Media

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in an effort to “knock down” a Washington Post report about President Donald Trump’s heated meeting with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, appeared to accidentally verify the reporting, according to one Washington Post journalist.

The report in question claims Hegseth and Trump “clashed” during a Camp David summit last week as the president’s “frustration over the Iran war boiled over.” Trump reportedly “demanded answers from Hegseth on why he had apparently been misled on extreme munitions shortages that now threaten to limit military options with Iran.”

Reuters reported Tuesday that “the U.S. Army has used up much of its global stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles” during the Iran war, including “the Army's surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM).” Reuters, citing two sources, said the “the U.S. has used ‘virtually all’ of these weapons.”

Trump, during the Camp David Cabinet meeting, “vented at Hegseth that he thought the munitions issue ‘had been fixed,’” according to the Post. The defense secretary “defended himself and blamed his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, for the shortages” and for keeping Trump in the dark.

On Truth Social Thursday, Trump denied the munitions shortage, insisting "The U.S. has massive amounts of 'munitions,' especially of certain types. Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed.”

Late Wednesday night on X, Leavitt called the Post report “B.S.” and claimed the altercation “literally never happened.” Leavitt said the “story was shopped to many outlets by someone clearly out to disparage the secretary, for whatever reason. Unfortunately for them, the president loves the secretary and thinks he’s doing a tremendous job.”

Leavitt closed her statement with an all-caps “fake news!”

But, as Washington Post military affairs reporter Dan Lamothe noted, the White House denial actually verifies a major element of the report.

“The White House is trying to knock down tonight's story by my colleagues in part by highlighting that Trump ‘loves’ Secretary Hegseth,” Lamothe wrote on X. “The story never says otherwise. Instead, it reports that Hegseth got pressed by Trump on a specific, important issue.”

“Further, the Post has reported previously that despite last year's turmoil in the Pentagon, Hegseth has maintained Trump's support,” Lamothe added.

Indeed the Washington Post report included a quote from Leavitt herself, in which she denied the reporters' claims and asserted Trump's support of Hegseth.

“President Trump has the utmost confidence in Secretary Hegseth,” Leavitt told the Post, according to the Post’s own reporting.

President Donald Trump has been after the ABC network as part of his ongoing feuds with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and the co-hosts of "The View." Now, it appears Trump's own vainglorious boasts have put the whole thing in jeopardy.

Chatting with Greg Sargent for his morning podcast for The New Republic, law school professor Leah Litman walked through why Trump has completely undermined his own case.

Sargent explained that Trump's own social media posts have become exhibits in ABC's case, which argues that he's using the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to go after his political foes. Leading the FCC is who Sargent called Trump's "slavishly devoted accomplice," Brendan Carr.

"This captures something really essential about Trump's open corruption and whether our institutions are capable of constraining it," said Sargent.

Litman said that it's all part of Trump's inability to hear bad news about himself and that often it inspires him to threaten to remove FCC licenses from affiliates. In other incidents, Trump has threatened to weaponize the FCC for investigations into the networks that he doesn't like.

The largest example came when Trump tried to get Kimmel kicked off the air, only for ABC parent company Disney to lose anywhere from $3.5 billion to $4.99 billion in market value as well as nearly 3 million subscribers, Fox Business reported at the time. Kimmel later joked that the same tactic couldn't be used for Stephen Colbert because so few people use the Paramount subscription service.

"If they don't rent licenses, that's the end of the company," Litman explained.

ABC's response to the Trump administration filing is "scathing," said Sargent, reading a line from the court filing.

"The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the administration's view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price," the filing says.

Litman said it's a clear message from the administration: "to stand down, do our bidding or face the penalty." It's being seen across the board to universities, James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Jack Smith and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The part that Sargent found the most amusing is that ABC cites one of Trump's own social media posts to allege they're being targeted for political purposes.

"Why is it that ABC and NBC Fake News, two of the worst and most biased networks, aren't paying millions of dollars a year in license fees? They should lose their licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans," Trump said.

Litman said arguments like ABC's have been effective in the past, but the larger question is whether the Supreme Court will be willing to get involved.

"Right now I think there's a disparity in lower courts saying, 'The president said what he said. We can't ignore that.' And the Supreme Court saying, 'No, actually we can and we will and we'll just pretend it didn't happen," Litman said.

A new court filing from ex-CNN host Don Lemon was filed Wednesday, alleging that a Department of Homeland Security officer lied under oath in a statement to the judge in his case.

