Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) fired back at President Donald Trump and called him desperate after he cancelled at the last minute signing a bill she had co-sponsored.

Warren joined MS NOW’s On the Line with Alicia Menendez on Wednesday shortly after Trump announced he was cancelling the signing of a sweeping, bipartisan bill aimed at increasing housing supply and lowering housing costs for Americans. Trump said he won’t sign the bill until the SAVE Act, voter ID legislation that creates new voting restrictions, is passed by Congress. The bill has been stalled in the Senate.

“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT,” Trump announced on Truth Social.

In another post, he targeted Warren and argued her bill is “of minor importance.”

“The Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren centric housing bill, which is of minor importance compared to lower interest rates, and even FISA, pales in comparison to passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT. That is what Americans, both Dumocrats, Republicans, and everyone else, care about,” he wrote.

Warren argued Trump’s cancellation proves two things: he doesn’t care about the rising costs Americans are facing and he’s growing desperate about Republicans’ chances in the midterm elections.

“Donald Trump seems to think that the way he and the Republicans will win elections is to keep American citizens from voting. At least keep certain American citizens from voting. That’s his entire plan. And you know why he’s doing that? Because he’s losing and he knows he’s losing,” Warren said after Menendez pointed to reports indicating the documentation that is required by the SAVE Act could leave millions of citizens scrambling to have access to vote in the midterms.

Warren believes Trump pays attention to his polling falling in regards to the economy and the Iran war and he knows he’s “in trouble.”

She said:

People are sick of the corruption. They’re sick of the chaos, and they’re sick of the policies that Donald Trump is using to drive up costs. The tariffs that have driven up costs, the energy policies that have driven up costs, the health care changes that have driven up costs, and a war halfway around the world that has driven up costs. He is in trouble. And instead of changing his policies, instead of doing what the American people need and want, he’s off saying, I’m going to keep a bunch of them from voting.

Menendez noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on Wednesday that he believes Trump will sign the housing bill, which was also co-sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), in the next 10 days. Warren, who believes the legislation will pass “one way or another,” threw her hands up at the comment.

“I don’t have any idea. I mean, really, if you’re asking me to assess what Donald Trump is going to do, all I can figure out is, well, if there’s a way for Donald Trump personally to make money off it, I can predict he’ll do that. If there’s a way for his close end buddies to make money off it, I predict he will do that. And if there’s a way to rile up some extremists in the country and divide people, I predict he’ll do that. Other than that, I’m out of Donald Trump prediction,” she said.

Watch above via MS NOW.

The post Elizabeth Warren Fires Back After Trump Cancels Signing Housing Bill By Calling Him Desperate: ‘He Is In Trouble’ first appeared on Mediaite.

Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

Tracking your health shouldn't mean strapping an intrusive, glowing smartwatch to your wrist 24/7. For a screen-free, low-profile alternative, the RingConn Gen 2 smart ring monitors your vitals right from your finger while dodging both premium hardware markups and the mandatory subscription fees that plague the wearable market. Right now, you can score this stealthy tracker for 30% off. Here is what the hardware brings to the table.

RingConn Gen 2

$279.30 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $119.70

Get Deal

Get Deal

$279.30 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $119.70

All of the info, none of the discomfort

The RingConn Gen 2 tracks the same data as a smartwatch—including activity like steps and calorie burn, pulse, heart rate variability, and blood oxygen levels. Designed for comfortable overnight wear and effortless 24/7 use, it is the first smart ring to offer sleep apnea monitoring while tracking your sleep quality, stress levels, and recovery. All of this data is compiled in the RingConn app, which delivers an overall Wellness Score and lets you export reports directly to your healthcare provider.

If you have specific sleep issues you've dealt with in the past, or if you just want to do a better job tracking and incrementally improving both the duration and quality of your sleep, the small form factor of the RingConn Gen 2 and the granular data made available through the RingConn app offer a fantastic solution, giving you the necessary insights without obstructing your sleep with a bulky watch.

No big battery drain for way less downtime

Most smart watches measure their battery life in hours. The Gen 2 can measure it in weeks, with a battery life of 10-12 days on a single charge for most sizes. Plus at just two grams, the Gen 2 is lighter than RingConn’s previous devices. All this makes it easier to use around the clock, and thanks to its titanium alloy construction, also surprisingly durable.

