Trump’s threat comes after host described success record of candidates whom president had endorsed as ‘mixed’

Donald Trump ⁠on Sunday said NBC’s Kristen ‌Welker – host of Meet the Press – should face “rebuke or punishment” from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Welker, during a live segment for a local Washington DC affiliate, described the success record of political candidates whom the president had endorsed as “mixed”. The segment aired before Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press.

Outsourcing the industry to China cannot continue, but Europe knows it can no longer count on the US for a solution

The alarm sounded 16 years ago. In 2010, China blocked exports of key rare earths to Japan in a row over disputed islands in the East China Sea. The critical minerals are essential to everything from advanced weaponry and iPhones to electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines, so the rest of the world took note. But it didn’t take much action. China still accounts for about 70% of rare-earth mining globally and 90% of separation and processing.

Then, last year, Beijing forced Donald Trump to back away from his trade war – not with its retaliatory tariffs, but the curbing of rare-earth exports. A scramble for new supplies began in earnest. The year-long trade truce is due to expire in November. The price of erbium, an element essential to communications infrastructure, has already jumped because of fears that export controls will soon be renewed.

Meanwhile, Trump posts video of himself kicking over a Lake Ontario sign and replacing it with Lake America sign

Donald Trump and Canada continued a verbal duel on Saturday over the US government’s administrative renaming of Lake Ontario, with the Ontario premier erecting a giant sign saying “Lake Ontario. Now and Always” – and the American president posting a video of him tearing down an avatar of that sign, erecting a replacement saying Lake America, and dancing to YMCA.

Rhetoric over the naming of Lake Ontario is the public face of an escalating trade dispute between the US and its northern neighbor involving a 50% US tariff on Canadian steel and retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa.

On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order demanding Lake Ontario be renamed to Lake America. At the signing of the order, he sat next to a big poster board map of the Great Lakes, with a big red arrow labeling Lake Ontario as "Lake America," with the words "Making the Great Lakes Even Greater." 

The Canadian province of Ontario borders the north, west, and southwest sides of the lake, with New York State on the south and east.

The Canadian province's premier, Doug Ford, installed a billboard-sized sign on the lake's shoreline after the US president signed an executive order on Thursday directing US federal agencies to change the lake's name on US maps, documents and databases to 'Lake America'. Ford told reporters that the lake's name, which is more than 400 years old, would remain unchanged. Trade talks between the US and Canada collapsed last week, with each side ‌blaming the ⁠other for derailing three days of intensive negotiations

• Trump signs executive order to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America

As Americans face an affordability crisis and war with Iran, the president is focused on … changing the names of things

Is it a key policy move which will “recognize the extraordinary contributions of the American people”? Or “real foolishness”?

Whatever the impact of Donald Trump unusual decision to retitle Lake Ontario as Lake America, days after Canada’s prime minister refused to be cowed by Trump’s punitive tariffs, it has certainly divided opinion – but perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

Inside the US state department, critics are still attacking a shuttered office established to counter foreign propaganda. Now, some of its work is also being resumed

A botched leak of purportedly explosive government files to a prominent conservative online personality was supposed to offer proof of what the Trump administration and its allies have long alleged: that a little-known office inside the US state department, created to fight foreign propaganda, had secretly become a tool for domestic censorship.

Two former high-ranking officials at the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a target of Republican ire that lost its funding in 2024 and was disbanded after Donald Trump’s return to office in 2025, say the documents show nothing of the kind.

As with its approach to Hormuz, the US has mistaken applying pressure for an actual strategy. But Tehran has chips of its own to play

Donald Trump has found a new way to promise victory over Iran. After months of war have failed to force Iran’s capitulation or collapse, his administration has unveiled what the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, calls Operation Economic Outcast: an effort to cut it off from what remains of the global economy and threaten foreign governments, banks and companies with sanctions if they continue doing business with Tehran.

There is no question that Iran is vulnerable. Its economy has been battered by years of sanctions, war and a months-long US naval blockade. Iranian officials acknowledge that oil exports and access to foreign currency have been severely constrained. Ordinary Iranians are already enduring high inflation, currency depreciation and worsening living standards. Further economic strangulation will inflict significant additional hardship.

Sina Toossi is a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, where his work focuses on US-Iran relations, US policy toward the Middle East and nuclear issues