Sarah Longwell, publisher of the anti-Trump conservative outlet, The Bulwark, is a champ at corralling Trump-voting political focus groups for surveys. So far this year, Longwell’s in-depth interviews have painted an accurate picture of the midterm devastation that Republicans should have seen coming.

Her latest surveys out of deep-red Mississippi, however, suggest the king of the party, President Donald Trump, has been demoted by MAGA to the position of court jester.

“I have such a poor opinion now of Trump due to – I mean … ‘He's a clown,’ said one Trump voter who was angry enough to swing toward the state’s Democratic candidate in deep red Mississippi. “And I know Cindy Hyde-Smith just all of her billboards were of her hugging Trump. And so that was the main reason that I went with Colom instead. I don't remember who it was that said it, but she's definitely gotten rich since she's been up there. And she's only out for herself and what matters most to her. And so I'm hoping this guy will be different.”

Another white woman speaking to Longwell said she was a strong Republican who had actually “voted for Cindy Hyde Smith the first time years ago,” but she could not abide voting for her again because Hyde-Smith “is Trump's yes-person.”

Other Trump voters said they were revolting because of the taint of corruption currently suffusing the White House and the impossible wealth the Trump family has amassed in just two years thanks to their ability to exploit the White House.

“I know that he's got, he has family members that are tied to Kalshi and Polymarket (where Donald Trump Jr. served on Polymarket's advisory board). It's very, very self-serving,” said one former Trumper.

“He seems to be, you know, a full-fledged narcissist,” remarked another Trump voter who has since turned on the president — as well as his Republican Party by pointedly voting Democrat. “I think it's also affecting him in that because he knows he can't be president again, he's just doing whatever he wants to do. It seems like he's making a lot of money off of being president.”

“And also look at all of his family members,” she continued. “I mean, the son-in-law, Jared Kushner. And I know one of his sons, Donald Trump Jr., got remarried and there was all this controversy about the [money] that was being spent. And so, yeah, I'm just not happy with him at all.”

“You may not go into office corrupt, but unfortunately, the odds of you do end up corrupt,” said another Trump voter who rebelled against Trump by supporting Colom -- despite still being in “love” with other notable Republican figures. “I love Marco Rubio. I love Harold Ford Jr., out of Memphis. I mean, I love Jim Jordan, but they're probably the only three good guys out of it. I mean, even Congressman Harold Ford says there's so much corruption in Washington, D.C. that you can cut it with a with a dull butter knife.”

But all that corruption has a face on it, and it appears to be the guy in the White House. So much so that many of the Trump voters who turned on the GOP this month did it specifically to check his corruption.

“I do hope that with the Democrats taking over, that means they'll keep him in check better,” said one woman.

“Do I think Trump's a great person? Hell no,” replied another former Trumper. “I know he's a self-righteous, narcissistic, whatever. We all know who he is at this point, and we all supported him for a while. We've seen this show.”

The nationwide sentiment that powered President Donald Trump’s cult-like MAGA movement is still there because Americans are still looking out for their own incomes and comfort, but the movement is a dry well for the GOP, say New York Times columnists Robert Siegel, E.J. Dionne Jr. and conservative Washington Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney.

As indicated by their colossal midterm wallop, Republicans assumed Trump’s MAGA followers were also their followers. Apparently, they’re not, said Carney, and they never were.

“The Trump vote, the working-class white vote that Trump brought into the party, never became reliably conservative and Republican. These people weren’t made into Paul Ryan acolytes who love the idea of reforming Social Security. And frankly, they’re not the Ted Cruz vote from 2016,” Carney told Siegel and Dionne during the New York Times’ Saturday morning podcast.

Carney said analysts can reliably chart by county where people were more likely to go to church every week in the 2016 primaries — and these were the places voting for Sen. Ted Cruz, who could be the closest GOP alternative to the decaying Trump.

“[But] the places where you had the white evangelicals who don’t attend church, they were more likely to be the Trump voter. So, the less religiously observant, the less fiscally conservative — that was the Trump vote,” said Carney, “and the Republicans cannot rely on them now that Trump is leaving the stage.”

But, sadly for the GOP, Carney said the party has been selecting for loyalty to Trump, and tossing the less cultlike rejects. This means the party has not been selecting for more durable things like “conservatism or quality of candidate — and that also hurt the party.”

“So going forward, the Republicans, there’s no juice left to squeeze from MAGA. And if anybody tries to be a mini-MAGA — if JD Vance says, ‘I’m going to be the next Donald Trump’ — you can’t be the next Donald Trump,” Carney added.

Carney thanked God that Trump was one of a kind, and there was no other like him. However, this one-of-a-kind leader broke the GOP by blowing “up what existed before the consensus — the Reagan consensus that lasted for a while — but nothing has filled that space.”

And what’s tried to fill it is the bottom of the barrel, said Siegel, primarily because the party has been selecting for loyalty over intelligence or talent.

“I just want to underscore what you said about candidates. I was thinking, ‘boy, a lot of Senate Democrats who won Senate elections were lucky to have a terrible opponent,’” said Siegel. “And then it occurred to me: it’s not luck that you get Herschel Walker running for the Senate, only because loyalty and fame have been elevated to values that dwarf every other talent that a candidate might have.”

Carney said he has spoken to conservative Republican circles who want to, “get the old [genuine conservative] band back together,” but he warned that the idea of re-nominating somebody like Romney and riding him all the way to victory is “a perfidious pipe dream for conservatives” now in a populist political atmosphere.

“I think that MAGA is dead as such, because it was always rooted in a contradiction,” said Dionne, explaining that Trump paraded “his ties to very, very wealthy people,” as well as his “obsessions with things like the ballroom,” and the voters responded by “just walk[ing] away.”

“Now, does it mean that a strongly conservative wing of the Republican Party is gone? No,” added Dionne. “There’s always been that. The Tea Party, in many ways, gave birth to the MAGA movement. So, there will be a right wing of the Republican Party, but MAGA specifically defined by Donald Trump — and this odd contradiction of policies that often help the wealthiest people, but rhetoric that was directed to working people, usually using tariffs as his way in — I think that just will not work anymore.”

No fan of defeat, President Donald Trump appears to be taking his recent political beat-down very badly, reports the Guardian.

“Political obituary writers have been swift to describe him as a lame duck, defanged lion or cornered animal in the wake of the midterms. Democrats’ 13 percentage point victory was the second biggest of any midterm election since 1942, and the party conquered the Republican bastions of Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas,” reports the Guardian.

And the root of the Trump Party rout was obvious as the president’s eight-month war in Iran sent fuel prices soaring and tariffs blasted the cost of living into the stratosphere.

“The 80-year-old president’s response has swung wildly between conciliation, aggression and farce,” according to the Guardian, citing Trump presenting (possibly by accident) “violent fighter and warrior” Dana White of the Ultimate Fighting Championship with the job of White House press secretary, before bizarrely calling the invite a joke.

But the farce and insanity also apparently involves a fair bit of duck and cover, according to people familiar with Trump.

Miles Taylor, a whistleblower and Homeland Security analyst from the first Trump administration, told the Guardian that the finale of the Trump show “will certainly be weirder because Donald Trump was always going to end the administration with the bottom of the barrel appointees,” as suggested by Hillary Clinton.

“Like any wannabe autocrat, you end up in the figurative bunker at the end of the regime with the most hardcore loyalists, which tend to be the people who are willing to contort themselves into whatever shape the leader wants,” said Taylor. “These are the people who have no scruples and are willing to carry out the president’s most extreme edicts and, in some cases, are the ones who have been goading him for almost a decade to do the most extreme things.”

Trump’s new Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is a prime example, said Taylor, speaking of his experience with Miller in Trump’s first term. “[H]e was a guy that was all too willing to walk up to the line of the law and then leap over it and dare the courts to rein us in. That was literally the type of thing he said to me on multiple occasions.”

“One of my biggest fears about this next two years is: will Donald Trump cause the ultimate constitutional crisis by defying judicial orders, including from the supreme court, if he doesn’t get his way? I see it as very possible because he’s got a team around him that might be willing to make the case of why that would be justified,” said Taylor.

And Taylor said the chaos of Trump’s next two years could pale in comparison with what he does in his latter two years, when it comes to foreign policy — and that’s after he launched a disastrous and unprovoked war on Iran.

“Here are things to look for. Does Nato survive this period? Does the United States actually try to go seize more territory?” asked Taylor. “Both of those are things that Donald Trump has talked about doing and been walked back by advisors on over the course of two terms. I’m not sure that’s the case anymore.”

And despite their historic losses, the Guardian reports Republicans show little sign of revolt against Trump, or even a willingness to openly blame him for their misfortune.

“On Capitol Hill this week the party effectively killed the attempt to impeach Hegseth while also electing Jim Jordan, a pugnacious ally of the president, as its minority leader for the next Congress,” reports the Guardian.

New Republic Editor-in-Chief Win McCormack says President Donald Trump’s power was bound to collapse. He came into the business world and political office with a set of “misguided and inflexible beliefs and habits, instilled in him first by a stern and un-loving father.” But his unwillingness to learn new things shot him down the path of failure.

McCormack cites the words of Trump’s niece, Mary L. Trump, who said Trump was raised by a “cold, ruthless, mercenary father and a largely absent and sickly mother.” And that absence of love in the household is the defining characteristic Trump’s upbringing. This, in turn, was fortified by the “ruthless and unprincipled” Roy Cohn, former chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

“The essence of Cohn’s tutelage of Donald: No matter what, no matter how wrong you might be or turn out to be about a given matter or issue, you must never bend, never give up your adherence to a position, no matter how misguided it might turn out to be,” said McCormack.