No monthly subscription fees, just your data

Aside from the discomfort and the near-constant charging, the worst part about most fitness trackers is seeing that monthly subscription fee hit your bank account. Nearly every health tracker requires an ongoing payment for full access to your device’s info and training insights, but Gen 2 users get access to all of their personal advanced health data with zero subscription required.

If you want low-profile tracking without the distraction of an extra display, the RingConn Gen 2 is currently seeing a rare price drop. Amazon is slashing 30% off the MSRP during its Prime Day event running from June 23 through June 26. The wearable is also HSA/FSA eligible, allowing you to use tax-advantaged funds to secure the discount.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

Prime Day is June 23 to 26, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. 

• Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find.

• Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.

• Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.

• New to Prime Day? We have a primer on everything you need to know. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change. 

The Series 11 is Apple's middle-of-the-pack smartwatch, sandwiched between the budget-friendly Apple Watch SE 3 and the flagship Apple Watch Ultra 3. Right now, both versions of the Series 11 (GPS-only and GPS + cellular model) are on sale for Prime Day.

The GPS version starts at $279 (originally $399), and the GPS + Cellular version starts at $399 (originally $499). If you're looking for the bigger 46mm size, they're both also at least $100 off in the GPS and cellular versions—and these are the lowest prices these models have ever reached, according to price-tracking tools.

Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS)

$279.00 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $120.00

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$279.00 at Amazon

$399.00 Save $120.00

Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS + Cellular)

$399.00 at Amazon

$499.00 Save $100.00

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$399.00 at Amazon

$499.00 Save $100.00

Apple Watch Series 11 [GPS 46mm]

$359.00 at Amazon

$429.00 Save $70.00

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$359.00 at Amazon

$429.00 Save $70.00

Apple Watch Series 11 [GPS + Cellular 46mm]

$429.00 at Amazon

$529.00 Save $100.00

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$429.00 at Amazon

$529.00 Save $100.00

SEE 1 MORE

During WWDC 26 earlier this week, we learned Apple plans to bring its new Siri AI upgrade to watchOS 27—but only some Apple Watches will be compatible. Some other upgrades in the new OS include a dedicated Siri app, a new app grid, a new single-tap gesture, and other features.

Compared to the previous generation, the Series 11 improves its battery life, going up to 43 hours with the always-on display enabled, up from 36 hours for the Series 10. The Series 11 also supports 5G cellular, up from LTE on the Series 10. Another big update is that the Series 11 features FDA-approved hypertension notifications, alerting you if it detects signs of high blood pressure. (Read our full review of the device.)

Apple Watches excel in fitness and health metrics, especially for iPhone users. If you pick one up, check out our lists of the best Apple Watch hacks for fitness power users, as well as for general use.

Looking for something else? Retailers like Walmart and Best Buy run Prime Day-style sales that are especially useful if you don’t have Amazon Prime.

• Walmart’s Prime Day competition sale runs from June 22-28 and includes deals up to 50% off. It’s an especially good option if you have Walmart+. 

• Best Buy’s Prime Day competition sale runs from June 22-28, and has some of the best tech sales online. It’s an especially good option if you’re a My Best Buy “Plus” or “Total” member.

• Target’s Prime Day competition sale runs from June 23-26, with deals up to 50% off. You can become a Circle member for free.

(Steve Karnowski/AP photo)

A federal judge has thrown out Justice Department grand jury subpoenas targeting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) after ruling they were part of a revenge campaign by the Trump administration.

U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, tossed the subpoenas on Monday, calling them “blatantly unlawful.”

“Initiating a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action-particularly official action that the federal government cannot directly require those political opponents to take-is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use the grand-jury process,” the ruling reads.

The document goes on: “The only question, then, is whether the challenged subpoenas were issued for one of these forbidden purposes. The Court has no doubt that they were.”

Walz and Frey — along with Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her (D), and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties — were subpoenaed back in January as part of a Department of Justice obstruction probe related to immigration enforcement in the state.

In a statement posted to X after the judge’s ruling, Walz said it was “a victory for the rule of law and our democracy.”

“An independent judiciary is a pillar of our democracy,” Walz said. “It’s one reason why the U.S. has been that shining city on the hill for nearly 250 years.”

Frey told the Associated Press that the probe into him and the other officials was “never about justice, law, and order, but the absence of it,” adding, “Subpoenaing political opponents because they spoke on behalf of their constituents violates the core tenets of our democracy and human decency.”

The subpoenas were issued a week after President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if the “corrupt politicians of Minnesota” failed to “stop” widespread and ongoing ICE protests across the state.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.

