Weekly News Roundup - 5/22/26
Trump friction with GOP grows over private fund & ballroom // Ebola returns
This is the 20th Weekly News Roundup of 2026. The archive for all weekly news roundups is here, which goes back to the beginning of 2024.
These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to get a sense of the shape of the past week on the national level. Without such a map, we can be disoriented, not knowing where we have been over the past several days, or where we may be going.
But by spending concentrated, limited time thinking about the big picture, we can devote more of our time to where “agency and justice begin and end,” as Karen Swallow Prior put it: “on the ground, bodily, in community and real relationships, in flesh and blood.”
Quotes of the Week
I never expect journalism to change the world. I don’t expect powerful people to read that they’re schmucks and reform. But there has always been some basic ground truth that any writer counts on as a starting point for reaching people. And I just felt that ground just shift and crumble under my feet over the last decade or so. - George Packer
I spent the past three years attending — and joining in — rituals in 16 countries on six continents ... Through all this variation, in all these different contexts, I saw a common desire to soften the harsh edges of daily life, grateful for the chance to embrace new opportunities, to mark time and to create meaning. - Bruce Feiler
Epidemics involve multi-layered collaboration among nations and medical institutions, with coordination by the World Health Organization. The United States exited the WHO last year just after President Donald Trump took office. Despite Americans affected by the [ebola] outbreak and related travel restrictions, no U.S. officials have been present for WHO consultations now taking place, according to one virologist I spoke to who has attended several such calls this week. - Mindy Belz
Big Stories This Week
Concerns grew about the ebola outbreak in Africa, as the world confronts a diminished readiness to respond because of the U.S. government’s reduction in infectious disease resources. Dr. Craig Spencer, who survived ebola after contracting it after treating patients in Guinea, writes that “after the 2014 outbreak, which killed over 11,000 people, the world strengthened systems to catch and contain Ebola outbreaks early. Much of that infrastructure — surveillance networks, rapid response teams and diplomatic partnerships — has been dismantled over the past year, as the United States abdicated its longstanding role as a leader in global health and humanitarian response.”
President Trump sought to create a $1.8 billion fund of taxpayer dollars that he can use for whatever purpose he chooses. Trump also received immunity from IRS audits or tax investigations. And a mandatory report disclosed that Trump’s financial advisers have made thousands of stock trades during his time as president that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, buying shares of companies whose value is directly impacted by the president’s decisions and statements.
Week in Review
Saturday, May 16
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican, loses his primary election to another Republican endorsed by Trump. Cassidy had sought to work constructively with the Trump administration but was never forgiven for voting to impeach Trump for his part in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Sunday, May 17
The World Health Organization declares the ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern.
Trump supporters host a prayer rally on the national mall in D.C.
Monday, May 18
“The Trump administration announced Monday the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate allies of the Republican president who believe they have been unjustly investigated and prosecuted,” the AP reports. One journalist describes the fund as a taxpayer-funded “slush fund which literally can be used to pay anyone Trump desires.” The fund is created as part of a settlement between lawyers representing Trump the private citizen and lawyers representing Trump the president. Jonah Goldberg explains: “In his first term, Trump’s tax returns were illegally leaked. When Trump returned to the presidency he filed suit against the Internal Revenue Service. So, as a constitutional matter, Trump is suing the executive branch he runs for a crime committed by the IRS back when he ran it in his first term. Realizing that the courts might find this too cute to countenance, the Justice Department and IRS — both, again, run by Trump — compromised by creating a $1,776,000,000 fund (that ‘1776’ before all the zeros is a play on the country’s 250th birthday) that Trump will control.”
A security guard and two others are shot and killed at San Diego County’s largest mosque by two teenage gunmen who appear to have targeted the mosque based on racist beliefs and anti-religious bigotry. The two teens kill themselves after police arrive.
A federal jury in Oakland rejects a lawsuit by Elon Musk seeking $134 billion in damages and the ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, after a three-week trial, finding that Musk’s suit fell beyond the statute of limitations. The trial forced embarrassing disclosures about Altman.
Tuesday, May 19
The head of the World Health Organization says he is “deeply concerned” about the scale and speed of the Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda. More than 130 suspected deaths and 513 cases are reported.
The IRS agrees to give Trump, and his sons, indemnity from all future investigations into his tax activity, as a settlement of the lawsuit he brought against the government for the leak of his tax returns. “This is an unprecedented remedy. People expect the same tax rules and enforcement framework to apply to everybody,” former IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel says.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin arrives in China for a visit less than a week after Trump’s departure.
One of Trump’s most ardent critics among Republicans in the House, Thomas Massie, loses the Republican primary after a sustained effort by Trump to push him out of Congress.
The Senate approves, for the first time after repeated attempts, a vote that would require the president to seek congressional approval for further attacks on Iran. The measure still needs to pass the House.
Wednesday, May 20
A newly filed report shows that as president, Trump has made thousands of trades in the stock market worth hundreds of millions of dollars, buying and selling stocks of companies whose values are directly impacted by his decisions as president.
$1 billion in taxpayer money for Trump’s new ballroom may not be approved by the Congress as Republican opposition grows, Senators say.
Federal prosecutors file criminal charges against former Cuban President Raul Castro, over the downing of civilian planes in 1996.
Former congressman Barney Frank dies at 86. He was the first gay lawmaker to out himself but was known in Washington most for his sharp wit and sharper tongue, his willingness to criticize his own party, and his chops as a lawmaker.
Thursday, May 21
Republican Senators leave Washington with unresolved questions and growing opposition to both the $1 billion for the White House East Room and for over the $1.8 billion fund Trump is seeking to establish for himself.
House Republicans prevent their chamber from voting on the war powers resolution passed by the Senate two days earlier after it becomes clear that there are enough votes to approve it, which would require the president seek congressional approval for any further military action against Iran.
“People set fire to an Ebola treatment center in a town at the heart of the outbreak in eastern Congo on Thursday after being stopped from retrieving the body of a local man, a witness and a senior police officer said, as fear and anger grow over a health crisis that doctors are struggling to contain,” the AP reports.
Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” hosts its final episode after 11 seasons. The show was canceled by CBS after its parent company, Paramount, paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit at the same time that Paramount was awaiting approval of its merger with a different company. Colbert, a frequent critic of Trump’s, accused CBS of canceling his show to curry favor with the current president.
Friday, May 22
Infectious disease experts warn that the world is not ready for the current ebola virus. “The danger hasn’t changed since 2014. Our ability to respond has. The United States withdrew from the WHO in January. USAID, which funded contact tracers, border screeners, lab workers and response capacity across central Africa, was dissolved last July, with 80% of its global health awards terminated and $12.7 billion gone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had a Senate-confirmed director for only about a month under this administration, and currently has no Senate-confirmed leader in place. The Department of Health and Human Services has lost more than 10,000 employees. National Institutes of Health laboratories that provided vital support have been closed or defunded. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once promised to give infectious disease research “a break for about eight years.”
Interesting Reads
The Diseases Are Coming, by Craig Spencer for The Atlantic
Trump administration ousts top NIH infectious disease leaders, by Max Kozlov for The Scientific American
What Xi Knows That Trump Doesn’t, by Francis Fukuyama for Persuasion
Preaching in the Trump era, by Fleming Rutledge on Substack
AI attacks may be backfiring in Manhattan House race, by Madison Fernandez for Politico