And Trump stuck with it. The resulting self-absorption created a man who does “not brook advice from other people as to what he should or should not do in a given circumstance,” said McCormack.

Trump allegedly hated when smarter people than him, like retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, would offer advice contrary to his own inclination. So, in his second term, McCormack said “he stacked his Cabinet with pliant, mediocre individuals who would never dare challenge his inclinations, no matter how wayward or bizarre they might be.”

If Trump believes tariffs are paid by businesses exporting goods rather than by the U.S. consumers who buy them, he’s going to stick to that delusion no matter how many smart people try to correct him.

Similarly, after successfully kidnapping the president of Venezuela, Trump fantasized that he could subdue the “vastly larger nation of Iran, with its estimated population of 93.4 million and approximately 610,000 military personnel, including its notoriously brutal Revolutionary Guard,” said McCormack.

But instead, Trump’s attack killed the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as many of the country’s more moderate leaders who U.S. analysts believed would have been willing to strike a deal with the U.S. over Trump’s purported issue of nuclear weapons.

Marching forth, heedless of the advice of more intelligent people leads most idiot to calamity — and McCormack suggests the midterm election results speak for themselves.

So how does a mediocre and self-absorbed president crawl from that kind of wreckage?

“It appears that he may content himself with pursuing his various construction projects during the rest of his second term. Which is not to say that he won’t get up to some forms of mischief,” McCormack said. “His top priority, clearly — and one doomed to failure — is and has been trying to turn the United States back into an overwhelmingly white country; hence his attacks on all programs involving affirmative action and his relentless efforts to deport as many noncitizen residents of color in the country as possible as rapidly as possible (which may well amp up with Stephen Miller now elevated to chief of staff).”

“Beyond that, I think he aspires to reduce every aspect of excellence in the country to a level of mediocrity, which is to say, down to his very own level,” McCormack added. “And at this, I confidently predict, he will woefully fail, as he has failed so often at his major endeavors throughout his miserable life.”

President Donald Trump spent the last six months predicting voters would bolster his Republican rubber stamp in Congress and allow him to march through the remaining two years of his second term, unhindered by Democratic snooping. But the voters did not deliver, and Trump is not taking reality well, reports Slate.

Slate senior editor Jim Newell said voters can expect the newly shaken president to pour even more of the chaos he has been slinging for the last two years.

“We’re keeping our eyes peeled for a surprise of some sort,” reports Newell on Saturday. “Which Cabinet official might either decide or have decided for them that they should be replaced before Democrats take over the Senate confirmation process? (We’ve flagged one possibility later in the newsletter. Hint: He and his family once dropped by Jeffrey Epstein’s island for lunch.) Which other weird demands no one has previously thought of will Trump drop in a 2 a.m. ‘Truth,’ and from which TV show will he get the idea? Will Susan Collins, who has never missed a vote in 30 years, say ‘f—— it’ and miss a vote? Maybe we should make a bingo card.”

Meanwhile, what’s preparing to rule in Republicans’ new minority is more GOP extremism, not sanity, according to Slate.

“House Republicans’ selection of Rep. Jim Jordan, the combative, far-right jabbermouth, as their incoming party leader is a perfect summation of how small and insular the GOP conference will be in the next Congress,” said Newell. “All House Republican candidates who had to spend even one joule of energy trying to appeal to swing voters lost their elections in the tsunami; the ~175 or so who survived basically all believe in Pizzagate. Jordan’s promotion isn’t a story of how a one-time factional bomb thrower remade himself into a leader with broad appeal. It’s that his faction is now the only one left.”

Regardless, Newell said “come January, Republicans in Washington will cede metric tons of political power to the Democrats,” and how Republicans plan to spend their remaining time in power is still largely a question — because their puppet master in the White House had been setting their agenda before he wandered off.

“It’s gone overlooked among postelection analysis, but Republicans have a sizable lame-duck agenda planned between now and the end of the year,” said Newell.

Their biggest priority, so far, is filling every vacancy on the federal judiciary that they can, which amounts to about two dozen seats, because Democrats will likely stonewall any additional far-right Trump’s nominees flooding courts after December.

“Most Senate floor time will be devoted to this,” said Newell, adding that this will inevitably require some fast work in the Judiciary Committee.

Trump is ordering congressional Republicans to slip the Pentagon an extra $350 billion (on top of its regular annual funding of more than $1 trillion), but that kind of generosity would require a problematic party-line reconciliation bill — and neither the GOP or Trump should get their hopes up for that, said Newell.

“Senate Republicans’ majority is going to slim to 52 votes when Sherrod Brown replaces Ohio Sen. Jon Husted in December (thanks to a special election), said Newell. Plus, a last-ditch reconciliation bill would deep-six a bigger government funding deal that the GOP has already hashed out with Democrats.

“Buckle up,” said Newell.

The New York Times reports the “America First” president is becoming a “dodging imprisonment” president as Democrats prepare to take Congress and fulfill the legislative body’s role of scrutinizing the White House.

“In his first term, President Trump approached congressional investigations with a strategy of resisting and stonewalling, hoping to stall the inquiries until Democrats ran out of time,” reports the Times. “But in anticipation of Democrats’ return to control of Congress in his second term, Mr. Trump has embarked on an even more aggressive maneuver: threatening to treat some legislative oversight as a potential crime.”

This tactic, said the Times, is expected to be “part of an all-out effort by the White House to block Democratic congressional oversight over the next two years.”

The top lieutenant protecting Trump’s backside will be Trump’s new chief of staff, Stephen Miller, said the Times, “a political brawler with extensive experience on Capitol Hill.” His effort “will be bolstered by a Justice Department and a White House Counsel’s Office that have been quietly laying the groundwork” for a protracted war. Rather than being the leader of a nation, the Times said Trump and his allies will adopt the nearly full-time role of preventing Democrats “from getting access to its decision-making and scrutinizing the actions of top officials and powerful people, in and out of government.”

Trump, according to reports, is hotly concerned that some of his biggest financial supporters who helped enrich his family in the last two years or helped finance his prized construction projects “will be targeted, according to aides and his public statements.”

“The White House is bracing for a spate of investigations, and officials say they are ready to punch back,” according to the Times. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel quietly published an opinion a few months ago telling staff that even communications by those outside government could be covered by executive privilege if they concerned Trump and his top aides.

And The Times reports staff for GOP lawmakers who survived the midterm bloodbath will likely be acting as deputies of the Trump DOJ to help the department respond to Democrats’ subpoenas, records requests and accusations. Rachel Jag, a former staff member to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) “is overseeing a large staff, but the department is seeking experienced lawyers to fill out what are expected to be high-workload jobs,” reports the Times.

But good luck with that, said the Times, because the DOJ has been hit by a wave of departures in the aftermath of Trump’s politicization of the department.

White House spokesman Lauren Bis, meanwhile, has already hit a scathing tone before Democrats even assume their majority in January, telling the Times: “If Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people.”

But top Democrats are hungry to take on the policing role that the Republican Congress abdicated, said the Times, and they have “shown no indications they are intimidated or plan to slow down.”

Rather, they have “already sent letters to scores of potential targets of investigations, on everything from cuts to scientific research to donors for Mr. Trump’s White House ballroom,” the Times said. And the White House anticipates “an unrelenting pace of oversight.”

President Donald Trump could not get enough of touting his roaring economy, even as midterm voters just didn’t feel it.

But over on the other side of the Atlantic, analysts and economists are wincing in anticipation of a large economic fireball that apparently will be big enough to be visible at the Thames.

“When you run money in fiscal policy this hot in this stage in the economic cycle, I can tell you it will end in tears,” said Andrew Neil, presenter of The Andrew Neil Report on The Times Radio Friday podcast.

While campaigning in 2024, President Donald Trump pledged to eliminate the entire national debt in just one term. And he insisted he’d do it without cutting “one penny” from Social Security or Medicare — with nothing more than manic economic growth, crypto, and tariffs. But critics are calling Trump’s “absurd” plans “fantasies,” while Neil says the bill is coming due with disastrous consequences.

“In the late stages of this economic cycle monetary policy and fiscal policy are both running hot hot, hot,” complained Neil to Gerard Baker, columnist at The Times and editor at large at The Wall Street Journal. “You don't run hot on both [of these] at the end of an economic cycle. You’re supposed to run both after we've hit an economic recession, then you run things hot.”

Broad money is the sum of all liquid financial instruments held by money-holding sectors, and it makes a good unit of measurement for an economy's money supply. But Neil said America’s broad money definition is “now rising by 7 percent, which he calls “a hell of a lot.”

“Plus, the deficit is at least 6.5 percent, probably headed for 7 percent of GDP,” said Neil.

But the recent election is not necessarily the economy’s salvation because Neil said a divided government will only make spending worse worse because of all the horse trading necessary to pass a budget.

“The Trumpies will say ‘give us more for defense and you can have more for health.’ Or ‘give us more for the border wall and you can have more for welfare.’ And then both get more as a result and the deficit will get even worse,” said Neil. “Either all the economics that I've been taught all my life since university has been wrong and a waste of time or something big is coming, regardless of AI. When you run money in fiscal policy this hot in this stage in the economic cycle, I can tell you it will end in tears.”

Worse, Neil said a “nightmare scenario” is brewing with AI if the boom goes bust—which seems more and more likely.

