The Daily Brief — May 18, 2026
Trump drops IRS lawsuit, trades millions in individual stocks; an outbreak of Ebola; and more
Trump Drops IRS Lawsuit; DOJ Creates $1.8 Billion Fund for Allies
Hours after President Trump’s personal lawyers filed to dismiss his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS today, the Justice Department announced the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to pay his political allies who claim they were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration. Under the settlement, Trump, his two elder sons, and the Trump Organization will not receive any payments but will get a formal apology.
Trump and the Trump Organization sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in January, alleging the agencies failed to stop a former IRS contractor from leaking his tax returns to The New York Times and ProPublica in 2019 and 2020. The contractor pleaded guilty and was sentenced to federal prison.
The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” — the name announced by the DOJ — will be run by a five-member body, appointed by the attorney general and whom Trump can at will. The “Fund” will accept claims through Dec. 1, 2028, from anyone alleging harm from the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the legal system. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was previously Trump’s personal defense lawyer, signed the settlement.
The nearly $1.8 billion will be drawn from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund, an open-ended pool of taxpayer money the federal government normally uses to pay out court judgments and settlements against the United States.
The advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington called the deal “one of the single most corrupt acts in American history.”
WHO Declares Global Health Emergency over Ebola Outbreak
The World Health Organization has declared an Ebola outbreak in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) an international public health emergency.
The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare strain of Ebola that has no approved vaccine or specific treatment. Symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting, severe weakness, abdominal pain, and bleeding. The Bundibugyo strain kills between 25% and 50% of those it infects, according to the CDC.
The WHO reports 246 suspected cases, eight lab-confirmed cases, and 80 deaths in the DRC. Two more lab-confirmed cases, including one death, have been reported in Kampala, Uganda — both in people who had traveled from the DRC.
A public health emergency of international concern is the WHO’s most serious alert designation. The agency said the outbreak does not rise to a pandemic emergency — a higher classification reserved for events like Covid-19 — and advised against closing international borders. The CDC said it is supporting efforts to relocate a small number of Americans who have been affected by the outbreak.
Today, the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security announced enhanced travel screening and entry restrictions on travelers from the affected region.
Trump’s Trading Activity Tops Millions in Three Months
President Trump or his financial advisers executed more than 3,700 stock transactions in the first three months of this year, according to mandatory financial disclosures filed last week with the US Office of Government Ethics. The trades included several trades in companies Trump publicly promoted.
The largest disclosed purchases include: $1 million and $5 million each in Nvidia, Apple, and an S&P 500 index fund. The largest disclosed sales — between $5 million and $25 million each — were of Microsoft, Amazon and Meta. The cumulative value of the disclosed trades was between $220 million and $750 million
The disclosures also show that Trump bought between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in Thermo Fisher Scientific, an Ohio-based contract drug manufacturer, on March 11 — the same day he toured the company’s Reading, Ohio, facility and praised it as “incredible.” He bought the company’s stock at other times too, according to a report by Popular Information. The disclosures were not made public until last week.
The Trump Organization has denied any impropriety in the business transitions of the president, saying Trump’s investment holdings are independently managed by third-party financial institutions and that neither Trump, his family, nor the Trump Organization plays any role in “selecting, directing, or approving specific investments.”
Trump himself urged lawmakers during his State of the Union address in February to pass legislation barring members of Congress from trading individual stocks, arguing they should not be allowed to “corruptly profit from using insider information.” Rep. Mark Takano, D-CA, said that the same restrictions should apply to the president and the vice president, calling Trump “the last person to lecture Americans or anyone about transparency while in office.” The watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that “presidents are not supposed to be day traders.”
Newsbreak
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Senate Parliamentarian Says No to Ballroom
A push to use tax money for security upgrades tied to President Trump’s new White House ballroom hit a setback over the weekend, after the Senate’s parliamentarian ruled that the funding cannot be added to an immigration bill.
