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Political authors Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan say President Donald Trump’s likely fall from Congressional dominance could involve a constitutional crisis as the budding autocrat refuses to acknowledge a Congress that is no longer beholden to him.

Trump think himself the most powerful person to walk the Earth, thanks to a report hashed together not by a historian but by the caddy of retired South African professional golfer Gary Player, according to Haberman speaking to MS NOW anchor Katy Tur.

“If he believes he's all powerful and he's the most powerful person has ever walked the Earth and he always wins. There is that open question of whether he leaves office after all,” asked Tur. “He's gilding it, he's remaking Washington. That ball room is only supposed to be finished a couple months before he leaves office.”

“We talk about this a fair amount in this in a presidential cycle, in a lame duck term, which this is. You can see where an unpopular president's party is headed and it's not for good or good results on Election Day, in the midterms and then the control of the House flips, maybe control of the Senate flips, and then what follows is a lot of subpoenas and oversight, hearings and so forth. If I'm sure if the House flips if the Senate flips one or the other or both. There obviously will be attempts by democrats. To do all of that.”

“But what we haven't seen before is what happens if a sitting administration across the board does not respond to those subpoenas, does not supply witnesses,” asked Haberman. “Now we have had instances where that has happened. You know in specific cases before under Obama, under Trump, on and so forth. What happens is if it's everything. Congress's ability is to actually engage in any accountability, if that's true, is pretty hamstrung. They don't have a jail in Congress, they will have to refer contempt of Congress, subpoenas, referrals to the DOJ, which will be led by a Trump appointee.”

“And not just a Trump appointee,” said Swan. “Trump's own former personal lawyer.”

And Swan added that if Republicans are in any kind of position of control in either the Senate or the House they will doubtless work in Trump’s favor over the health of U.S. democracy, likely out of self-preservation.

“You are seeing the Senate operate in a slightly different way than the House. But that's largely because Donald Trump has so aggressively alienated a few Senators,” said Swan. He added, however, not to expect the GOP to find its backbone, even in retirement.

“You know when it turns out, when you run them into retirement and defeat them and run opponents against them, they don't tend to retain their loyalty. But it's also instructive pretty much all these people who went against him are out of the job after the election,” said Swan. “So, this idea that, like Donald Trump, is losing all his power, I don't know. I kind of question that a little bit. He's still in the Republican Party, he's still the colossus and he still ends people's careers. So, we shouldn't get like too delusional about that.”

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Ted Cruz is probably running for president. It's a headline that is so unsurprising that even CNN found it amusing.

Reporting on Thursday, hosts made it clear that "many of the signs are there" that he's likely to run in 2028, setting up the intra-party battle between Vice President JD Vance and Cruz.

Cruz, who ran in 2016, has spent the subsequent years promoting himself on his own podcast was the butt of the joke for Vance when he was speaking to Megyn Kelly.

"Well, I think committed, non-interventionist, America First Ted Cruz could be a representative for that wing of the party," Vance said.

It isn't shocking after Cruz was caught trashing Vance and President Donald Trump in a secret recording reported in January.

Cruz was infamously referred to by the late Sen. Bob Dole (R-Ks.) as someone "nobody likes." Ironically, Dole also remarked that he thought Donald Trump could likely get legislation passed because he's a "dealmaker."

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) famously wrote in his book, "I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was forced to apologize publicly after he quipped in 2017, "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you."

Even former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who didn't even serve in the U.S. Senate with Cruz, said, "I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."

Democracy Docket went so far as to refer to Cruz as the "most hated man in Washington."

CNN reporter Steve Contorno explained on Thursday that Cruz's calendar is peppered with trips to states that have early primaries and caucuses. He's there to help fellow Republicans up for elections in 2026, but they're in states like Iowa and South Carolina.

Bob Vander Plaats, an Iowa Republican and co-chair of Cruz's 2016 campaign, said, "I'd be shocked if he doesn't run" in 2028.

Contorno said he's been watching these candidates because the open question is what Trump will do when it comes to handing over what he considers to be his movement to someone else. In the past, Trump's "deference" has been Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Cruz is already setting himself apart from Vance by opposing the Iran War, while Vance has been carrying Trump's water over the war.

Contorno went so far as to call it an "unofficial kickoff to 2028" after Vance published a new book while Cruz was so publicly outspoken against the administration on Iran.

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Political consultant and author Stuart Stevens has no sympathy for Republicans who were forced to contend with President Donald Trump, who didn't care much about them during their elections.

In the new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the authors addressed Trump's having "some satisfaction" seeing Republicans on the ballot lose when he also wasn't running for reelection.

"The next month, when Republicans performed badly in the off-year elections, Trump would say he was 'honored' that people were saying that they couldn't win without him on the ballot," says the new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.

MS NOW host Katy Tur asked Stevens about it, but he couldn't possibly care less about the plight of the GOP.

"Look, I have zero sympathy for these Republicans," he said frankly. "You know, they staged the cannibal's banquet, and in a surprise, they were on the menu. What do you expect from Donald Trump? This is the same erratic, self-centered guy who doesn't care anything about governing."

This week, Republicans are facing off against the president, killing one of their only pieces of legislation to address the affordability crisis.

"I think that we sort of grade on the curve here if we start saying, well, they haven't done everything that Donald Trump wanted to. They are supposed to be a coequal branch of government," Stevents said.