“The FED will only have limited room to maneuver [to save the economy], not only because its interest rates are already running high but because inflation is still running high and we have the terrible, terrible specter of stagflation [because] the fiscal situation is already completely out of control,” said Neil.

“If you thought last week's election was a steady transition to the post-Trump world and that it would convey Trump peacefully to his retirement, you're going to be in for a bit of a shock,” said Baker. “Fasten your seatbelts on the political front and on the economic front. It's going to be wild.”

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Conservative writer Nick Catoggio says the Republican Party is in a pickle. They desperately need someone to blame for the party’s historic collapse last week, but the party is filled with “dead-end Trump apologist[s]” and can’t bring itself to put the blame where it belongs.

“You can’t blame the man responsible. Your political identity, if not your entire personality, rests on the belief that saving the country somehow required handing over the Republican Party to a corrupt authoritarian game-show host,” said Catoggio. “To fault Donald Trump for embarrassing the American electorate into painting the map blue would be tantamount to admitting you’re an imbecile.”

They also can’t blame J.D. Vance because nobody pays attention to vice presidents. And in any case, Republicans are almost as invested in Vance as they are in Trump. They also can’t blame House Speaker Mike Johnson, said Catoggio, because “Johnson is less an actual human being than a sock puppet with the president’s arm up his backside. Blaming him for GOP failures is like having a beef with Jim Henson and blaming Kermit the Frog.”

“To find a useful scapegoat for the GOP’s drubbing, you need to find a figure within the party who’s in a position of power yet isn’t ideologically aligned with the Trumpist project. There aren’t many of those left. In fact, there’s only one,” said Catoggio, and the knives are already out for him.

The big argument is that Senat Leader John Thune failed to pass the SAVE America Act, the Trump bill that would have required millions of Americans to produce proof of citizenship to register or reregister to vote. It doesn’t matter that Trump’s “own voters could have been hit disproportionately hard by the procedural burden” of it, Catoggio said.

Thune doesn’t take the blame, having run to Fox News and demanded: “what could we have done differently?”

That’s a shocking position for a leader after sustaining “the worst electoral beating since Watergate,” said Catoggio. “There’s nothing Thune could have done over the past two years to better serve his party or his country except stand around looking constipated while the president cannibalized legislative power, reducing Congress from a co-equal branch of government to a squalid Russian Duma?”

Thune gave Trump almost everything he wanted, Catoggio argues.

“On John Thune’s watch, Trump launched a major war without congressional authorization, nominated laughably unfit cretins to lead the government’s essential agencies, monetized the presidency for himself and every crony attached to him, and turned federal law enforcement into a vindictive joke. The Senate majority leader and his members did nothing about any of it and in some cases actively enabled him, like when it confirmed Pete Hegseth, Todd Blanche, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Cabinet positions,” he said. “… By doing next to nothing to stop the president from governing America like a lower-IQ Viktor Orbán, Thune ensured that blame for an electoral drubbing would fall squarely on Trump himself …”

But doing next to nothing also guaranteed that voters saw no difference between Trump and his party’s candidates for the House and Senate, he added.

“When I say that Republicans lost this election because of Thune, that’s what I mean. He and his members offered no vision of right-wing government distinct from Trump’s, so Americans quite reasonably punished them for the president’s sins,” he said “… That’s the way John Thune and his members wanted it. Blame them for the result.”

Mediaite reports U.S. travelers were shocked as plane flights across the nation were suddenly grounded. In an unprecedented move, The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday that it was halting all departing flights “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.” More than 5,000 delays and 319 cancellations immediately followed the halt, but reporters predicted the mess would have a cascading effect as delays caused still more delays and cancellations.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin spoke to reporters soon after the flight freeze, but the information he presented was piecemeal and said nothing of the duration of the nationwide flight shutdown, or the exact cause of it. This afternoon, Mullins was not even willing to rule out cyberattacks.

But angry Friday travelers were already looking for a target, according to MS NOW, and many of them were singling out President Donald Trump.

MS NOW correspondent Eugene Daniels was himself trapped at an airport in California, and caught the worst of passengers’ anger.

“As I’ve walked and talked with people who recognized us from MS [NOW] what they would say to me was they are shocked that they have not heard from the president in front of the camera,” said Daniels. “… Obviously, we heard from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin but folks are looking to hear more information from the leader of the free world, as this is shaking out.”

Daniels added: “One person told me that they were ‘disturbed’ that there wasn’t a lot of information coming from this administration.”

As of 6:15 p.m. Friday, Mediaite reports the president had issued two Truth Social posts: one about the Coast Guard and another about the film industry.

“I am working with Senator Tim Scott and, believe it or not, Senator Adam Schiff, and, additionally, Senators John Cornyn, Raphael Warnock, Steve Daines, Bernie Moreno, Tim Sheehy, Alex Padilla, Mark Warner, Thom Tillis, Chris Coons, Katie Britt, and Dick Durbin, together with Representatives Jason Smith, Nathaniel Moran, Brian Jack, Linda Sanchez, and many others, both Republican and Democrat, on the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act,” wrote Trump, seemingly heedless of the chaos at airports. "... Everyone feels strongly about the Motion Picture and Television Industry — and so do I, and we all want to save it. It was MADE IN AMERICA, and must STAY IN AMERICA."

And “chaos” is what it was, according to CNN reporter Richard Quest.

“It means chaos right now,” said Quest. “Everything is staying on the ground. Those planes that are in the air have to land for fuel reasons but any international traffic, if you look at the flight corridors, there's an enormous number of late afternoon flights from Europe. There are overnight flights from Asia, flights coming up from the Caribbean, all of which will have to be dealt with on a one-by-one case-by-case basis.”

Quest said planes were already lining up on airport taxiway that would have been preparing to depart, but which were not departing at the moment because of the ground stop.

“How long and how serious and what happens next is up to the gods because the FAA will not release the traffic until they are sure they have a handle on the air traffic corridors,” said Quest. “This is going to be chaos for hours to come simply on the basis that you've got people on planes that are taxied out, you've got people boarding aircraft that are now going to be disembarked, people that are arriving — and to add to the misery, planes may not arrive to take departing passengers later tonight. This is huge.”

The Supreme Court of Florida suspended Larry Klayman, a far-right MAGA attorney, Trump enthusiast and CEO of right-wing Judicial Watch, from practicing law in the state for two years. But the combative lawyer argues that his suspension has nothing to do with his ethical violations and more to do with the Florida court yielding to left-wing ideologues.

When reached for comment via phone, Klayman told the Miami New Times that his punishment has nothing to do with his work in D.C. It is instead the act of an appeals court that has been working to undermine Republican officials. Klayman accused the appeals court leading the Florida court of being “highly politicized.”

“As evidence of left-leaning bias, he cited the court’s permanent disbarment of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani as well as investigations into Sen. Josh Hawley, Sen. Ted Cruz and Kellyanne Conway,” reports the Times.

“The Supreme Court will get a motion for reconsideration,” Klayman wrote in a follow-up text to the paper. “There is collateral litigation to reverse the suspension order of the D.C. Bar which would nullify the Supreme Court order which contained no factual or legal reasoning.”

The combative MAGA lawyer then leveled legal threats at reporter: “Get this right or you and Miami New Times will be sued again!”

The Florida justices disbarred Klayman in an unsigned disciplinary order after he was previously suspended in Washington and Florida over alleged ethical breaches. His 2022 suspension stemmed from a lawsuit he brought against U.S. broadcaster Voice of America in 2009 on behalf of VOA employee client Elham Sataki. The D.C. appellate court found that the strong feelings Klayman developed for Sataki created a conflict of interest that adversely affected the representation.

But the Florida Supreme Court said "the record includes writings from Klayman in which he expressed to Sataki that his emotions had rendered him nonfunctional as a lawyer."

The Times reports: “The Florida Supreme Court also ruled Klayman violated his client’s confidentiality and trust by making her sexual harassment lawsuit far more public than she asked him to make it and by failing to withdraw when she fired him, according to the filing. After Klayman expressed feelings for her, the client eventually asked him to stop representing her, which he failed to do, according to the filing.”

The D.C. Court of Appeals also suspended Klayman for 90 days in 2020 after finding that he represented clients who sued Judicial Watch without first obtaining Judicial Watch's consent. Klayman denied wrongdoing.

Klayman may be accusing the Florida Supreme Court of caving to others courts’ liberal tendencies, but the Florida court is considered one of the most conservative in the nation. All seven judges on the court were appointed by a Republican governor as of January 2026. Six of the judges were appointed by far-right Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been annoying military members and veterans since he first stepped into his Trump-appointed role months ago, but his growling rebuke from the guard of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier appears to be the final straw.

Veteran Mike Nelson served 23 years with U.S. forces, including in Iraq. And Nelson told the I Paper that the Hegseth group shout-down was a “continuation” of how Hegseth has presented himself, which he summarized as a content-maker cosplaying as a soldier.

“He’s largely about content generation rather than anything substantive,” said Nelson, arguing that the secretary had “always used the troops or the backdrop as something to produce his own individual image.”

It does not matter that Hegseth was not the person unleashing the girly laughter that launched the guard’s scream. Hegseth knew where he was, said the former special operations officer, who is now a fellow at the National Security Institute. “[T]he tone he was setting probably encouraged that kind of behavior.”

Hegseth later awarded a medal to the soldier who shouted at him, posting on social media that “We love soldiers. We love standards. Well done, Specialist.”

