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President Donald Trump’s clinical psychologist niece explained to her comedian friend on Tuesday who ordinary Americans can defeat her uncle.

“One of the challenges has always been getting people to recognize the difference between spectacle and governance,” observed Erich McElroy for Mary Trump’s Substack “The Good In Us.” “Donald seems completely focused on creating distractions while institutions quietly deteriorate underneath him.”

The younger Trump replied that this has been the Republican politician’s strategy from Day One. He does this, she argued, to avoid being held responsible for his corruption.

“Donald creates chaos because chaos prevents accountability,” Mary Trump explained. “If everyone is reacting to the latest outrageous statement or manufactured controversy, they are not paying attention to the dismantling of institutions, the erosion of democratic norms, or the extraordinary corruption taking place in plain sight.”

She added, “That is why it is so important to remain focused. Every day there is another scandal, another outrage, another attempt to normalize behavior that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to it.” If Trump’s abuses of power begin to seem normal, she opined, “democracy becomes much easier to dismantle.”

McElroy told Trump that the situation is so exhausting, the inducing of weariness feels deliberate — and she agreed that it is indeed part of a strategy.

“People become overwhelmed,” Trump said. “They stop paying attention because it feels impossible to keep up. That is exactly what authoritarians want. They rely on people becoming exhausted, cynical, and disengaged.”

Yet she did offer a solution.

“The antidote is community, persistence, and continuing to tell the truth no matter how overwhelming the moment feels,” Trump said. “That is why independent media matters so much right now. We need places where facts still matter and where people are willing to speak honestly about what is happening instead of pretending everything is normal. Nothing about this moment is normal.”

Earlier in the same interview, Mary Trump broke down the Trumps’ overall character by analyzing a recent controversy in Albania. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump have aroused mass protests due to overwhelming opposition to an exclusive luxury resort they plan to build on an island and coast that are currently open to the public and home to endangered wildlife.

“Of course they believe they deserve a private island,” Mary Trump said. “Of course they believe they should be allowed to destroy an ecosystem if it benefits them financially. Entitlement is the defining characteristic of every member of that family.”

She concluded, “The only encouraging part of that story is that people are pushing back against it.”

McElroy then pointed out how Ivanka and Jared claim they discovered the island while walking barefoot across it, even though later reports revealed that large parts of Sazan Island have unexploded land mines.

“That certainly would make for an interesting walk,” the younger Trump joked.

Since her uncle’s rise to power, Mary Trump has been outspokenly critical of him, drawing from both her career as a clinical psychologist and her numerous firsthand experiences with the entire Trump clan (including the president himself) to explain his behavior. In her firsthand account “Too Much and Not Enough,” she described him as warped in his childhood by his mother’s debilitating illnesses, which caused her to be distant and needy, and his father’s consistently sadistic, vulgar, dishonest and domineering behavior. She described the Trump in that book as “my malignantly dysfunctional family.”

More recently, the younger Trump raised alarm that her uncle appears to be showing symptoms of the same cognitive decline that ultimately manifested in his father’s Alzheimer’s disease, which eventually took his life.

“Obviously what we're dealing with now are age-related cognitive declines,” Trump explained in February. “We're dealing with physical issues that the White House tries to cover over. But this is somebody who for decades now has had serious, undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric disorders, which are only going to worsen, especially given the pressure he's under and given the cognitive and physical declines.”

She added, “So it's great that the majority of the American people are starting to wake up to this. But I have to say, it's a long time coming.”

Mary Trump is not alone among mental health care professionals in believing Trump is experiencing decline. Speaking to AlterNet in May about a letter signed by dozens of mental health and other health care experts, psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham — formerly of Tufts University and one of the chief signatories of a public letter to Congress raising the alarm about Trump’s well-being — detailed Trump’s seeming debilitations.

“There has been a frightening progression of symptoms,” Abraham told AlterNet. “These include grandiosity without moral safeguards, paranoia, impulsivity, vindictiveness, easy misperception of being harmed, moments of omnipotence, uncontrolled rage, and sole control over the use of nuclear weapons in a time of war. As a psychiatrist reviewing these, I can only say Yikes!”

Retired War College professor and staff writer for The Atlantic Tom Nichols on Tuesday warned that President Donald Trump appears to start bombing when he needs to "change the news cycle."

Speaking to MS NOW on Tuesday, Brennan alleged, "There are so many elements of this that I think make [the Iran deal] a real fraught agreement."

He added that there is a large segment of the GOP that is nervous about this deal and that the U.S. might be in a worse position than before the war began.

Nichols said, "So if this brings this conflict to an end and people start talking, that's all the better. But this is an American strategic defeat. There is no question about that. The Iranians achieved their strategic goals, which was the survival of their regime, proving that they could control the Strait of Hormuz, intimidating all of their neighbors by striking them, more or less, at will, as punishment for cooperating with the United States."

CNN reported on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence found Iran can shut down the Strait of Hormuz at will from now on.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has achieved none of its goals, he said. Trump also tried to walk back his goal of "regime change."

"Trump today said, well, we weren't interested in regime change. Of course, he was," Nichols said. "That's why he launched this war. He thought this was going to be a quick, easy knockdown of the Iranian regime. So we haven't achieved regime change. The Strait is in a more perilous position than before the war."

Meanwhile, he said that the U.S. has lost control over the nuclear situation. While he had his own concerns with the JCPOA from the Obama administration, he noted that it was actually working before Trump ripped it up.