The post ‘Blatantly Unlawful’: Federal Judge Tosses Walz and Frey Subpoenas After Finding Trump Admin Was Harassing Political Opponents first appeared on Mediaite.

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I generally love my Whoop band, but there's no question that the company's subscription-only model isn't for everyone. A few weeks ago, a hobbyist created an app that can connect to your old Whoop 4.0 strap. I loved the idea, since an independent app sounds like a great way to keep your data private and to make use of an otherwise obsolete piece of hardware. But as I worked through the steps of compiling and testing the freshly posted code, I noticed more apps like it popping up on Reddit and Github.

Since then, some of these Whoop-compatible apps have been taken down, at least one of those at the request of a Whoop executive. Here is what I learned in talking to several of those apps’ developers, and whether I think independent Whoop apps have a future. (Tentatively: yes.) 

Are these independent Whoop apps legal?

“In cases that violate our IP, trademarks, or terms of use, we have reached out to individuals to take down their apps,” a Whoop spokesperson said to me in a statement. The developers that I’ve spoken to, for their part, believe that what they’re doing is legal and ethical.

Whoop’s position is that the value of the Whoop platform is in its proprietary analysis and features, which others have tried to imitate but cannot directly replicate. The company makes an API available to developers, through which they can access the data Whoop has processed. Using the API requires working through Whoop’s system—meaning the user must have a Whoop membership and allow the company to process their data. This is a different scenario than what’s going on with the independent projects I’m writing about today. These new projects aim to let individuals use Whoop hardware without any contact with the company itself, and without ever having had a subscription.

But before I get into why I’m excited about the independent projects, I’d like to include Whoop’s entire statement to me, so you can see where they’re coming from: 

“WHOOP is always excited to see how passionate our members are about using data to better understand their health and performance. WHOOP is designed as an integrated hardware, software, and data platform. It is not possible to access WHOOP proprietary health insights, coaching, analytics, or signature metrics and features—including Recovery, Strain, Sleep scoring, Stress Monitor, Healthspan, and WHOOP Coach—outside of the WHOOP membership experience. The value of WHOOP comes from turning continuous physiological data into validated, personalized, and actionable insights.

“We support third-party app development with our developer APIs and have even created an easy-to-use developer platform. However, not all third-party apps or independent tools are created, reviewed, or authorized by WHOOP.”

The promise of independent Whoop apps

Whoop has always been a high-end product. It’s a screenless fitness tracker, now in its fifth generation, that you wear as a wristband. It captures your heart rate and motion data, and sends that to an app on your phone, which in turn sends it to the cloud to be processed. You pay for this service—$239/year is the typical price—and in turn Whoop gives you detailed analysis of how well you’re recovering from your exercise.

Whoop’s app is good, in my opinion; it goes well beyond basic tracking, and I still think it’s worth the money if you’re a devoted athlete or you really like to nerd out about how well your body is handling the stress you put it under. 

But for as long as Whoop has been around, there have been people wondering if they could use the device for their own purposes. While we finally have competing devices with no required subscription (like the Fitbit Air), there are also a lot of old Whoop devices out in the world. Nearly everyone who had a Whoop 4.0 has probably since upgraded to the 5.0 (seeing as the company sends out the newer version for free), leaving their old strap as e-waste. What if there was a way to repurpose that old hardware? 

That’s the idea behind apps like Noop, Goose, Wearable, and more. These newer apps aren’t the only ones compatible with Whoop hardware, but they appeared recently and they quickly overtook several older, long-simmering projects that had been working on the same question: How can an independent app read data from a Whoop device? Because if a free app can read the device’s data over Bluetooth, you could use the hardware for your own purposes without the Whoop app or subscription service.

How a non-Whoop app can talk to a Whoop band (and why it’s taken so long to get here)

Screenshots from the Noop app Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Noop

The idea of an independent app for a Whoop band isn’t new. Several projects have tried it over the years, with varying levels of success. One I found useful was called Whoomp, and it was simple to use: you load a special web page in your browser, and your computer begins communicating with the Whoop device over Bluetooth. (A public version of Whoomp used to be available here.) The first time I tried it was a thrill: I put on an old Whoop 4.0 device and saw my heart rate on my computer screen. I could press a button on the web page and feel the device buzz on my wrist. The device hadn't been connected to my phone for years; I felt like Dr. Frankenstein bringing the dead to life through the power of technology.

