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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is facing the first real test of his control of his GOP caucus in Donald Trump's second term as the clock is ticking toward a government shutdown.

According to a report from Politico's Eugene Daniels, it is "do-or-die" time for the top Republican in the House as members of the House Budget Committee review a budget proposal that is getting a thumbs-down from far-right members.

With NOTUS reporting Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) called what he has seen so far "pathetic," Politico's report notes Johnson "emerged from hours of closed-door meetings yesterday refusing to make changes to his plan, "despite hard-liner demands for deeper spending cuts and other adjustments" putting the fate of a deal in doubt.

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With such a slim GOP margin in the House, and Democrats making noise about not bailing Johnson out, the House leadership is facing a "vote-count problem," the report stated.

Budget Committee members Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) have already indicated they aren't on board, which means one more Republican can derail the whole process.

The report adds, "It’s likely to remain unclear well into the day whether Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) can close the deal and send a budget resolution to the floor.”

You can read more here.

On the eve of the Munich Security Conference, when defense leaders meet from around the globe to discuss strengthening alliances, European leaders are more concerned than ever about the reliability of the Trump administration, according to a report.

Since he took office, Trump has "insisted NATO members massively boost their defense spending, dismissed the U.S. military’s role in Europe, frozen foreign aid, advocated taking over Greenland, treated Russia as a negotiating partner and threatened to pull support from Ukraine," wrote Paul McLeary and Jacopo Barigazzi in a piece for Politico Thursday.

Now his administration is set to come face-to-face with their European counterparts on Friday. "And while allies have experience navigating the disruptions and uncertainties of the U.S. president, this administration is a more expansionist and aggressive one than they’ve faced before," wrote McLeary and Barigazzi.

François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s minister of innovation, science and industry, told Politico, “The rules of the game have changed," thanks to Trump's heavy reliance on punitive tariffs and his stated desire to annex Canada as a 51st state.

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In addition, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made it clear this week that "priorities such as China and securing the southern border mean that 'stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.'”

Jan Lipavský, the Czech Republic’s minister of foreign affairs told Politico, “We don’t know what the U.S. will propose, so everyone is looking to Munich."

According to the writers, "The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. But Trump said Wednesday that he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about negotiating an end to the war. The conversation, which signaled a stunning shift in strategy with Moscow, will likely prove a major topic this weekend."

European officials will be listening for a specific U.S. plan for Ukraine, the article continued, "and want a promise that Trump will play hardball with Putin. Some diplomats fear the U.S. president strengthens Putin’s hand by showing he wants to make a deal."

Read the Politico article here.

A faction of Republicans demanding a "budget-busting tax cut" could threaten the Trump administration's entire agenda, argued the chief economist for a conservative economic think tank in a new article.

Oren Cass wrote in Thursday's New York Times that one group in particular — a free-enterprise advocacy group called The Club for Growth — was pushing the administration to prioritize maintaining the huge tax cut that became law during President Donald Trump's first term.

That cut is scheduled to expire this year, and hard-liners say restoring the law "must be Congress’s 'top priority' because it 'delivered record economic growth.'"

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Trouble is, "That’s not true," Cass wrote. "Economic growth was lower in the year after the law’s passage than the year before. The two-year stretch that followed its passage saw slower growth than any other two-year period of the economic expansions in the 1990s and 2000s — not the kind of record anyone should be boasting about."

Cass wrote that tax cuts "simply are not a top priority for the American people broadly, the working class that now forms the core of the Republican coalition nor even the Republican Party itself." He backed up his claim by citing a Fox News survey showing just 1 percent of voters "said tax reform should now be President Trump’s top priority."

Cass also cited a survey compiled by his own organization, American Compass, that found "most working-class voters would want to see Congress raise taxes on corporations and on households with income about $250,000 before cutting spending."

"With the federal budget deficit much larger than it was eight years ago, genuine fiscal conservatives within the party oppose simply extending the cut for eight to 10 more years. But the anti-tax activists insist it’s the only way forward," Cass wrote. In addition, he argued that fighting over the "low priority" tax bill "will stall the more promising elements of the Trump agenda and expose themselves as badly disconnected from the interests of the working class that put them in power."