"And now Trump is saying, well, you know, the nuclear dust can sit there. Maybe it's not that important, which is his way of saying we can't get it. And I give up," Nichols said of Trump.

Another thing Nichols criticized is that the U.S. hasn't allowed Israel to see the deal and hasn't told them whether it has anything in it to do with military action in Lebanon. It's one of Iran's demands and it has been a red line for Israel. The anti-Israeli terrorist group, Hamas, operates out of Lebanon. Iran has been funding Hamas for decades.

He later recalled Vice President JD Vance saying on X that no funds would be released to Iran in exchange for signing an agreement to halt the war.

"First, the Iranians are not receiving any cash, and no funds are being released for simply signing a deal or attending a meeting," Vance wrote.

"When people say that billions of dollars of assets will be released, that's not true," Vance later said to CBS. "What is true is that Iran will have a much better and much more prosperous future if they meet the obligations they make in this agreement."

Nichols chuckled, calling Vance's attempts to walk back his initial statements as "a very careful circumlocution."

In reality, the U.S. isn't giving any money, Nichols said.

"We're just going to make it possible for them to get billions and billions of dollars from everybody else. I'm sorry, what happened to a month or two ago that this was the worst regime in the world? It was run by monsters. These were tyrants who had to be overthrown, that the Iranian people could be freed?" he asked.

Nichols said now it appears that the administration is saying, "Well, you know, these new guys, they're very rational, they're reasonable, they're nice fellows. They're nice to deal with."

"You know, I've never been in a room with Iranian negotiators, but I've never known anybody who said, you know, these are nice guys. These are easy guys to deal with," Nichols added. "This is all just a way of of Vance rationalizing Trump's burning desire to get out of this war in which we have been defeated, a war that we started, that we screwed up and that now we need to get out of."

One of the potential Republican candidates for president in 2028 isn't doing very well back home in his own state — and he's suffering considerably with female voters.

Vice President JD Vance has been on shows defending President Donald Trump, but it comes at a time when he also has a new book out. CNN host John Berman said that a new political book generally means the author is running for president.

Speaking to CNN, data analyst Harry Enten cited some of the prediction markets showing that numbers have changed since the beginning of the year. On Jan. 1, the chances that Vance would win the 2028 GOP nomination was about 50 percent, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio came in with a distant 11 percent. Rubio is now up to 28 percent, and Vance has fallen significantly to a 33 percent chance of becoming president again in 2028.

"Look at this! The gap — it is closing. It is closing," Enten said with gusto.

He noted that the thing that changed is the Iran war.

Approval ratings among Republican voters are important if one of the two intends to run for president. Net approval in Vance has declined, according to the Quinnipiac University Poll. He was up 81 percent and now is closer to 69 percent approval. Rubio has increased, standing at 75 percent, and now is at 77 percent approval.

Back home, things are looking worse for Vance. According to Enten, one can tell a lot by how a candidate's home state feels about them. In Vance's Ohio, his net favorability was up 5 percent, but now it's down 7 percent. Among Independents, Vance is 27 percent underwater.

"JD Vance, not so popular in the Buckeye State," said Enten.

Berman called it "Problems at home." How about his net approval overall?

Overall, Enten said that Vance is still suffering with women. A few years ago, Vance attacked single cat ladies, it didn't do much to help him with the women's vote. With women, Vance is down 26 percent and down 2 percent with men.

It has been 14 years since the overhaul of the Washington D.C., reflecting pool was finished. It was the first time in 90 years that the reflecting pool was repaired, and a more cost-effective way to bring water into it was developed.

President Donald Trump this year spent millions to put a special coating on the pool he said would stop the algae.

In the past week, the algae returned.

On Tuesday morning, national park staff were videotaped pouring hydrogen peroxide into the pool. Mixing peroxide and chlorine into water can cause a chemical reaction that sanitizes the pool just like a swimming pool

CBS News reporter Bob Kovach filmed and posted on X.

A New York Times report from May walks through why this isn't going to work. First, Trump's renovation never addressed the pipes.

"Water is pumped from the Tidal Basin, an inlet of the Potomac River, to the treatment plant. There it is filtered and purified before being fed into the Reflecting Pool," the report says. "But when the water from the Tidal Basin is too murky or filled with algae — which is often — the pool is filled with city drinking water instead. This happens especially in the hot summer months, when algae blooms are prevalent."

The reality is that it doesn't matter where the water comes from, it won't stay clean for long. Wildlife waste, trash, people throwing in pennies to make a wish and dirt blowing in are all ways that the pool is being contaminated over time. When the weather is hot, algae forms because the shallow pool bakes in the sun.

"The treatment plant is supposed to combat this problem, using screens and sand to filter the water and a system that infuses the water with ozone gas, which kills algae and bacteria," the Times reported. "The first Trump administration had called for an upgraded ozone system to make the treatment more effective. This year, the Trump administration is spending $1.7 million to buy one."

The water is then cycled through the filters over and over to be reused. Every three or so days, the whole pool is filtered. The pipes keep leaking and breaking, however. The Park Service thinks this is due to the pressure of the surrounding soil.

“It’s almost impossible to maintain the water level that is required to make the pool reflective,” said Kym Hall, a former National Capital Area director for the National Park Service. “It’s like pouring water into a colander.”

Primary care pediatrician Michael O'Brien commented, "Y’all, not to be a huge nerd but for the reflecting pool you would need a minimum of about 8,000 liters of 12 percent hydrogen peroxide to reach the 50 parts per million concentration to kill algae… Is this what happens when you have 0 scientists in your administration?"