He noted that there's a tendency of the political establishment and pundit class to "both-sides" a Congress that fails to pass legislation. Fewer than 40 bills passed the House and Senate in 2025. It set a modern record for the lowest legislative output in the first year of a new presidency, according to data gathered by C-SPAN and Purdue University.

The legislative session for 2026 is still going, but thus far, it isn't looking great. Most legislation focuses on naming post offices, approving nominees from the president and authorizing veterans hospitals. There have been 186 roll call votes, meaning the members indicated whether they were present in the chamber.

Stevens remarked, "Democrats actually are trying to govern. Republicans, for the most part, are just doing what Donald Trump says, and Donald Trump could not care less about the midterms; he could not care less about them; he could not care less about anything but what is immediately in front of him that his name is going to be on," something or something that "involves getting him richer."

He said it was like that in 2016 and it will be true this time around as well.

"They all kind of try to pretend this is otherwise and ultimately it just doesn't work, because Donald Trump isn't that person that they keep trying to think he might," Stevens closed.

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Justice Samuel Alito was triggered by his colleague Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday at the U.S. Supreme Court as the two were reading the rulings on the final dozen, or so, decisions for the term. According to one CNN reporter, Alito was "stone-faced" and made excuses for himself after her comments.

Speaking about the incident, CNN's Dana Bash teased the comments by calling it "really explicit" in their ideological divide.

"It really was an and it boiled over in this one encounter between Justice Alito and Justice Sotomayor," agreed Joan Biskupic, CNN's chief Supreme Court analyst.

After Alito finished reading the decision that involved migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, which dealt with the language over whether someone had "arrived" or "not arrived" in the United States, Sotomayor stepped in.

Biskupic explained that the debate over that case involves U.S. Border Patrol agents who will block people from "arriving" in the U.S. by preventing them from stepping over the border.

After Alito finished explaining why it was a "perfectly legitimate for the administration to do — to block these asylum seekers," the analyst said that Sotomayor stepped in to say, "I have a dissent here."

Justice Alito paused, Biskupic said, "So, he must have known that something was coming from her."

She addressed the "moral imperative of allowing asylum seekers who are fleeing serious persecution from coming to America, allowing them to come to America."

“The consequences of today’s decision are predictable,” she read. “More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not."

She then began citing specific incidents of the U.S. turning back people who were later persecuted and killed. She recalled the infamous incident involving the voyage of the M.S. St. Louis, in 1939, in which 937 passengers, almost all of whom were Jewish refugees, attempted to flee to the United States from Nazi Germany. It first went to Cuba and then to the U.S. The Americans turned them back.

"She finishes," continued Biskupic. "She takes, you know, about three times as long as Sam Alito had taken to deliver the actual opinion. And the first thing he says before he starts to recount the temporary protected status opinion that 'If I had known what the dissent was going to say I would have explained my ruling more.' And he just sits there kind of stone-faced, and everyone's like wow, and you know he definitely suggested he was blindsided."

Biskupic added, "I have a feeling that she might have said, maybe right before they were going on the bench, you know, 'Hey Sam, I've got something to say. But then he goes, with anger dripping from his voice to then detail what happened, what they were ruling in the temporary protected status case is."

Justice Elena Kagan had her own dissent in that second case, but chose not to read it, Biskupic said, "probably because there had been enough fireworks for the morning."

Former CNN reporter Jim Acosta has long been a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump. Now, the White House has renewed its attacks after the reporter dared to fact-check the claims about the Reflecting Pool.

Acosta appeared to trigger the White House on Wednesday with his live report from the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Like many journalists, researchers, Washington D.C. locals and tourists, Acosta went to the pool to see for himself if Trump's claim of vandalism was accurate.

There was no 250-350 foot gash sliced into the lining of the Reflecting Pool.

“Went looking for the 300-foot ‘slit’ or ‘slits’ in the reflecting pool Trump keeps lying about,” Acosta wrote on X. “Didn’t find any of that. But did find plenty of signs [that] the paint on the bottom of the pool has simply disintegrated.”

Trump has spent the week claiming that the pool had been vandalized, alleging that Democrats were to blame.

Speaking to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday, the president, embroiled in a war in Iran, wanted to focus instead on the "thugs," he said, who had hurt his pool.

“They just told me a little while ago,” Trump claimed. “Six have been arrested, and like six or seven are under investigation. They had pictures and everything else. They went to the bottom, and it’s not a paint job, it’s very expensive, it’s not rubber — but it’s like rubber — and they went down with probably a box cutter or a very sharp razor of some kind or knife, and they cut, and then they started ripping it up.”

“You know, one of the guys, he’s a member or a big player to ActBlue,” Trump added, referencing the Democratic Party fundraising platform. “He’s a big Hillary supporter, he’s a big supporter of Sleepy Joe Biden.”

Trump had previously said that the lining was Impenetrable.

It's not clear what Trump is talking about. The National Park Police have released a video of one woman sifting through the waters on the edge for a piece of the pool to take with her. Over the weekend, tourists were grabbing pieces as souvenirs, CNN reported.

Acosta, who had once been banned by the White House, walked over 4,000 steps around the perimeter of the pool searching for the massive gash and wasn't able to find it either.

“You can’t see a slit. There are no slits that he’s been talking about. It’s all a lie," he concludes.

That's when the White House snapped.