But, the incident “left a sour taste among many active or retired soldiers already frustrated by the military policy of Trump’s White House,” according to the I Paper.

One Army source in the U.K. told the paper that this latest embarrassing incident “does not surprise me at all,” and the source described Hegseth as a “TV personality cosplaying as a defense secretary.”

“I don’t think he’s as popular with the force and with the veterans as he likes to portray that he is,” said Nelson, but he added that undoubtedly “a large portion … will probably find ways to excuse the behavior.”

“I do think he’s shallow and self-interested,” added Nelson, ‘but I think we should be able to get to a place where we admit that his entourage were being boisterous and disrespectful, and that for those who like the Secretary, that may not be an indictment of him as a whole, and for those who dislike the Secretary, it shouldn’t be made into a larger matter.”

Regarding the latest incident, Nelson suggested it was possible that someone could have a “slip in decorum, make a mistake and forget where they are at the moment”.

Another military source, speaking anonymously, hammered Hegseth, saying “on top of his “purges of senior officers and intolerable treatment of those serving on US warships in the Middle East, the lack of respect and deference shown in Arlington is astounding.”

“I have visited the tomb of the unknown warrior. It is a special place with numerous signs warning of the conduct expected of visitors,” said the source. “Tens of thousands of people attend each year and pay their respects properly, so to see the [US] Secretary of Defense act with such brazen disregard for everything it represents is staggering.”

Punchbowl News reports that the incoming Democratic majority will run straight to the courts if President Donald Trump tries to railroad the new Congress over its war power.

Trump has already signaled his eagerness to ignore the new Congress, posting a red hat with the words “Veto” on his social media platform, and Trump has instructed his former personal lawyer (and now full-time Department of Justice head) Todd Blanche to threaten Democrats for daring to probe allegations of corruption against him.

Additionally, Trump’s desire to continue his costly and unpopular war in Iran is another topic first on Democrats’ hit list when they take House and Senate majorities in January.

Trump’s Republican majority has been a rubberstamp for the war, despite the battle’s subsequent inflation and high gas prices driving the blue wave that booted them from their Congressional majorities. But Democrats have made clear they are not so complacent.

“Democrats will ‘absolutely’ turn to federal courts to enforce successful war powers votes if the Trump administration continues to ignore the next Congress, the incoming chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee,” told Punchbowl News.

“We’re looking at that,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said. “I’m exploring all options, but that is one of the options that we have to look at.”

Trump and his officials appear to be hazy on Congress’ power to make or break military operations.

"Congress does not have a constitutional role in the declaration of war. Congress has a role in cutting off funds for wars, which it has threatened to do. And the president doesn’t have to get permission," said Nadia Schadlow, who served as a Trump deputy national security adviser. "But yes, you can debate, you can decide. That’s his choice in how he wants to do it."

However, the Constitution is clear on Congress’ power. Article I, Section 8, outlines what "The Congress shall have Power To do," and Clause 11 says that on that list is the power "to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water." Additionally, Congress has the power “To raise and support Armies … To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.”

If the Supreme Court is capable of reading the same Constitutional paragraphs, then Democrats are banking that justices will also know this, and they will have a strong responsibility to make that interpretation clear to the White House. Hence, Democrats’ eagerness to press the issue even with a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointed justices.

In the meantime, Democrats are already preparing for a budget showdown with Trump and his staff, with Democrats preparing a confrontation with the president in the early months of their new roles.

President Donald Trump may have instructed his former personal lawyer (and now full-time Department of Justice head) Todd Blanche to threaten Democrats for daring to probe allegations of corruption, but Trump is rapidly losing his teeth, according to Trump’s biographer.

Michael Wolff is a longtime author and reporter best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's political career, including several books about his first term and another about his return to office. And now Wolff says he’s seeing history repeat itself in the second Trump administration — with similarly pathetic consequences for Trump.

The Trump administration is attempting to push back against incoming Democratic leaders with a letter from the president's top lawyer "taking an aggressive — and hugely controversial — stance" against the party's new oversight plans.

But good luck defending a homefront with no army, said Wolff in a Thursday night “Inside Trump’s Head” podcast.

“[After January 3^rd] … we are going to see Trump and the Trump Administration go to war with the Democrats and with Congress, but there's going to be problems with that,” said Wolff. “Nobody [competent] works for the Justice Department anymore.”

“So many people have been leaving,” said show co-host Joanna Cole.

“Right. Most of the people he has had on his side to wage war are leaving. It is going to be Donald Trump and [Chief of Staff] Steven Miller. That is it.”

Normally, Trump could also count his defense attorney from his hush-money conviction as being in his corner — since Trump brought him on as Attorney General. But Wolff said Blanche “is in deep, and he's got to start protecting himself” from legal liability.

“We've seen this before. This is exactly what happened after the loss of the election in 2020,” Wolff continued. “The entire White House — anybody who was semi-professional got out of there as fast as they could and he was left with Rudy Giuliani and his band of nutcases. ... even Stephen Miller left him, and he only came back after January 6th. He came back, made his amends, but he was not among that group of Rudy Giuliani crazies who came to stand behind Donald Trump.”

“And I think we're going to see this again,” concluded Wolff. “Stephen Miller will be in the Rudy Giuliani role and the other true believers — people who have nowhere else to go — will be beside Trump and everybody else will be, ‘I'm out of here.’ Susie Wiles, case in point.”

Liberal political commentator, journalist and Vox co-founder Ezra Klein says MAGA took a brutal hit last week after the midterms delivered a resounding smack. The Trump economy had already been hammering away for years at the young generation that elevated MAGA and made it look so durable on social media, and Klein told the “Thursday Bulwark Daily” podcast that the blue wave unquestionably rang MAGA’s bell.

But nobody should get their hopes up that the legion that comprises the Make America Great Movement and the president who leads it are down and out — not with President Donald Trump with two more years in office.

And even then, other personalities have inched along behind the trail Trump blazed, and these lieutenants are waiting in the wings to claim the MAGA mantle.

“I just want to say, I don't, I feel like it's over. I mean, there's a big fight ahead. Like, so people should not check out,” said Bulwark podcaster Tim Miller. “I mean, the last two years of Donald Trump's might end up being the most dangerous two years, or he might descend into dementia and just want to go golf and build an arch.”

“Well, even if he does descend into dementia and want to golf and build an arch, that's not what Stephen Miller, his new chief of staff is going to want to do,” cautioned Klein. “I think it's really important to realize Donald Trump is not just a person, he's a staff. And what he did is he just made Stephen Miller officially, functionally the prime minister.”

Miller agreed, and then admitted “Donald Trump could be replaced by something dangerous and powerful.”

“I think that conceivably something from the right could emerge from outside this administration that challenges [Vice President] J.D. Vance effectively,” said Miller, citing personalities like entertainer Tucker Carlson. “There's not really a clear leader yet, but I don't think it's impossible that that happens. It doesn't mean we're out of the danger. That just means that we've turned the chapter.”

Right-wing influencers are definitely catching their breath, with some going quiet while others are lamenting that Republicans have lost young men for a generation.

But even a weakened Republican Party is determined to elevate it’s MAGA elements, with the promotion of far-right firebrand Jim Jordan as new minority leader.

Former MAGA lawmaker Joe Walsh described his “old friend” Jorden as a proponent of the debunked argument that the 2020 election was stolen, that brown and Black immigrants should be kept out of America, that America is a Christian theocracy and that “Democrats are evil.”

Worse, Walsh said Jordan in charge means the GOP will “double down” on MAGA philosophy, regardless of whether or not voters approve of it.

Meanwhile, a battalion of MAGA podcasters and entertainers have been honing their arguments, despite being temporarily humiliated by voter backlash.

And Trump is not finished as a force “wielding power in American life,” said Klein, even if he was “finished as the structuring, organizing, cultural principle of American life.”

CNN anchor Jake Tapper held a Trump’s supporter’s conflicting arguments to the fire on Thursday’s episode of “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”

Once a Democratic Illinois governor with a history of supporting liberal programs, Rod J. Blagojevich was arrested in 2008 after prosecutors made the case that he schemed to sell a Senate seat being vacated by Barack Obama after his presidential election.

Blagojevich was impeached, unanimously removed from office, convicted and then jettisoned by his own party. But President Donald Trump commuted the former Democratic governor's 14-year criminal sentence for corruption after eight years.

On Thursday, Blagojevich had nothing but praise for Trump and his policies. But Tapper could not see why, considering the governor’s own contradictory liberal agenda.

“So you pride yourself on looking out for working people in your time as governor,” Tapper told the former governor. “… [O]ne of the achievements that you're proudest of is free public transportation for seniors and the disabled, and I'm wondering how that ethos matches with your support of President Trump. I understand your personal support of President Trump for getting you out of prison, but the political philosophy you had, how does that square with how Trump governs?”

“Well, I think it actually does,” said Blagojevich, who was on CNN hawking his new book. “… I was probably left of center. But I think I was practical. And when I saw an opportunity to be able to help people, I felt that was my job as governor.”

“I would say you were a social welfare Democrat,” inserted Tapper. “I'm sorry for interrupting, but if I had to characterize it, that move with the public transportation, that was like in the tradition of LBJ or FDR. And I just don't see President Trump in that light.”

But rather than argue the issue, Blagojevich launched into a list of his socialist bona fides, reminding Tapper that Illinois was the first state in American history in 2005 to give every Illinois child affordable health care and give 153,000 uninsured women access to mammograms and pap smears.