As several developers told me, a Whoop device, fresh out of the box, communicates certain things over Bluetooth. If a computer or phone communicates back in the right way, the two devices can become paired and bonded, and send data and commands back and forth. To have a functional Whoop-like app, the phone has to know how to hold up its end of the conversation.

The Whoop device uses BLE, or Bluetooth Low Energy. That’s a type of connection that many other wearables and devices also use. But Whoop has not publicly released instructions for exactly how phones or computers can access Whoop’s features over BLE. The official Whoop app knows what to say to the device to get it to bond and to transfer data, but independent developers had to figure out, through trial and error, how to decode the language that the device “speaks.” This was a slow process, and until recently, programs like Whoomp were for people who wanted to tinker with the device, knowing that they only had partial functionality. A project like Whoomp could read your heart rate, sure, but it’s not a drop-in replacement for the official Whoop app or subscription. 

How the independent Whoop apps appeared (and disappeared)

A few weeks ago, developer Johnathan Middleton posted on the Whoop subreddit that he had managed, with the aid of Claude Code, to decode more of the Whoop 4.0 communication protocol than had previously been known. He posted the code for an iPhone app and a server that you can run on your own computer to process the data. The project was on the software repository Github under the name "my-whoop," which has since changed to "Wearable." It is still available here, but to use it, you’ll need to know how to compile and sideload an iPhone app—not a beginner-friendly process. 

I spoke with Middleton on a video call. He’s a software engineer in his day job, and says he created the Wearable project over a weekend. He used Claude Code to automate some of the more tedious tasks, like sending signals to the device and checking how it responded. Middleton’s work built on the decoding work accomplished with earlier projects, which he credits in his notes. (That’s how I found out about Whoomp, one of the projects cited.) The resulting app looks a bit like Whoop’s, with scores and analysis that Middleton calculates based on published algorithms; they won’t necessarily match Whoop’s proprietary scores.

Middleton announced his project on the Whoop subreddit on May 30. On June 2, another developer announced a project called Goose, which is meant to work with the newer 5.0/MG bands. On June 7, yet another developer posted the first of many announcements about a project called Noop that builds off both Wearable and Goose to communicate with both types of bands. 

I’ve been in touch with Noop’s developer over email; he indicated his pronouns but did not disclose his name. In the initial announcement, he said proudly that he used $1,500 worth of AI tokens to develop the app. More Reddit posts followed, and the code has been updated hundreds if not thousands of times in the short time the project has been online. Redditors on the Whoop forum have been rolling their eyes at “all these vibe coded apps” because, yes, more have popped up since then. (Here’s Bandmate from June 4,  Seraph from June 11, a modified version of Goose also from June 11, and Edge from June 13.)

On June 17, I noted that Noop’s code was gone from Github (the platform that hosts code for pretty much all these projects). Noop’s developer said that he hadn’t heard anything from Whoop directly, but that Github took it down. He appealed the decision and the repository was reinstated. In the meantime,  he set up a mirror of the code here.

Whoomp disappeared from GitHub even earlier, on June 10. Its developer, John Fitzgerald, told me that Robert Johanson, Whoop’s VP of software, reached out to ask him to take the project down. Johanson also reached out to Middleton, the developer of Wearable, with a similar request, but Middleton kept his code available, and so far it’s still online. 

Goose was supposed to launch its app over TestFlight (a beta testing platform for iPhone apps) on June 13, but never did. I have not been able to get in touch with the developer. The code is still available on Github, but archived as read-only, suggesting that the project is dead.

How you run an unofficial Whoop app

When I decided to test Wearable—Middleton’s app, which was the first I came across—I faced quite the learning curve. Apple doesn’t allow hobbyists to compile apps and share them widely, at least not without a lot of extra steps. This makes sense from Apple’s perspective, since a mystery app could do all kinds of things to your iPhone you may not want it to. (For one thing, Apple requires that an app be signed by a developer, so you know who it came from.)

Bigger developers will often distribute an app for testing through a platform called TestFlight. You may have used this if you’ve ever beta-tested an iPhone app. Eventually, of course, such a developer might aim to have the app available on the real App Store. But if you just want to tinker with some code you downloaded, you need to be able to compile the app with Xcode, then sideload it (that is, transfer it locally, usually over a USB cable). To do that, well, let’s just say there were a lot of steps I had to figure out. I managed to build Wearable and load it onto my iPhone; later, when I was testing Noop, I found an unsigned .ipa (app) file that another hobbyist had created from Noop’s code, and I installed it via Sideloadly, which shortcut the process a bit—although that’s still risky, because it isn't easily confirmed that the .ipa contains the app I think it does.

