Today in Politics, Bulletin 377. 5/11/26
… Trump held a press event in the Oval Office today with Sen. Katie Britt, RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz where the topic was Americans not having enough babies. The focus of the event was on IVF for women and finding a way to increase sperm count for men:
Trump to the women behind him: “You’ll speak not too long because I am being waited on by a large group of generals. That’s also important.”
Trump: “I must say, I shouldn’t admit this, but the first time I really heard about the fertility was through Katie. She said, ‘Sir, we have to do something’. So I learned everything there is to know about it in about 3-4 minutes and I became the father of fertility.”
Dr Oz: “One in three Americans are under-babied. That means either you have no children or have less children than you would normally want to have. We have a crisis that is causing our fertility rate to drop.”
RFK Jr: “We have a fertility crisis in this country right now. We are approaching the cataclysmic rates that China and Japan are experiencing that is threatening their economies. In 1970, men had twice the sperm count as our teenagers do today. This is an existential crisis for our country.”
Oz: “As IVF services get better and we make them more affordable, we’ll have more Trump babies.”
"I was the hunted, now I'm the hunter. These are bad people. That's why we call them the dumbocrats. We have a new name. Because they're dumb. They're dumb people."
Q: “Iran has agreed to allow the removal of all their enriched uranium? Trump: Yeah, they did two days ago. But they changed their mind because they didn’t put it in the paper.”
Trump: “In war, you have be flexible. You have a lot of plans, but you have to do different plans on different days. But I have a great plan.”
Q: “Does the ceasefire remain in place? Trump: It’s unbelievably weak. After reading that piece of garbage they sent us, the ceasefire is on life support.”
Q: “What do you say to infectious disease experts who are worried the country isn’t prepared to deal with something like hantavirus because of all the HHS funding and staffing cuts? Trump: Doc, you want to answer that? Dr. Oz: It’s just not true. Secretary Kennedy is involved.”
… I feel better.
… Sleepy Don also dozed off multiple times for extended periods during the press event.
… A group of former DOJ employees who have formed a new litigation team filed an emergency lawsuit today seeking to halt and/or reverse Trump’s painting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool:
“The grey, achromatic basin was not incidental to the design. It was the design. The 1999 National Park Service Cultural Landscape Report for the Lincoln Memorial Grounds specifically identifies the dark-tiled basin as a character-defining feature of the historic landscape, noting that ‘the dark color of the tile created the illusion of greater depth and a more profound reflection.’”
“Defendants engaged a swimming pool contractor to resurface the Reflecting Pool with a vivid blue coating. Shockingly, Defendants started altering the historic character of the Reflecting Pool without following Congressionally mandatory procedures.”
“Trump stated he had originally wanted turquoise ‘like in the Bahamas’ but was persuaded by the contractor to choose a color called ‘American flag blue.’”
“The new coloration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year.”
“The project was awarded via a $6.9 million no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which had performed work at President Trump’s Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, VA.”
“The Reflecting Pool and its surrounding landscape are listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the National Mall Historic District. Accordingly, before making any changes to the Reflecting Pool, Defendants were obligated to follow the Section 106 procedures. This includes consulting with various interested parties such as experts and nonprofit orgs with relevant expertise that provide input on proposed changes.”
“Millions of visitors from all over the world walk along, gaze into, and/or photograph the Reflecting Pool each year. The pool is the site of the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, among the most consequential moments in American civic history.”
“This latest desecration of the reflecting pool is part of a pattern - epitomized most notably by the rush to destroy the East Wing of the White House - in which this Administration willfully disregards legal limits established by Congress.”
… NYT: “The cost of Trump’s plan to repair the Reflecting Pool has jumped by 88%, to $13.1 million, government records show. The price appears to include a 20% profit margin for Trump’s handpicked contractor, who got the job in a no-bid contract.”
… Sen. John Fetterman: “Stop this henpecking. $13 million? This is an iconic American place and was in serious disrepair. Get over the TDS and celebrate this is getting done for our 250th.”
… CBS: “The Iranian govt insists it demanded only the country’s ‘legitimate rights’ and no ‘concessions’ in its response to the latest US peace proposal. Trump has rejected Iran’s reply as ‘totally unacceptable.’ Oil prices surged again Monday after Trump’s dismissal of the Iranian counter-proposal, with international benchmark Brent crude topping $100 a barrel in early trading.”