“That's my point. You're making my point,” said Tapper, looking perplexed.

“But I don't see President Trump that different,” said Blagojevich, citing Trump’s no taxes on tips or overtime, which was one of the selling points of his controversial Big Beautiful Bill that heaped more debt on the government and concentrated tax cuts to upper income brackets.

Tapper pointed out to Blagojevich, however, that Democrats claimed historic gains in the House and Senate, primarily due to their economic and social safety net messaging, while Trump was “resoundingly rejected by the electorate.”

To that, Blagojevich pointed out that he did not predict “there would be a blue wave.”

“I thought the Democrats would win the House and the Republicans would win the Senate,” Blagojevich said, “and I clearly got that wrong.”

- YouTube youtu.be

Just one day after Trump judge Jeffrey Kuntz allowed Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC to proceed, the same judge demanded the president answer potentially embarrassing questions about his family’s money under oath.

An October ruling from U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett mandated that President Donald Trump answer questions about his family’s money, despite Trump’s lawyers clearly fighting to keep the president from taking the stand. Trump’s team has already canceled an Oct. 16 scheduled deposition. Prior to that, BBC lawyers said the initial proposed date for the deposition was for July, but they didn’t hear back until several follow-up requests. Eventually, they settled on October 16.

The litigious president sued the broadcasting company for $10 billion, accusing the network of defamation and violating Florida's deceptive trade practices law over the BBC-produced documentary, Trump: A Second Chance, which chronicles the fallout from Trump's January 2021 U.S. Capitol attacks.

But such a $10 billion price tag warrants the BBC to argue if it is necessary, which brings into question Trump’s wealth — of which the president is apparently unwilling to share with a court in sworn testimony.

“With two months of discovery remaining, the BBC still has not been able to depose, and does not even have a schedule to depose, the most central figure in this case: Plaintiff himself,” BBC’s attorney Charles D. Tobin wrote in the filing. “Those delays have flouted the cooperative spirit of discovery and precluded the BBC from obtaining the evidence necessary to robustly litigate its defense.”

Still trying to stay off the stand, Trump’s team submitted an expedited motion to stay Judge Lett’s order and his December deposition and discovery deadline. But District Judge Kuntz appears to be forging ahead.

“Given the looming discovery deadline, the logic logistical constraints of arranging the deposition … the parties shall comply with current scheduling deadlines,” proclaimed Kuntz on Thursday, adding that any additional changes that are to be made, or presidential appearance to be delayed, must be submitted in writing “on or by November 16.”

Knowing Trump’s history of stalling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett warned Trump’s lawyers weeks ago that the entire suit could be thrown out if he does not comply and take the stand.

But I Paper reporter Simon Mark, says Trump’s foot dragging to the stand is the equivalent of “blood in the water” to BBC attorneys.

"Little by little, week by week, the BBC is humiliating Donald Trump in a Florida courtroom that lies just 15 miles from his much-prized golf resort outside Miami,” said Marks.

Despite the size of Republicans’ spanking last week and President Donald Trump’s direct involvement with it, NBC News is still having a hard time finding Republicans with the strength to state the obvious.

“I’ll have to get back to you,” said first-term Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., when asked if Trump’s Iran war and tariff policies got him slaughtered by 15 percentage points last week. “… We’re still looking at all the data,” he said Wednesday.

Evans won his district just two years ago — a startling reversal.

Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., similarly, made no bones about how thoroughly Republicans were trounced in the midterm election, but he was unwilling to point fingers at one of the most unpopular Republican presidents in recent history.

“We forgot those people out there are hurting, and they vote,” said Justice. “We got our ever-loving butt handed to us.”

But when asked about Trump’s influence NBC News said Justice “hesitated” to answer.

“Look, everything plays a part in the whole deal,” said the senator.

NBC News then prodded Justice specifically about the role of Trump’s highly unpopular war in Iran. Justice replied that Trump was given advice about Iran and processed the situation “as best he possibly can.”

“The remarks capture the Republican zeitgeist on Capitol Hill after the party suffered one of its biggest electoral disasters of the century, losing over 40 House seats and at least eight Senate seats, some in deep red territory,” reports NBC News. “The results and the exit polls tell a clear story: A country that elected Trump in 2024 to lower the cost of living deemed him a failure on that core promise, blaming his policies for making things worse and punishing Republicans from coast to coast.”

But even though Republicans who spoke on the record claim they “want a course correction,” “shell-shocked lawmakers are deeply reluctant” to point to Trump. NBC News added that Trump’s Republican Party is even less willing to “use their power on Capitol Hill to change [Trump’s] policies that drove up the costs of gas, diesel and food,” in the first place.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., for example, told NBC News that the 2026 beat-down was the result of “an economic election,” and he played down the role of the Iran war on the economy that drove GOP defeat.

“I don’t think that Republicans lost every single statewide election in Texas because voters thought that America’s foreign policy was too interventionist,” argued Kennedy, adding that Republicans and he should be “looking for self-examination.”

But does Trump also need to do some self-examination, NBC News asked.

“I don’t have any advice today for the president,” Kennedy answered.

“The[se] early responses indicate that Republicans on Capitol Hill — at least the ones who survived the election — will remain loyal to Trump as he enters his final two years.”

This also appears to include Republicans that Trump got bombed out of office, like Evans.

The Washington Sun reports newly vulnerable Republicans may be the break that create inroads to passing meaningful laws and policy through a Democratic Congress over the next two years.

After the Republican Party’s severe trouncing last week, GOP lawmakers in swing states — and newly christened swing states — are fretting about their careers. Some Republicans, who had been deep in the corner for their MAGA constituents, are now discovering that their districts are more purple than they had originally planned, which puts their re-election bid in 2028 in question.

“We’re told [veteran Democratic Sen.] Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been pitching his caucus on a plan to take rapid-fire action on health care, affordability and other top issues from the midterm election,” said Washington Sun reporters Igor Bobic and Oriana González. “Huge, grab-all bills are out; he wants to put single, rifle-shot measures on the floor week-by-week and dare Republicans to filibuster or Donald Trump to veto.”

But key to Schumer’s plan are Republicans fearing blue tsunami aftershocks that washed their Republican fellows from their seats last Tuesday.

“Schumer’s strategy hinges on careful coordination with Hakeem Jeffries in the House, which will have to move first. And it requires peeling off at least four Republican votes, including some who are facing reelection in 2028. Which might those be? Well, Democrats just flipped seats in Kansas, South Carolina, North Carolina and Mississippi, so you can do the math,” reports The Sun.

Speaking with Sun reporters, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) sneered at Schumer’s plan to pressure GOP senators, who have proven a lock-step monolith behind President Donald Trump in the years leading up to their historic mid-term wash-out. Tillis said Schumer’s plan will never get off the ground if Democrats aren’t willing to work with Republicans to pass less partisan legislation on the floor.

“The best hope that we have to dull the edge of the 2028 election cycle is for them to continue to behave the way they sound like they have in the 10 days since the election. If they do that, we got a mandate,” Tillis told the Sun. “Politically, I think they’re at risk of doing exactly what we did the last two years.”

If Democrats fail to pressure vulnerable Republicans to be less MAGA and overcome a GOP filibuster they have other options, reports the Sun.

A humiliating scandal involving Nvidia CEO and White House inside man Jensen Huang made clear that President Donald Trump is vulnerable to the world of global espionage. Now critics are raging that Trump razed the Department of Justice divisions that once countered it.

“Just spit-balling here. But perhaps it was a bad idea to blow up the foreign agent and overseas bribery units of the Justice Department?” asked New York Times opinion writer Noah Shachtman on X.

Huang admitted to an affair with a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed whom U.S. intelligence reportedly suspects of spying for Beijing. Critics say Huang was a fool and should never be allowed near national security again. But the real issue, they say, is that the Trump administration tried to bury any inquiry into the threat that Huang’s affair poses.

The New York Times reported that Commerce Department agents investigating whether Megaspeed had smuggled Nvidia chips into China stopped their probe after Nvidia’s top lawyer reached out to them, and the Justice Department took over the case. But unspoken in many stories referencing the Huang affair -- and Trump’s connection to it -- make little mention of the fact that Trump also gutted departments that could have detected and neutralized an insider’s affair with a Chinese spy.

Former MAGA lawmaker and passionate Trump critic Joe Walsh immediately reposted Shachtman's comment, while other critics commenting beneath the post were quick to suspect that Trump — who is a convicted felon — may have destroyed various DOJ espionage wings for ulterior motives.

“When you realize how much Trump and his family have personally profited over the last two years, it becomes obvious why these units were blown up,” said one X commenter.

“Yes, but maybe it was exactly the right idea by and for the folks planning on interacting with foreign agents and committing overseas bribery,” quipped another.

Another heckler demanded if Shachtman really believed “that was just happenstance? Like getting rid of all the IGs, Trump understands the need to remove watchdogs.”

Back in February, critics attacked the administration’s "idiocy" for purging top lawyers from the Department of Justice.

“In 2025, I watched from inside the White House and at the CIA as the intelligence community came under assault: senior officers fired in public, clearances revoked for dissent, decade-old assessments denounced by the CIA director in the press,” Julia Curlee wrote for Lawfare. “Earlier this month, the campaign reached the raw intelligence itself, as the White House declassified selected reporting to sustain election interference claims that the intelligence community’s own finished analysis would not support.”

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, however, slammed the administration for actually profiting from the sale of a “formerly restricted item to our to our existential adversary” China.