Using the official @RapidResponse47 account on X, the White House responded, “Jim, you are truly one of the dumbest individuals to have ever existed. Please seek professional help."

A White House spokesperson commented on the allegation: "It is shameful that elected Democrats would lie to the American public about the deranged vandalism that has taken place at the Reflecting Pool. President Trump generously spearheaded the restoration of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and it is now reflecting beautifully despite the vandals’ attempt to destroy it."

Trump has long attacked Acosta, who frequently asked him questions that so angered the president that he reacted defensively.

Former GOP U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Penn.) lamented before a CNN panel at how eagerly President Donald Trump appears to be trying to ruin Republicans’ chances in November, even when he’s allegedly campaigning on their behalf.

Dent was responding to a recent comment about Trump from U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, (R-La.) comparing Trump to a child.

Trump allegedly called Cassidy a ‘lunatic,’ in a recent war of words, which prompted Cassidy to tell reporters: “Can I imagine that the President called me things that would be said on a school playground? I can imagine [that]”

But Dent said Republicans like Cassidy appear to be late in showing their feelings as the midterm elections begin to close in on them, with the public growing ever more frustrated at Trump’s economic policies and his unilateral attack on Iran, which inflated U.S. fuel and food prices in time for November.

“If I wanted to lose a midterm election, I would do the things the President is doing,” said Dent. “I would steal defeat from the jaws of victory on this Housing Bill. I would obsess over a ballroom. I would obsess on a pond — the reflecting pool — and an arch. I would say ‘I don't care about Americans’ financial condition. I mean it's as if he's trying to deliberately undermine his own party's electoral prospects.”

“He was just in my hometown of Allentown yesterday … up at the Mack truck plant. And he doesn't even mention the Republican gubernatorial candidate who's sitting right there,” marveled Dent. “The State Treasurer doesn't even call on the Republican congressman until the end to say something and say it fast. I mean it's — it’s just incredible that he doesn't care about their electoral prospects.”

Trump’s not good at legislation anyway, said panelist Paul Rieckhoff, host of the “Independent Americans” podcast. This, he said, is also doing nothing for a Republican Party that desperately needs to take a win home to their voters if they are to have a chance in November.

But Trump has instead stalled all legislation in an effort to bully Congress to pass the SAVE Act with its onerous vote restrictions. He’s even stalled a popular bill to help with overpriced U.S. housing.

“[Passing legislation] requires negotiation, it requires compromise, it requires getting along with people from the other side. And [Trump] doesn't like doing that. He's a snow plow, he likes to go full force, all gas and no breaks without stopping for anyone,” Rieckhoff told CNN anchor Erin Burnett. “I think it's really [typical] that he's focusing on the SAVE act, because he's focusing on the elections. He's always focusing on the elections because he has to protect his power and he knows that free and fair elections this fall will mean accountability for him. It could mean impeachment; it could mean prison. He knows that that is America's circuit breaker. That's why he continues to prioritize it.”

“He doesn't care about housing,” said Rieckhoff. “He said that before, even though most of America does. … He cares about power, and the most important thing in protecting his power is the SAVE Act.”

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An MS NOW panel had to warily admit that President Donald Trump has sandblasted his Republican Party so hard against the wall that even Fox News can’t seem to repair the damage.

Polls suggest Trump’s popularity is at a career low, and he’s dragging his Republican Party into the pit with him. But there’s more than just polling, said John Heilemann with Puck News. The enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans is also apparent in recent elections.

“[D]emocrats are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about voting for non-Republican candidates this November and we have seen this not once, not twice, not in an outlier way, but in a consistent way,” Heilemann told MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace. “Democrats are showing up and they're showing up in large numbers by the standards of off-year elections and the standards of special elections, and they're not just exceeding [Trump’s margins from 2024] but blowing them out of the water.”

“That's not a poll. That is not a focus group. Those are points on the board right where you're saying ‘here's a team that's winning.’” Heilemann insisted, adding that “we're seeing a deflated Republican electorate that’s not excited about its options [and] … doesn't believe that Donald Trump or the … Republican party around Donald Trump has done right by them.”

Wallace said she could even see the enthusiasm gap creeping into the markedly more somber atmosphere of the non-stop Trump cheerleading squad at Fox News.

“One of my indicators is Jessica Tarlov from [Fox’s] ‘The Five.’ In the early months of Trump's second term, she was always exquisitely prepared, but I almost was nervous for her. But now she like runs the table,” Wallace told the panel. “… I don't know if they're capable of embarrassment, but the whole power structure of the table has changed. She's just one [liberal] person, but I think she called Jesse Waters a guy who shills for an idiot and everyone was just stone silent afterward.”

“I mean it's not just vibes,” Wallace asserted. “If you trust your eyes, if you trust your ears. Donald Trump is a political loser right now. That is undeniable.”

Angelo Carusone, with Media Matters for America, quickly agreed to the network’s muted shift in tone.

“Fox News has been the firmest out there trying to carry water for the story that Trump is telling, and they just can't do it anymore,” said Carusone. “When you start to even expose it a little bit like the Tarlov example it's impossible. And they're his firmest allies.”

“They are the strongest [support structure] Trump has, Fox and the Fox audience — and even they are having a lot of difficulty carrying water for Trump right now.”

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President Donald Trump has so many revenge campaigns and such a huge list of grievances that the White House staff is struggling to keep them straight.

