Nick Hilden

Beer-throwing Trump staffer filmed getting tossed out of NBA game: report

On Thursday, footage emerged of one of President Donald Trump's staffers getting ejected from an NBA game, tossing a beer on a fan on her way out for good measure as her section rang with boos. The video was released by TMZ, and shows State Department Press Advisor Britt McHenry leaving the Washington Wizards' home opener amidst a confrontation with other fans.

According to TMZ, "Sources close to Britt tell TMZ there's more to the story ... claiming people sitting behind her and her male guest were making inappropriate comments about Kyle Kuzma's fiancée, Winnie Harlow ... and Britt responded. Kuzma used to play for the Wizards and now plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, their opponent in Wednesday's game. Our sources don't recall exactly what prompted Britt to throw the drink, but say it was part of the confrontation ... and claim things were thrown at her, too. They also claim the group behind them were saying inappropriate and misogynistic things to Britt to instigate her." As TMZ notes, game attendees were not subtle in their response as she was escorted out by security. Video shows that she leaves amidst a rain of boos and tossed garbage. She was later captured on camera arguing with a security guard who was directing her to leave the building.

McHenry previously worked as an ESPN correspondent and a Fox Nation commentator before landing her current role with Trump's State Department in September. According to the Daily Mail, the appointment marks the latest chapter in her turbulent media career that has seen McHenry frequently entangled in high-profile workplace scandals and legal battles. She spent three years as a Washington DC-based reporter for ESPN until she was fired in 2017 during a massive wave of company layoffs. While at ESPN, McHenry made headlines in 2015 when she was suspended after security footage caught her berating a towing company clerk, saying, "Maybe if I was missing some teeth, they would hire me, huh?" She later issued an apology, admitting that she "allowed my emotions to get the best of me." Following her ESPN exit, McHenry shifted toward right-wing political commentary, making appearances on Fox News Media and Fox 5 DC. In 2019, she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News and co-host George "Tyrus" Murdoch, accusing him of sending sexually explicit text messages and claiming the network retaliated against her after she raised the issue. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by both parties in 2021 after reaching a confidential settlement.

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Trump admin launches 'unusual' investigation into one of their own

On Thursday, it was revealed that the Trump administration has launched an "unusual" investigation into the conduct of one of its own. According to the Wall Street Journal, a new Department of Justice inquiry into former Homeland Security advisor Corey Lewandowski is one of the first second-term investigations into a figure so close to President Donald Trump.

As the Journal explains, "The Justice Department is examining allegations that Corey Lewandowski profited off his top position at the Department of Homeland Security, people familiar with the matter said. The inquiry is based on a referral from the DHS inspector general, which shared its findings about Lewandowski’s tenure at the department in recent days." Lewandowski served as the top adviser to then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, but the pair -- widely rumored to be romantically involved -- were fired from the department in March, following increasingly embarrassing revelations about the infighting at the agency and their spending decisions.

According to the Journal, "While at the department, Lewandowski appeared to try to use his vast influence for personal financial gain, including asking several countries in the Middle East to hire him on the side to assist with visa issues and other matters, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported. He or close associates signed off on nearly all department spending decisions for amounts exceeding $100,000, giving Lewandowski visibility into the array of contractors DHS worked with, and the ability to hold the contracts up." He has previously denied seeking foreign contracts while in government or playing a role in approving DHS contracts.

Over the course of Trump's second term, Justice Department officials have mainly focused on trying -- and often failing -- to build cases against Trump’s political adversaries, frequently dropping cases involving people with ties to the administration. "More broadly," writes the Journal, "the Justice Department has curtailed efforts to pursue cases of fraud and corruption against public officials, amid criticism from Trump and others in the administration who say such prosecutions weaponize the justice system for political ends. A unit that focused on such investigations is down to two prosecutors, after roughly two dozen others left the department or were transferred to other roles."

But the administration may be forced to act in this case, as investigators with the DHS inspector general’s office found evidence in July that Lewandowski may have been involved in improperly awarding government contracts. As a result, the office has for months been weighing a criminal referral to the Justice Department. According to insiders, the investigators looked into many of the contracts the department signed during Noem’s tenure and were surprised at how involved Lewandowski was in the contracting process. He personally signed specific contracts despite not technically serving as a full-time U.S. government official. "Lewandowski served as Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016 and has maintained a close relationship over the years with the president, who valued his loyalty," explains the Journal. "Lewandowski has told people close to him he expects the president would pardon him in the event of a criminal case."

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Top Trump officials’ finger pointing just blew up in their faces

On Thursday, the Trump administration’s attempt to dodge blame for the disruption of Ukraine’s Starlink capabilities appeared to blow up. What’s more, the call came from inside the house, as it was Vice President JD Vance who accidentally exposed the whole thing. While President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials have attempted to direct responsibility for the throttling of Ukraine’s Starshield speeds at the company rather than the government, Starlink CEO Elon Musk has pushed back, asserting that the military branch of the system is operated by the Pentagon. When asked about this by Fox News, Vance appeared to back up Musk’s account.

“Fundamentally, Elon Musk runs a private corporation, and I think it's completely understandable that he doesn't want to get in the middle of what is a war between two state actors without the United States government effectively directing him on what to do,” said Vance. “So I don't think this is about Elon. I think it's fundamentally, what is America's policy in Ukraine to Russia going to be?" And as Reuters National Security Correspondent Erin Banco emphasizes, “As Vance notes here, Starshield is a contract held between DOD and SpaceX. Contractually, SpaceX can't do anything without decision from USG.”

In other words, if Vance is right, then the Trump administration has actively degraded a U.S. ally’s military capacity while aiding one of the United States’ greatest adversaries. As many commentators have suggested, Trump has increasingly aligned with Russia through both word and action. Critics have argued that Trump's order dropping sanctions to buy Russian diesel not only breaks U.S. law, but hands President Vladimir Putin a financial lifeline while doing little to ease skyrocketing diesel prices. Trump has blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the ongoing war — which was launched by Russia — while his special envoy has drawn bipartisan outrage for calling Putin a “humanitarian.” Meanwhile, Putin has floated the idea that Russia, the U.S., and China hold a summit to discuss the war — without Ukraine’s participation — a move Fox News says would be a “serious mistake.” According to Fox national security analyst Rebeccah Heinrichs, “The Russians view the United States as its number one adversary, and they're trying to get the United States to back down and not support Zelensky.”

A growing number of lawmakers are calling for investigations into the Starlink matter, while seven Republican senators have signed a letter telling Musk to remove Ukraine’s restrictions. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has declared the sabotage of Ukraine an act of “treason,” suggesting it warrants the seizure of Starlink.

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Nobel economist calls for consequences to Trumpworld’s latest 'treason'

On Thursday, a Nobel Prize-winning economist warned that there must be consequences for the latest “treason” committed by President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies. According to Paul Krugman, Trump and Elon Musk’s support for Putin and betrayal of Ukraine warrants the “seizure” of Starlink – and there is historic precedent for such a move.

“Did Elon Musk decide by personal fiat to cut off Ukraine’s access to vital communications?” wonders Krugman. “Although Musk claims that the decision was made by Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal, some U.S. officials state that Musk did indeed take it upon himself to pull the plug on Ukraine. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is quoted as saying that the administration was blind-sided: ‘There was no foreknowledge.’ Now, perhaps Donald Trump told him to do it, sotto voce, Mafia-style: (‘This Zelenskyy guy is a problem. Someone should do something about it.’) And Trump could demand, but hasn’t, that Musk restore Ukraine’s access.”

But through all the fingers being pointed, Krugman says that there is “credible” evidence that Musk was ultimately responsible. To that end, he writes, “we now need to seriously consider the implications. No private individual should, or indeed even have the capability to, make national security policy. Slowing down Starlink was, in effect, a U.S. intervention in a foreign conflict. It helped Russia, our long-time adversary, and hobbled Ukraine.” As Krugman notes, if Musk doesn’t restore that access quickly, it will result in the deaths of thousands of innocent Ukrainians. What’s more, “While Trump and Musk are now openly supporting Vladimir Putin, their actions are unpopular with the American public. Very few Americans agree that the U.S. should be supporting, not opposing, a brutal dictator’s attempt to conquer a democracy.” As polling shows, 57 percent of Americans support Ukraine, while just 4 percent sympathize with Russia.

While some have argued that Musk can do whatever he wants with his business, Krugman asserts that there is not only a need to take Starlink away from him, but a historical basis for doing so. As Krugman explains, “Yes, America has a market economy. And to make this economy work, we need to respect property rights. But we are, first and foremost, a democracy. And in a democracy, the rights of private property don’t and never have included the right to act against the nation’s interest — where democratically elected representatives of the people, not business owners, should decide what is in the nation’s interest. Capitalism is not an excuse for treason.” And the U.S. has nationalized such businesses in the past.

“U.S. mobilization during World War II relied overwhelmingly on private contractors,” explains Krugman. “But these contractors weren’t free to do as they pleased. Among other things, the federal government was anxious to avoid labor conflict that might impede the war effort. So the National War Labor Board negotiated mandatory settlements between management and workers. Some businessmen didn’t want to go along. In particular, Sewell Avery, the chairman of Montgomery Ward, simply refused to comply with the terms of collective bargaining agreements that had been hammered out with the United Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. At the time, Montgomery Ward was both a major retailer and a major manufacturer, whose production of tractors, auto parts and more were important parts of the war effort. But Avery placed a higher priority on resisting unionization than on defeating the Nazis. So in April 1944 FDR ordered the Army National Guard to seize Montgomery Ward’s main plant in Chicago. National Guard troops literally had to carry Avery out of his office.” While the seizure of the company was never intended to be permanent, “the principle was clear: private individuals do not have the right to undermine national security. And if temporary nationalization is the only way to stop them from doing so, so be it.”