“Huang has been pushing for easing restrictions by the Trump administration on Nvidia selling chips to China, and he got them. He got them in return for the ability to sell Nvidia chips to China in return for giving the United States government 25 percent of that sale. That alone is off the charts,” said McCabe.

President Donald Trump apparently does not appear to be following his conservative friend’s guidance in dealing with the plague of scandals heading his way now that Democrats are in control of Congress and willing to hold the Trump family accountable for alleged self-enrichment and other crimes.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper remarked Wednesday night that conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly appears to be telling his old friend Trump that he needs to get out ahead of congressional investigators by “coming clean.”

“Get out in front of the Trump family enriching itself because this is going to come hard and it's going to come fast,” said O’Reilly. “All right? Get out in front of it. Explain what is going on. … Now, if there's some kind of illegality or something like that. But it needs to be explained by president Trump, or they're going to go wild on him.”

But so far, it looks like Trump is not taking that advice, according to a report by CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, who said Trump is instead planning to obstruct Democrats’ investigations, no matter how badly it looks. Trump over the weekend was already accusing Democrats of trying to extort administration officials by warning they could get ensnared in investigations and probes and that they do not have Trump’s Supreme Court-granted immunity.

“But this has kind of been building over the last few days because the president was so angry last week,” said Collins. “He got angrier, by the day, after the midterms, watching the coverage, not just of the historic Republican losses, but seeing all these Democrats come out and say, ‘yes, we're taking power … and we're also going to hold the Trump administration accountable and launch all of these investigations.”

Over the weekend, attorney general Todd Blanche parroted Trump’s rebelliousness on cable television, and Blanche followed that up with a letter to incoming House Oversight Chair, Robert Garcia.

“Basically, it's a signal of how the administration plans to handle this come January. They are going to fight these subpoenas,” said Collins, adding that this brand of obstruction surpasses Trump’s obstruction in his first term when they ignored or defy subpoenas. “They're signaling this is going to be a very combative white house with this democratic majority here in Washington.”

Democrats’ plan to get around White House obstruction is unclear as Congress and Trump trade barbs in court, arguing over executive privilege.

“And that is a game plan that the White House is familiar with,” said Collins. “They've lived this story before. A lot of these Democrats were not in power when Trump was in office the last time. And so, this is a new, new ballgame for them, essentially.”

Later that night, Garcia told Collins that the fight against obstinate White House officials can carry down to state courts, if necessary — and that Trump and his people will be out of D.C. in two years and extremely vulnerable to prosecution.

“Either answer questions now or face them in the future,” Garcia warned.

Jewish civilization professor and MS NOW writer Jacques Berlinerblau says he doesn’t understand why MAGA is suddenly in flames over a cruel joke at Charlie Kirk’s expense. They seem cool with cruel jokes at everybody else, he said.

In a leaked clip from a recent Madison Square Garden performance, comedian Dave Chappelle said: “Ever since that guy Charlie Kirk got murdered — and I shouldn’t say this publicly — but … I feel better.”

Nobody knows the context of the piecemeal quip in the smuggled recording, but right-wing activists are burning down the internet over it.

“The joke, if we can even call it that, was abhorrent considering Kirk was brutally publicly assassinated,” said Berlinerblau. “Yet Chappelle makes many abhorrent jokes about many different people. MAGA’s response to this one in particular reminds us of two things: They have woefully misunderstood Chapelle’s true brand, and many of them behave as if the First Amendment contains a Charlie Kirk carve-out.”

Vicious quips about the LGBTQ community, Black people, Jews, Asian Americans or people with disabilities are merely “thought-provoking, healthy and constitutionally protected forms of expressive liberty, if you ask your average MAGA enthusiast,” argued Berlinerblau. “… But any invidious reference to the assassinated Kirk is beyond the pale, dangerous and potentially punishable by jail time or the revocation of one’s visa.”

Elon Musk once demanded the firing of a ‘disgusting and cruel’ WSJ reporter who uncovered a DOGE employee Marko Elez’ racist tweets “Normalize Indian hate,” on X.

But now that Kirk is the source of a comedian’s joke Musk posts, “Dave Chappelle is cruel.”

“Far-right commentator Matt Walsh called Chappelle ‘a soulless goblin,’ ‘a monstrosity,’ ‘a maggot eaten corpse,’ a ‘morally disfigured beast’ and on his podcast seemingly seriously suggested he be arrested and deported,” said Berlinerblau — despite Chappelle clearly being a U.S. citizen born in Washington D.C.

Comedian Rob Schneider’s own career took a tumble after he upset a hospital foundation audience with “transphobic, misogynistic and anti-vax” jokes. And he once got kicked off a GOP stage after driving away former senator Cindy Hyde Smith (R-Miss.) with raunchy material.

At the time, Schneider defended his jokes, saying: 'I’m not changing my material or apologizing for my jokes to anybody. Enough with this woke bulls——. America’s sick of it."

Nevertheless, Schneider was quick to rebuke Chappelle this week: “Dave, you are now a champion of senseless violence who embodies the base ugliness of our body politic. Nobody deserves to die for engaging in conversation,” said Schneider. “And no one should ‘feel better’ after the violent murder of a husband, a father, a son and a friend. No human being deserves that.”

If MAGA wants to argue that it’s ethics dictate never to make jokes about recently murdered people, good luck said Berlinerblau. Manosphere comedian Tony Hinchcliffe joked during the Netflix Kevin Hart roast, “Right now, George Floyd is looking up at us all, laughing so hard that he can’t breathe.”

The Trump administration’s celebration of Veteran’s Day got a loud interruption when the guard holding vigil over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier had to shout down the group following Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — which had erupted into giggles and laughter against strict Tomb protocols.

“All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect! At all times!” raged the sentinel in a powerful baritone.

The tomb of the Unknown Soldier is one of the most sacred war memorials in the U.S., marking the final resting place of an unknown soldier killed in World War One. Since 1948, a soldier has been assigned to guard the tomb, rain or shine, in all circumstances, 24 hours a day. A guard has remained vigilant even during a recent hurricane that blasted through the area.

But Hegseth’s crew caught the worst of the sentinel’s rancor, who publicly shamed the defense secretary and his group as they made their way up the tomb steps.

Vietnam Veteran Michale Lemmon bashed Hegseth and company on CNN Wednesday night, complaining that the Sec. of Defense’s entourage reflected the “Animal House” mentality that Hegseth slung over the defense department.

“My first reaction was, God bless that soldier for doing his duty. My second reaction was this is emblematic of — how do I put it? — the ‘Animal House’ type of secretary of defense and Pentagon that we seem to have now,” said Lemmon, who is suing the Pentagon over the construction of the Trump Arch.

“You’d think that they would know better, that you have to be solemn and quiet and respectful at that tomb in particular,” continued Lemmon, “but at Arlington National Cemetery in general. I think this is emblematic of, shall we say, the very shallow appreciation that senior levels seem to have of the symbolic emotional, fundamental importance of Arlington National Cemetery and its sensitivity. It is sacred ground.”

Unlike President Donald Trump’s other “vanity projects,” like the East wing ballroom or the East Potomac golf course, Lemmons told CNN anchor Erin Burnett that the cemetery symbolizes an “unwritten, compact between veterans and their government.”

Burnett replayed for Lemmon Hegseth’s recent monologue extolling the image he plans for the military, namely: “We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. No fanny, no fatties, no trannies, no beards, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors. Just tough, ready committed troops.”

“He is degrading not just the physical capabilities of our beloved military, but the morale,” said Lemmon, “I've got lots of friends who are still serving, as well as many retired. And the rot — you know, a fish rots from the head on down, and the rot is beginning to spread. What [Hegseth] has done to some of our finest generals and admirals and senior officials in the Pentagon is incredible. This is like a juvenile finally, with power and not being able to restrain himself.”

Former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh on Wednesday warned the Republican Party is making a mistake with its new minority leader Jim Jordan.

“I know Jim Jordan. I know Jim Jordan well. I served with Jim Jordan,” said Walsh, speaking on his Wednesday “Social Contract” podcast. “There was a time when Jim Jordan and I were very, very good friends. Let me tell you about Jim Jordan and MAGA: The 2020 election was stolen; We got to keep brown and Black people out of America; this is a white Christian country; Democrats are evil. That's where Jim Jordan is. That's who Jim Jordan is. Jim Jordan is as extreme as you can want in the Republican caucus in the House.”

Jordan is also not about reaching across the aisle with the new House majority or working with independents, warned Walsh. Jordan is about doubling down and preserving the MAGA base, over all else. “The reason we lost, Jim Jordan thinks, is we just weren't ugly enough. We weren't cruel enough. We weren't angry enough,” he said.

Oddly, Jordan did not originally support Trump when the Trump first came on the scene around 2015. Jordan is a Christian man, said Walsh, who professes to believe in what's right and wrong, good and bad, decent and cruel, the truth and a lie. So, he did not like Trump out of the gate.

But once it became clear Trump was nabbing the 2016 nomination Jordan jumped on Team Trump “like nobody else,” said Walsh.

“Once, just very briefly, I said to him, Jim, Trump's a bad guy. He's a horrible guy,” said Walsh. “He lies every time he opens his mouth. He's like a big government authoritarian. Jim — fellow Tea Party guy, Jim — Donald Trump is the very antithesis of what you and me and the Tea Party said we supported. And I'll never forget Jordan's answer to me. He said, ‘yeah, Joe, yeah, Joe, yeah, Joe, Trump's not perfect, but the Democrats are evil.’"