The provision was attached to a fast-track immigration bill Republicans were trying to pass through budget reconciliation, a process that allows certain spending bills to bypass the 60-vote filibuster threshold with a simple majority. Reconciliation comes with strict limits — including the “Byrd rule,” which bars provisions outside the jurisdiction of the committees that drafted them. MacDonough determined the ballroom security funding violated that rule, meaning it can no longer ride along with the immigration bill and would need 60 votes to pass on its own.
MacDonough’s role is advisory in nature, and Senators are not legally compelled to follow her determinations, but they almost always do.
She has already determined that several other pieces of the broader package, including funding for parts of CBP and for screening of unaccompanied noncitizen children, violate Senate rules.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Republicans plan to redraft the language and resubmit it. If the Republicans can’t get the language to comply with the reconciliation rules, the security upgrades funding, including that for the ballroom, would have to be either stripped from the bill or passed separately through the normal process.
Supreme Court Rejects Democratic Bid to Restore New Virginia Map
The US Supreme Court rejected Virginia Democrats’ bid to restore a voter-approved congressional map that would have given the party a chance to pick up four US House seats.
The brief, unsigned order with no recorded dissent, issued last week, leaves in place a Virginia Supreme Court ruling that found state lawmakers violated the state constitution by putting the map on the ballot before an intervening election. Voters narrowly approved the map in April. The state’s congressional primary is August 4. With the US Supreme Court’s decision, the 2026 election will proceed under the current map.
Thousands Rally in Selma and Montgomery Against Redistricting
Thousands marched through Selma and Montgomery, AL, over the weekend to protest mid-decade redistricting efforts by southern Republican state legislatures aimed at eliminating House districts that are majority-Black and controlled by Democrats.
Organized under the banner “All Roads Lead to the South,” activists, clergy, labor organizers, and elected officials gathered for prayer at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma before crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where civil rights activists were attacked on March 7, 1965, during a voting rights march. Among those attending were Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Raphael Warnock and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Another rally in Montgomery drew more than 5,000 people near the Alabama Capitol, where Bernice King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., addressed the crowd and spoke about past generations’ fight for voting rights.
The march followed the April 29 Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which weakened the Voting Rights Act’s protections against redistricting that disadvantages minority voters, and a May 11 ruling that cleared the way for Alabama to use a 2023 congressional map a lower court had found racially discriminatory.
Thousands Gather on National Mall for Prayer Rally
Thousands of people gathered on the National Mall yesterday for “Rededicate 250,” a daylong Christian prayer rally tied to this year’s 250th anniversary of American independence. Organizers framed it as a spiritual renewal of the country, but critics said it promoted Christian nationalism.
The event was hosted by Freedom 250, a public–private group working with the White House. The stage near the Washington Monument featured stained-glass imagery, Christian symbols, and depictions of the Founders alongside a white cross.
In a prerecorded video from the Oval Office, President Trump read a passage from 2 Chronicles often cited by Christian nationalists: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Video messages also came from Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Live speakers included House Speaker Mike Johnson, Sen. Tim Scott, and evangelist Franklin Graham, among others. Speaker Johnson led a prayer in person, asking God for courage to “preserve this republic” and saying “our rights do not derive from the government, they come from You, our Creator and heavenly Father.”
I am sick to death of this administration, their corrupt acts and their Christian Nationalism.
They are not even attempting to pretend to hide the financial corruption. Why does it seem like there are so many people are still acting like there's nothing wrong? I am constantly asking what is it going to take to get people to care enough to act. I've been listening to the Preamble podcast series about the 1970s. Why were people willing to rise up and make enough noise to pressure the government? What is it going to take for that level of protest to happen nowadays? Do we really as a society care more about Tik Tok trends and viral videos? Are we really that easily distracted? Am I the one over-reacting? I truly don't think so but at this point, I'm at a loss and don't even knonw anymore.