donald Trump in Wisconsin REUTERS/Nathan Howard

Good morning, this is Really American. It is Saturday, June 6th. Trump is facing a Republican revolt.

Trump fell asleep again — this time at a Wisconsin farmers roundtable on Friday while attendees took turns praising him, less than 24 hours after the White House furiously denied he had fallen asleep at the Oval Office coal briefing. Tensions between Trump and Senate Republicans boiled over in public this week in ways that have not been seen since his second term began — with vulnerable incumbents repeatedly breaking ranks on the ballroom, the slush fund, the SAVE Act, and the surveillance bill. Trump’s obsession with DC fountains, reflecting pools, and vanity projects is alarming Republicans in competitive districts who say nobody outside the Beltway is talking about any of it. And a Washington Post investigation found that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump Jr. both promised a Navy SEAL commander’s family they would help reopen his death investigation — and then ghosted them completely.

We created Really American as a direct response to the billionaire conquest of the media. MAGA is consolidating control of American news and the window to fight back is closing fast. Bari Weiss runs CBS. Murdoch runs Fox. Bezos owns the Post. Independent journalism like Really American is the only thing standing between state-run news and the truth. We are bringing you breaking news as soon as it happens and we have big plans to grow and expand our operation in 2026 — more reporters, more coverage, more stories the billionaire-owned outlets will not tell you. We only need 2 percent of our total subscribers to upgrade to a paid membership to make everything we are building possible. Subscribe or upgrade right now to support our work.

TRUMP FELL ASLEEP AT A WISCONSIN FARMERS ROUNDTABLE WHILE PEOPLE WERE PRAISING HIM. THE WHITE HOUSE HAD JUST DENIED HE FELL ASLEEP THE DAY BEFORE.

President Trump appeared to close his eyes and drift off during a farmers roundtable in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin on Friday — as attendees took turns praising his leadership and thanking him for his service — less than 24 hours after the White House responded to a previous sleeping video by calling reporters “dumbass mouth-breathers” and insisting his eyes were open.

The footage spread quickly online. In the video, Trump can be seen closing his eyes and tilting his head downward while agricultural leaders gathered around the conference table heaped compliments on him. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Wisconsin Republican lawmakers were also in attendance. The roundtable was focused on the impact of rising fertilizer and energy costs on farmers caused by the Iran war.

The timing was striking. Just one day earlier, the White House Rapid Response account had erupted in fury after a viral clip appeared to show Trump dozing off in the Oval Office during a coal briefing. “His eyes are literally open in the clip you posted, you dumbass mouth-breathers,” the official White House account posted on X. By Friday, there was new footage.

This is not a one-time event. It is now a documented pattern spanning more than a year. Trump has appeared to fall asleep at the funeral of Pope Francis, during a Middle East trip while touting a Saudi agreement, at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, at an anti-Antifa roundtable, at a White House event on weight-loss drug prices, during a press conference on climate regulations, at a Board of Peace inaugural meeting, at a Tennessee crime roundtable, at a Presidential Fitness Test event, at a maternal health announcement, during the Oval Office coal briefing Thursday, and now at the Wisconsin farmers roundtable Friday.

Dr. Jonathan Reiner — the longtime cardiologist to the late Vice President Dick Cheney — has classified Trump’s pattern of daytime sleeping as “severe daytime somnolence” and called it “a severe illness” that “can result in an increase in risk of dementia.” Rubio was shown video of Trump sleeping in Congress Wednesday and denied it until the tape rolled on live television. The White House called reporters glue-sniffing. Then it happened again.

Trump turns 80 in eight days. He fell asleep while people were praising him. The White House called reporters dumbasses for reporting it. Then he fell asleep again the next day.

TENSIONS BETWEEN TRUMP AND SENATE REPUBLICANS ARE BOILING OVER. HERE ARE THE FIVE TAKEAWAYS.

