Republican Senator Says War Is More Important Than Your Pocketbook

Republican Senator Roger Marshall wants Americans to stop complaining about gas prices because they’re necessary for “national security.”

Speaking on Newsmax’s Wake Up America Tuesday morning, Marshall was asked about the Iran war, and the Kansas politician was dismissive of its negative economic effects on the American people.

“I’m sorry the gas prices are going up, but help is on its way, and your national security, yes, is even more important than your pocketbook,” Marshall said.

Marshall doubled down when asked how long Americans would be paying higher energy costs, saying, “I think back to my grandparents and their generation that served in World War II.”

“Could you imagine trying to tell the president, ‘Look, you only got so many days to defeat Hitler or defeat Japan?’ We have to do it till we get the outcome that we want. I hope it’s weeks and not months, but at the end of the day, Americans are going to be safer,” Marshall said.

This is all rather callous to say with gas prices averaging $4 per gallon across the country and more than $5 per gallon in places like California and Oregon, all because of a war of choice that had nothing to do with any imminent threats to the U.S. The latest threats to national security were actually caused by President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran, and Marshall is stubbornly defending the war out of loyalty to him.

Pope Leo XIV warned on Tuesday that democracy risks becoming a “majoritarian tyranny” if not rooted in moral law.

The warning came in a letter addressed to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

“Far from being a mere procedure, democracy recognizes the dignity of every person and calls each citizen to participate responsibly in the pursuit of the common good,” Leo wrote. “Democracy remains healthy, however, only when rooted in the moral law and a true vision of the human person. Lacking this foundation, it risks becoming either a majoritarian tyranny or a mask for the dominance of economic and technological elites.”

While the statement didn’t mention President Trump by name, it’s hard not to see Leo’s warning as the latest installment of their ideological feud. Trump says the pope, of all people, is “weak on crime,” and doesn’t understand why his Holiness is opposed to an illegal and deadly war on Iran. Leo has responded with the case for a democracy rooted in Catholic social teaching that “regards power not as an end in itself, but as a means ordered toward the common good.”

The letter also comes just a day after the pope stated that he was not a politician and had “no fear” of the Trump administration. Read his letter here.

President Donald Trump has finally weighed in on that FEMA official who claims he teleported to a Waffle House—and it’s a doozy.

Gregg Phillips, who serves as associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has repeatedly doubled down on claims that he was instantaneously transported 50 miles to one of the popular chain restaurant’s locations.

In a brief interview with CNN’s KFile, Trump was directly asked about Phillips’s wild journey.

“What does teleport mean? Was he kidding?” Trump said.

After being assured that Phillips was very much not kidding, Trump replied: “I don’t know anything about him teleporting.… It just sounds a little strange, but I know nothing about teleporting or him, but I’ll find out about it right now.”

Trump’s apparent disbelief underscores just how little the president knows—or cares—about anyone who works for him. Phillips has made a slew of outrageous claims in the past. He previously claimed to have spoken with God and with Satan, and claimed that he was “already dead” but was kept around to do God’s work. Phillips has said that many of these instances occurred while he was undergoing self-directed treatment for metastatic bone cancer, using ivermectin and fenbendazole.

After a 2025 incident where he said he collapsed at a Lowes and came to in a McDonald’s parking lot, with 15,000 steps logged in his health app and a Big Mac in his lap, he insisted: “The whole space and time thing, continuum, got all—it fell with me.”

“This isn’t a health thing. This isn’t the cancer. This isn’t me. This is a spiritual thing,” he said.

But one of his rather outrageous claims may have been exactly what kept him in Trump’s circles. Phillips is a major proponent of the “Big Lie,” the conspiracy theory that Trump only lost the 2020 election because it was rigged against him.

Since Phillips’s outlandish claims first began to circulate in March, FEMA’s No. 3 official has been relegated to the sidelines of his own agency—enraging Phillips, multiple insiders at FEMA told CNN.

Turns out the Hungarian government has been bankrolling the Conservative Political Action Conference for years.

Péter Magyar, who unseated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán Sunday in a landslide, told reporters Monday that the outbound leader had diverted Hungarian taxpayer funds toward financing the American Republican conference.

Magyar noted that his government will be investigating Orbán’s expenditures, and will no longer finance CPAC or other right-wing institutions abroad.

“I believe the state should never have financed them in the first place, it was a crime,” Magyar said, according to an English translation of his remarks. “Mixing party financing with government spending from the state budget is, in my view, a criminal offense, and this will have to be investigated by the future authorities, including the National Office for the Recovery and Protection of Public Assets, since those budgetary funds were not meant to finance party events.”

The Trump administration fervently advocated for Orbán in the run-up to the election. Vice President JD Vance and State Secretary Marco Rubio both traveled to Budapest to campaign for him, while Donald Trump repeatedly praised the authoritarian, far-right politician. All three American politicians endorsed Orbán, as did CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp.

Under Orbán’s 16-year rule, Hungary became an “illiberal state” with feigned elections. Orbán dismantled democratic checks and balances, silenced and controlled the news media, and weakened the country’s judiciary system.

The day of the election, CPAC’s official account released a statement in full support of its apparent antidemocratic fundraiser.

“CPAC is closely watching this very important election in Hungary today. We stand firmly with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian people as they vote,” the statement read. “We have proudly held CPAC Hungary five times, and each gathering has been wildly successful, bringing together conservatives from across Europe and the United States to champion sovereignty, family, and national identity.

“He is a true example of a leader with strong conservative values who has courageously stood up to elitists and globalists from the EU and beyond to protect what is right for his country,” it continued. “We are with you, Hungary.”

Not only did Orbán lose on Sunday, but his party did, as well. Orbán’s Fidesz won just 55 seats in Hungary’s 199-seat National Assembly. Magyar’s Tisza party won 138.

The DoorDash driver who took part in a bizarre event at the White House about President Trump’s “no tax on tips” program has testified before Congress in the past, and her numbers don’t add up.

Sharon Simmons was described as a “DoorDash grandma” delivering McDonald’s to the White House Monday, and she said that not having to pay taxes on the tips she receives as a driver allowed her to pay for her husband’s cancer treatments. But in three different interviews on Monday, Simmons presented conflicting numbers on how much she saved from untaxed tips.

“I figure that I’m probably going to be saving about $3,000 to $4,000,” Simmons told Fox News Digital. In another interview with Fox’s America Reports, she said half of her income came from tips, and at the White House, she said she made about $11,000 in tips. That would make her income $22,000, a salary so low that the standard deduction is what helped her—not Trump’s “no tax on tips” rule.

On top of that, footage resurfaced of Simmons testifying before Congress last July, in which she extolled the benefits of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” claiming that it would help her as a caregiver and mother. Republican Representative David Kustoff had posted her testimony to his X account.

This makes it obvious the event was staged, as were the mathematically incorrect talking points. A DoorDash communications employee, Julian Crowley, seemed to be crashing out as this came to light, claiming on X that while the event was planned between DoorDash and the White House, Simmons is a real DoorDash employee.*

One X user pointed out that because Simmons is not actually a D.C. resident and was flown to Washington from Arkansas, she was receiving compensation and may be considered an “undisclosed lobbyist.” It’s clear the White House’s feel-good event Monday wasn’t what it appeared to be.

* This article previously misnamed the DoorDash communications employee.