President Donald Trump's administration has reportedly been pressuring prosecutors to "come up with a case" to press against one of his top political enemies, according to MS NOW, seeking to knock down a major 2028 contender potentially.

On Monday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, took to social media to reveal that he and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, were being investigated by Trump's Justice Department. Newsom accused the department of trying to fabricate a case that was not there, and said that this was happening not because of his viral tweets mocking the president, but because he is "considering running for President" in 2028.

"Today, my wife [and] I

joined Donald Trump’s hit list," the tweet read. "He has directed his Department of Justice to investigate us. They have not found a crime - they are simply trying to find one. He isn't coming after me because of mean tweets, but because I am considering running for President. He hates that I consistently call him out. He is simply the most corrupt President in American history. We have nothing to hide. Mr. President, come after me. I am not going anywhere. The country is watching."

In an appearance on MS NOW later in the day, Carol Leonnig, a senior investigative correspondent for the network, revealed what she fellow reporter, Erum Salam, had found out about the story from sources, backing up Newsom's claims about the DOJ "trying to find" a case against him.

"First off, I want to say that we have from sources two really important nuggets," Leonnig said. "One is that the central district of California, the U.S. district attorney's office in the central district, has been pressing the line prosecutors to come up with a case against Gavin Newsom."

Sharing a clip from that broadcast to X, Izzy Gardon, Newsom's director of communications, highlighted the "come up with" phrasing, backing up the governor's claim about the administration trying to fabricate a case against him.

"However, a source tells us that the prosecutors and investigators that have been contacting Newsom are actually based out of Sacramento, in what's called the eastern district of California," Leonnig added. "And there was an investigation of a staffer of Gavin Newsom's that was based out of that office, or if not led by that office. And now we are hearing again from one source with some reliable information, that this is the office that Newsom is referring to, although he may not know it, that the investigators who have been contacting family and friends are based out of."

President Donald Trump's appearance at the UFC White House event this weekend sparked renewed concerns about his health, with one pathologist revealing several signs from the evening that pointed to "deterioration" from dementia or a stroke that he "cannot hide."

Hilary Shae is a licensed speech-language pathologist specializing in concussion recovery, who also works as a content creator sharing criticisms of Trump and offering professional insights into signs from his behavior that indicate his declining mental and physical health. In her latest videos from Monday, she broke down several things she noted from Trump's appearance at UFC Freedom 250 over the weekend that triggered dementia alarms for her.

In her first video, she highlighted Trump's initial walkout for the evening alongside UFC CEO and MAGA ally Dana White, noting a moment where his left arm appeared to graze, or nearly graze, the side of a door he was passing through. This, she argued, was "very likely due to visual, spatial and depth perception issues," which can "be very common within dementia." She also suggested that Trump might not have been fully able to comprehend where he was supposed to be in the doorway, and noted that we do not often see him walking through them these days.

She also highlighted the odd way in which his left arm appeared to swing more than his right arm during the walk, which she suggested could mean that the left one is his "normal" arm in the aftermath of a possible stroke. Citing rumors that Trump suffered a left-sided stroke at some point after returning to the White House, she said that the would impact the movement of his right side, accounting for the more "muted" movements seen at the UFC event.

This discrepancy could also be a sign of dementia, she added, as patients suffering from that condition often struggle with "multitasking" while in motion, meaning that they might not be able to keep the movements of their arms and legs in sync. This would also explain his tendency to appear hunched over while sitting, and why he is not seen standing as much in public appearances during his second term.

In a second video shared later in the day, Shae highlighted more concerning footage of the president from the UFC event. In the lead-up to the performance of the national anthem, while he was standing on a White House balcony alongside White, he appeared to walk off early and had to be brought back by the UFC CEO. This would appear to run counter to his known affinity for attention and getting cheers from a crowd, as well as the likely possibility that he was briefed on how the appearance would play out.

"That is a very odd thing that you would not expect from a man who is getting a whole bunch of cheers, who wanted this whole event to be just for himself," Shae explained.

A political analyst argued on Monday that President Donald Trump’s Iran war may have caused irreparable harm to his MAGA coalition.

“There's so much we don't know about this deal,” political analyst SE Cupp said on CNN on Monday. “And just because Trump has blurted out 'it's done' — we don't know that yet. I will point out there's a really interesting thing happening over on the far right, the sort of MAGA alternative lane that Tucker Carlson and other folks are trying to create. Tucker Carlson was out on his podcast late last week saying that the Iran war is the worst thing any president has ever done.”

Cupp added, “Now, hyperbole or not, that's what he's putting out there. We know that Trump is the most important voice for MAGA. But if that becomes a thing amplified in the corners of MAGA that are upset with the Iran situation — well, that could have a big impact on 2026 and 2028.”

In contrast to Cupp’s theory that Trump could lose support in the long-term because of the Iran war, Salon commentator Chauncey DeVega argued in April that the MAGA coalition has a cult-like attachment to the president and for that reason will never abandon him.

"There is a repeated argument that has hardened into something of a mantra among some prominent voices — such as James Carville — who have taken to saying things like: 'Donald Trump promised no more foreign wars!' 'The attacks on Iran and Venezuela show that he is a hypocrite!' 'His MAGA followers must be ashamed!' 'The GOP is going to lose big because of this,'" DeVega wrote. "This reasoning assumes a healthy, functioning democracy where politicians earn trust and legitimacy, and then are held accountable for betraying it. But Trumpism is an authoritarian personality cult."