Getting back to Elon Musk, writes Krugman, “In modern warfare, where communication and real-time information are as important as rockets and artillery, Starlink is as central to national security as Lockheed Martin. Decisions about which countries have full access to Starlink’s capacity are as much a matter of foreign policy and national security as decisions about which countries will be allowed to buy and operate U.S. high-tech weapons. Such decisions cannot, must not, be left up to private individuals. This would be true even if these individuals were patriots who supported democracy and American values. They definitely shouldn’t be left in the hands of this guy.” Noting Musk’s declaration that he will “come after” anyone who tries to investigate him, Krugman warns such a statement “reinforces the point that control of Starlink must, one way or another, be taken away from Elon Musk. It’s a matter of national security: we cannot let private individuals make foreign and defense policy, and it would be totally irresponsible to leave a crucial military asset in the hands of a racist, authoritarian conspiracy theorist.”

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Ex-Trump aide reveals president’s 'insane' Jesus mix-up

On Thursday, a co-host from the View took to social media to share an “insane” tidbit about President Donald Trump. According to Alyssa Farah Griffin – who served as Press Secretary of the Department of Defense during Trump’s first term – the president once offered an eyebrow-raising take on the Christian messiah’s name.

She was responding to a post asking what the “H” stands for when people say “Jesus H. Christ.” According to Farah Griffin, “Hand on my heart, my first day at the White House, Trump asked me if I knew what the H stood for. I said no. He said Horatio. I think about that at least once a week.”

“Sigh,” responded a prominent political commentator. “Why is this completely insane and yet entirely realistic.” While “realistic” may depend on one’s subjective view of the president, Farah Griffin’s story certainly fits a pattern of Trump’s unusual approach to words and spelling. Perhaps the most looming recent example involves the “Dumocrats” insult he slings at his political opponents. “Most people don’t know that ‘dumb’ has a B at the end,” he’s asserted repeatedly, often adding, “they think it’s D-U-M, and that’s okay.” But as CNN notes, “dumb” is a basic word that most Americans learn to spell in grade school.

This is far from the only case of such word confusion. When railing about immigrants, for example, he often claims that other nations release “asylum” inmates, who then make their way into the U.S. illegally. But as many have suggested, he seems to be confusing mental institutions with the concept of refugees seeking political asylum – the two are completely unrelated.

There are also plenty of examples in which he misspeaks and plows ahead with it, pretending he said what he meant. On Wednesday, for example, while speaking at a rally in South Carolina, he launched into one of his favorite refrains about how he should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize. But in the process, he suddenly paused and said, "Does anybody know the name of that peace prize? They gave the Pulitzer Prize to a young lady — I think she's 80 years old — a young lady who nobody ever heard of.” He was taking a swipe at 85-year-old Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, who has spent her entire life promoting human rights. In this case, Trump seemed to catch the mix-up, playing it off like it was intentional. “I didn't get the Nobel Prize. I didn't get the Pulitzer. I should have gotten the Pulitzer for writing, too,” he added.

Trump’s “Jesus H. Christ” comment also speaks to his uneasy alliance with U.S. Christians, 80 percent of whom voted for him in all three elections, though that support has diminished as his approval rating has plunged. In regard to Christianity, he’s made no shortage of gaffes. For example, earlier this year during a strange fight with the Pope, Trump posted an AI-generated photo of himself as Jesus, prompting outrage from disillusioned followers. He’s also made a number of misstatements exposing his ignorance regarding the Bible, such as when he read a passage as “Two Corinthians” rather than “Second Corinthians.”

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'Not going to happen': Fox News has bad news for Trump

On Wednesday, a guest on Fox News had some bad news for President Donald Trump, who is desperately hoping for fuel prices to come down. But according to Kevin Mahn, Chief Investment Officer at the wealth management firm Hennion and Walsh, it’s not going to happen.

“Oil is the largest overarching concern I have for right now,” said Mahn, “because I think a lot of investors assume once we get to the midterm elections and pass them, somehow the Strait of Hormuz is going to magically open and oil prices are going to start to come down. And I don't think it's going to happen that quickly. And if we continue to see a trade above $100, then the Federal Reserve is going to think they have to do something.”

Mahn’s warning comes after oil prices spiked to just shy of $110 per barrel overnight, hitting five-month highs. According to Reuters, the sudden upswing was caused by a flare-up of conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, a lack of progress on making a deal with Iran, and declining oil stocks following Trump’s order releasing 820,000 barrels from the national reserve. On Wednesday, Iran's ⁠Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told the Financial Times that Iran was fully prepared to continue defending itself, while President Masoud Pezeshkian told state media the US could not expect dialogue while blockading and threatening Iran. What’s more, at least 18 vessel attacks were recorded over the past two weeks, and analysts warn that Iran is targeting tankers well beyond the Strait of Hormuz, reaching into the Gulf of Oman and further exacerbating the situation by jeopardising Gulf crude loadings and ship-to-ship transfers.

In the face of the rising prices that will accompany rising fuel costs, Mahn worried that the Federal Reserve may consider another possible interest rate hike in an attempt to stem inflation. As long as food prices don’t continue to climb, he hoped, the Fed won’t think there’s a need for a rate increase, which many have noted is contributing to the housing affordability crisis. But Fox anchor Liz Claman didn’t seem so optimistic. “Let’s be clear,” she interrupted. “We've seen beef skyrocket. A lot of people are struggling to buy groceries.”

Trump has been flailing for a solution to the energy crisis caused by his decision to launch war with Iran. One move involved lifting a temporary restriction on red dye diesel that is usually limited to off-road use, but as Politico reports, the administration soon realized this would deliver limited benefits. Top agriculture lobbyists also warned the dyed diesel plan could actually backfire on farmers, because they may still be required to pay taxes on the product further down the road. Trump then announced an $8 billion bailout for farmers struggling with diesel prices, but commentators quickly pointed out that it resulted in little relief on a per-farm basis, and the fund to pay for it doesn’t have enough cash in the first place. He’s also offered major concessions to Russia, dropping the sanctions he himself signed into law so the U.S. can import Russian diesel — a decision that prompted bipartisan outrage. Now Trump is tapping into the national reserves, which some have warned could result in higher fuel prices when demand rises in the winter.

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An eye-popping number of Republicans now want Trump impeached

On Wednesday, a new poll by Politico revealed that “impeachment is back on the menu.” With President Donald Trump’s approval hitting historic lows and scandals rocking his administration, a majority of voters – including a surprisingly high percentage of Republicans – want him impeached. And barring that, they want several of his officials on the chopping block.

“Half of Americans support impeaching Trump and more than two-thirds expect Democrats to try if they flip the House — even though they have doubts about whether doing so would materially weaken the president,” writes Politico. “In total, 54 percent of Americans — including 81 percent of voters who plan to support Democrats in the midterms and a quarter of Republican midterm voters — say Trump has committed impeachable offenses, the poll found. More than 41 percent of respondents said Trump had used the presidency to benefit himself or his family financially, and a third said Democrats should prioritize investigating how he’s enriched himself, while another third said they should focus on probing his immigration crackdown.”

Majorities on both sides of the aisle, however, think that an impeachment in the House would do little to check the president. What is striking, however, is the sizeable number of Republicans who want to see Trump impeached. Even if they think it will have little impact on him, that one of four midterm GOP voters approve has major implications for the November elections. While the poll found that Democratic voters are split on whether their candidates should talk about impeachment in their midterm campaigns, these numbers suggest that a surprising number of people across the political spectrum could back that message. While most voters agree that Trump’s impeachment might not deliver the change they hope, Democrats are eager to oust his Cabinet secretaries. Democratic midterm voters say they want to see the House impeach HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (65 percent), Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (63 percent), VP JD Vance (58 percent) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (49 percent).

It is notable that the polls were conducted between October 16-19, just before an explosion of bipartisan outrage erupted over Trump’s recent concessions to Russia and suggestions that his administration may have actively hindered the Ukrainian war effort. Fox News was already sounding impeachment alarm bells before the Russia scandals, and now that accusations that the administration may have acted illegally have leapt up – even among conservatives – experts have raised the possibility. What’s more, recent reports revealed that Pentagon insiders are ready to “spill their guts” in proceedings against Hegseth that have been pushed by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). As one “well-connected” source told the Telegraph, “There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to very quietly go to the chair of the armed [services] committee and are going to spill their guts, provide them with everything they can and leak everything they can. It’ll be horrendous. It’ll be consistent embarrassment."

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Fox News calls out Trump admin for 'insulting' Americans

On Wednesday, Fox News pulled no punches in its assessment of the Trump administration’s approach to Russia. According to longtime national security contributor Rebeccah Heinrichs, footage of President Donald Trump’s envoy calling Russian leader Vladimir Putin a “humanitarian” is “insulting” to Americans.

“It's insulting, I think, for Americans to hear something like that,” said Heinrichs. “Of course, Russia, and in particular Putin, commits war crimes all the time. The fact that they snatched this innocent American who was minding his own business in Ukraine, snatched him and held him in a penal colony, clearly torturing him.” This is in reference to the release of Stephen Hubbard earlier in the day, a retired U.S. teacher who has been imprisoned in Russia since 2022 after being detained in Eastern Ukraine, where he was accused of fighting as a mercenary. While Moscow has portrayed the release as a gesture of goodwill to Trump, who in turn took to social media to pat himself on the back for getting the release with “no swap” in exchange – ignoring the fact that he just days ago handed Putin a huge gift by dropping sanctions against Russia – many experts have noted that Hubbard’s torture is in itself an embarrassment to Witkoff’s praise of Putin. As Heinrichs notes, “Every time Ukrainians do get any of their own people back from Russian captivity, there's evidence that they've been tortured. There's been Ukrainians tortured to death. So Putin is not a humanitarian.”

In Heinrich’s estimation, Russia is trying to push two narratives. “One, that it is being reasonable,” she explains. “That's why they're doing this hostage release at this point. And two, it's trying to convey that it is militarily dominant over Ukraine.” But this narrative doesn’t hold up. As Heinrich elaborates, “I just want to remind our viewers, remember: Ukraine reclaimed, liberated, more than 50 percent of Russian-occupied territory that Russia has taken over the last three years, and destroyed a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and Ukraine doesn't even have a navy. So Ukraine is militarily significant. It's a drone superpower, and its people are resilient, and they're not going to give in. So this is not a Zelensky issue here in terms of the terms that he's willing to take. The entire Ukrainian population is behind him on this.”