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, a new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, details a number of exchanges with aides. Haberman explained on CNN Wednesday morning that there is no longer a line between the Justice Department and Trump.

"But we make clear in the reporting how true that is he wanted the top DOJ officials to understand — as they were trying to obtain an indictment against Letitia James — and there was this question of whether a mortgage fraud charge could actually be brought. Todd Blanche, who was then the deputy attorney general, was not convinced this was going to work," Haberman explained.

"[Blanche] was operating, in our reporting, from the perspective of if you're going to bring a case, you need to be able to actually prove the case," she said.

"Like a lawyer" host John Berman cut in.

Haberman read an excerpt illustrating Trump's frustrations with James and the lack of progress in going after her.

"He told one adviser that Blanche needed to grasp: He didn't really care whether she was ultimately convicted," the book explains. "The president's true goal was to drag into court the New York Attorney General who had won a nearly half billion dollar civil fraud judgment against him."

Trump told the advisor, "I want to make her life miserable."

When they asked Trump whether he said it, Trump said he didn't think so, but agreed, "I would have said it."

He attacked her as a "dirty cop" and "very corrupt person."

"So, we got a real look at how this is working," said Haberman. The reporter also detailed a case in which top aides Stephen Miller and Boris Epstein were talking about one of Trump's targets from 2020 that they couldn't remember.

"They're talking about 'who was that guy involved in the in the elections,' in the machines and the security of the elections in 2020?" Haberman said, noting they couldn't even remember and had to look up who the person was. It was Chris Krebs.

"And then soon there is this presidential memorandum about investigating Krebs," Haberman explained.

Veteran television producer, writer and comedian Larry David, well-known for his work on the hit sitcom "Seinfeld" in the late 1980s and 1990s, has been a blistering critic of U.S. President Donald Trump. And now, he is speaking out against an event that Trump used to celebrate his 80th birthday on July 14: the widely publicized Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event at the White House.

Variety asked David, now 78, to weigh in on the UFC gathering at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and he didn't mince words.

David told Variety, "It was a travesty. What else can you say about it? It was embarrassing."

The former "Seinfeld" producer made it clear that he considered Trump's UFC event highly unpresidential.

"I was embarrassed to be an American," David bluntly told Variety during the interview.

David has a long resumé in U.S. television.

After working briefly on "Saturday Night Live" during the 1980s, the producer and writer went on to create the popular "Seinfeld" (starring Jerry Seinfeld) in 1989. And the show lasted almost a decade before concluding in 1998. David went on to star in another popular series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," on HBO from 1999-2024.

David is a longtime supporter of liberal causes and the Democratic Party, vehemently criticizing Trump during the United States 2024 presidential election and continuing to criticize Trump after his return to the White House on January 20, 2025.

David was hardly alone in criticizing Trump's UFC event on July 14. Quite a few Democrats attacked it as unpresidential, and many Never Trump conservatives saw it as a metaphor for Trump's MAGA politics — which they view as style over substance and bad for the conservative movement.D avid has also been feuding with "Real Time" host Bill Maher, who is also a frequent critic of Trump.

After Maher had dinner with Trump inside the White House, David criticized the "Real Time" host for meeting with him. Maher countered, however, that he wasn't endorsing Trump's ideas — only trying to have some type of dialogue with a political figure he has major disagreements with.

One of President Donald Trump's longtime biographers, Michael Wolff, is warning that the obsessive focus on the Reflecting Pool reveals something much deeper about the 80-year-old leader.

Speaking on the Daily Beast podcast, Wolff explained that, according to his sources, Trump is spending as much as 80 percent of his time on things like the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

Chatting with those he said are close to Trump, Wolff said that the Reflecting Pool failure is drawing "All of his anger, all of his rage, all of his demands — and now his need for vengeance: someone must be responsible."

The pool disaster has largely been a joke online, with mocking memes and comedy ranging from social media accounts championing the pool algae, along with "make algae great again" merchandise. For political analysts, it is described as a metaphor for Trump's entire presidency: big promises, overspending and, ultimately, a failure to deliver.

Trump is seeing it all as "an insult to the country and a challenge to him personally," Wolff said.

“The discussion that I’m having with people is that, you know, 60, 70, 80 percent of his time — and remember, he doesn’t work that much — is devoted to the Reflecting Pool,” Wolff explained.

“But he is focused on the Reflecting Pool,” Wolff told the Beast.

“Now we can obviously make a little nod here to Narcissus and his reflecting pool... It is, even for people who work with Donald Trump every day, a weird moment.”

Co-host Joanna Coles was curious whether the obsession stems from Trump's image of himself as a "builder."

Wolff questioned if it was “one of those dementia things.”

"I'm against diagnosing people," he explained. "But you know, Jesus, for anybody who has seen this before, and I have seen this before and so many people have."

"You close out the rest of the world and you just and you focus on these problems which are, which are really minor, and you turn them into obsessions.

"I mean, this clearly has become, in his mind, and hence in the White House, an obsession," he added. "What is the largest problem in the world today? It is apparently the Reflecting Pool."

"... I think he obviously has signs of dementia," Wolff corrected. "I'm just not comfortable with moving that to a diagnosis. I mean, you have that guy on 'Doctor John Gartner.' He says that because Trump's been in plain sight for so many years, you can actually diagnose the decline of his language, which is key to understanding someone's mental state. That's what all television doctors say."