DeVega added, "The president has total contempt for democracy and accountability, but his MAGA people and other supporters are psychologically adhered to him and the movement. He is a core part of their identity, which means they will change their beliefs and twist reality to justify his behavior and resolve the cognitive dissonance…. What many centrists, institutionalists and other such voices still struggle to understand is that in fascism and other antidemocratic political projects, power justifies itself. MAGA — and the larger conservative movement — is a form of religious politics driven by faith and will as opposed to reason or principle."

Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who supported Trump during the 2016 presidential election, made a similar argument in February.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh wrote regarding Trump’s belligerent policies toward Greenland, Venezuela and Iran. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.”

He added, “And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters? What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

On MS NOW, former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance slammed officials in President Donald Trump's administration for their arguments against habeas corpus and explained why they're so "fallacious."

Habeas corpus directly translates in Latin to "you have the body." It is the term used when a judge demands that authorities bring someone they're holding in jail and must justify their arrest and confinement, the U.S. courts' site outlines. "A writ of habeas corpus may also be used to bring a person in custody before the court to give testimony or to be prosecuted."

On Monday, it was reported that last year, the White House made a very real effort to suspend the Article I right outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The information surfaced in the new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

White House staff secretary Will Scharf penned a memo for Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, saying that the administration was considering pausing the rights without any congressional authorization. The goal was to kick people out of the U.S. faster, without requiring courts to step in.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said in a May 9, 2025, press conference that the right of habeas corpus can be suspended in time of invasion. Since then, courts have ruled that there is no "invasion."

Anyone can challenge their detention by the government in the U.S., even if they're not a U.S. citizen.

Host Antonia Hylton pointed to the rhetoric, asking, "Do you think that he is engaging in not just the immigration culture war that he has consistently used, but that he has been building a sort of legal pretext here over time?"

Vance made it clear that Miller isn't a lawyer, and his attempts to try to build a legal pretext are "a failure."

She added that Article I powers are what is allocated to Congress. Excluding a debate from President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, the "suspension of habeas during the Civil War, by and large, experts agree, uniformly, that only Congress can suspend habeas."

She agrees that Miller is clearly trying to set the stage, but the problem he has is that the basis for setting that stage is "utterly fabricated. It's something that needs to be debunked from the get-go. Habeas corpus is so critical. It's what prevents the government from disappearing people. If we allow this administration to interfere with it, there's no telling where that could end up."

"The argument that Miller was advancing was so clearly fallacious that there was a concern that it would not survive in the courts, and it might set the stage for a greater clampdown on what the administration was trying to achieve," recalled Vance.

She noted that this is the same administration that sees the law as more of an obstacle than an assurance for those in the U.S.

"So, as we get closer to the election, I think that there will be an increasing level of concern that the administration may take extreme measures absent rebellion or insurrection. They won't be able to suspend habeas. And that's one of our most important fundamental rights," Vance promised.

The younger generation, known as Gen. Z, is quickly losing its faith in the United States.

According to CNN's data analyst Harry Enten, he isn't certain that he's ever seen so many young people angry about the government and the future of America.

"I don't think that younger folks have ever been more p—— off and pessimistic in terms of what we're seeing from our government or faith in our country," said Enten.

Millennials have an approval rating for democrats

He drew attention to the support among Millennials, those under 45, who have 73 percent approval and pride in being American and among Gen Z, those under 29, who are about 31 percent proud of the U.S.

"These are some of the most worrying stats, some of the most worrying trends that I think I've seen in the polling data, about how the youngest folks coming into the electorate feel about our country," said Enten.

Gen Z also isn't all that crazy about the U.S.'s form of government.

Part of the reason that these numbers are bad, Enten said, is that when asked whether our "constitutional government has withstood the test of time, they appear less willing to be 'proud to be an American' than the millennials in 2015."

When asked about whether the Constitution-based government is working, 50 percent of Americans say "yes," but among those under 30, the number is half, just 25 percent.

"What we're talking about is just that they don't feel that those under the age of 30, Gen Z, do not feel that the constitution-based government, which has been our government for a very long period of time, is working anymore," Enten said.

The political parties are doing even worse among Gen. Z.

"They hate everybody! They hate everybody! That's what's going on," said Enten. "Voters under the age of 30 disapprove of Trump. Three in four, 76 percent." Meanwhile, 75 percent are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party.

On her new morning show, "Money Power Politics" — which debated Monday morning, June 15 following the popular "Morning Joe" program — MS NOW's Stephanie Ruhle brought on former Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor for a reaction to President Donald Trump's new Iran agreement. And the Never Trump conservative was downright scathing in his assessment.

Taylor told Ruhle, "I'm going to go out there on a limb, Steph, and say I think that this is on track to be the worst deal in American diplomatic history. And look, I say that, recognizing…. that we don't have the text yet. But it's very, very hard to imagine there is a deal here that's any better than the deal we already had. In fact, if the initial reporting is to be believed, the Iranians think they're on a pathway to get $24 billion in assets unfrozen. That would be more than ten times what the Obama administration helped unlock for the Iranians."

The former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official added, "So, put it another way: We're paying ten times — potentially ten times — what we did before to get the same promise from the Iranians. And in international law, there's nothing that you can say about their commitment to not pursue nuclear weapons that's stronger than a promise. There's no global police force to require the Iranians to not pursue a bomb."