The relationship between President Trump and Senate Republicans fractured in public this week in ways that have not been seen since his second term began — with vulnerable incumbents repeatedly breaking ranks, senators who lost their primaries to Trump-backed challengers growing increasingly assertive, and Majority Leader Thune struggling to hold together a conference being roiled by the White House’s most controversial moves.

Trump’s high-profile nominees are in trouble. Senate Republicans are already warning that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s expected nomination for the permanent AG position will face heavy scrutiny over his role in creating the Anti-Weaponization Fund. Senators want assurances he will not function as Trump’s personal lawyer. “He’s going to have to commit an understanding of the job, which is that he’s not the president’s lawyer,” said Senator John Cornyn — who lost his own primary to a Trump-backed challenger last month. Bill Pulte’s path to permanent DNI confirmation is described by multiple Republican senators as having “little to no chance.”

The ballroom and slush fund fights are not over. Democrats have promised to force Republicans to vote again and again on amendments to annual spending bills targeting both the ballroom and the fund. Trump undercut Blanche Wednesday by refusing to confirm the fund was dead — saying “I love it. I think it’s so important.” That will put continued pressure on Collins, Husted, and Sullivan to keep breaking with the president publicly.

Senators who lost primaries to Trump are becoming wildcards. Cassidy — who lost his Louisiana primary after Trump endorsed his opponent — has emerged as an assertive independent voice, voting for Democratic amendments on Medicaid, insurance denials, the anti-weaponization fund, the ballroom, and the Pulte DNI appointment. He has no regrets about voting to convict Trump at his 2021 impeachment trial and is framing all of his votes as motivated by reverence for the Constitution.

Supplemental Iran war funding is effectively dead. Republican senators say the prospects of passing Iran war funding before the midterms are “in big trouble” — with Democrats promising to use any such vote to hammer Republicans as willing to fund an unpopular war at the expense of domestic priorities. The Pentagon was weighing an $80 to $100 billion military supplemental request but has still not submitted it formally.

The SAVE Act and filibuster fight will keep burning. Trump forced a vote on the SAVE Act during the vote-a-rama specifically to identify which Republicans oppose it — with Collins, Murkowski, Tillis, and McConnell all voting against it. Trump and MAGA allies are now pushing Thune to abolish the 60-vote filibuster threshold or fire the Senate parliamentarian. Thune has so far resisted. The tension is not going away.

Trump called Senator Thom Tillis “a loser” Friday. Six senators voted against his ballroom. Seven blocked his surveillance extension. Four voted for the Iran war powers resolution. Eighteen passed Ukraine aid. The SAVE Act failed. His own party did all of it.

TRUMP’S DC BEAUTIFICATION OBSESSION IS WORRYING REPUBLICANS. NOBODY OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY IS TALKING ABOUT REFLECTING POOLS.

President Trump spent significant time at a Wisconsin farmers roundtable Friday — a meeting ostensibly focused on the devastating impact of the Iran war on agricultural costs — talking about the repair of Washington DC’s reflecting pool and holding up before-and-after photos of the Columbus Circle fountains outside Union Station. Republicans in competitive districts are increasingly alarmed.

“I was in North Carolina last week, and over the weekend, and I didn’t hear anybody talking about reflecting pools. I did hear them talk about what they spend at grocery stores,” said Republican strategist and former RNC spokesman Doug Heye. “When you are holding press gaggles in front of a ballroom construction site that no one asked for, you’re proactively sending the signal to voters: ‘I don’t know what’s important to you, but here’s what’s important to me.’”

The costs are piling up. Trump’s changes to the reflecting pool alone cost more than $13 million — with the New York Times reporting the contractor was given an inflated profit margin. The administration announced it will spend $5 million to regild the four gold-plated Arts of War and Arts of Peace equestrian statues near the Lincoln Memorial. Trump has proposed a 250-foot triumphal arch, a “Trump Promenade” at the Lincoln Memorial, a 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom that he revealed is actually a six-story underground fortress, and a statue garden — all in Washington DC. All while gas is $4.32 a gallon and food prices are up 3.2 percent year over year.