Coles said that it's the first time she's heard Wolff acknowledge that Trump may have such a problem.

Wolff explained that what can be confirmed is that "something is unusual. Something is not as it should be. Something is weird. The president of the United States of America, in all kinds of crises, which again, larger and larger, has chosen for the past week and a half at least, to focus almost exclusively on the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. That's odd, is it?"

MS NOW anchor Katy Tur and contributor Peter Baker took a stab at the mania-grade obsession President Donald Trump suffers over former President Barack Obama, as judged by Trump’s never-ending crusade to try to top the more popular president in speeches, claims and boasts.

“He's really focused and he keeps being focused on this, and he's doing it with Iran too. He's got to be better than Obama," said Tur on her show "The Moment" on Tuesday. "So he brings this up, Peter. He declares that he's going to change [things], he's going to fix it, it's going to be wonderful and he keeps going on about it. … But then he also has to try to top Obama. What is the obsession with trying to top Obama? Why can't he just let it go? The Presidency is over.”

“He's trying to top Obama, because Obama is more popular than him,” said Baker. “He had had a presidency, according to polls, that more Americans supported — then and now Obama, according to those polls, is one of the most popular figures in American life, and I think he just has always fixated on Obama. Why did he talk about the birther lie, why did he sit there and talk about how Obama supposedly wasn't born in this country? And then, of course he was. He's trying to undercut him, trying to undermine him.”

“When he is sitting at that White House Correspondent Association dinner in the audience while Obama is on stage making fun of him, he's was seething,” Baker added. “You can see from the clips, if you haven't been there yourself, you can see the television clips how he was furious at being mocked by Obama and ever since he blamed Obama for all manner of. You know things that have hurt his administration. The Russia investigation is all Obama's fault. Somehow, he's accused Obama of treason. He suggested Obama should be arrested. And yes, as you say on anything, whether it be the reflecting pool or the Iran deal, he has to say he's doing better than Obama when in fact, at the moment it doesn't look like that.”

Other critics say Trump’s fury lies in the fact that Black man continues to top him in both popularity and deed. Trump has even re-posted videos describing Trump as the "King of the Jungle" while depicting the former President and his wife as apes, a frequently used racist trope.

Trump eventually removed the post after Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and even Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker spoke publicly against his post.

But Trump has his own massive popularity problem independent of Obama’s surpassing appeal.

“Well, Katy, the metaphors are so perfect for his adversaries,” said former George Bush and John McCain speech writer Mark McKinnon, referring to Trump’s ick-filled Reflecting Pool. “Metaphors [and the storytelling] are so important, and I'm reminded as I watch the ballroom and the reflecting pool, and just how obvious a metaphor that is for what's going on with the Trump administration, where his priorities are right now. The day that I saw the video of John Kerry windsurfing in 2004 was a perfect metaphor for John Kerry and the flip flop. And we wrote that windsurfing ad in 30 seconds because it made itself, because that perfectly illustrated John Kerry. Well, the reflecting pool and the ball room are perfect metaphors for Donald Trump and the fact that his priorities are not with the American people right now.”

“They want to outdo Obama, but the fact is that, no matter how you draw this up, it doesn't look like there's any possible route to a conclusion [to the war in Iran] in which it is any better and likely much worse than the Obama agreement that was put in place years ago.”

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President Donald Trump claimed over the weekend that the Reflecting Pool was being "vandalized" and that someone carved a 250-foot gash into the pool. As one pool expert explained, that's impossible because the material used is puncture-proof. To make such a gash, vandals would need significant equipment and it would be more difficult to go undetected. Even before Trump deployed more National Guard soldiers to the pool, Park Police patrolled the area.

Trump's story about the large "gash" in the lining evolved over 48 hours and the size became anywhere from 250 feet to 350 feet. While one Truth Social post claimed 300 feet, Trump mixed it up when speaking to the press.

CNN pointed out in its report, that he "increased the size of the alleged gash."

"Well, let's put it this way, when you have a 350, I think it's 350, not 250, a 350-ft slit. From one end to the other. Tampering with federal property carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison," Trump said.

CNN remarked that Trump made the comment "without evidence."

Charges for destruction of federal property were one of the charges used against Jan. 6 attackers who destroyed parts of the U.S. Capitol building. Olympian David Hearn told the press that he was cited for "destruction in defacing Government property and disobeying a Government employee," CNN said. The latter isn't a specific law unless it involves disobeying law enforcement or obstructing justice. He's being represented by Trump legal foe Norm Eisen.

When asked what proof the administration has that someone carved such a gash, Trump claimed that there were videos of the vandalism and that they would come out "in court."

Trucks have now been brought in with equipment and mounted cameras for such surveillance.

CNN called it "one $14 million green-hued pool" that is "overflowing with controversy."

Washington D.C., U.S. Attorney General Jeanine Pirro told Fox News that "several citations have been handed out" and that "these are cases that will be prosecuted."

One TMZ video showed a woman who was given nothing more than a "citation," the report said.

Political commentator David Rothkopf joked during the latest episode of the Daily Beast podcast that President Donald Trump has certainly managed to bring Americans flocking to see the Reflecting Pool.

“It’s turned into a tourist attraction in downtown D.C. for people to hate on Trump, right? They come down, and they reflect on what a bad president they’ve got,” mocked Rothkopf, speaking to Joanna Coles. “And then he’s like, ‘Holy mackerel, this is a mess. What are we going to do?’”