Trump has been highly critical of the Iran deal that former President Barack Obama agreed to during his second term. But Taylor noted that when he was serving in DHS during Trump's first presidency, the president "threw out" the Obama administration's agreement without having "any plan to replace the Obama deal with."

Taylor told Ruhle, "Again, the devil will be in the details, but I have a feeling we're going to see the devil."

Taylor was serving as DHS chief of staff during Trump's first presidency when he anonymously wrote a widely read New York Times op-ed headlined, "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration." The op-ed detailed Taylor's efforts to dissuade Trump from following through on his worst ideas.

The conservative Taylor subsequently came out as the author of that op-ed and became openly critical of Trump, supporting Kamala Harris in 2024.

Ruhle formerly hosted MS NOW's late-night show "The Final Hour," and "Money Power Politics" — which now airs after "Morning Joe," hosted by conservative Joe Scarborough and liberal Mika Brzezinski — marks her debut as a morning host on the liberal-leaning cable news channel.

The new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan is set for release and has the White House "extremely worried."

According to Axios reporter Alex Thompson, some of the reports in the book are so detailed and quoted verbatim that the White House fears someone is recording conversations, even in the Situation Room, which is so secure that even cell phones aren't allowed inside.

One of those excerpts includes a conversation with Vice President JD Vance, who told top officials in the administration that it was time to invoke the Insurrection Act after the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good.

"It would be painful in the short term, he said, but the message it would send —that paid agitators could not get away with disrupting ICE operations — would make sure no one tried it again," said the report. It also noted that there is no evidence that paid protesters were involved, and certainly no evidence that Pretti and Good were paid by anyone.

Thompson told CNN on Monday morning that the book isn't merely poised to disrupt the administration, but JD Vance's political ambitions as well.

"There have been in these early excerpts, Mr. Vance has been portrayed in some ways, as conspiratorial and as you as you suggested, he's aligned himself with Stephen Miller, one of the most controversial members of this administration, one of the most hard line and and was advocating, in some cases for deploying the Insurrection Act, which the inside the White House, even some of the most firebrand like very conservative members were saying this is just blatantly unconstitutional," said Thompson.

He also noted another scene in which Miller argued "we haven't tested the limits of the Insurrection Act." He had to be fact-checked because he didn't know that it was used as recently as 1992, after the police who beat Rodney King were let off without consequences for his death.

"The fact that JD has aligned himself with the most controversial members could be a liability going into 2028. It's why so many members of the Trump administration are desperate to get their hands on this book early, before it comes out next week, because they don't know what's in it or how it could affect their own political standing," said Thompson.

CNN host John Berman asked Thompson if the White House appeared nervous and Thompson agreed, "Oh yeah, absolutely."

"I mean, you had reports that some of the quotes in this book are so verbatim that there's even speculation inside the White House that Maggie and Jonathan have got their hands on recordings, not just from inside the room, but inside the national security rooms, which — you are not allowed to bring recording devices into those rooms. That's how worried they are about this book and how explosive it could be in terms of disrupting not just this white house, but to 2028."

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Economist Justin Wolfers delivered a searing shock to the hosts of MS NOW’s “The Weekend” on Saturday. And his news carried an unnerving warning to the state of the nation’s vulnerable democracy.

Government statistics released this week show the annual inflation rate hit 4.2 percent in May — the highest in three years — while the latest YouGov poll shows almost 60 percent of Americans say the economy is getting worse.

But this isn’t the extent of the pain the vast majority of the nation is suffering. While it is aching, it is losing power too.

Newly minted trillionaire Elon Musk invested more money than most Americans even dream of in President Donald Trump’s re-election effort. But his new trillionaire status means his investment was even more effortless than before.

“I'm not going to start with Musk being worth a trillion. I'm going to go back to 2024, when he invested $250 million in the American election,” said Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. “That was almost certainly enough to win Donald Trump the election. Trump winning margin across the three swing states was only 230,000 votes, so you needed to switch 115,000 voters. … Even if he was so inefficient, it cost $1,000 per vote switch, Musk's money won the election for Donald Trump.”

But that was just the start of it, assured Wolfers.

“That’s Scary Fact No. 1: we've already got an oligarch who put a billionaire in charge of our country. Let me blow you away with Scary Fact No. 2,” Wolfers went on. “This is where you need to understand the difference between $1 trillion — that’s what the bloke’s got — and $250 million, which is what he spent.”

“That’s not 1 percent of his wealth,” continued Wolfers. “It's not 0.1 percent of his wealth. It's 0.025 percent of his wealth. Musk bought one American election, and has enough money left over to buy another 3,999 elections.”

Wolfers did not even touch upon the “politics of resentment” beginning to seize Americans watching Musk expand his trillions while they struggle to pay for gas and beans.

“We don't need to [do that],” said Wolfers. “What we really need to do is talk about protecting democracy in an age of this sort of concentration of wealth.”

“Well, Justin, you just made me very angry talking about that,” admitted Weekend co-host Eugene Daniels, who was already pulling up stats from Inequality.org and the Federal Reserve revealing the top 1 percent of U.S. income brackets owns 31 percent of the wealth share while the bottom 90 percent have 32.6 percent of the wealth share.”

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CNN reports gas is currently at $4.11 a gallon, on average, in the U.S. But the nation is just one month away from gas pump devastation if President Donald Trump fails to reverse the damage he’s done to the pivotal international oil corridor in the Strait of Hormuz.