“Go into any state that has targeted races, whether it’s North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Texas, and ask them, ‘Hey, do you think that we need a triumphant arch to be built on the Mall?’ and they’re going to look at you like you’ve just landed from Venus,” Heye said.

Trump has also said “I don’t care about the midterms” and “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” He called high gas prices “peanuts” compared to the threat of a nuclear Iran.

Republicans in competitive districts are not talking about reflecting pools. Their voters are talking about grocery bills. Gas is $4.32. The midterms are five months away. Trump is holding up fountain photos at a farmers roundtable.

HEGSETH AND TRUMP JR. BOTH PROMISED A NAVY SEAL’S FAMILY THEY WOULD HELP REOPEN HIS DEATH INVESTIGATION. THEN THEY GHOSTED THEM.

A Washington Post investigation published Saturday found that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump Jr. both privately promised the family of Navy SEAL Commander Job Price — whose 2012 death in Afghanistan was ruled a suicide despite significant irregularities — that they would use their political influence to get the case reopened. Both men ultimately went silent and delivered nothing.

Commander Price was found in his quarters in Afghanistan on December 22, 2012, with a gunshot wound to his head and a service pistol in his hand. Military investigators ruled it a suicide. But the family has long questioned that conclusion — citing irregularities including Price’s arm appearing to clutch a pillow, a bullet casing found inexplicably under his body, blood patterns extending in multiple directions, the death scene left unattended for nine hours, and his body being washed and dressed in a uniform before arriving home despite being a critical piece of evidence.

Hegseth — then a Fox News host — received photographs from the investigation and texted a family friend: “Nobody — nobody — would be caressing their pillow while taking their own life. I agree, it does not add up at all to suicide.” He appeared bullish about pursuing the story for Fox News or another major outlet. Then he went dark. “Despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so,” — wait, wrong story. Hegseth stopped responding entirely. In one of his final messages, he said he hoped to “help another way” in the future. That help never came.

Trump Jr. had an even longer history with the case. Price’s father wrote him a detailed four-page letter in 2015, and Trump Jr. responded in January 2016: “While I am not sure there is much I can do at the moment, if my father ever ends up in a position where he would be able to look into it I will certainly make sure that happens.” Trump was elected president less than a year later. His first term came and went. Harry Price — Job Price’s father — died in 2024 having never received any follow-through. Trump Jr. did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment.

Price’s sister Bronwyn De Maso told the Post: “Whenever we think something is going to have a positive outcome, it just gets shut down. We’ve run into a lot of brick walls, and Pete Hegseth was someone who could have helped us and chose not to, for whatever reason.” She added: “I guess there was nothing in it for them.”

Hegseth now runs the Pentagon. Trump Jr.’s father is president again. The Price family has received no indication the case will be reopened. The father died waiting. They were ghosted.

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HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP TODAY

Trump fell asleep while people were praising him and the White House called reporters dumbasses. Senate Republicans are in open revolt. Republicans in competitive districts are alarmed by fountains and reflecting pools while voters pay $4.32 for gas. Hegseth and Trump Jr. ghosted a Navy SEAL’s family. The billionaire-owned outlets are not going to cover these stories the way they deserve. Really American will.

We created Really American as a direct response to the billionaire conquest of the media. MAGA is consolidating control of American news and the window to fight back is closing fast. Bari Weiss runs CBS. Murdoch runs Fox. Bezos owns the Post. Independent journalism like Really American is the only thing standing between state-run news and the truth. We are bringing you breaking news as soon as it happens and we have big plans to grow and expand our operation in 2026 — more reporters, more coverage, more stories the billionaire-owned outlets will not tell you. We only need 2 percent of our total subscribers to upgrade to a paid membership to make everything we are building possible. Subscribe or upgrade right now.