by Steve Benen | Jun 18, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
The latest flu season generated 340,000 hospitalizations and 21,000 deaths in the United States. Nevertheless, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, instead of focusing his energies on the ongoing war, came up with a bold idea in April: The Pentagon he leads would no longer mandate flu vaccines for service members.
While service members could voluntarily get a flu vaccine, Hegseth decided to reverse the military’s longstanding policy and end the requirement as a condition of service.
The change led to a variety of questions, including the obvious one: How long would it take before this misguided, regressive and unnecessary decision backfired on the armed forces? The answer, it turns out, is not quite two months. The New York Times reported:
A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu, defense officials said.
The outbreak at the base in San Antonio raced through an Air Force Basic Military Training wing, where new recruits sleep on bunk beds in open bays and share meals at large communal tables.
The Times’ report noted that one trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill late last week, although the exact cause of death is still under investigation.
The report added that only about 40% of Air Force trainees have opted to take the flu vaccine — a total that used to be 100%, because it wasn’t optional. In response to the outbreak at Lackland, the base received an exception from Hegseth’s policy and is now requiring
by Steve Benen | Jun 18, 2026 | Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
On the first day of the war in Iran, a missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school killed 175 people, many of them children. A week later, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether the United States was responsible for the horrific incident. The president replied, “No. In my opinion and based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran. … We think it was done by Iran.”
In the days that followed, he repeated the claim, which the White House stopped echoing after a preliminary investigation by the Pentagon found the strike was the result of dated targeting information: U.S. intelligence indicated the school had been part of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base that had been turned into the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school several years ago.
Three months later, a reporter asked the president whether he’ll hold anyone accountable for what happened. The Republican apparently didn’t like the question.
NYT: Can you now say whether you will hold anyone in your administration accountable for the strike on a school that killed more than 100 children?TRUMP: No. It’s such a strange question to be asked. It’s a long time ago. Mistakes are made. I would ask Pete Hegseth that question.— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-17T16:57:20.374Z
“No,” Trump replied. “If it was a fault, and as you know, that’s under investigation. It’s such a strange question to be asked at this date, because you’re talking about a long time ago, but nobody did that on purpose. I guess you’d have to say about them, what about the thousands of soldiers that they blew up when they opened their car door?”
Relying on one of the worst passive-voice
by Steve Benen | Jun 18, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
Inspectors general tend not to have especially high profiles, but these officials are responsible for rooting out corruption, ethical lapses and mismanagement in federal agencies throughout the government. It’s one of the reasons Donald Trump’s decision to fire so many inspectors general last year was so indefensible.
Making matters worse are some of the controversial figures the president has nominated to fill the vacancies he created. The Guardian reported this week, for example:
Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as a top independent watchdog at the Department of Justice has refused to call the January 6 insurrection an “attack” during questioning by US senators.
Don Berthiaume, a career justice department employee who has been serving as inspector general at the agency, faced senators as part of his confirmation process to take up the role permanently on Wednesday.
In fairness, it’s worth emphasizing that Berthiaume wasn’t considered a particularly controversial pick, at least not by the standards of this administration. But when Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut asked the nominee whether the Capitol was attacked on Jan. 6, the hearing went in an unexpected direction.
BLUMENTHAL: Was the Capitol attacked on January 6?BERTHIAUME: Uh. We had activity outside the Capitol, protests and suchBLUMENTHAL: Was the Capitol attacked? You’re supposed to be the inspector generalBERTHIAUME: There was protest activity— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-17T15:14:11.983Z
“I don’t know if I would use the term ‘attack’,” Berthiaume replied. “I mean, we had activity outside the Capitol, protests and such.”
Pressed further, the nominee again referenced “protest activity,” adding, “People entered the Capitol building, which is contrary, as far as I know, to law.”
Berthiaume simply wasn’t comfortable, however, describing the attack as an
by Steve Benen | Jun 18, 2026 | Climate Change, Maddowblog, News, Politics
As the war with Iran moves toward a possible end, one of the many takeaways of the conflict is that it’s clearly in Americans’ interest to embrace renewable energy, not only because it’s cleaner and cheaper, but also to help shield U.S. consumers from international turmoil.