America has become the supplier of last resort for nations who used to get their oil from the Middle East, reports CNN correspondent Ed Lavandera. And this has caused the oil supply here to get dangerously low, almost to the point of sending gas prices soaring even higher.

“I'm afraid that it could be some difficult times coming,” said Steve Crowder, president of Little River Energy Company in Cushing, Okla. “If the conflict is resolved, the Strait is open, shipping resumes, we'll dodge a bullet and we'll avoid some real problems. And if it drags on, it could be really tough. Yeah, real tough.”

Cushing lies between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, where a vast spiderweb of underground pipelines feed into one of the world's largest privately owned storage hubs for U.S. crude oil.

“As far as the eye can see, dozens of massive storage tanks dot the landscape. Oil industry analysts closely monitor how much crude oil is in these tanks. And right now, alarm bells are ringing,” said Lavandera.

Generally, the Cushing tanks can hold about 75 million barrels of oil, but the levels now have dropped to below 22 million because of Trump’s voluntary Iraq war and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. And analysts say that if these tanks are not replenished fast enough, in the weeks ahead Americans will be paying more for gas at the pump as international buyers and market forces price U.S. customers out of their own locally-produced oil.

Worse, when these tanks reach the 20 million mark, Lavandera said “it's like scraping the bottom of the barrel. The crude oil becomes an unusable sludge.”

From above, the ceilings of the tanks have dipped precariously.

“In the last 20 years. Anytime oil inventories at Cushing have reached levels this low, it's triggered historically high oil prices,” Lavandera added. “Energy executives at companies like Exxon and Chevron are warning that the United States is less than a month away from seeing gas prices shoot up.”

Lee Denny, a Cushing native and a former Oklahoma state representative, said she’s witnessed many oil booms and busts in Cushing. She only hopes Trump will end his war, open the Strait and allow oil producers to replenish inventories soon to prevent a price spike.

When asked, Denny could not say $5 a gallon gasoline could be avoided, however.

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President Donald Trump putting his face and name on coins and buildings is drawing comparisons to Saddam Hussein, all the way up to the painful, brutal end.

In a panel discussion on Friday, host Antonia Hylton asked political strategist Basil Smikle if he thought Trump was embarrassed by his name coming down.

Smikle remarked, "Talk about embarrassed in an era of no shame."

But MS NOW commenter, Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said recent events carried undeniable echoes of another regime that ended very badly. Kamarck commented that Trump's name coming off of the Kennedy Center is "like the Statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down during the Iraq War." Not merely the removal of it, but the moment of significance that it marked for the people of Iraq.

Hylton was a little surprised by the comment.

"To bring up Saddam Hussein and the all that that represents — that is a major statement. I'm not even saying I disagree with it, but I do think that there are probably millions of people who are waiting for that image today of his name — you can see it right there on your screen, come down from this historic building."

She asked Charlie Sykes why the arts are such a huge thing for Trump, who has never been respected by the performing arts community.

"This really is the audacity of Donald Trump's ego and his and his vanity," explained Sykes. "But also, he does fashion himself as kind of a cultural czar, you know. But here's the guy who is about to hold a UFC cage match at the White House. But he also, you know, has these pretensions to be a culture warrior to, you know, slap his name on this cultural icon."

He said that he wasn't certain whether it would be a great turning point, but he confessed he'd be among those watching the name come down on a loop.

"I have to say that I didn't have this on my bingo card. I thought we'd have to wait until, you know, after he left office to see all the things torn down and taken down and the names removed and all of that. So this is going to be a deeply satisfying thing. And, you know, a hell of a pre-birthday present for Donald Trump if, in fact, this gets taken down as per the law. I mean, the reality is, of course, there are appeals, but the black letter of the law is very, very clear," he closed.

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Former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews on Friday tore apart Republicans who have suddenly found their backbones after losing in GOP primaries.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Thursday got into an online battle with outgoing Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) over Republican-on-Republican attacks. Cornyn spent the past several months being attacked by his own party for not being pro-Donald Trump enough, despite having a 99 percent voting record with the president.

Cornyn's interview with The New York Times cautioned that he thinks the worst is coming for the GOP in the final two years of the Trump administration.

"He's going to have the most miserable two years of his life in the last two years of his term, I think, because I think November is going to be a disaster," Cornyn said.

After harsh primary races, Republicans have often pivoted to try and appeal to voters outside of the MAGA wing. Trump may not be up for reelection, but one reporter explained he's not going to pivot to being more moderate or more focused on issues that matter to voters.

MS NOW White House reporter Laura Barrón-López said that the White House told her, "There is no pivot," even if some of the aides around the president want there to be one, want more focus on the economy and domestic issues," said Barrón-López. "The president himself isn't focused on that. And there are others around the president who genuinely believe, this former official told me, that he has the unique ability to turn out republicans in election cycles."

That hasn't necessarily worked out in past midterm elections. This time around, Trump has told reporters that he doesn't care about the midterms.

"But another source close to the White House did tell me that they think that Senate Republicans don't really fear the president anymore," she continued. "And you're starting to slowly see over the course of the last month or so, even though the president has clearly knocked out Republican incumbents and attacked members of his own party, there are Republicans across the Senate, especially, and also the House, who are voting against him on key issues."

But it was Matthews who clapped back at Cornyn for only now standing up to Trump.

"There is never going to be enough for him, other than 100 percent, you know, slavish adherence to whatever he wants. But obviously that's not what the Senator's role is supposed to be," Cornyn told the Times.