The process is simpler on Android, but again, risky. Someone can give you an .apk file, which is already compiled and ready to install. Installing is as simple as clicking a link to the .apk from your Android phone, and tapping a button to say that, yes, you know you probably shouldn’t install this, but you want to anyway. 

But do these apps work?

Screenshots from Wearable as I was trying to connect to the device Credit: Beth Skwarecki / Wearable

I tried out several of the apps I’m writing about, with varying levels of success. Wearable detected my 4.0 strap and showed my live heart rate, but never managed to fully sync all my data. Noop, tested on an Android, managed to work with my 4.0 for a short time, but then I started getting errors. Noop on my iPhone was able to read data from my MG strap. Nothing I tried was 100% functional 100% of the time. 

That’s not unusual when you’re trying out code that’s still under development. Maybe I screwed up somehow, or maybe the apps are just buggy. It would take more methodical testing on my part to narrow down why I’m getting the problems I am. I’ve seen posts on Reddit from people who had more success than I did in getting Wearable and Noop working; Middleton showed me his phone with Wearable working smoothly.

If I took the time, I could possibly figure out what’s going wrong on my end and contribute some fixes to the code. That’s a nice thing about open source development: People work together to test and develop something that everyone can use. If the projects can survive Whoop’s legal threats, and if the developers stay interested enough to maintain the projects over time, we may have some useful, robust Whoop-alternative apps in the future. 

I’m looking forward to that. Reverse engineering, as these projects are called, is generally legal as long as the developer is not directly copying the company’s work or violating its terms of service. But most hobbyist developers aren’t prepared to fight legal battles even if they would theoretically win them, so takedown requests can often be enough to chill development. Aside from Noop, the projects I mentioned haven’t seen active development in at least the past week or so. I haven’t seen any new copycat apps on the subreddit, either. Feels pretty chilly to me.

Why I don’t think this is the end of alternative Whoop apps

For years, Whoop was the only device of its type. I wrote more about the state of smart bands here, but to summarize, there’s nothing special anymore about having a heart rate sensor on a wristband. Whoop’s branding and its top-notch app are the only advantages it has as a device; plenty of folks seem willing to abandon the platform if they can get an app for free, a device for cheap, or both.

Whoop surely knows this. The company is no longer pinning its business model to a single device (or app subscription), but has been branching out into the healthcare space. They now offer blood tests, which are pricey and repeatable. Earlier this year, Whoop joined Medicare’s ACCESS program. The Mayo Clinic and medical device company Abbott have both invested in Whoop, according to Forbes. The Whoop device and app may be the company's best-known products, but they're not the only way the company plans to make money.

Looking to the future, I hope that the Whoop-compatible apps stick around, and I think it’s likely that they will be legally able to. But will there be enough hobbyist developers with enough enthusiasm to debug, maintain, and distribute the apps, especially knowing that Whoop is watching over their shoulder? Will people who have old Whoop straps take a chance on these apps when they could just buy a Fitbit Air for $100 and a lot less hassle? 

Those are the questions I’m pondering. I’d love to have a reliable, free alternative to the Whoop app, or even to the Google Health app. Wearable devices are incredibly personal—they know every time your heart beats—and I don’t love that the only way to use these devices, in most cases, is to share that personal data with a large corporation. I think we should have independent apps, especially ones that work with abandoned tech. Here’s hoping they stick around, and keep improving.

Photo by: Jeff J. Newman/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

A wild new story on former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and her Hare Krishna guru’s influence on her policy actions has sent shockwaves through social media.

Sunday’s Washington Post article by investigative journalist Jon Swaine comes just days after Gabbard stepped down to manage her husband’s cancer treatments.

Swaine wrote that Gabbard grew up in “eccentric religious leader” Chris Butler’s breakaway Hare Krishna group that has been described by some ex-members as a “cult,” although the group denies that characterization.

Swaine set out on a year-long investigation to learn whether the “reclusive guru been secretly trying to steer Gabbard’s actions as a public official.” He reviewed tends of thousands of documents, declaring that “Their content was extraordinary.”

“Dozens of attached memos appeared to document directives and advice for Gabbard from her time in Congress. Some contained instructions on what legislation she should propose, which policies she should embrace and how she should conduct herself on television. They had an air of authority,” Swaine wrote.

