Thursday Afternoon Breaking News Updates with Ben - 5/21/2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to Ben on Breaking News. I'm Ben Mycelis and this is your Breaking News. A lot of developments happening fast and furious on Capitol Hill. We just learned that the United States Senate will be shutting down for the foreseeable future. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, after a very contentious meeting with Donald Trump's Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch regarding the $1.8 billion slush fund that Donald Trump wants to give to
What recent developments are happening on Capitol Hill?
January 6th, insurrectionists soon announced, we're all going home. We're done here. After this fight with the Trump regime, Republican on Republican, MAGA Republicans in the Senate versus MAGA in the White House. And The Senate and the House feels that they are being basically attacked by Donald Trump with his ballrooms and his arches and his reflecting pools and his slush funds and his attack on sitting senators like John Cornyn, the Texas Republican senator. Donald Trump endorsed Ken Paxton, the corrupt AG of Texas, over Cornyn. And now that's going to cost tens of millions of dollars. uh potentially being lost by republicans in the senate james talarico now leads in the polls over ken paxton republicans are pissed about that you know you had senator cassidy bill cassidy of louisiana lost his primary over the weekend as donald trump endorsed his primary opponent so bill cassidy's now unleashed
calling out Donald Trump's ballroom and slush funds and all of this. And lots of Republican senators are just absolutely livid at this Trump regime right now. Acting Attorney General Todd Blunt, this guy's like a total maniac, was apparently screaming at the Republican senators during the lunch. They were screaming back and then Then you had Majority Leader Thune just say, we're out, we're leaving. And they were supposed to pass a reconciliation bill to fund Border Patrol and ICE even more than they've already been funded. They shouldn't be funded at all. They should be defunded, in my view, and they should be abolished, frankly, in my view there. There needs to be something on the border, but that ain't it.
This has been used for terroristic purposes, in my view, and it's not what it was ever supposed to be. That's my own opinion. You can have your own. You can disagree with the opinions. But we are now seeing probably the same thing in the House. We'll probably shut down shortly also. And kind of here we go again. It's the most dysfunctional house the most dysfunctional senate the most dysfunctional white house it is a government that quite literally does not function and the stakes cannot be higher right because as donald trump shows this utter weakness abroad with that horrible trip to china with xi jinping and then xi jinping meets with putin what did putin do today we've been covering this and frankly this should be i think a front page story everywhere this would just this should be what's leading coverage i mean you had putin
do nuclear drills in belarus with a clear message uh to the trump regime which is the nuclear triad of russia um and is is going he says look we don't want to use nuclear weapons but if we have to use nuclear weapons you know we reserve the right to do that they've made it very clear that they've given belarus nuclear weapons which is right there on the border with ukraine as ukraine is increasingly uh changing the course of this war ukraine is is i always viewed ukraine as winning in the sense that uh the goals of russia were to take kiev in three days and they didn't do that and uh the way the ukrainian army has performed has been nothing short of miraculous and incredible and uh as courageous as you can be.
But we've now remembered our reporting about Ukraine striking deep within Moscow, hitting oil depots and infrastructure there. And so to me, it's not a coincidence that you had Putin meet with Xi Jinping in China. They issued a joint statement together. Notice there was no Donald Trump and Xi Jinping joint statement. There was a joint statement of Xi Jinping and Putin together about a multipolar world order.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:28
2
What recent developments are happening on Capitol Hill?
0:28–4:42
3
How is Donald Trump's influence affecting Senate Republicans?
4:42–14:24
4
What are the implications of the Senate and House potentially shutting down?
14:24–18:20
5
What is the current situation regarding nuclear drills in Belarus?
18:20–32:07
6
How is the Biden administration handling relations with Iran?
32:07–1:02:07
7
What are the controversies surrounding Donald Trump's recent legal actions?
1:02:07–1:06:16