The “Zelensky issue” refers to Trump’s recent suggestions that the Ukrainian leader is preventing peace rather than Putin. On Tuesday, after days of disparaging Zelensky, Trump claimed, “I think what's happening is that Russia would like to get it done. I think that, and you know, Russia is a big machine. They just keep grinding forward. And that's what they've done. They've taken a very large piece of land. And, you know, you can say that Ukraine is doing well or poorly, but the land gets bigger and bigger all the time, week by week. It's just they march forward. They just keep marching forward.” Here again, Fox News pushed back, posting, “The president insists Russia wants to reach a deal, even as he describes its military advancing week after week."

Later Tuesday, while discussing a proposal by Putin that he, Trump, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping hold a summit, ostensibly to discuss the war, Heinrich warned the move would be a “serious mistake,” saying, “The Russians view the United States as its number one adversary, and they're trying to get the United States to back down and not support Zelensky.” According to Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), “Putin is playing President Trump like a fiddle. And history is not going to look good on an America that failed to rise up and defend the Western world if Putin actually gets his way. And I believe that a summit with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, two countries who want to overwhelm the world, is absurd."

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MAGA’s 'last gasp': GOP insiders are cursing Trump’s plan

On Wednesday, new reporting revealed that MAGA insiders fear President Donald Trump’s go-to campaign strategy “doesn’t work anymore.” According to Michael Warren, politics editor at the conservative outlet the Dispatch, the plummeting impact and attendance at Trump’s rallies signal “MAGA’s last gasp.”

With pollsters forecasting a potential blue tsunami, writes Warren, “Trump is doing what he can, in the only way he knows how, to salvage his party’s hopes: holding primetime fly-in rallies that are focused on his favorite subject, himself.” While he has been relentless in his campaign schedule, however, “it’s far from clear that Trump barnstorming the country to stump for candidates will even help.” As one veteran GOP operative told him, “We’re f——. I don’t think rallies work anymore.”

For Warren, this raises an important question: “What good is showing up to do these rallies anymore, and at the eleventh hour?” He notes that many Republicans worry that their mission is doomed by Trump’s lack of party-building over the past two years as well as his endorsement of “subpar” candidates, with party insiders suspecting the rallies will do little to move the needle. Instead of focusing on the hard work of winning campaigns, like phone banking and door-knocking, in non-presidential years, and building party campaign infrastructure, Trump’s efforts have mostly involved flying into red states to churn out MAGA platitudes for those who already agree with him.

Warren says that raises another question: “What is the closing message for the Republican Party in these midterms?” The latest rallies have involved railing about the “woke mob," but Warren suggests that in the end, it all circles around to the same old “Make America Great Again” messaging that Trump has been pushing with diminishing returns for 10 years. “The details are different, specific to the state and the news and the whims of the president in the moment, but the song remains the same,” writes Warren. “The 2020 election. The ‘Dumbocrats.’ Fake news. The beautiful border wall. The low cost of gasoline (back during his first term, of course).” As Trump said at a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, “The oil is going to get down to where I had it. I had it down to $1.85 a gallon, and I’ll have it down to that number.”

But this sort of talk is falling flat now. Polls show that voters disapprove of Trump’s approach to everything from the economy to immigration to corruption. As a result, the president is increasingly turning back to his old refrains or trying new bribes. But as Warren concludes, “The only message, as it has been for a decade, is Trump. And as electoral disaster looms for the GOP, the party is only beginning to grapple with what the message will be afterward, on November 4 and in the months and years to come.”

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Alarming budget math unveils historic wreckage of Trump’s absurd fantasties

While campaigning in 2024, President Donald Trump pledged that he would eliminate the entire national debt in just one term. What’s more, he insisted he’d do it without cutting “one penny” from Social Security or Medicare. Instead, he suggested that he would eliminate the debt magically via growth, crypto, and tariffs. But according to Atlantic columnist David Frum, not only were Trump’s “absurd” plans little more than “fantasies,” but the bill has come due with potentially disastrous consequences.

“Basic budget math contradicted Trump’s fantasies,” writes Frum. “The United States imported about $3.3 trillion in goods in 2024. The budget deficit for that year was about $1.8 trillion. To imagine that tariffs could eliminate the budget deficit required believing that the Trump administration would impose a 55 percent tariff on all imports — including oil, natural gas, and electricity — and that consumers would pay this tariff without altering their buying behavior at all. That was all obviously absurd.” His “Plan B” involved having Elon Musk balance the budget via DOGE, who promised to slash $2 trillion from federal spending. According to Frum, this venture “not only likely violated the Constitution but also almost certainly worsened the deficit. DOGE reduced the IRS auditing staff by nearly one-third. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the ensuing collapse in federal enforcement efforts will cost the Treasury more than $860 billion in revenue over the next decade.” Another way to look at the situation: The U.S. debt hit $10 trillion for the first time during the financial crisis of 2008, which once seemed a crushing burden. Now, Trump’s “fiscal recklessness” has tacked on another $10 trillion in just four years.

According to Frum, it’s clear how this happened. Trump’s tax cuts reduced government revenues by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, and his cuts to food stamps and Medicaid reduced spending by just $1.1 trillion. In total, Trump’s budget plans netted out to $3.4 trillion in direct costs over the decade ahead — and that grows to $4.1 trillion because of the rising costs of debt service in the Trump era. And his key approach to solving the crisis – substituting tariffs for other government revenue – proved not only economically unrealistic but also illegal. As Frum explains, “Tariffs are taxes, and taxes must be voted for by Congress, according to the Constitution. Congress delegated some emergency tariff authority to the president, but not enough to create a permanent new scheme of revenue. The Supreme Court confirmed this basic rule in February 2026.”

From here, warns Frum, “The situation will continue to get worse.” Trump’s war on Iran has cost at least $45 billion so far, and the Pentagon has requested hundreds of billions of dollars more. Moving forward, Trump’s fiscal budget for 2027 seeks $1.5 trillion for the U.S. military, up 44 percent from pre-Iran-war levels. What’s more, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduced income taxes on Social Security benefits, and Trump’s inflation has driven increases in Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment. The Social Security trust fund is now projected to be exhausted in 2032, forcing either big tax increases or big benefit cuts. With all this in mind, concludes Frum, one fact is unavoidable: Trump “has managed to wreck the country’s finances worse than any government in U.S. history.”

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Trump envoy’s 'vile' dictator praise draws bipartisan rage: 'Hard to watch'

On Wednesday, during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump's envoy made a statement that immediately prompted outrage across the political spectrum. According to commentators, envoy Steve Witkoff's assertion that Putin is a "humanitarian" was a "vile" "betrayal" of the United States and its allies.

Witkoff was meeting with Putin in Russia when the former declared, “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian — you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that." The U.S. envoy made this claim despite the fact that Putin has personally ordered the assassination of his political opponents, started conflicts in Ukraine and beyond that have killed innumerable people, and presides over one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Because of these decidedly un-humanitarian behaviors, voices from all corners of American politics were quick to condemn the statement.

"This is absolutely vile," posted Kimberly Ross of the conservative newspaper the Washington Examiner. "Calling Putin a humanitarian is an insult to every Ukrainian who has suffered and died because of his war of aggression." Technologist Jamie Matzl -- who served as a national security official under President Bill Clinton -- agreed, asserting, "It is a betrayal of America and a historic national disgrace." Political scientist Ian Bremmer said the scene was "truly hard to watch."

GOP lawmakers expressed their anger as well. "No," posted Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), adding, "Putin is stone cold killer." According to Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), Witkoff's words brought "another embarrassment" to the U.S. "What a ridiculous statement," declared MAGA-aligned Rep. Max Miller (R-OH). "Maybe we should ask the hundreds of dead civilians in Bucha what they think of Putin’s humanitarian instincts?"

Jim Geraghty, senior political correspondent at National Review, elaborated on precisely why so many were angered by Witkoff's comments, writing, "The International Criminal Court indicted Putin for the war crimes of 'unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.' I realize the International Criminal Court isn’t everybody’s favorite international institution these days, with good reason, but the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children is not in dispute. Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab reports that more than 35,000 children taken from Ukraine to over 100 locations in Russia and Russia-occupied territory. In October 2025, the United Nations concluded that the Russian military’s actions in Ukraine amount to two crimes against humanity; 'murder and of forcible transfer of population' and secondly, 'deportations and transfers of civilians' from areas occupied by Russian forces, some of whom were tortured. The findings were based on some 500 publicly available videos of crimes examined – 247 of which have had their locations technically verified – and 226 interviews with Ukrainian citizens."

Geraghty concluded, "I realize that Witkoff is, like the president, a schmoozy Manhattan real estate mogul, used to speaking off the cuff with effusive praise, and basically saying whatever it took to get his negotiating partner to sign on the dotted line. Facts and truth are immaterial. But if that impulse is unchecked, at some point you end up praising the moral values of an indisputably evil man on behalf of the United States of America."

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Fox News analyst doesn't hold back while blasting Trump's 'serious mistake'

On Tuesday, a Fox News contributor and leading security expert didn't hold back while discussing President Donald Trump's recent moves regarding the United States' top adversaries. According to Rebecca Heinrichs, senior fellow at Hudson Institute, Trump is making a "serious mistake" by increasingly aligning with Russia.

Asked her opinion of a possible upcoming summit between Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping -- an idea suggested by Putin -- Heinrichs was blunt about her assessment, saying, "If the President wants to meet with Xi Jinping and Putin to talk about Ukraine, I think that would be a serious mistake. If you want to do something like Yalta, then you have meetings among allies, the United States with the Europeans, with Ukraine, trying to figure out what to do about Russia." The Yalta Conference was held at the end of World War Two, bringing the Allies together to debate the post-war fates of Germany and Europe.

Heinrich's warning comes amid bipartisan criticism of the Trump administration for moves that appear to align the U.S. with Russia. Trump decided to drop sanctions against Russia in order to buy its diesel, and simultaneously, Ukraine has experienced a suspicious drop in Starshield capabilities, hindering the country's defenses and communications. All of this has handed Putin a major gift as Russia has been struggling militarily. As Fox noted, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has blasted the president, declaring, "Putin is lying. Putin is playing President Trump like a fiddle. And history is not going to look good on an America that failed to rise up and defend the Western world if Putin actually gets his way. And I believe that a summit with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, two countries who want to overwhelm the world, is absurd."