Research fellow Kareem Rifai wrote on social media, “This is an utterly insane story: 25,000 documents reviewed by WaPo indicate that throughout Tulsi’s career, her political moves were controlled by her guru, cult leader Chris Butler. This woman was leading the world’s largest intelligence apparatus.”

The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum wrote, “So @jonswaine @washingtonpost has seen hundreds of documents containing evidence that Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, was directed throughout her career by the leader of the cult she grew up in.”

The Atlantic’s Shane Harris hailed Swaine’s “Extraordinary new reporting,” while former WaPo reporter said Swaine’s investigation, “presents powerful evidence that director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was deeply under the sway of her lifelong guru, a cultic leader who told her what to say and how to say it.”

Former WaPo reporter Marc Fisher wrote that Swaine’s investigation “presents powerful evidence that director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was deeply under the sway of her lifelong guru, a cultic leader who told her what to say and how to say it.”

More reactions below:

——

The post ‘Utterly Insane!’ WaPo Story On Tulsi Gabbard’s Link to Religious ‘Guru’ Who Allegedly Guided Her Career Sends Shockwaves first appeared on Mediaite.

(Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images)

A New Washington Post exposé raises questions about former National Intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard and her Hare Krishna guru’s desire to shape world politics.

Investigative journalist Jon Swaine published his findings Sunday in a lengthy feature for the Washington Post about Gabbard’s relationship with Chris Butler, “the eccentric religious leader Gabbard once described as her guru.”

Swaine wrote that “Gabbard grew up in Butler’s breakaway Hare Krishna group” and that “Her parents held senior positions in the organization.”

“Butler’s followers practice a form of Hinduism that involves devotion to a single deity, in their case Krishna, and certain expectations around meditation, yoga and diet,” Swaine wrote. “Some former members, however, have called the group a cult and said disciples were isolated from the outside world, characterizations the group has denied.”

Swaine said he set out on a year-long investigation to learn whether the “reclusive guru been secretly trying to steer Gabbard’s actions as a public official” — first as a Democratic member of Congress, then as an independent, and most recently as a Republican Trump administration official.

Those two times, Gabbard took the oath of office on the sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad-Gita, “and has said she was proud to be the first Hindu American member of Congress,” Swaine wrote.

Gabbard, just days ago, officially stepped down from the Trump administration, saying she’s caring for her husband who’s battling cancer.

A former member of Butler’s sect turned over internal records to Swaine, “because she felt Gabbard misled voters about Butler’s role and his influence on her decision-making,” Swaine wrote. He also noted that some former members “have called the group a cult.”

Swaine said he reviewed thousands of emails and documents while reporting his story.

“Their content was extraordinary,” Swaine wrote. He added, “Dozens of attached memos appeared to document directives and advice for Gabbard from her time in Congress. Some contained instructions on what legislation she should propose, which policies she should embrace and how she should conduct herself on television. They had an air of authority.”

He continued:

I found a 173-page dossier from 2014 titled “TG Issues.” It compiled advice for Gabbard on dozens of topics — from taxes to the mysterious disappearance that year of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and more. The document was peppered with imperatives. “Start introducing bills,” it said on one issue. “Need to get on it and hit hard. Stop being weak,” it said on another.

“I thought, the documents suggested that someone had been telling Gabbard what to do. And…she appeared to have done it,” Swaine wrote.

“With Post colleague Aaron Schaffer, I compared Gabbard’s remarks in 32 TV interviews between 2014 and 2016 with the talking-points memos intended for them,” Swaine continued. “On 24 occasions, Gabbard used language in the memos almost verbatim. In the eight other instances, Gabbard used different words but promoted some of the same ideas.”

A source told Swaine that “Butler was obsessed with politics and wanted “to rule the world.”

Butler and his organization declined to comment for Swaine’s piece. After repeated requests for comment, Gabbard’s chief of staff sent Swaine a statement saying, the allegations “are a blatant example of anti-Hindu bigotry.”

A spokeswoman added, “I cannot imagine WaPo’s readers would be interested in yet another uncredible, bigoted attack on the DNI’s faith.”

——

The post Tulsi Gabbard’s Entire Career Was Guided By an ‘Eccentric Religious Leader’ She Once Called Her ‘Guru’ — Wild Washington Post Story Suggests first appeared on Mediaite.