Read The New York Times article here.

Rep. Don Beyer (R-VA) reacted with horror on Wednesday to a legal complaint filed against the Trump administration on behalf of an American family that had to scramble to escape Congo after X owner Elon Musk shut down the United States Agency for International Development.

The complaint in question was first flagged on X by Politico reporter Robbie Gramer and it featured testimony of a USAID worker who alleged that "the chaos of the Trump administration's haphazard and extra-Constitutional shutdown of USAID has caused my family and me immense emotional distress by contributing to the already intense sense of panic and uncertainty of the riots in Kinshasa."

As Reuters has reported, rioters in Kinshasa stormed embassies of multiple nations late last month to protest what they said was the Rwandan government's support for the M23 militia movement.

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Reacting to this, Beyer expressed total disgust at the actions of Musk and President Donald Trump.

"This is an absolute scandal," he charged. "Trump and Marco Rubio abandoned American workers and their families abroad without approving grant waivers to provide their safe return to the United States. They lost their possessions, their housing, and their pay, and the whole time Elon Musk was slandering them with bogus accusations."

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A former top staffer to vice president Mike Pence trashed Congress for ceding their authority to President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Marc Short, a former Trump White House staffer who then led Pence's team, told CNN he didn't mind the tech billionaire slashing government spending by targeting entire agencies for closure and offering buyouts to millions of government workers, but he preferred that lawmakers were the ones making those cuts and not an unelected outside adviser.

"I actually don't have as much concern about that," Short said. "I think the reality is that most Americans view Elon Musk as a successful businessman, and basically streamlining government is a good thing. Again, I think it's good for him to make recommendations of where we should be cutting, but ultimately Congress has the power of the purse, and Congress is the one that needs to zero out these programs."

"I think in many cases the Trump administration is showcasing why they're misallocating of dollars, and I think that builds a case for it."

Short warned GOP lawmakers that a Democratic president might propose similar unilateral changes to the government in the future if they did not reclaim their authority.

"But again, if you take the next step and say that you can unilaterally do this, then you've got to live with the consequences," Short said. "When a Democratic president unilaterally gets rid of Republican programs or conservative programs that we like, like border patrol ...

"I mean, I think that in many cases, conservatives and Republicans have gone along with abandoning the rule of law and order, and I think that that is a concern, and so certainly we should be respecting the decisions of judges. I think, frankly, as President Trump said yesterday, you know, we can always appeal, but I don't think that means you can unilaterally decide which cases or decisions you accept or reject."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Trump administration retaliated against The Associated Press because the news agency declined to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America despite President Donald Trump's executive order on the body of water.

During Wednesday's White House briefing, CNN's Kaitlan Collins noted that officials refused to allow the AP's reporter to cover an event on Tuesday.

"Which White House official made the decision to bar the AP reporter from the Oval Office and the diplomatic reception room last night?" Collins asked.

"It is a privilege to cover this White House," Leavitt insisted. "And nobody has the right to go into the Oval Office and ask the President of the United States questions. That's an invitation that is given."

"But isn't it retaliatory in nature is the argument?" Collins pressed. "Because the reason that the AP was barred, which they said was because they're not using the phrase Gulf of America, they're using Gulf of Mexico in line with their standards."

"And so the question here is, is this setting a precedent that this White House will retaliate against reporters who don't use the language that you guys believe reporters should use?" she added. "And how does that align with the First Amendment commitment that you were just talking about?"

Leavitt responded by accusing the AP of pushing "lies" by using the phrase Gulf of Mexico.

"It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America," she insisted. "And I'm not sure why news outlets don't want to call it that, but that is what it is."

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"And Apple has recognized that. Google has recognized that," she added. "And it's very important to this administration that we get that right, not just for people here at home, but also for the rest of the world."

The AP has said that it declined to use the name Gulf of America because it was a global news agency.

"[T]he AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences," the outlet explained in its style guidance.

Watch the video below from Newsmax.