"Yeah, it's a little rich to hear him say that now, because this is what we've known all along about Donald Trump," Matthews said of Cornyn. "That loyalty is a one-way street with himwith him. He demands it from everyone, but he gives it to no one. And so, it's nice to hear Senator Cornyn find his voice and some of these other Republicans be more emboldened now."

The problem, she said, is that this is always the way Trump operated, and it should have been something Republicans realized much sooner.

"He's always operated not in the best interest for the Republican Party or for the American people. It's always been what is in Donald Trump's best interest," explained Matthews. "And we're seeing that play out with all the things that he has been focused on in this second term, whether it be the ballroom or the arch or the UFC event at the White House for his birthday, he's not actually focused on the priorities of the American people, which would then help the Republicans in the midterm elections, because Donald Trump doesn't care about the Republican Party."

She said that she's happy to see Cornyn finally pushing back, but it should have been something he did long ago.

"I guess I'm happy to see Cornyn, you know, pushing back on Trump now that he's going to be leaving office because he lost his primary election. And it's not just Cornyn I'm singling out. There are other republicans like [Thom] Tillis and [Bill] Cassidy who have now become a little bit more emboldened," she name-checked.

But she sees this with Republicans frequently. They suddenly "find their voice when they're retiring, or they've been primaried out." She said she wishes that "more of them had a backbone" to push back against Trump. With more willing to do that, "Trump wouldn't have been able to get away with some of these other things that we've seen take place in his second administration," she said.

President Donald Trump is not only underwater with Democrats and Independents, but now he's losing young Republicans.

CNN data analyst Harry Enten revealed that when it comes to the Iran war and foreign policy in general, Trump has lost his own base.

"Trump [has a] historically strong performance with younger voters. And here we're talking about voters under the age of 45. He beat Kamala Harris with them, or at least beat the prior Republican baselines with them," said Enten. "And you can see it right here on foreign policy. He absolutely crushed Kamala Harris, who was more trusted under the age of 45, on foreign policy."

Trump had a nine-point lead over Harris on foreign policy, but that has shifted significantly.

"He has a net approval rating now on foreign policy — 40 points underwater, a nearly 50-point switcheroo," Enten said.

"So, after putting in the strongest performance, more trusted on foreign policy, the first since George W. Bush all the way back in '04, [Trump] has completely lost that advantage way down there. He is no longer groovy. According to the young people of America," Enten said.

Those foreign policy numbers are coming from Trump's failure in the Iran war.

"Just take a look at how people under the age of 45 feel about Iran not being worth the cost," said Enten. "Look at this: four in five —81 percent said the Iran war is not worth the cost. And look at Trump's disapproval. Basically simpatico with this, 77 percent of those under the age of 45 say the Iran war, or, excuse me, say that Trump's disapproval of the Iran war is way up there, up there like a rocket at 77 percent."

The generations make it clear that it isn't worth the cost.

The older end of those under 45 are members of the Millennial Generation, who faced the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Brown University's Costs of War Project showed that the casualty and injury rate for the 19 years of war come overwhelmingly from the Millennial Generation.

The Harvard Institute of Politics showed that "young adults [18 to 29] are overwhelmingly skeptical about the current U.S. strategy in Iran."

Ohio voter Annette Dombrowski is one of many swing state voters who picked President Donald Trump three times in a row, but now she’s about to lose her job in a Trump economy where everything is only getting more expensive.

“I actually have panic attacks,” Dombrowski told MS NOW reporter Alex Hebit. “I've had a couple this past week and I get very emotional over it. I don't want to work anymore, but I can't afford to retire.”

Dombrowski works as a janitor at the Conn Selmer plant in Ohio, but MS NOW anchor Jen Psaki says the plant's billionaire owner, John Paulson — a close Trump ally — offshored the plant’s jobs to China, despite Trump purporting to be an “America First” president. Now Dombrowski is about to be unemployed.

When the reporter asked Dombrowski if she believed the wealthy President Trump can understand her predicament she answered flatly, “No.”

“No, he hasn't lived it to understand it. He sees it. He has not lived it. He needs to live it,” said Dombrowski. “Wear the clothes. Wear the shoes. Wear the Walmart clothes. Wear your Walmart shoes. Do your thrift store shopping. Don't eat steaks. I don't get to go out to dinner. … It's not an overnight thing, but it's been two years now. You said you'd bring down the grocery prices. I must be the most angry person when I grocery shop, because I buy the same things every week, and I see it jump every week.”

But she wasn’t the only Trump voter furious in a state that supported Trump in 2008 and 2024. MS NOW also spoke with Ohio truck driver Chris Tackett.

“He said he was going to fight for [us]. This time around. I haven't seen it,” said Tackett. “He's literally backtracked on every single pitch point he had during his election. All we heard was ‘drill, drill, drill’ during the election. And now all we're getting is drilled into the dirt with these prices. So, I'm not a fan of them. I voted for Trump all three terms, to be honest with you. I'm not a big supporter of him at this point.”

One time Trump voter Rob Couch had a more livid response when asked what his message wass to Trump, despite voting for him.

“F—— you,” Couch barked into the microphone. “I don't mean to be disrespectful to any leader, but he's disrespectful to us and he doesn't care.”

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President Donald Trump is planning to hassle Congress to expunge his impeachments.

The president is trying to get Republican lawmakers to remove his impeachments from the record even though legally such a move is impossible, reported The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Linskey, Olivia Beavers and Natalie Andrews on Thursday.

“It should be done because I did nothing wrong,” Trump told the Journal. “It was a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.”