And “that's how Jordan sees the world,” said Walsh. “The other side is bad. The other side is evil. So nothing more matters than defeating the other side. … House Republicans yesterday put someone to be their leader, chose someone. Who believes Democrats are evil.”

Worse, Jordan in charge means the GOP will “double down” on all the mistakes that got the part routed during the midterms, said Walsh.

“All they're going to be about is opposing Democrats and calling them evil and communists,” lamented Walsh. “They're gonna double down on what they said and did that caused them to lose. They've learned nothing. Jim Jordan, either doesn't understand or will never admit that the American people last week said to the Republican Party, ‘you're too extreme. You're too cruel. You don't give a flying f—— about the issues we care about. You are utterly beholden to Donald Trump and you're letting him break any law and be as corrupt as he wants to be.’ That's what the American people told the Republican Party, and that's why the American people spanked the Republican Party so hard last week.”

But Walsh, who repeats that he “knows Jordan” well, said Jordan “sat in his office a day or two after the election, a day or two after this … whooping, and he said, ‘Look, we're right. We're on the right side. We're good. They're evil.’”

Jensen Huang, the married founder of NVIDIA, has now admitted to a relationship with a woman who was recently exposed as a groomed and prepared Chinese spy. It’s a tricky relationship because Huang has been one of the major proponents of selling controversial AI chips to Chinese companies that could install them in Chinese military weapons for use against U.S. allies.

But despite Huang’s tight connection to Trump and White House policy, Trump took the quickest route when confronted by the press on his friend’s potential criminality. He denied it’s knowledge.

“I didn't hear about it then," Trump said when asked about Huang’s girlfriend spy. "But a lot of people have heard about it. And Jensen totally denies that. I spoke to him today, just to see if he's feeling all right, how you doing. And I asked him about that. I asked him, ‘Did you have any idea that she was a spy?’ He said, ‘I had no idea that she was a spy.’ And I really believe him."

But Trump biographer Michael Wolff, who has written several books about Trump and has plenty of insight into his mind, said Trump is a consummate liar. So, if Trump says he didn’t know about something — rest easy with the likelihood that he did.

“Donald Trump and Mr. Huang speak often, and seem to have developed quite a close relationship,” said Wolff, speaking with co-host Joanna Coles on a Wednesday podcast. “Mr. Huang seems to have become one of Trump’s main connections to the tech and AI industries, and Donald Trump has become one of Mr. Huang’s major supporters in government. So how is it that Donald Trump was not aware of this?”

“The intelligence services have said that they told Trump,” Coles pointed out, “but he says he has no memory of being told.”

“Of course he knew. Of course he was aware,” said Wolff. “The other fact of this is that this was an investigation that began in the Commerce Department. The relationship and her likely status as working for the Chinese government were, as I understand it, inadvertently established in this investigation. But then this investigation was taken over, was removed from the Commerce Department, and became a Justice Department investigation. Obviously, within the Justice Department, Trump himself would have much more control over this. He and Todd Blanche could have handled this there. Then, from somewhere in the executive branch, it leaked to the New York Times. So, this leak was obviously not good for Mr. Huang, but also not good for Donald Trump.”

A Fox News guest and expert on China warned last week that White House officials could be “taken down” due to their collaboration with the business mogul. Attorney Gordon Chang – a China researcher with the right-wing think tank Galestone Institute – said Huang’s proximity to President Donald Trump represents a “critical national security violation.”

And former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe called the very idea of a spy planting a puppet directly in Trump’s ear “a Grand Slam in the bottom of the ninth.”

“This is unbelievable,” said McCabe. “Huang has been pushing for easing restrictions by the Trump administration on Nvidia selling chips to China. And he got them. He got them in return for the ability to sell Nvidia chips to China in return for giving the United States government 25 percent of that sale. That alone is off the charts.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth enjoys holding conferences and marching back and forth onstage, extolling the virtues of the military and what makes a proper soldier. This generally means not being overweight and having a beard, among other Hegseth-specific stipulations.

But Hegseth and his group got reminded of the respect they owe soldiers while touring the Tomb of the Unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day Wednesday.

Laughter broke out in Hegseth’s and Trump's group while standing at the tomb, and an Army Sentinel blasted Hegseth and company at the top of his voice for the group to pipe down.

“All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect! At all times!” shouted the sentinel, howling in a voice that can only be cultivated in a U.S. military proving ground.

“This happened just in the last hour or so,” reported CNN anchor Boris Sanchez. “Secretary Hegseth and some of his senior staff were at Arlington national cemetery alongside president Trump and JD Vance for this Veterans Day Ceremony. And there's this moment that was captured on camera where the army sentinel, who guards the tomb of the unknown soldier, effectively reprimands the secretary of defense and those staffers as they were taking photos.”

“For people who don't know, the tomb of the Unknown Soldier is one of the most sacred war memorials in the U.S., marking the final resting place of an unknown soldier who was killed in World War One,” said Cohen. “A soldier assigned to the old guard guards that tomb, rain or shine, in all circumstances, 24 hours a day, and has done so since 1948.”

“So obviously decorum, the atmosphere is supposed to be very solemn. And this soldier clearly reminding the secretary of defense of that in real time,” added Cohen.

CNN reports the Pentagon and Hegseth’s staff have not commented about being reprimanded at this solemn moment.

“Now, we should be clear, this is something that happens if people are at the tomb, if people are breaking the rules of decorum and silence,” said CNN anchor Brianna Keilar. “I just want to be clear that this is something that if you are a normal person who goes to Arlington cemetery and you go to this memorial, and you laugh, that would happen.”

“You will get similarly reprimanded by the Army Sentinel who is guarding the tomb at the time. Yes, absolutely,” confirmed Cohen.

- YouTube youtu.be

As the curtain opens to the second half of President Donald Trump’s term, Trump’s biographer expects Trump to do nothing useful or meaningful other than dance for cameras and struggle to remain relevant.

An ugly battle is underway in Trump’s head, said biographer Michael Wolff, speaking on the "Trump's Brain" podcast with Joanna Coles. A media-dependent psychopath, who had convinced himself that the world loves him without question is suddenly now having to deal with nationwide humiliation and unquestionable rejection. And things are getting ugly fast behind his eyes.

“Trump now has this thing that has happened, an existential moment in his presidency and in his political career: Broad repudiation from every almost every aspect of the country and from his own party,” said Wolff. “It’s a kind of national waking up and saying ‘this guy is incompetent and loathsome and doesn't deliver on anything.’ So now he's got two more years in office. How does he react to that?”

While Wolff said saner presidents resort to the “politically tried and true method” of compromise, by admitting their defeat and targeting the reasons for that defeat, that’s not going to happen here.

“Remember in a traditional presidency you really are looking for the things that you can now accomplish with the opposition in charge. Accomplishment, when you're the president, is usually measured in legislation that you can pass,” said Wolff. “But that's not something that Trump is interested in. That's not a measure that he acknowledges or accepts. So what is the measure? Well, the measure for Trump is the attention he receives and the persona he maintains.”

According to Wolff, Trump’s only goal all his life was to “always be a Donald Trump that is bigger and greater than ever before.” But, of course, this is a problem now in his newly diminished capacity with Democrats socking his policies and burying him in investigations over allegations of corruption and self-enrichment. That won’t stop him from trying to inflate himself, of course. Nothing ever does.

“I'm absolutely positive this not really a reversion, but an increase of this persona of ‘I am implacable. I give back always harder than I get. I am the UFC champion,” said Wolff.

Wolff said under these circumstances, with a president focused singularly upon himself to the cost of all else, the next American president can expect Trump's Iran mess to be waiting for him at his door step.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe did not hold back his contempt over President Donald Trump allegedly letting Chinese spies worm their way into his inner circle.

Trump talks big about the Importance of the U.S. standing up to China, so recent news of a close relationship between himself and a high-ranking AI executive alleged to be a Chinese spy was a bit of a surprise.

Trump has taken to denying knowledge of being compromised by a Chinese plant installed directly in his inner circle.

"I didn't hear about it then," Trump said when asked whether Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is a Chinese spy, as indicated by reports. "But a lot of people have heard about it. And Jensen totally denies that. I spoke to him today, just to see if he's feeling all right, how you doing. And I asked him about that. I asked him, ‘Did you have any idea that she was a spy?’ He said, ‘I had no idea that she was a spy.’ And I really believe him."

But McCabe did not hide his anger.

“It is inconceivable to me that the president of the United States was briefed on this matter. Not one once, but twice, and took no action,” said McCabe, speaking with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper Tuesday night. “I mean, I cannot even — there are no words to describe how big a coup this is for the Chinese government to have an asset, a developed, recruited asset, to fall into an intimate relationship with the most significant tech leader in the world, the CEO of the company that produces the chips that are forbidden fruit to the government of China and Chinese technology industries. And then to have that person, that CEO, have a persistent, direct relationship with the president of the United States, during which time we know that he advocated strenuously for the reduction or removal of trade restrictions between the United States and China over Nvidia chips.”

“I mean, this is this is a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth,” barked McCabe. “This is unbelievable. Huang has been pushing for easing restrictions by the Trump administration on Nvidia selling chips to China. And he got them. He got them in return for the ability to sell Nvidia chips to China in return for giving the United States government 25 percent of that sale. That alone is off the charts.”