According to Heinrich, "With Senator Tillis, there's been about 14 Republican senators who have come out on the record opposing this diesel deal, buying diesel from Russia and also lifting the Lindsey Graham Sanctions Act. So there's a lot more Republicans -- there might be more after the midterms as well. I think that what Senator Tillis is really worried about is that President Trump is not fully appreciating the fact that China and Russia are behind and supporting Iran, who is firing weapons at the United States, trying to kill Americans. And they're collaborating to undermine the United States and Europe."

Her point follows a declaration by the Iranian foreign minister that Iran and Russia have "never worked as closely as now." Asked if there is any reason to dispute that Russia is helping Iran, Heinrich said, "No. And actually, we just saw, after President Trump is arguing now that Zelensky is the one standing in the way of peace, you saw Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, meeting with the foreign minister of Iran. And Lavrov was saying that the Iranian's cause against the United States was, quote, just. And he compared it positively with Russia's cause against the United States, his effort with NATO in Ukraine. So the Russians are supporting the Iranians. They are providing targeting, which the Iranians are then using to hit Americans in the Gulf region."

Her conclusion was straightforward: "Look -- the Russians are, yes, they are hitting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, but the Russians are also hitting American businesses in Ukraine -- Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Boeing, Philip Morris -- because the Russians also want the United States to stop support for Ukraine, want the Europeans to stop support for Ukraine. The Russians view the United States as its number one adversary, and they're trying to get the United States to back down and not support Zelensky...I think the best way to make progress is for the United States to actually move closer with the Europeans collectively. I think we can get something done here alongside Ukraine to pressure Russia. But if we're going to pressure the Russians, or if we can't pressure the Russians, I just don't think we're going to get to an end here."

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Fox News suggests Trump has 'no idea' what he's talking about

On Tuesday, after President Donald Trump shared his thoughts on the Russia-Ukraine War with reporters in the Oval Office, Fox News offered an unsubtle suggestion that he doesn't know what he's talking about. In the network's social media post moments after the session, it pointed out the blatant contradiction to the president's claims.

" Trump says Russia is showing no signs of slowing down on the battlefield as his special envoy Steve Witkoff prepares to travel to Moscow for talks," posted Fox. "'They just keep grinding forward,' Trump says, pointing to Russia's territorial gains in Ukraine and its ability to keep sending troops into battle. Still, the president insists Russia wants to reach a deal, even as he describes its military advancing week after week." This prompted National Review senior political correspondent Jim Gergahty -- also a member of conservative media -- to note, "Fox News, not-so-subtly suggesting the president has no idea of what he's talking about..."

The president had said, "I think what's happening is that Russia would like to get it done. I think that, and you know, Russia is a big machine. They just keep grinding forward. And that's what they've done. They've taken a very large piece of land. And, you know, you can say that Ukraine is doing well or poorly, but the land gets bigger and bigger all the time, week by week. It's just they march forward. They just keep marching forward. They have an unlimited supply of people."

As Fox suggested, there is an inherent contradiction to the assertion that Russia is both making a deal to end the war and racing to conquer Ukraine. Others pointed to more problems with Trump's claim. "Russia had gained 890 square kilometers as of last month; Ukraine had taken back 800 square kilometers," pointed out war reporter Caitlin Doornbos. "That means Moscow has taken all of about 34.7 square miles of Ukrainian territory TOTAL in 2026." As another journalist noted, "Russia's frontline situation is worse today than it was the last time we went through this news cycle." One commenter summed up the general consensus: "In short, Trump’s statements are wholly contradicted by the actual events on the ground, which has only happened approximately 8,189 times before."

Trump's claims about Russia's intentions come amid accusations that his recent moves have aided the U.S. adversary while hurting American ally Ukraine. Critics say that Trump's plan to buy Russian diesel breaks U.S. law by handing President Vladimir Putin a financial lifeline and will do little to ease skyrocketing diesel prices. At the same time, Trump faces allegations that his administration has throttled Ukraine's access to Starshield, the Starlink offshoot run by the government that the country depends on for its defense, targeting, and other systems. According to Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), "Putin is playing President Trump like a fiddle. And history is not going to look good on an America that failed to rise up and defend the Western world if Putin actually gets his way."

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New report reveals Trump is too broke to pay farm bribes

On Tuesday, a new report revealed that President Donald Trump doesn’t have the cash to pay the $8 billion his administration had only hours earlier promised to farmers suffering under high diesel prices. According to Politico, the fund the administration would use doesn’t have enough to cover the payments, meaning Congress will have to approve a funding package, which won’t happen until after the midterms, if at all.

“Republicans locked in tight races this November are desperately hoping the Trump administration’s last-minute gambit to send farmers $8 billion in taxpayer money will work,” explains Politico. “The move comes as White House officials have scrambled to address anger in farm states from Republicans. Trump’s decisions to import more foreign beef, his tariff regime and high fuel costs amid the Iran war have riled already strained farmers and ranchers — a key GOP voting bloc.” But according to sources close to the plan who spoke with Politico on condition of anonymity, “Farmers won’t know how much money to expect for several more weeks. Even then, if approved, they won’t receive the payments until late November or early December at the earliest.”

That may be too late to help top Republicans who are banking on the announcement to stem GOP bleeding in farm states — especially in the Midwest, where Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), GOP Senate nominee Ashley Hinson in Iowa, and GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers in Michigan have been floundering. Some have even broken with Trump publicly on high prices and the war that is largely responsible for causing them. “This will go a long way to making sure the folks that feed us have it a bit easier when they most need it,” said Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), referring to the farmers in his district. He’s battling out a highly competitive race in a rural-heavy stretch in Wisconsin’s 3rd District.

According to Politico, however, “the internal USDA taxpayer-funded account Trump is tapping for the payments doesn’t actually have enough money in it right now to make the payments, meaning Congress will have to approve the new funds or the administration will have to take it from another program, according to three Trump officials who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.” What’s more, “Trump’s decision also comes after administration officials realized the president’s previous step to make off-road dyed diesel more widely available had limited benefits for farm country over other options, according to two of the Trump officials and another administration official involved in the matter. Top agriculture lobbyists further warned the dyed diesel plan could actually backfire on farmers, because they could still be required to pay taxes on the product — just further down the road.” Even if Trump did manage to dole out the $8 million, top agriculture groups say it would be a small fraction of what’s needed to alleviate the situation, warning “they’d need at least $50 billion in direct aid this fall to make farmers whole following the impacts of tariffs, weather-related disasters and other high costs linked to the Iran war’s chokehold on agricultural supplies.”

Meanwhile, reporters earlier in the day revealed that the bailout math doesn’t add up to much relief on a farm-to-farm basis. “That’s an average of $4,250 per American farm, based on latest USDA data of 1.88 million farms,” pointed out Bloomberg Energy and commodities columnist Javier Blas. Considering the price of diesel and the real-world usage of farming equipment, that breaks down to about 112 hours of operation for a medium-sized tractor or just 40 hours for a large tractor – and farms operate roughly three tractors each on average. That $8 billion, in other words, is just a drop in the bucket.

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Trump resorts to bizarre new strategy to force reporters to read his posts

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump began taking a new approach to ensuring White House reporters see his social media posts: printing them out for them physically. Judging by photos posted online by reporters from various networks, he really wants to emphasize how much he's spending on the midterms.

"White House has handed printouts of Trump’s latest Truth on midterms spending to reporters waiting outside the Oval," posted Danny Kemp of the AFP News Agency, along with a photo of the printout. A correspondent for the conservative outlet the Daily Wire shared another photo, writing, "Reporters waiting to head into the Oval Office just received a physical Truth post from the president (which he posted about half hour ago): POTUS will spend/is spending over $400 million by Election Day!"

Trump's statement, posted shortly before it was passed out physically, read, "Because of my belief in the Republican Party, and all of our Policies and Principles, and especially after witnessing what is taking place in France, and other locations throughout Europe, I am pleased to announce that, having to do with the Most Important Midterm Elections in our Country’s History, I have spent, or will be spending, over 400 Million Dollars by Election Day. More than 300 Million Dollars has already been spent on Advertising, Direct and Indirect Voter Contact, Rallies, Rally Arenas, Telerallies, Get Out the Vote Programs, Election Integrity, and more. It is my Great Honor to do so on behalf of the Republican Party, which has done so much to bring our Country back from the Edge of Oblivion."

While the president is sharing this news like it's a good thing, many experts have noted that the unusually high spending is a sign of how badly things are going for Trump and the GOP. As Time explains, Republicans have been forced to spend extraordinary sums in states and districts usually considered safely red. In the race for the Senate in Texas, for example, the party has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up the floundering campaign of state Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose rampant scandals have poised Democrats to flip the seat blue for the first time in nearly 40 years. And while Republicans have outspent Democrats, the former is still falling behind the latter in the polls. “It is important to keep in mind that having the most, and spending the most, does not guarantee you wins,” Brendan Glavin, the director of insights at the research group OpenSecrets, which tracks money’s effect on U.S. politics, policy, and elections, told Time. “You need to have enough to compete, and you need to be able to get your name out, and people need to know who you are. But it’s not always about having the most.”

In any case, Trump thought his abnormal expenditures were important enough to take the unusual step of printing out the post for reporters. Journalist Laura Rozen suggested it may have something to do with the press secretary role left open by the recently departed Katie Zacharia, posting a reference to the final days of Russian Czar Nicolas II, who grew increasingly isolated and paranoid until his reign was brought down: "When no one in the court dares speak for the czar, you get this."

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Trump has made himself 'president and first lady'

President Donald Trump has made the construction of a ballroom one of his foremost priorities, focusing on it even as his war with Iran spirals out and the economy implodes. When he demolished the East Wing to make way for it, writes New York Times contributor and gender researcher Azadeh Moaveni, he essentially made himself “president and first lady” by assuming the duties traditionally wielded by the latter while his wife was pushed aside.