… CBS: “As Pakistan positioned itself as a diplomatic conduit between Tehran and Washington, it quietly allowed Iranian military aircraft to park in its country, potentially shielding them from US airstrikes. Days after Trump announced the ceasefire in early April, Tehran sent multiple aircraft to Pakistan AF Base Nur Khan.”
… Sen. Lindsey Graham: “If this reporting is accurate, it would require a complete reevaluation of the role Pakistan is playing as mediator between Iran, the US and other parties. Given some of the prior statements by Pakistani defense officials towards Israel, I would not be shocked if this were true.”
… Iranian Parliament Speaker MB Ghalibaf: “Our armed forces are ready to deliver a well-deserved response to any aggression; mistaken strategy and mistaken decisions will always lead to mistaken results - the whole world has already figured this out.
We are prepared for all options; they will be surprised.”
… “Trump is expected to encourage China to pressure Iran into making a deal to end the costly war during his visit to Beijing later this week, when he will meet with President Xi Jinping.”
… Gas market analyst Patrick De Haan: “Gas prices pulled back over the weekend, with the average at $4.469/gal this morning, while diesel has fallen slightly to $5.610/gal - but I do believe price hikes/cycles will start today and tomorrow, and by the end of the week we could be pushing $4.60/gal and $5.85 for diesel.”
… CBS: “Trump told CBS News on Monday that he intends to suspend the federal gas tax ‘for a period of time’ and phase it back in ‘when gas goes down.’ Suspending the excise taxes - 18.4 cents per gallon on gas and 24.4 cents a gallon on diesel - requires an act of Congress. Congress has so far shown little interest in suspending it to bring down costs. Gas prices have soared over 50% since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, hitting a high of over $4.52 on Sunday.”
… Trump: “We’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.”
… Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO): “I’m introducing legislation today to suspend the gas tax.”
… Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL): This week I will be introducing a bill in the House to suspend the federal gas tax in light of Trump’s recent remarks. American families need this relief on gas prices. My office will be working directly with President Trump to ensure we deliver this win for the American people.”
… Sen. John Thune to Semafor: “The best way to get gas prices to normalize, in my view, is to get the strait open. One of the huge advantages that we've had in our country is the transportation system that's made it easy to move people and goods to destinations. The Highway Trust Fund supports all those activities, and cutting the gas tax would affect that. So there are things we have to consider and take a look at, but we'll see where our members are."
… Fox host John Roberts: “When I talked to the president this morning, he kinda surprised me because he said, 'John, I just want to tell you. I'm very serious about this. I'm serious about beginning a process to make Venezuela the 51st state.'“ WH spokesperson Anna Kelly responded: “This is a president who is famous for never accepting the status quo.”
… Fox: Trump tells Fox in a phone call just now that he is “seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st US state”, adding that there is $40 trillion in oil there and “Venezuela loves Trump”.
… WH chief economist Kevin Hassett was asked on CNBC why consumer sentiment just hit a record low in the US: “Trump has sort of taken every problem on Earth and gone 100% at fixing it. And I think that that can be stressful for people to see so much change going on.”
… House Oversight Chair James Comer on NewsNation: Q - “What do you make of the slew of AI images the president sent out on Truth Social this weekend? Drones falling from the sky, Iranian ships on fire with him at the helm of an US ship. Does that trivialize the seriousness of the war? Comer: That’s Trump’s style. His message is delivered loud and clear. He’s gonna continue to do it.”
… Comer on hantavirus: “I’m not worried. I have complete confidence in the Trump admin. I think we learned a lot of lessons, hopefully, from the covid pandemic.”
These Bulletins have no set-in-stone game plan from day to day - I try to be very flexible and go wherever the news takes me as the day goes on. I typically focus on brief hits from breaking news events but a significant portion of this one includes sections from longer analysis pieces on policy.
Normally I don’t do that because it is difficult to pull a paragraph or two from a long-form policy article and do it justice, but there were some out this morning that I thought were really good so I included them in the second half of the Bulletin. I also notice from the comments that people tend to like them whenever I include them - so hopefully you won’t mind if there are more than usual in this one.
Tomorrow is looking like a much busier day than today with multiple congressional hearings, so it should be interesting. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin recapping the weekend, you can find it here.
… Pete Hegseth is threatening another military tribunal for Sen. Mark Kelly after his comments on CBS yesterday on weapons stockpiles dangerously depleted by the Iran War. This is what Kelly said: “We’ve been briefed by the Pentagon on specific munitions. Actually, it’s been pretty detailed on Tomahawks, ATACMS, SM3s, Patriot missiles. It’s shocking how deep we’ve gone into these magazines. We’re going to be