The solution, Rothkopf said, was to invent a conspiracy theory. Thus, the story of the mysterious vandals was born. According to Trump, five people have been arrested, and there are, he believes, five more who were involved somehow in putting a 250-350-foot gash in the liner installed in the Reflecting Pool. Trump promised reporters questioning the claim that the evidence of it would come out "in court."

“I just inspected it, and could only say to myself, and those gathered around me, WOW, who would do such a thing?” the president wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday. “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE! We will fix it?”

It's part of the overall metaphor of Trump's so-called beautification projects in Washington.

“Who defaced the Oval Office? Who destroyed the East Wing? Who put a giant claw on the South Lawn of the White House? Who is building a gilded ballroom for billionaires to dance in while Americans starve?” Rothkopf asked. “Who is building an arch to honor himself? Who’s covering all the horse statues in Washington in gold leaf?”

“He didn’t do enough damage as the worst, most tasteless developer in America. Now he’s taken it to another scale with tack,” Rothkopf said.

So, the disaster of the Reflecting Pool is a larger "metaphor for Trump," he said.

“It’s such a symbol of his vandalism, his failure, his inability to take responsibility for anything, his turning Washington into the grimiest, slimiest swamp of all time,” Rothkopf explained.

“The reality is, Trump screws up things all the time,” he said, noting that the Reflecting Pool was “fine” before the 80-year-old president decided it needed a more than $14 million revamp.

Tensions between the Trump administration and the Italian government flared when U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni "begged" to be in a photo with him during the recent G7 Summit in Évian-les-Bains, France. Italian Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani was so offended that he canceled a visit to the United States. Now, according to liberal SiriusXM host Zerlina Maxwell, Italian media outlets have a devastating new insult for Trump — including those on the right.

During a late June appearance on SiriusXM colleague Dean Obeidallah's show, Maxwell — who has been living in Sicily — was asked how Trump is being covered in European media. And she noted that Italian media routinely describe Trump as a coglione, a crude yet funny term that essentially means "idiot" or "imbecil" in Italian.

Maxwell, sounding amused, told Obeidallah, "The headline that's going pretty viral right now is they call him coglione. I'm not saying that completely correct, but it means idiot. Like, roughly translated, right? It's one of the first words I learned in Italian. And I think that's because of the little kerfuffle with Meloni in that Trump claims she begged him for a picture — and she's like, 'I and Italy don't beg.'"

Maxwell continued, "And I think that Italy that doesn't beg — that's the thing that I think that people are buzzing about."

Maxwell noted that in Sicily, her "community" is a "combination of expats from all over the world and all over Europe" as well as Sicilians.

"It's a mixed bag in terms of how much people are even talking or thinking about Trump on any given day," Maxwell told Obeidallah. "But I think this latest thing is something that — I expect people to bring this up to me. Because I've seen it in my feeds on the Italian pages that I follow. The algorithm is now giving me that."

Maxwell pointed out that the term coglione isn't just being used to insult Trump in liberal or progressive media outlets in Italy; she's also seeing it on a regular basis in an Italian "right-wing newspaper."

"In the right-wing newspaper," Maxwell told Obeidallah, "that was the headline — that Trump is an idiot."

Obeidallah both noted how right-wing Meloni is politically, stressing that even on the right, Trump is making enemies.

Obeidallah said of Trump and Meloni, "She's fighting back. She's like, 'Worry about your own popularity, buddy. You're talking about my popularity. You're very unpopular.' He's alienating everyone."

President Donald Trump is worse than the mafia, a news anchor argued on Monday, because at least the mob tends to be competent.

“I actually think the comparisons to the mob are unfair, because as violent as the mob is, they — historically — can be more competent than that,” MS NOW anchor Nicolle Wallace said on Monday. She was referring to Trump’s failed attempt to renovate the Reflecting Pool. “This was a botched redecorating of a monument.”

She added, “It doesn't belong to Donald Trump. It doesn't belong to any president in office. He's the steward of it for four years, and he ruined it.”

Journalist Scott MacFarlane continued that Trump’s arrests of people he claims without evidence sabotaged the Reflecting Pool are baseless and not even serious cases.

“They're not major cases,” MacFarlane told Wallace. “They are U.S. Park Police or federal law enforcement citations. If the Department of Justice wants to make these major cases and charge these people with felonies, they have to go to a grand jury. And though grand jury deliberations are secret — held in a closed room — you might hear the laughter outside the grand jury room if they try to bring this case to a D.C. grand jury. It's not going to fly.”

He added that people who visit the Reflecting Pool notice “a smell that's emanating now that is reminiscent of a high school locker room. You have a police force, a National Guard presence, that is profound. It's never bad to have federal law enforcement near a gathering place, and a lot of people are gathering there to rubberneck at the damage. But it's like a jewel heist from the Muppets — the caper's gonna happen. You have so many police hanging out there, and it seems to be a misappropriation of resources.”

In contrast to Wallace, former US Attorney Barbara McQuade argued earlier this month that Trump acts very much like a mob boss.

“He uses his power to try to control others, especially would-be critics,” McQuade argued, speaking to The Guardian. “He uses any leverage he can get, inflicting pain to try to coerce them to come to the table to negotiate their own punishment. He’s done it with law firms and the media and universities and even foreign allies with tariffs.”