Jackie Kennedy is credited with turning White House state dinners into arguably the most coveted invitation in the world, but as Moaveni explains, “John F. Kennedy himself was gloriously attuned to the power of setting the political tone through entertaining. He often called his social secretary, Tish Baldrige, to discuss household matters, and once pushed for French dishes on menus to be listed in English to avoid sounding too effetely European. Ms. Baldrige herself approached these dinners with ruthless political acumen. She asked the C.I.A. to prepare profiles of world leaders for Mrs. Kennedy, sent the agency thank-you notes and diarized how America had performed.” Since then, White House dinners have been wielded with similarly careful attention to how the experience can drive a political agenda. And while Trump has claimed that he needs the ballroom to such ends, his approach, argues Moaveni, hasn’t made that case.

“While the president is keenly attuned to the importance of a true state dinner,” writes Moaveni, “he has hosted only two in his second term, both for figures — King Charles III and Queen Camilla, and President Xi Jinping of China and his wife — for whom no less formal an occasion would be appropriate. The dearth of state dinners held thus far by the builder president — the president who dreams of America’s future parties — has not helped make the case for the ballroom’s urgency. Neither does the absent voice of the first lady on the matter, nor the absence of a social secretary in toto.”

As Moaveni elaborates, “Traditionally, the first lady and the social secretary play central roles in these dinners. Mr. Trump at times appears to wish to be both president and first lady. His dominant presence while hosting steals the limelight from Mrs. Trump, whose projects and advocacy work, much like those of the impressive but overlooked Pat Nixon, suffer from inadequate public and media attention. How widely is it known, for instance, that she was instrumental in getting the Take It Down Act, which criminalizes deepfake and revenge porn, passed in Congress? Or that her team helps push for the return of kidnapped Ukrainian children from Russia?”

As much as the state dinner evolved as a tool of statecraft, Moaveni explains that it also trailblazed a path for women to participate in the presidency and political life. The social secretary was the first staff position on the federal payroll awarded to a first lady, and the first role in the White House for a woman above the grade of maid, clerk, or cook. “This is partly why the razing of the East Wing was traumatic,” writes Moaveni. “It demolished a hallowed site of women’s history with blitheness. There was nobody there to pause and say: Here was the place where Eleanor Roosevelt’s aides toiled during the Second World War. Here was where they organized women-only news conferences to push newsrooms to hire more women and helped the first lady sell the New Deal to a suffering, frightened America.”

According to Moaveni, those angered by the demolition “are contending now with the loss of that office’s symbolic role — both as the soul of the East Wing as a physical structure and as the driving force behind the spectacle of political entertaining. The first lady is historically the star of the state dinner, taking on queenly attributes and accruing cultural capital that she then uses to advance her projects and the presidency. At the recent state dinner for Mr. Xi, by contrast, Mrs. Trump almost seemed aware she would not be the center of attention: She wore trousers, which had an almost Fräulein Maria-level depomping effect.”

During Trump’s first presidency, some in his orbit pushed him to deploy Melania more prominently, but were rebuffed. As Moaveni explains, “One aide who worked for the White House during the first Trump term told me Mr. Trump approached the presidency as a one-man show. His masculinist, warrior persona made the traditional softening effect of a consort unwelcome.” He could also not stand sharing attention, the aide explained, the very opposite of John F. Kennedy, who once famously said during a state visit to France, “I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.” But the current president is unwilling to share the spotlight with anyone else, and as a result, writes Moaveni, “Mrs. Trump appears resigned, having absorbed the lessons of the first Trump administration.”

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Basic math reveals the flaw in Trump’s billion-dollar farm bribe

On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced an $8 billion bailout for farms struggling under the fast-rising diesel prices caused by President Donald Trump’s war with Iran. But as one expert was quick to point out, a bit of basic math reveals that the president’s attempt to bribe angry farmers in the run-up to the midterms does little to alleviate their plight.

“Trump administration promises ~$8 billion in fuel subsidies to US farms to offset sky-high diesel costs,” posted Bloomberg Energy and commodities columnist Javier Blas. “That’s an average of $4,250 per American farm, based on latest USDA data of 1.88 million farms.” That's not a big number, especially for bigger farms.

While Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins' announcement touted this as proof that “President Trump is the most pro-farmer president of my lifetime and he is continuing to put Farmers First every day,” the math on this bailout looks worse the more you break it down. Based on the latest national average of diesel prices — roughly $6.32 per AAA — that $4,250 buys about 672 gallons. Diesel fuels a wide variety of farm transport and equipment, but if you take a mid-sized tractor doing basic plowing as an example – which uses around six gallons per hour (though a large tractor doing heavy work can use upwards of 16, so the lower number is being generous) – that results in 112 hours of operation, for one machine, doing modest work. For larger equipment doing heavy work, that $4,250 translates into around 40 hours of operation, but the war has kept diesel prices elevated for eight months, with no sign of ending anytime soon. Considering that U.S. farms use an average of three tractors each – along with plenty of other diesel-hungry machinery – it's clear that Trump’s big bailout is just a drop in the bucket. What’s more, the government’s announcement specified that this is a “one-time” payment.

"As a farmer of 50 years, this is embarrassing," said former GOP Chair Christopher Gibbs in response to the announcement. "This year one third of US farm income will have come from the taxpayers. The SAME taxpayers who are struggling at their own kitchen tables. I can't afford it, but however this comes, I'm pushing half to my local shelter and food bank."

Fuel prices have soared due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and while gas prices have hit all American drivers, diesel prices have been a particularly major problem, as the rising expense for farmers and truckers ends up increasing prices across the board. As Fox News reports, the diesel situation has forced a wave of transportation companies into bankruptcy, while farmers in red states have increasingly turned on Trump. According to a Kansas cattle rancher who spoke with the Washington Examiner, high diesel prices “changed the whole dynamics of everything. You know, people can’t afford to give as much for the cattle now because they’re trying to afford the trucking to get them to their final destinations.”

With the GOP suffering in the midterm polls even in some of the country’s reddest corners, Trump has become increasingly frantic to solve the energy crisis he created. His most controversial effort has involved a deal to buy diesel from Russia, which critics have pointed out not only does little to ease prices, but extends a major lifeline to the Russian war effort while hurting the U.S. ally Ukraine. Because of all of this, asserts Fox financial analyst Stuart Varney, “Voters are exasperated… The news on energy is just not good.”

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Trump’s Fox News throw down proves 'the wheels are coming off' his regime

On Tuesday, a conservative political commentator revealed clear signs of “the wheels coming off” the Trump administration. According to Jim Geraghty – senior political correspondent at the conservative outlet National Review – President Donald Trump’s growing fight with Fox News suggests major cracks in his movement as his “self-pity” soars to new heights.

Geraghty begins by noting Trump’s recent glowing appraisal of an emerging Fox competitor. “Heading to Kentucky! Will be landing soon,” posted the president. “Big Crowd. I’m watching it now on RSBN. The coverage is spectacular. In fact, it’s so good, that I don’t want to leave Air Force One.” This is in reference to Right Side Broadcast Network, a YouTube channel that has shared nearly every Trump rally or public appearance since 2015 and has been receiving no shortage of his promotion lately, while he’s vented growing frustration with Fox.

“If you want one more sign of how the wheels are coming off the Trump administration as the midterms approach,” writes Geraghty in the Washington Post, “examine the president’s increasingly frequent public tantrums about Fox News and his belief that the network, usually more than fair — some would say generous and gushing — in its coverage, is somehow betraying him and his party.” There are plenty of examples of Trump’s budding breakup with Fox. He’s complained about its occasional hosting of Democratic voices, claiming, “This is why MAGA, and REAL Patriots, will never like Fox!” He’s also lashed out over the network’s decision to fire Trump-loyalist Maria Bartiromo, who was reportedly canned after informing the White House that anchors had been instructed to stop platforming his lies. And at the same time, Fox has been pushing back with its growing willingness to criticize the president and his officials.

Fox has nearly a billion reasons to distance itself from the president. As Geraghty explains, “Trump has already cost the network a fortune. Without his 2020 stolen election nonsense, Fox would never have had to shell out that $787 million payment to Dominion Voting Systems.” This is in reference to a defamation lawsuit that hammered the network for promoting Trump’s election lies, and resulted in a noticeable programming shift. “You get the feeling that Fox News executives, talent and staff are getting tired of the president’s endless whining and attacks when they’ve offered coverage that any of his predecessors would envy,” writes Geraghty. As he concludes, “The relationship between Trump and Fox News may not end in a full-on acrimonious divorce. But things are definitely frostier, and less amenable, than at the start of Trump’s second term. And when the president keeps whining that even Fox News is being unfair to him, his self-pity has hit an amazing new height.”

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Video shows Black MAGA influencer kicked out of Ken Paxton rally

A Black MAGA influencer has revealed that she was kicked out of a rally for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over the weekend. What’s more, Thelma Louise – who has a large TikTok account where she creates content advocating for President Donald Trump – caught the incident on video, in which she was quietly watching the rally before she was suddenly asked to leave.

On Sunday, she was enthusiastically documenting her experience at a rally for Paxton, who has fallen behind Democratic opponent James Talarico in the race for the Senate, when she was abruptly asked to leave without cause. As she is escorted out, she’s seen asking politely, “And there’s no one that I can talk to about this?” Once outside, Louise was visibly shocked, saying, “Wow. Oh my gosh. I cannot believe this... Someone just came up to me and said that Ken Paxton’s campaign manager wanted me to leave. I am just — my mouth is wide open right now. I really can’t believe this.”

“I was just asked to leave this event, and I did nothing wrong,” she went on. “I was told that Paxton’s campaign manager didn’t want me here. I’m not making any of this up... I have done nothing but support everyone on the Republican side, and this is how I get treated? I cannot believe the disrespect that I was just given. I left the Democratic Party two years ago, I have volunteered for President Trump’s campaign, and I have worked very hard promoting members of the Republican Party. I’m not quite sure what’s going on, but to be walked out of a room full of people and isolated as if I’d done something wrong — I cannot believe it.”

Paxton – a MAGA loyalist who has run under the endorsement of Trump – has been dragged down by a slew of corruption and personal scandals, and narrowly trails Talarico in most polls. As a result, it has been widely suggested that Texas could flip a Senate seat blue, electing a Democratic senator for the first time since 1988. This has forced the GOP to spend extraordinary amounts of money in Paxton’s favor, while the president has made repeated visits to Texas in an attempt to bolster MAGA support.