It’s a basic idea the Trump administration doesn’t want to understand.
In March, the Republican administration announced it had agreed to pay a foreign company almost $1 billion in American taxpayer money to abandon two wind farm projects that would have produced enough electricity to power more than 1.3 million homes and businesses across New York, New Jersey and North Carolina.
At the administration’s insistence, the company will instead proceed with different energy projects that will cost more and pollute more. Or put another way, thanks to a model imposed by President Donald Trump, many American consumers will pay for the privilege of paying more to turn on the lights, all while polluting our own air.
In April, it happened again, when the Republican administration announced plans to pay energy companies nearly $900 million to abandon plans for two offshore wind farms.
The pattern is ongoing. The Associated Press reported this week:
The Trump administration said Wednesday it’s buying back another energy company’s U.S. offshore wind leases for four more wind projects, as it seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.
The latest deal brings the total amount spent on these agreements to nearly $2.6 billion.
This latest move, which came with a $765 million price tag, affects plans for planned projects off the coasts of New York, California and Maine.
I’m mindful that the president has
by Steve Benen | Jun 17, 2026 | Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
On Feb. 28, when Donald Trump announced the start of the war against Iran in a prerecorded video filmed at his glorified country club in Florida, the president presented the public with five objectives, including creating the conditions necessary for regime change in Tehran. This was the opposite of what his own team had told Americans, but the president said it anyway.
In the days and weeks that followed, Trump repeatedly insisted that he’d successfully secured “regime change” in Iran, despite the fact that the country, which has been led for decades by religious clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, was still led by religious clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
This week, however, two days after announcing a purported framework to end the war, the Republican told reporters during the G7 summit, “You talk about ‘regime change.’ I never cared about regime change. It was never a part.”
It was like listening to the guys I knew in high school who asked out girls, got shot down, and said, “I really didn’t want to date her anyway.” It is classically what is known as “sour grapes.”
And these grapes were not the only example of the problem to emerge Tuesday. MS NOW reported as part of the its liveblog coverage:
Trump had repeatedly said that Iran handing over its enriched uranium stockpile was one of the goals of the war. After the memorandum of understanding was signed Sunday, Trump appears to have changed his tune.
At the G7 summit … he downplayed the importance of destroying Iran’s enriched uranium, or “nuclear dust,” as he calls it, which is believed to be buried deep under a
by Steve Benen | Jun 17, 2026 | 2026 election, Maddowblog, News, Politics
Donald Trump appears to take a great deal of pride in the power of endorsement and his professed ability to singlehandedly choose election winners, especially in Republican primaries. Last September, for example, the president said, “Do you know, almost every single person I’ve endorsed has won? I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t. If I endorse a person, they win. … With the Republican Party, it’s like, 399-0. Think of that.”
As recently as March, he added, “My Endorsements within the Republican Party have been virtually insurmountable! It is such an honor to realize and say that almost everyone I Endorse WINS, and wins by a lot.”
As it turns out, the word “virtually” was doing more work there than it could handle.
Two weeks ago, in Iowa’s gubernatorial race, Trump threw his support behind Rep. Randy Feenstra, who narrowly lost his Republican primary to Zach Lahn. This week, it happened again. MS NOW reported:
Healthcare executive Rick Jackson clinched the Republican gubernatorial nomination on Tuesday, pulling off a win over Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and securing a spot in the November election against Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms. […]
Jackson, a businessman who entered politics as an outsider candidate, sought to position himself as an alternative to career politicians.
Trump endorsed Jones, the incumbent lieutenant governor, who ended up losing his primary bid by roughly five points.
When a Republican backed by the president ends up losing, which happens more than he likes to admit, Trump tends to respond in one of three ways.
Option #1: Blame others. When Feenstra lost in Iowa, for example, the president said he had not been “given the proper information.” He