As one example, she cited how Trump attempted to punish the State of Michigan because of local politicians there opposing him.

“He has threatened to hold up the opening of the Gordie Howe bridge between Detroit and Canada and there’s an owner of a private span next to it who made a million-dollar donation to the MAGA SuperPac at around the same time,” McQuade observed.

A long-time expert in swimming pools knows the culprit behind the Reflecting Pool "vandalism" that caused an ongoing algae bloom.

For the past several weeks, CNN has welcomed on "Swimming Pool Steve," a second-generation pool builder who has a YouTube channel dedicated to explaining aspects of swimming pools and hot tubs.

Speaking to host Boris Sanchez on Monday, Steve Goodale said there would always be an algae problem in the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool.

"Let's start with the algae leak theory," Sanchez began. "What is more likely: that someone planted this algae or that it occurred and spread naturally?"

"Well, somebody definitely planted the algae and it was the very first bird that landed in the water," said Goodale. "You know, in an open-air environment like this, there's no stopping the algae from coming. It's going to be in the water. It's just how are you going to deal with it knowing that it will be expected."

The way to fix it, he explained, is a multi-pronged solution: the pool must be drained and the immediate remediation would likely follow. The algae problem is likely to be back-burnered, he said, while they figure out the problem with the liner.

Monday morning a baby duck was found dead in the pool's water, prompting Sanchez to question whether the new chemicals put in the pool could be the culprit.

"It would really come down to a matter of concentration," said Goodale. "And again, we're talking about, you know, 6.5 million gallons of water or more. So, it would take an awful lot of product to get to dangerous levels of contamination here. It's why hydrogen peroxide would be commonly used for an open-air, clear water environment like this, because it is kind of the safer of the options. It's why we don't use something like chlorine, which wouldn't be as safe for the wildlife."

He also passed along his sympathies for the tragic death of the baby duck.

Sanchez then asked about Trump's claims of vandalism and the "300-foot gash" that was carved into the liner. Goodale explained that the material used is one that would require considerable equipment to produce the gash Trump described.

"You know, in my experience, and, you know, when I heard that it had been vandalized as well, my reaction was surprise as I really tried to understand the mechanism of damage that would cause this kind of vandalism," he said.

Goodale said it would be noticeable and require advanced equipment like power tools.

"This is a robust, strong puncture-proof material," Goodale said of the lining installed by Virginia-based contractor Atlantic Industrial Coatings. "That's why it was likely chosen for this application. It's why it's used in commercial and industrial applications. So it would take, absolutely, a concerted effort. I don't know exactly — what it would take, but it would take a concerted effort to cause significant damage like that."

In an earlier conversation, CNN reporter Manu Raju called on the White House to release footage of the vandalism that caused the gash.

CNN on Monday played a supercut of some of President Donald Trump's big promises about the Reflecting Pool as a panel of analysts ridiculed the president's results.

Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday morning: "Of the MANY Statues and Fountains that we rebuilt, renovated, cleaned, and fixed, the only one that was Vandalized was the Reflecting Pool, which is being taken care of, ASAP! It has been given a 300 foot long gash, chemicals have been illegally placed in the water..."

Referring to it as a "mismanagement" of the project, CNN host Dana Bash introduced "a combination of conversations that the president has had, kind of with himself, but cameras were there about the Reflecting Pool from May 4th until June 10th, during which most of these events were about other things."

The supercut included Trump's promise of something so "beautiful" that "you could never get any anything like that." He also pledged on May 7 that he would do the project for $1.8 million and it would be finished in a week.

"It's going to be something very special," Trump promised later in those remarks.

Trump told his daughter-in-law that he was using "Swimming pool material" to make it "blue, beautiful blue, which is what they always wanted."

By June 10 Trump was bragging that people "can't believe it" and "everybody's looking at that reflecting pool."

Reporter Manu Raju explained that this is one of many reasons that the disaster is such a huge embarrassment for Trump.

"Because he has boasted about this so much. He could have been you know — it's a noteworthy goal to say, okay, I want D.C. to have improvements, look beautiful, et cetera," Raju said.

The costs continue to climb as problems persist ahead of the July 4th event.

Raju recalled that the fix "went to a no-bid contract to someone who's close to the to the president or the president's team. So, a lot of questions about how all that played out. It clearly is not American flag blue, which is why he's now saying vandals and many people arrested when it seems like there are cameras all over D.C., they could release some of this video footage that exists."

CNN reporter John King visited three congressional districts in the north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to ask about the upcoming election and where they stand on President Donald Trump.

King began his road trip by saying that if those districts go for Democrats, then the House is lost. While the party in power generally loses during midterm elections, Republicans have been so fearful that they've tried to pass new congressional maps to change districts to be more GOP-friendly.

Speaking to one voter in Bucks County, King explained that while the man really likes his Republican congressman, he's angry his elected official is not standing up to President Donald Trump.

"Big picture, Trump is the problem that I see," Michael Pesce said. "The president is not doing what I think a president should be doing, and that's disturbing to me. One more person in Congress that is going to stand up to Trump. That's going to get my vote."

His member of Congress is Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R), who won in 2024, but whose district was also won by Vice President Kamala Harris. He is seen as one of the Democrat's top targets in a district that could easily flip.

Pesce bragged that he was a "Reagan Republican" until Trump came along. He's since switched to being a Democrat, saying he wants no part of Trump's takeover of the GOP. He's also a former Coast Guard veteran and "angry at the price of a war he says makes no sense."