The Journal noted that this could backfire, saying “Any move to attempt to erase the two impeachments, in 2019 and 2021, would open up a debate about Trump’s past behavior in office, forcing GOP lawmakers to relitigate charges of abuse of power, obstruction of Congress and inciting an insurrection. Facing the prospect of losing their majority in the House, Republicans are trying to shift focus to the economy and high costs, the issues that voters care about most.”

Yet even though “the measure likely wouldn’t be considered until after the November election,” the issue could still become a political lightning rod. “Trump has posted news clips about voiding the impeachments on his Truth Social account,” the Journal reported. “But this week, he played down his own role in the effort. ‘If they want to do it, I’m honored by it,’ the president said.”

The Journal added that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R—LA) has discussed the resolution with Trump. He has also discussed it with Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz

“I think it makes a lot of sense the more the evidence comes out, the more we know they really were sham impeachments,” Johnson told the Journal, later adding that “we were saying it at the time, now we know. And they make a very compelling case that it should be expunged from the record, because it was a hyperpartisan attack job.”

Speaking with this journalist for Salon in 2019, Dershowitz — who later defended Trump during one of his impeachment trials — denied that he would ever refuse to step down if he lost an election, which is what prompted the impeachment at which Dershowitz did not represent Trump.

“No president will refuse to step down if his opponent is elected in his place,” Dershowitz told Salon. “It just will not happen, and the American public would never tolerate it.”

Discussing the Wall Street Journal, CNN’s correspondents agreed that Trump’s attempt to scrub the impeachment is both purely symbolic and likely to resurrect the Ukraine coercion and election denying scandals that prompted those impeachments in the first place.

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Art of the Deal Co-author Tony Schwartz predicts Trump is destined to make history — just not the side of it he probably wants.

MS NOW anchor Ari Melber asked Schwartz to comment on Trump’s most recent slate of gaffes, particularly his devastating claim that he “loves” the inflation currently racking voters and threatening to destroy his own Republican Party in the November midterms.

“It's demented. I mean, it's so self-destructive,” said Schwartz, who described Trump as an addict who acts as a kind of “black hole.”

“And you pour stuff into it. And he poured it in and maxed out when he was reelected president. And it looked fantastic. But it seeped out incredibly quickly. And then he has to keep upping the ante and chasing the high. And so now where he's at is there's no high to chase. So that's just that's just a piece of self-destructiveness. He's going to go down as the worst president in the history of this country,” said Schwartz, the founder of consulting firm the Energy Project.

The worst of Trump’s crisis will hit when Democrats re-take Congress as a result of Trump’s self-imposed crises with the war in Iran, rampant inflation and other Trump-sources plagues, said MS NOW host Ari Melbar, citing a claim be Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that Trump was hurting his own party with self-serving decisions and his insistence on a kind of slavish loyalty, ultimately setting himself up for a midterm disaster.

Cornyn added that Trump’s following two years of powerlessness will be “the most miserable two years of his life.”

Schwartz said Trump’s “got something going on pretty significant physically, given the number of visits to the hospital,” and his debilitating health problems will likely merge with his post-midterm powerlessness to drive Trump into the permanent doldrums.

“He would not step down or bow out,” said Schwartz, predicting the second half of Trump’s impotent second term to be “a tortuous time” for him. “I think he's going to quit in his own mind. It's like you're playing a basketball game. You're playing a basketball game, you're down by 29 [points] and you say, ‘you know what? I've had it.’ And that's where we go if they lose the midterms. … He is going to quietly quit, even if he just loses the House.”

But Shwartz predicted Trump’s time of torture is unavoidable.

“I think people really — maybe this is my hope — are underestimating how big this [blue] wave is going to be. I think it’s going to be bigger.”

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Editor’s Note: CNN reports as of noon E.S.T. that the Pentagon lockdown is over and was a false alarm. Chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller told CNN that after the anthrax attacks in the early 2000s, sensors were put in to detect things in the air. Miller explained that a cleaning substance could ultimately be flagged because it's so sensitive. He explained that false positives happen more often than not.

Original story below.

Floors two through five and corridors four through seven in the Pentagon are locked down Thursday morning as an incident involving the air quality is being dealt with.

According to the local Arlington Fire and EMS, the Hazardous Materials team is operating there "in support of PFPA’s Hazmat Team during a hazardous materials incident."

Police are wearing gas masks and full chemical protective gear, CNN reported.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer was concerned that those working there might be in danger because they're locked down. Others are likely being evacuated, the report said.

The air quality issue is necessitated a "precautionary measure," the Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.

Retired Colonel Cedric Leighton remarked, "There are certain facilities within the Pentagon that are windowless facilities. So the only air supply that they're going to get is from the air handling system is in the Pentagon. Then there's the NMCC, the National Military Command Center," which is in the basement of the Pentagon," Leighton explained. Those areas are "critically important to the national security of the United States and to the operations of the military." It's happening at a time when the military is at war with Iran, he noted.

He said that what must happen quickly is for those staffers to move to another operations center.

Sabrina Singh, former deputy Pentagon press secretary, explained that there are plans in place for such emergencies and they're fully prepared. She anticipates it'll resolve quickly.

There are thousands of offices in the Pentagon, and she said that it will likely impact over 20,000 people in the building.

It remains unclear what the specifics are, said Haley Britzky, CNN's senior national security reporter. She added that it is all happening quickly.

The last time there was an evacuation this large was September 11, 2001, after the plane hit the building.