Before she was kicked out of the rally, Louise appeared to have an amiable stance on Paxton despite the scandals, saying that she traveled two hours to attend the rally. She was asked to leave anyway, despite footage that appears to show her watching respectfully, regardless of having shown the press credentials she received for Republicans midterm convention in Dallas over the summer.

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A top GOP election official just slapped down Trump’s big lie

On Monday, the leading Republican state official in charge of Georgia’s elections rejected false claims by President Donald Trump that aimed to sow doubt about the integrity of vote-counting in the state. With early voting in the midterms already in full swing, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger assured Bloomberg that the state’s election results will be in by midnight on Election Day, declaring the process “free, fair and fast.” Despite Trump's frequent attempts to cast aspersions on voting integrity, Raffensperger asserted, “We are very confident that at the end of the day you can trust the results."

His comments follow a Trump rally in Georgia last Friday, in which the president once again repeated claims that the 2020 election had been "rigged" against him. What's more, he declared that Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who is running for reelection, was never legitimately elected in the first place. Trump made these repeatedly debunked claims while campaigning for Republican Representative Mike Collins, who Bloomberg notes is trailing Ossoff in the polls, and GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson, who holds a slight lead over Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms. According to Bloomberg, "Trump’s comments followed a request by the director of the GOP-controlled State Election Board to the Trump administration to intervene in the Georgia election to ensure fairness. That request, which has so far been met with silence from federal officials, stoked worries that Trump would attempt to intervene in Georgia to sway the result." Raffensperger told the outlet that he has not heard from federal officials about getting involved, and that he doesn't expect the Trump administration to do so. State voter rolls, he noted, have been audited three times and have been rated 99 percent accurate.

In the tumultuous days following the 2020 election result, Trump notoriously pushed Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes he would need to win the state against Joe Biden. Raffensperger denied Trump’s request and maintained that the election had been conducted securely. And as Bloomberg explains of Trump's claims about Ossoff, in the first round of the US Senate election, Ossoff narrowly lost to then-Senator David Perdue, but later won the runoff between the top two candidates. Ossoff just held his largest rally yet, during which he pressed attendees to vote early and in person, referencing a move this year by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to seize 2020 ballots from Fulton County as part of an investigation into alleged improprieties. “How foolish of them to come to the cradle of the civil rights movement to spread those lies and seize those ballots,” Ossoff told a crowd of about 1,500 people before a giant banner that read “Georgia Votes Early."

Raffensperger told Bloomberg that while he hasn't heard anything from the FBI about the supposed Fulton County investigation, voters are taking Ossoff's advice. According to Raffensperger, as of noon on Monday, 900,000 people had voted early — a 9 percent increase compared to 2022.

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Trump's latest move forces US into 'axis of evil': GOP insider

On Monday, a longtime GOP insider warned that President Donald Trump is pushing the United States into an “axis of evil” alongside its greatest adversaries.

According to political commentator Charlie Sykes – who broke with the Republican Party over its embrace of Trump – new reporting by the Wall Street Journal on a potential summit between Russia, China, and the U.S. suggests that Trump has once and for all abandoned America’s allies in favor of its enemies, and he’s dragging the country with him.

In Sykes’ estimation, “It has been a very good week for Voldemort Putin.” Over a matter of days, Trump struck a diesel deal lifting some sanctions on Russia, restricted Starshield access for Ukraine, cut intel warnings of Russian missile launches against Ukraine for several days, canceled sanctions passed in honor of Lindsey Graham, demanded Ukraine dump Zelensky, absolved Russia for helping Iran fight the US, and pushed Europe to resume buying Russian gas.

While some media has characterized the matter as a “feud” that “threatens to strain the U.S. Ukraine alliance, according to Sykes, “This is bull—. The teachery is not a ‘feud,’ and the U.S.-Ukraine alliance is not ‘strained.’ It. Is. Dead. The reality,” he asserts, citing the Atlantic, is that “America is now an ally of Russia.”

What’s more, Sykes said, the Russians are well aware of it. “

On Saturday,” he notes, “Putin crony Kirill Dmitriev, who manages Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, reposted an AI-generated image of the American Eagle and Russian Bear standing together in opposition to Britain and Europe. The original post reads: ‘Things Have Changed…’ On his repost Putin’s buddy wrote: ‘Together.’ And now, the Wall Street Journal reports that Putin is floating a new Axis-of-Evil Summit with Russia, China, and the US to discuss the fate of Ukraine.”

As the Journal writes, “Such a summit — one without the involvement of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — would be unprecedented and send alarm bells ringing in European capitals and beyond.” The Journal – owned by longtime Trump ally Rupert Murdoch – also issued a “blistering” editorial entitled “To Russia, With Love, Signed Donald,” writing, “President Trump’s assistance to Vladimir Putin keeps growing by the day, and in the latest example he stuck a shiv in the back of the legacy of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. Mr. Trump offered no explanation beyond a statement that ‘the issuance of such a waiver at this time is in the national interests of the United States.’ The opposite is true, and Mr. Trump is now Mr. Putin’s best friend in the world, after perhaps China’s Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, the evidence compounds that Mr. Trump wants Ukraine to surrender on Mr. Putin’s terms.”

After the election, the paper declares, “there needs to be a bipartisan reckoning for Mr. Trump’s budding alliance with the Kremlin against Ukraine, Europe and American interests.”

For his part, Trump issued a statement claiming, “My decision on Russia is a very simple one. I am in the process of negotiating peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don’t want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.” But according to Sykes, “No one — by which I mean no one on the planet, friend or foe — believed him.”

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New text messages reignite 'MAGA blood feud' over missing millions

On Monday, newly revealed text messages reignited accusations that millions of dollars were stolen amidst a raging “MAGA blood feud.” According to the texts, which were revealed by Axios, one of President Donald Trump’s top advisors appears to have offered a “stunning pay-for-influence offer to a Turkish billionaire.”

"Once the money comes to the company here, I will arrange the donation to Kennedy Centre [sic], and you'll be joining the VIP events and get close with the administration, even with POTUS,” declared a May 2025 text from Ric Grenell, a key Trump advisor who was previously appointed to run the embattled cultural institution. As Axios explains, “Administration officials say the text is a key piece of evidence in the White House's investigation — ordered by President Trump — into whether Grenell abused the president's trust and misappropriated a potential multimillion-dollar donation to the Kennedy Center, which Grenell led at the time. Grenell also served in another Trump-appointed capacity: as special envoy to Venezuela, where Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon also had contracts.”

"We need to make you the 'American face' down in V," Grenell allegedly wrote in the same 2025 text message to Mildon, whose attorneys sent the text, at least one financial document, and other correspondence to the White House counsel's office, according to sources familiar with the investigation. As Axios explains, “Mildon is married to another Trump adviser: former U.S. attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba, who stormed into the Oval Office on Oct. 9 and accused Grenell of hoodwinking her husband into making a Kennedy Center donation that never arrived.” Mildon alleges that at Grenell’s direction, he wired $17.6 million to the latter via a private company, with nearly $6 million slated for donation to the Kennedy Center. A year and a half later, after the business relationship between the two men fell apart, it was found that the money never made it to the center, which in fact reported that Mildon owed it over $200,000.

As one Trumpworld insider told Axios, the situation has erupted into the “ultimate MAGA blood feud.” As the outlet elaborates, “On Oct. 9, when Habba arrived at the White House, she was ‘pretty animated,’ said one administration official, and exclaimed at one point, ‘Ric stole the money!' The problem, however, was that Habba ‘didn't have all her stuff in order. She went in there half-cocked without all the facts yelling about Grenell stealing. And the facts keep changing,’ the source said. ‘That doesn't mean Ric is out of the woods. This looks really shady.’”

After Habba leveled her accusations, Trump called White House Counsel Will Scharf into the Oval Office and asked him to look into the affair. Trump and Scharf then called Grenell, who asserted, "There's no way this is true. This is crazy.” Regardless of Grenell’s claims that the allegations are "lies," according to one administration official, “There's a lot of questions. And POTUS wants answers."

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Trump’s latest 'bankruptcy' will have 'horrifying' outcome: Nobel economist

With his agenda going down in flames and major midterm losses looming for his party, President Donald Trump has spiraled into a level of “political bankruptcy” that Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman warns could have “horrifying” consequences. Increasingly, with nothing left to lose and no need to keep up the appearances of governance, wrote Krugman on Monday, the president is preparing to “pursue his true desires” and “wreak havoc.”

As an example, Krugman points to recent reports and analysis regarding Trump’s war with Iran. While some outlets say the president may resume bombing after the midterms, Krugman notes that a prominent analyst has made a convincing argument that the president will ramp up violence ahead of the elections. That assessment could be accurate, warns Krugman, as this “analysis of Trump’s political position is something I recognize from financial economics. You see, it’s a well-understood proposition that the owners of businesses that are on the verge of going bust often engage in destructive behavior. And Trump is about to go bankrupt — not financially (he’s made billions through corruption) but politically. So he, like a failing businessman, has strong incentives to wreak havoc.”

According to Krugman, Trump is preparing to do something desperate to turn around his fortunes, taking an approach often called “gambling for resurrection.” As the famed economist explains, “When a company is on the edge of failure, it makes sense for the company’s owner to make highly speculative, even crazy investments that are highly likely to fail but might, just might, make enough money to pull the company back from the brink. After all, for the owner it’s heads he wins, tails his creditors lose. In Trump’s case, all indications are that his party is heading for defeat in the midterms. And while a normal president might be able to live with a Congress controlled by the opposing party, there has been so much corruption and malfeasance over the past two years that Democratic control of Congress, and the subpoena and investigative power that will bring, will have catastrophic consequences for Trump and everyone around him. So Trump has an incentive to do something, anything, that might shake up this election.” While renewing attacks on Iran would likely hurt more than help GOP midterm chances, Trump is so focused on “saving his own political skin” that he just might roll the dice.

But in Krugman’s estimation, “Trump’s impending political bankruptcy will have even worse consequences” than restarting the war, with implications that go far beyond the midterms. “What may be about to happen — indeed, is already happening — is what we might call policy looting: Trump using his remaining power to take actions that are both deeply unpatriotic and deeply unpopular but fit his own preferences and prejudices,” writes Krugman. “Once the midterms are over, Trump, with nothing left to lose, will be free to be his worst self — a malignant narcissist who instinctively supports authoritarians and is preoccupied with revenge against anything and anyone that threatens his fragile grandiosity.”