Gerard Babb voted for Trump three times, and now wants to see a check on the president's power.

"As of right now, I see President Trump is kind of acting like a regular old politician to me. And no love," he said.

King asked if Trump should have more checks on him by Democrats.

"Yeah," Babb agreed. "No love lost from my opinion."

Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R) is his congressman, who beat Democratic Rep. Susan Wild in 2024. He beat Wild with a mere 4,000-vote margin.

Democratic Spanish radio host Victor Martinez said that his listeners thought that with President Joe Biden gone, "things are gonna change. He promised he was gonna fix it. Let's see. Here we are a year later and things are actually worse."

Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) is in the northernmost district. He, too, was elected in 2024 with a small margin (6,000 votes) over Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.). Once known as "Joe Biden country," the district voted for Trump in 2024 with a 54 percent edge over Harris.

President Donald Trump's niece, Dr. Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist by profession, is sounding the alarm that her elderly uncle is spiraling.

In a conversation with reporter Steven Beschloss for her Sunday newsletter, Dr. Trump explained, “He may still have moments when he appears more coherent, but psychically he’s in a downward spiral. He’s experiencing constant narcissistic injuries, and nothing terrifies Donald more than humiliation.”

Beschloss questioned whether she felt that the 80-year-old president looked “unusually diminished” as of late.

Dr. Trump cautioned, “I think this is simply the direction things are heading.”

"He’s experiencing constant narcissistic injuries, and nothing terrifies Donald more than humiliation," she continued. "The problem for him is that nobody humiliates Donald more effectively than Donald humiliates himself. The G7 came immediately after the sixty-million-dollar taxpayer-funded spectacle at the People’s House. Everything he’s doing now exists in service of protecting his fragile ego and trying to fill what I’ve long described as the black hole of need within him."

She explained that once Trump awakened the next morning, it became clear to him that "once again, ... none of it helped."

"He’s still an empty, unloved man, and maintaining that illusion has become psychologically exhausting," Dr. Trump continued. "Combined with his cognitive, emotional, physical and psychological decline, it’s becoming impossible to hide."

Last week, Trump got into a public feud with the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni. After the G7, Trump claimed she was desperate for a photo with him and begged him for it. The PM released a video calling the comment a lie.

Dr. Trump thinks that her uncle is "projecting," particularly when he claimed that he "felt sorry" for Meloni.

"He also claimed he felt sorry for her when, in reality, many of those leaders probably felt sorry for him because he cuts such a pathetic figure," the psychologist said. "I’m certainly not defending Giorgia Meloni. She’s a fascist. However, when somebody politically aligned with Donald publicly contradicts him, it carries more weight than criticism from Emmanuel Macron or Keir Starmer. He simply cannot help himself. His declining impulse control guarantees moments like these will become increasingly common."

Beschloss also noted that at the G7 summit, the leaders appeared to "have stopped pretending"

"Capitulating to Donald has always been the wrong strategy," Dr. Trump said. "Now they’re finding ways to manage him instead. Inviting him to Versailles, surrounded by gold and grandeur, to sign what amounts to a surrender document was an extraordinarily clever move by Emmanuel Macron."

Beschloss commented on the historical aspect of the signing, noting that it was the site of the humiliating surrender by Germany that ended World War I.

"Emmanuel Macron understands history," Mary Trump explained. "Donald does not."

In the past, U.S. President Donald Trump wasn't shy about voicing his total disdain for Camp David — making it clear that he found the presidential retreat in Frederick County, Maryland extremely boring. But Trump headed to Camp David over the weekend, and former GOP strategist Rick Wilson laid out some possible motivations in a "Fast Politics" video with liberal Molly Jong-Fast.

Wilson told Jong-Fast, "Everyone is surprised that Donald Trump is at Camp David because the exact quote, before, was, 'I get f–– bored there in 30 minutes.' Trump does not like Camp David…. I think he's been there, in this administration, never. And I think he went once or twice in the previous (administration). So, this is either the second or third time that I can recall."

The Never Trump conservative added, "What's curious about the whole thing, Molly…. There is a degree to which I am very curious."

Wilson laid out some possible reasons why Trump ventured to Camp David when he would much rather go to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

Wilson told Jong-Fast, "If you were looking for somewhere very private where you wanted, say — I don't know, I'm going to speculate; this is just speculation — if you wanted to have doctors come and attend to you, not at the White House. Or not have to go to Walter Reed (Medical Center). You might go to Camp David. You might want to get away."

The former GOP strategist emphasized that Camp David is very private, which might explain Trump's reasons for visiting a place he was openly disdainful of in the past.

"It is way up in the Catoctin Mountains in Maryland," Wilson told Jong-Fast. "You go down a long, long set of pretty much backroads. And there will be more checkpoints than the law allows. Nobody sneaks up on Camp David. Nobody creeps through the woods to get to Camp David unless they want to die. Nobody flies a drone over Camp David unless they want the drone shot down."

Wilson, known for his work with The Lincoln Project, speculated that at Camp David, Trump can temporarily escape questions about his "stupid war" with Iran or his health.

The Never Trumper told Jong-Fast, "It is a restricted airspace, restricted facility…. Every president has traditionally loved Camp David, in its modern iteration, because no one is around. The pressure is absolutely off."

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