Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Is Trump Secretly Dismantling NATO?
Behind closed doors in Brussels, the Trump administration just delivered a gut punch to America’s oldest alliance. According to Der Spiegel and Reuters, U.S. envoy Alexander Velez-Green told NATO allies the United States will slash its military contribution. Fighter jets cut by a third. Strategic bombers cut in half. And every single American submarine pulled from NATO’s pool. Destroyers, drones, refueling tankers, all reduced. European diplomats were blindsided. They’d expected gradual adjustments. Instead, they got an ultimatum. Here’s the catch. Europe has no strategic bombers that carry nuclear weapons. They can’t replace American aircraft carriers overnight. Trump’s been raging at NATO since allies refused to help his Iran war and Spain shut its airspace to U.S. warplanes. He’s called the alliance a “paper tiger.” This isn’t burden sharing. This is sabotage of the post-war order that’s kept Europe at peace for eighty years. Putin must be smiling this morning.
Trump Wants to Gag Every Federal Worker in America
The Office of Personnel Management just dropped a draft rule that should send a chill down every American spine. The Trump administration wants every federal agency to make every government employee sign a sweeping nondisclosure agreement. The Washington Post broke the story Tuesday. It would cover what they call “Confidential Government Information,” meaning anything “non-public” about agency operations, personnel matters, procurement, or what they label “pre-decisional” material. Translation, anything they don’t want you to know. The justification? Leaks to the New York Times and Washington Post. The proposal opens a 30-day comment window. And here’s the kicker. Federal contractors, the same people who leaked Trump’s tax records, would be exempt. Whistleblower law technically still protects civil servants who expose fraud. But once you’ve signed a gag order, who’s going to risk it? This is how authoritarian regimes operate. Silence the workforce, blind the press, and govern in the dark.
Are They Lying About the President’s Health?
Trump just made his third trip to Walter Reed Medical Center in a single year, and the country still doesn’t know what’s actually wrong with him. On MS NOW Tuesday, Dr. Vin Gupta torched the White House for what he called “very questionable” disclosures. They originally said Trump got an MRI in October. Then Trump himself had to admit on Air Force One it was actually a CT scan. How does a presidential physician not know what scan their patient received? Last fall they claimed Trump has “an NFL linebacker’s physique,” six-three and 220 pounds. Gupta said that’s not credible. They’ve called his lab values “astonishingly good,” which Gupta said no real physician would ever write. Trump brags he aced the Montreal cognitive assessment. That test screens for dementia. It measures nothing about executive function. We already know Trump has chronic venous insufficiency, diverticulosis, and a benign polyp. What else aren’t they telling us? The American people deserve the truth about the man holding the nuclear codes.
75 Percent of Americans Say the Trump Economy is in Bad Shape
You can’t make this up. Tuesday morning on Fox Business, Trump’s National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett went on Mornings With Maria to push back on record-low consumer sentiment numbers from the University of Michigan. Hassett claimed Michigan’s survey was rigged, a “political survey” measuring how Democrats feel. He told viewers to look instead at the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index, which he said was the highest in a year. Minutes later, the Conference Board released its May numbers. Consumer confidence fell. Third straight monthly drop. The board’s chief economist, Dana Peterson, blamed inflation from Trump’s war in the Middle East. More than 75 percent of Americans now say the economy’s in bad shape. Wall Street’s been raking it in. Working families are stretching every paycheck to cover gas, groceries, and rent. That’s not a disconnect, that’s a class war. And the guys at the top are losing the propaganda battle in real time.
Did South Carolina Republicans Just Tell Trump to Pound Sand on Gerrymandering?
In a stunning rebuke, the Republican-controlled South Carolina Senate rejected a White House-backed scheme to extend the legislative calendar and redraw the state’s congressional maps before the midterms. GOP Majority Leader Shane Massey didn’t mince words. He warned his own colleagues that a Washington-ordered gerrymander could trigger massive Black voter turnout and blow up competitive Republican districts. The target was clear, longtime Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn and the state’s only majority-Black district. Trump demanded local lawmakers dismantle it. They said no. Meanwhile in Alabama, federal judges blocked another Republican-drawn map, ruling it “intentionally discriminated based on race.” Marina Jenkins of the National Redistricting Foundation said the fight for justice is far from over. But mark the moment. State Republicans, looking at the math, told a sitting president from their own party to go fly a kite. Democracy still has friends in the most unlikely places.
And now, our Strange Alert.
Did the HHS Secretary Really Get Bitten by Wild Snakes on Video?
Yes. He really did. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a video Tuesday of himself wrangling two wild black racer snakes on the patio of his colleague Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Medicare administrator. His wife, actress Cheryl Hines, can be heard pleading, “Honey, honey, let it go. Bobby, Bobby, please!” One of the snakes promptly bit Kennedy on the finger. He laughed it off. Dr. Oz asked if they were biting. They were. Kennedy was wearing a dress shirt, tie, and slacks, but no shoes, just black dress socks. The snakes weren’t venomous. The good news ends there. This is the same man who once dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park and chainsawed a whale’s head off a Massachusetts beach and bungeed it to his car for the five-hour drive home. This is the same man who admitted a parasitic worm got into his brain, ate part of it, and died there. And, this is the man running American public health.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, May 26, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