Krumgan points to the example of Trump’s shifting public stance regarding Ukraine and Russia, writing, “It has long been obvious that Trump loves dictators and despises democracy, and that he has special affection for Vladimir Putin and hatred for Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However, as long as there was some chance of limiting the damage in the midterm elections, Trump was cautious about explicitly taking Putin’s side. Over the past few weeks, however, Trump has grown ever more open about supporting Putin’s attempted war of conquest — buying Russian diesel, canceling sanctions, and most recently by attempting to sabotage Ukraine’s defenses by degrading its access to Starlink.” Domestically, says Krugman, you can see the change in the fact that “Trump has increasingly stopped pretending that he cares about illegal immigration or immigrant crime, and is veering into flat, open racism — so far specifically directed against Somalis, but it won’t stop there.”

With all this in mind, concludes Krugman, “Anyone who believes that Trump will become more cautious, more moderate in the aftermath of midterm defeat just doesn’t understand the new political reality. The truth is that political bankruptcy will free Trump to pursue his true desires. And those desires are horrifying.”

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Fox News and Republicans freak out as 'impeachment' looms

On Monday, Fox News and its Republican guests warned their fellow conservatives that the impeachment of President Donald Trump could be right around the corner. With just over two weeks to the midterms, the GOP has rallied around the message that if the Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate, it could mean the end of Trump’s historically unpopular agenda.

According to Fox News host Chad Pergam, Republicans are “leery” of what Democrats have in store should they secure the major victories polls have suggested are on the way. He spoke with MAGA-oriented Senator Jon Husted (R-OH), who is running an extremely tight race against former Senator Sherrod Brown, with most polls showing that the latter has a lead of between 1 and 6 points. In Husted’s estimation, the Ohio race “will determine whether Republicans stay in the Senate majority or not.” Pergam went on to share a clip of Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), who ran and was elected as a Democrat in 2019 before switching to GOP in 2020, though the Fox segment still identifies him as the latter. According to Van Drew, criticisms of the administration come down to “Trump Derangement,” and he warns that his former Democratic colleagues are “gonna slow them down and try to stop the government. It's gonna be mayhem.”

If Van Drew is right, then Trump Derangement Syndrome is catching, as polls show the president, his policies, and his corruption are historically unpopular – findings borne out by surveys conducted by Fox News itself. In a poll released last week, Fox found that Trump’s approval has plunged to 36 percent – the lowest he’s ever charted on the network – while other polls have placed him even lower. And Trump’s plunging numbers aren’t driven by Democratic disapproval, who have always rated the president poorly, but by Independents and Republicans who are increasingly turned off by his disastrous policies and self-serving agenda. As the Fox poll revealed, for the first time ever, Americans rate government corruption as their top concern, surpassing even the economy. On that note, the Fox survey found that 74 percent of voters view Trump’s economy negatively, while a mere 18 percent say their lives are better now than they were two years ago.

In the face of such numbers, Fox News has turned up the volume on its alarm for Republicans. As longtime Fox financial analyst Stuart Varney explained last week, “Fox Power rankings suggest the House is very likely to go Democrat. The Senate is a toss-up. The latest Fox poll shows 54 percent prefer Democrat candidates, 45 percent Republicans, and the lead by the Democrats is widening. Worse, voters are very unhappy with inflation – increasingly unhappy. 77 percent disapprove of his policy, only 22 percent think he's doing an OK job. That's a massive gap.” In light of voters’ profound rejection of Trump’s second term and the likely GOP midterm beating to come, said Pergam on Monday, “Voters should expect two years of investigations and even impeachment if Democrats prevail.”

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Fox News lets profane opinion of Trump slip out on live TV

On Friday, Fox News aired a segment in which random people on the street ostensibly praised President Donald Trump for reversing a wildly unpopular move by his administration. But just as the piece faded to black, the network included one profanely honest opinion about the poorly polling president.

As Fox characterized the story, “Americans interviewed by Fox News Digital were overwhelmingly pleased with President Donald Trump's decision to call off livestreaming the Fort Hood shooter’s planned firing squad execution after the Pentagon had announced it would be livestreamed for public viewing.” What this sunny assessment neglects to mention is that Trump initially supported the plan "absolutely," which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced with much enthusiasm. Trump’s stance only shifted once he learned that the shooter, Nidal Hasan, was paralyzed from the waist down, and after polling showed that 8 in 10 Americans opposed the public execution. While Fox said the people it spoke with were “pleased,” their words and demeanor were closer to “relieved.”

“I think it was trying to save his image politically,” said one. Another pointed out, “The only other countries that really do that are like North Korea. We don't want to be North Korea.” The interview agreed that it was “a good move” to cancel the livestream, saying, “A public execution? That's unheard of. The last time that was in America was nearly a hundred years ago or more.” Said another, “I'm really glad that he called it off because I feel like it's not really a deterrent. It's more like a shock effect. I don't think we really need that in this country right now.”

Hasan was an Army psychiatrist at the time of the shooting, when he killed 13 and injured 32 people at a military base in Texas. Now 56 years old, he uses a wheelchair after he was left partially paralyzed from being shot by police during his arrest. After Hegseth’s announcement that his firing squad execution would be aired live, Trump eventually overturned the move, acknowledging that most Americans didn’t want to see it.

“We don't need to see anything like that. That's inhumane,” said one Fox interviewee. Another noted, “I think it was just so clearly an unpopular thing to do that he realized it would probably do more harm to his public image than good.” Another speaker agreed, adding her unvarnished opinion of the president. “He doesn't want to look bad. He doesn't want to look like a bad person,” she said. “But at the end of the day, we all know who he really is: a piece of s—.”

According to a Fox poll released earlier this week, “Trump’s overall job approval is 36 percent, his lowest ever in a Fox News survey for either term.” Other polls have shown his support as low as 32 percent. As Fox explains, “The decline is mainly driven by decreases among voters under age 45, those with annual household income below $50,000, non-White voters, and those without a college degree.”

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Trump's legal fund is worse than broke —it owes millions

On Friday, new reporting revealed that President Donald Trump's legal fund is in massive debt. According to its latest FCC filings, Save America PAC -- which Trump created largely to pay for his election denial court battles following his election loss in 2020 -- owes just shy of $2 million.

As the Hill explains, the fund has been spending money faster than it's paid down its debts. According to the outlet, Save America PAC "spent more than $5.4 million in the third quarter and had spent more than $14 million from the start of the year through September, per its quarterly filing to the FEC. At the start of the year, the president had nearly $1.2 million on hand. The fund had roughly $673,000 as of the end of June. But as of the end of the third quarter, it had less than $33,000." As that cash on hand has plummeted, its debts have remained a persistent problem, and it now owes more than $1.9 million to legal firms.

Save America lists all the debts it holds as legal consulting or legal fees and expenses. According to the Hill, "They range from about $239,000 owed to Brito PLLC — whose founder, Alejandro Brito, represented the president in multiple lawsuits he filed against ABC News, BBC and other media outlets...Save America also owes about $760,000 to Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, which is representing Trump in his appeal of a New York jury’s 2024 ruling convicting him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Dhillon Law Group, which Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon founded in 2006, is owed $34,000. Dhillon, who runs the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, departed the firm when she officially joined the administration last year."

Besides covering Trump's legal costs, Save America PAC serves as Trump's main political fundraising and spending vehicle, supporting political activities including endorsements, events, voter outreach, and related operations. As a "leadership PAC," its expenditures are directly controlled by Trump, unlike his fund MAGA Inc., a super PAC that theoretically cannot coordinate directly with its beneficiary. While a leadership PAC is typically associated with campaign expenditures, Trump has drawn controversy by using Save America PAC's funds to pay for his personal legal bills. The Hill has previously reported that the PAC has had difficulty with fundraising, as potential donors were dissuaded by the fact that their money would go to fighting Trump's legal battles rather than supporting the GOP.

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Biographer warns Trump hiring new Chief of Staff to 'launch a civil war'

On Friday, a biographer of President Donald Trump warned that commentators are misinterpreting reports that the president is considering replacing Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. According to Seth Abramson – who has written three bestselling books on Trump – the swap comes down to one thing: the president’s desire for a collaborator in his endeavor to “launch a civil war.”

Abramson was responding to rumors that Trump has asked his allies about replacing Wiles sometime after the midterms. Vying for the position, reportedly, are the likes of Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. According to the Washington Post, a Wiles supporter asserted that a GOP “blowout next month, very likely, will be a wedge that the ambitious use” to claim the chief of staff role. Another source described the last week at the White House as “the new Wild Wild West” as officials have wrangled for favor in the face of a likely post-midterm staff shakeup.

While such administration changes are common after elections, Abramson warns that Trump may have a different motive beyond merely rearranging the Titanic’s deck chairs. “My take on the supposedly sudden internal battle over the future of Susie Wiles: none of this is organic or tied to what reports are saying,” posted Abramson. “Trump knows he needs a chief of staff who will help him launch a civil war sometime post-midterms, and he believes Wiles isn't that person. Wiles has run things better than Trump could ever have hoped for. Her skillset is known, understood, and essential. What her rumored replacements have in common is that they are men who are willing to betray their country for Trump. I don't think it's more complicated than that.”

This warning comes amid reports that the president’s allies are pushing him to declare martial law should the midterms not go his way. As Axios explains, “MAGA activists are pushing for President Trump to resort to extraordinary measures — including martial law — if they believe the midterm elections are ‘rigged.’” Some of the proposals are beyond Trump's legal authority, and as Axios notes, there's no evidence that the elections will be rigged in the first place. Nevertheless, prominent election denial activists have been pushing for Trump to seize control of elections, including his childhood friend, attorney Peter Ticktin, who asserted that "there would have to be martial law in the event... [of] another rigged election,” telling Axios, “They'll probably need to be commandeering of ballots and election equipment to make sure that we can get to the bottom of it before anything further occurs.”