McCabe added that never in his entire career has he witnessed the United States government profiting from the sale of a “formerly restricted item to our to our existential adversary.”

CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller was equally flabbergasted by Trump’s indifference, calling the setup “an incredible coup by Chinese intelligence” to create an access agency agent by building the structure around her or by recruiting somebody on the way up in the tech world who could get next to the president of the United States.

“If this started in 2024 with investigations, we're in 2026. Why wasn't this somehow interrupted along the way?” said Miller, who added that the FBI’s counterintelligence program was “badly damaged at the beginning of the Trump administration.”

“So many people were pulled out, fired, transferred, and at least two of the assistant directors in charge of the Washington field office were sent packing, fired for investigating people who were close to Donald Trump,” said Miller. “… The FBI that is operating now is not the FBI I left, and it’s not the FBI that that that Mr. McCabe left.”

Daily Beast reports a GOP lawmaker who fussed at colleagues for leaking to a top congressional reporter “was left red-faced when his latest tirade was leaked to that very same reporter.”

Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.) castigated his colleagues last week, threatening anyone daring to share information with Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman to not expect his backing for leadership positions.

“The slimiest member of the DC press corps who conspires with low integrity attention seekers to leak strategies being discussed in House Republican meetings is Jake Sherman,” wrote Baumgartner. “To be clear — If you want my vote for leadership you will commit to no on or off record interviews with Jake Sherman for as long as he leaks our confidential team meetings. If being in ‘Punchbowl’ is more important than keeping the confidentiality of your colleagues not only are you unfit for leadership, you shouldn’t call yourself a patriot.”

“Do not call me and ask for my vote unless you are willing to make that commitment,” he added.

But Baumgartner’s threats appeared to make little headway with his Republican comrades, considering his latest scheme against leaks during a closed-door House Republican Conference meeting was itself leaked to none other than Jake Sherman.

“In the House Republican Conference meeting this morning, Washington State @RepBaumgartner exhorted his colleagues in the room not to leak what’s going on in the meeting to reporters,” Sherman posted publicly on X soon after word of the statements got to him. “He recommended they hold House Republican Conference meetings in a SCIF.”

Daily Beast added that “SCIF” is short for “sensitive compartmented information facility,” a Defense Department name for an “ultra-secure room specially constructed for government officials to view sensitive information.” There are no personal electronics allowed inside SCIFs.

“Given that Baumgartner’s own colleagues appear to be leaking his remarks to Sherman, however, it’s unclear whether moving the meetings to a SCIF would solve the problem,” Daily Beast added.

Critics quickly drowned Sherman’s post with quips on the irony.

“Got to love a leak about not leaking,” posted one X user.

“The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it," said another heckler, quoting writer PJ O’Rourke.

“Love that you tagged him,” posted fellow reporter Igor Bobic, of the Washington Sun.

Judge Ana Reyes issued a Tuesday order preserving documents after a whistleblower reported that President Donald Trump's administration was destroying papers concerning his construction projects. However, a former Trump whistleblower said on Tuesday that while paper shreds witnesses do not, and Trump’s attempt to hide his wrongdoing and shady contracts will still see the light of day through testimony.

“Here's my warning to them,” said Miles Taylor, on his Tuesday Defiance Daily podcast. “You guys can try to get rid of the papal trail, but unless you get rid of literally all the humans who are witnesses to it, the witnesses are the paper trail.”

“Those people will get subpoenaed,” added Taylor. “Those people will get deposed. Those people will end up flipping on each other, and if you go back to January 6th and the investigation into the insurrection, I think you will find that the most damning information didn't come from documents. It came from the revelations of people who witnessed wrongdoing. And that's what's going to happen here, I hope, with the Trump appointees tonight sitting there at the shredder and at the burn bag, trying to get rid of these documents. Hear this message: accountability is coming for you, no matter what.”

Show co-host Maritsa Georgiou was quick to add that it is actually in witnesses’ best interest to come forward with information because, unlike the president, the Republican Supreme Court has not given them presidential immunity.

“And just to remember that the immunity ruling is for the president, not for you at the paper shredder. It's not for you, hitting the delete button on the computer,” said Georgiou. “So, if you had to bet that if this President will look out for you when push comes to shove, I know where I would place my bet.”

Congressional sources told CNN on Tuesday that House Democrats are already demanding that the Interior department preserve and retain documents related to Trump’s construction projects around Washington after whistleblowers warned that key paperwork is being destroyed. Multiple whistleblowers approached CNN and relevant committees to voice concern that the Interior Department is getting rid of records in anticipation of forthcoming scrutiny.

Speaking to CNN, the Interior Department called the whistleblower claims “100 percent false.”

Still, in her court order, Reyes made it clear that all documents must be preserved, and aimed her order to the National Park Service, the Justice Department, the Department of the Interior and any of their components or offices retain all documents. She also ordered that no major work be done on the Potomac East Golf Course without informing her. She has also appointed a former Trump AG to investigate if Trump’s DOJ and Dept. of Interior “lied” to her about the president's intentions on developments.

A lawmaker who was instrumental in forcing public schools in Texas to stick the Ten Commandments in every classroom got quietly booted this week, but atheists and non-Christians who resent lawmakers putting a premium on one religion over others were anything but quiet about it.

“State Rep. Candy Noble was first elected in 2018 and undoubtedly expected to sail to victory in her Trump +17 district,” reports the Friendly Atheist.

Coming off the recent victory of President Donald Trump on the national level, Noble filed a Ten Commandments bill in 2023 and then again in 2025. On her second try, the Republican-dominated Texas legislature and governor signed her bill into law, kicking off litigation that is still underway today.

“When it was first introduced, Democrats had very little recourse to stop it,” other than to argue on the pointlessness of it, reports Friendly Atheist. At the time, critics pointed out that no potential school shooter was ever proven to have canceled their attack after reading “Thou shalt NOT kill.” And other mandates ordered non-Christians to stop being non-Christians.

Current senator-elect James Talarico even took Noble to task during a House Public Education Committee meeting, pointing out her own inconsistencies with the commandments.

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” said Talarico, quoting Commandment No. 4. “Are you aware the legislature is scheduled to meet this Saturday?”

“I am aware of that,” said Noble, defending her bill before the committee.

“So that would be violating the Ten Commandments,” he pressed, to which Noble admitted: “I contend that that is a hard … you’re right.”

Critics also pointed out that the Texas legislature debated the bill on Saturday, the day and then scheduled itself to give the bill a final vote on the updated Christian Sabbath: Sunday.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” said Noble, when confronted with that argument.

“It was not ‘ironic.’ It was deeply hypocritical. Republicans didn’t … [care] about obeying the Commandments. They just wanted to shove Christianity down everyone’s throat,” opined the Friendly Atheist.

That bill later became law. The Friendly Atheist reports it was struck down by a lower court judge, upheld by the entire Fifth Circuit, and is now waiting for a decision from the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the woman who ousted Noble is schoolteacher Angie Carraway, who launched her own campaign to undo private school vouchers chipping away at public school funding throughout Texas.

“Noble lost to a woman whose religious and career profile is eerily similar to Talarico’s. Seems appropriate,” said the Friendly Atheist. “Whether the Ten Commandments law will be repealed by the new legislature is anyone’s guess. But the election was a reminder that, even in Texas, people are fed up with the sort of religious extremism we’ve seen from people like Noble.”

“Good riddance,” FA concluded.

The former Trump lawyer who signed a multi-million contract with a prominent Venezuelan family with suspicious timing to a pivotal Trump pardon has lost her contract, according to the New York Times.

“Alina Habba Mildon, one of President Trump’s former lawyers, was fired last week by the family company that gave her a $50 million contract weeks before Mr. Trump granted a pardon to the family’s patriarch,” reports the Times. “In a letter dated Nov. 4, the company, Concord Partners, terminated Mrs. Mildon citing a ‘failure to perform duties,’ according to a person close to the family and documents obtained by The New York Times.”

The person said Mildon’s priorities appeared to shift away from Concord after she started dating Turhan Mildon, a 25-year-old Turkish investor, earlier this year.

The Times reports the firing came days after it disclosed the deal and prompted an angry outburst from Trump, who called the deal “totally obnoxious and outrageous” and urged the Herrera family not to pay her.

It would appear the family agreed, allowing Mildon to keep $6.5 million already paid to her and her signing bonus of $8 million. Her four-year contract that would have paid her $10 million a year for four years along with a range of bonuses, however, is defunct.

Concord Partners was set up in Florida late last year by Isabela Herrera, the daughter of Julio Herrera Velutini, in curious time with a pardon request to the White House concerning the billionaire banker facing felony bribery charges in Puerto Rico. Weeks after Mildon started, Herrera was granted a full and unconditional pardon by Trump.

Representatives for the Herrera family declined to comment about the sudden collapse of Mildon’s contract, as did Mildon herself.

However, a source close to Mildon told the Times she is planning to pursue legal action.

After hearing of the contract, Trump demanded Mildon share some of her largesse with him by donating “a portion of that money to his future presidential library or another Trump-related entity, according to multiple people briefed on the conversations.”

"I thought it was terrible," Trump said. "I told her, I said, 'I don't want her paid.' We had somebody speak to the people that did it, and she used her relationship to do that. And it was far too much. You know, it's one thing for a person to get paid legal fees or whatever — she's a lawyer. I thought it was a totally obnoxious and outrageous and it's not acceptable. Not acceptable, at all."

When asked if Mildon would be making sure Trump gets his cut of her new four-year contract, Mildon laughed.