In Abramson’s estimation, Trump is looking for a chief of staff willing to push such efforts. Others have suggested that Wiles may be a scapegoat for the president to throw under the bus after the midterms. Trump reportedly “blew up” after his “human printer” Natalie Harp printed out copies of story on Wiles, spurring the president into a full-blown “freakout.” All of this comes as another longtime Trump ally has been fired from the administration, and amid reports of a "MAGA blood feud" rocking the White House.

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Leaker: New Fox News poll is a 'death sentence' for MAGA

On Friday, a whistleblower from President Donald Trump’s first administration laid out why the latest poll numbers amount to a “death sentence” for MAGA. According to Miles Taylor – who served as Deputy Chief of Staff in Homeland Security and famously leaked White House secrets – a new survey by Fox News proves that Americans are fed up with Trump and MAGA corruption once and for all.

As Taylor writes, “A Fox News poll released this week asked registered voters what worries them most heading into the midterms. The winner was not affordability or the economy, which have dominated every election cycle in living memory. It was corruption in government. A whopping 88 percent of voters said they were extremely or very concerned about it. It beat high gas and grocery prices. It beat healthcare. It beat everything! In the same survey, Trump’s approval sank to 36 percent, the lowest Fox has ever recorded for him. In other polls, it’s dipped into the 20s.” What’s more, Taylor notes that on the previous day, an AP-NORC survey found that most Americans believe Trump is profiting from the presidency either illegally or unethically, and that he’s more focused on building his own wealth than on helping everyday people. On top of that, Taylor points to a Gallup poll that reported that 89 percent of Americans now believe corruption is widespread in their government. That's the highest Gallup has ever measured, and it puts the U.S. at the very bottom of the developed world – out of 38 countries – when it comes to perceived corruption.

According to Taylor, “These are history-making developments.” Pollsters have been asking Americans what worries them most for nearly 100 years, and though there have been plenty of corruption scandals, they have never outranked economic concerns – not even after Watergate, when voters still ranked the economy and inflation ahead of Nixon’s crimes. This has changed, writes Taylor, because “Trump has made corruption literally impossible to ignore. He turned it from a background story that’s always playing out in Washington into basically the lead story of every news cycle for the past 18 months. What’s worse, the high prices people are experiencing at the grocery and at the pump are in no small part because of Trump’s corruption.”

Taylor asserts that the president’s corruption will have dire repercussions for the country, but the consequences are outright existential for Trump’s political following. “These latest polling numbers are a death sentence for MAGA as a governing movement,” writes Taylor. “To a certain extent, affordability is an issue a president can blame on someone else, and this one certainly tries. He points at the Fed, at Biden, at foreigners, etc. But corruption is personal. It’s a profound statement on the character of the man in charge and of our leaders writ large. And this week, it became abundantly clear that voters have rendered their judgment.”

In Taylor’s estimation, there is nothing Trump can do about it in the three short weeks before the midterms. As he concludes, “When nine-in-ten Americans say the government is corrupt and only one-in-ten say the president is looking out for them, the little guy, there’s no earthly messaging strategy that can save the party in power. The Republicans running with Trump’s name on their ballots are running on the most radioactive issue in modern American political history because they have slavishly covered for his corruption or outright enabled it. Trump spent more than a decade telling Americans the system was rigged. He finally convinced them. What he didn’t tell them is that he would be the one rigging it. Now they’ve noticed.”

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Trump's fear of death poses nuclear danger: biographer

On Thursday night, a biographer of President Donald Trump warned that the looming specter of “death” and political decline is making him increasingly “desperate.” This is according to Tony Schwartz – ghostwriter of Trump’s book the Art of the Deal – who said he worries that the president’s growing tendency to lash out could see him use nuclear weapons.

“Trump is in a remarkably self-destructive phase of his life,” said Schwartz while appearing on MS NOW. “He is far and away his own worst enemy. Can you imagine if a year ago or a year and a half ago, when his term was starting, he hadn't created the tariffs, if he hadn't started the Iran war? Why does this happen? We know that this is a severely narcissistic guy, that he is always trying to fill what I call that black hole inside him. But here's a couple of things that have changed.”

The first involves the fact that Trump recently turned 80. “That's a meaningful moment in his life,” said Schwartz, “and a look at his own eventual demise, at his death, which is frightening to him.” The second is a matter of the president’s declining power, which Schwartz says is resulting in “narcissistic collapse,” explaining, “He has counted on all of these external things to prove to himself that he matters, and now he is desperately seeking ways – in fact, most of his energy goes into finding ways – to prove that he still matters.”

But as Schwartz notes, Trump’s efforts are backfiring and pushing his rating to January 6 levels of disapproval, and while the president has long been skilled at redirecting the narrative, his attempts to deflect from his historic unpopularity have failed. “How does he explain 29 percent, 30 percent poll ratings?” asks Schwartz. How does he explain every poll suggesting that there is going to be a blue victory if not a tsunami? He can't, and so he runs off to red districts. He builds ballrooms. He puts his name on endless numbers of things, none of which move the ball forward for the country, and none of which help him or Republicans politically. It's the power of insecurity taken to a whole new level.”

That insecurity, Schwartz warns, could prompt Trump to lash out in the most destructive way possible. As the author explains, “What frightens me the most right now – I said this in 2016, that I was worried that if he had his hand on the nuclear button, there was going to come a time when he might just go over the top. That worries me again now, because going out with a blaze of glory is something I could imagine him doing.”

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Longtime Trump pal fired from admin over 'bizarre' feud

On Thursday, Paolo Zampolli – a “longtime” friend of President Donald Trump – was fired from his role at the State Department following revelations of a “bizarre” fight with another MAGA appointee. The news was broken by ABC State Department reporter Shannon Kingston, who was told by a U.S. official, “Paolo was notified today that his status as an envoy has been terminated and he is no longer a government employee.”

As Politico explains, “Two top appointees of President Donald Trump, including the deputy secretary of State, have been embroiled in a monthslong fight that includes accusations of leaks to the media and ‘bizarre’ threats of defamation — all over emails that at times included more than a dozen administration officials. The conflict centers on Paolo Zampolli, a personal friend of Trump’s and a special envoy at the State Department, and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, according to the messages obtained by POLITICO. The emails stretch over almost a year and show Zampolli and Landau disagreeing over chains of command as Landau admonishes Zampolli to stick to his remit on cultural issues — but devolve into bitter arguments and unproven allegations.”

According to Politico, the communications were not only notable for their “personal vitriol,” but because so many top officials ended up in the threads, with a foreign official looped in at one point to boot. “I am hereby ordering you – once again – to immediately stop all work on ANY issues not directly tied to cultural diplomacy, including every one of the issues you mentioned in your recent emails,” Landau wrote to Zampolli in one email from Nov. 14, 2025. Zampolli had been engaged in actions far beyond cultural realms, including posts of meeting the energy minister of Romania, working on nuclear energy issues in Hungary, attending World Bank/International Monetary Fund meetings, meeting with the United Arab Emirates’ director of foreign direct investment and discussing with an Argentine official how to send that country’s astronauts to space. “You have no authority to engage in ANY issues of foreign policy outside of cultural diplomacy, including all the issues you have named,” asserted Landau. The fight devolved from there and was escalated to the White House, and an administration official familiar with the email exchanges told Politico that the sniping was “cartoonish and embarrassing.”

Zampolli, a former modeling agent, represented Melania Trump in New York City in the 1990s and introduced Melania to Trump at a party. Trump appointed Zampolli to the board of the Kennedy Center during his first administration and made Zampolli the U.S. special representative for global partnerships in the current administration. According to Politico, though "assigned to the State Department, Zampolli, who last year posted on social media that he’s ‘never had a boss in my life,’ has publicly indicated that typical bureaucratic org charts do not apply to him. ‘My number-one boss is the president of America,’ Zampolli told the Financial Times. ‘I get my instructions from the White House, Commerce and the Department of War … anything to advance the America First agenda.’”

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Conservative host lays out why Katie Zacharia's lies are a 'big deal'

On Thursday, following revelations that new White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia never passed the bar despite her claims of being a lawyer, a prominent conservative news host took to social media to explain why the lie is a “big deal.” While many conservatives have scrambled to dismiss criticisms of Zacharia’s fabrication, according to NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich, not only is it illegal, but the bigger problem involves her role at the president’s side.

While Zacharia has spent years asserting that she is a lawyer, her story has crumbled over the past few days. Earlier this week, while joining the president for a trip to Alaska, reporters asked her where she had passed the bar exam. Her response, “I went to China,” baffled everyone, including a visibly shocked President Donald Trump. Then Zacharia told CBS News in a statement that she "practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials," although it wasn’t clear which credentials she meant, as only Chinese nationals may take the bar exam in China. The Wall Street Journal then revealed that she had failed the California bar in 2011 and never attempted it again.

After that, she went on the podcast of conservative operative Jack Posobiec, where she admitted to failing the exam and claimed she never described herself as an “attorney at law," saying that there was a "lot of misinformation around the fact that I labeled myself a lawyer." As she put it, "I was very careful how I executed this. I never came across as someone who was an attorney at law.” But at CBS News reports, “On Fox News in April, Zacharia said she ‘lived in Beijing as a corporate lawyer for three years.’ Zacharia's Instagram bio also says that she is a lawyer. On Truth Social, Mr. Trump called her ‘a distinguished Graduate of Pepperdine University, and the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, an attorney.’”

While many conservative voices have attempted to dismiss the debacle, Pavlich disagreed, writing, “Failing the California bar exam the first time is normal. Who cares? But this is not the issue. What is not normal is failing the exam and then lying for years about being a lawyer or attorney to get on television. It is illegal in California to present as a lawyer or attorney and especially to practice law without passing the bar. Presenting this way after passing the ethics exam - before failing the bar - makes it worse because an individual would know it is not okay. She did it anyway.” As Cornell Law professor Brad Wendel pointed out, these are laws that come with real consequences. “There is a specific provision on advertising or holding oneself out as a lawyer,” writes Wendel, “with potential criminal penalties attached.” According to California state law, offenders face up to one year in county jail.

But according to Pavlich, there is a problem beyond the legal implications. “Lying to the President of the United States about your resume to land a job is a big deal,” she asserted. “The President incorrectly and repeatedly stated she was an attorney because for years she said so. I’d hope more people would be upset about that. The issue is the dishonesty. All of this was preventable. What a shame.”

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