Lemon is included with several other journalists charged by the Department of Justice, which claims that Lemon and other reporters were protesting when they were filming at a Minnesota church where one of the pastors was coordinating with immigration agents.

National security expert Marcy Wheeler noted that this is the second time the Justice Department has asked Judge Douglas Minko to accept a complaint from an ICE agent who watched the video of the church broadcast and testified to what was in it.

According to Lemon's filing, the agent made false claims about the journalists joining in the chanting from protesters.

"That sworn allegation about Mr. Lemon was false," the filing states. "The government did not produce the draft complaint affidavit until July 17, 2026. At the July 24 hearing, the government explained that it submitted the affidavit to the Court in late January, but the Court did not sign it. The government then 'took Chief Judge Schiltz's advice' and obtained a grand jury indictment on January 29, 2026. Thus, only two days before securing the indictment, the government submitted a complaint affidavit falsely alleging that Mr. Lemon and the other journalists joined in the chanting. The timing strongly suggests that the government presented the same false account of the journalists' conduct to the grand jury."

On Friday, in a rare move, Judge Minko ordered that the Justice Department turn over all testimony and evidence presented to the grand jury at the time. Their specific request is to find whether this sworn statement and any others were used to secure a grand jury indictment.

The proceedings for a grand jury are typically kept secret, but in recent events, judges have allowed that information to be released to the defense in trial courts. In a recent Chicago case, the Justice Department was found to have misled the grand jurors and even dismissed jurors that they felt wouldn't give them the indictment they sought. That case involved six political leaders and activists protesting outside of an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. The charges have been dropped and the accused have asked for a special counsel to investigate the incident.

Judge Minko said that he wanted to examine the information himself first. However, Matthew Ebert, who represents freelance journalist Georga Fort, said that the government has made false claims about his client already, including in sworn affidavits, Minneapolis Public Radio reported last week.

“The presumption of regularity has collapsed,” Ebert said.

Justice Department prosecutor Neville Hedley told the judge that no false information in earlier documents made it into the indictment. That doesn't indicate whether the information was revealed to the grand jury to obtain the indictment, however.

“These were not material falsehoods," Hedley said. “This was a mistake, this was a miscommunication.”

The affidavit signed by DHS-ICE Special Agent Timothy Gerber reads, "Broadcast video obtained from Cities church also shows ARMSTRONG, ALLEN, LEMON, RICHARDSON, KELLY, FORT, LUNDY, CREWS chanting with agitators and obstructing parishioners' path of travel."

Hedley didn't indicate what was "miscommunicated" in the claim.

Lemon and his attorneys have alleged that the case against him and the journalists is "weak."

President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement's takeover efforts are "beatable," according to a new breakdown from the New York Times, and the major recent "setback" against one of his top media allies shows how to do it.

Earlier this week, Paramount agreed to delay its acquisition of Warner Bros. to allow a lawsuit against the merger from 12 state Attorneys General to play out. The process will now resume in either June 2027 or five days after a trial decision allowing the merger to go through, pending any further delays.

Paramount itself was also recently taken over by Skydance in 2025, putting it under the control of the wealthy Trump backer, David Ellison. This change has been the most visible at Paramount's news outlet, CBS, where Ellison has pushed it to be much more Trump- and MAGA-friendly, sending its ratings and credibility into freefall. Critics now worry that a similar fate awaits CNN, the news network in the Warner Bros. portfolio, as well as a general shift towards the iconic studio producing fewer films each year, and Ellison potentially nixing anything that is not Republican-friendly enough.

With this significant new delay, there is renewed hope that the merger might fall apart in court. Writing for the New York Times on Tuesday, columnist Michelle Goldberg spoke with lawyer Norm Eisen about the situation, and he explained how it shows "that Trump is beatable if you take a page from his playbook and flood the zone with opposition." She heard a similar sentiment when she spoke with Mark Ruffalo, one of the most outspoken anti-merger actors in Hollywood.

"The mere possibility that the deal could be defeated, said Ruffalo, has strengthened resistance in Hollywood," Goldberg wrote. "After Paramount announced its pause, SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents actors, broadcasters and recording artists, finally voted to oppose the merger. There’s a growing understanding, said Ruffalo, that if you let yourself be cowed by MAGA, 'you’re doomed. If you fight, at least you have a fighting chance. And they’re losing their grip on power. They’re losing their grip on their narrative.' As Trump looks ever less indomitable, so does his dream of remaking American culture in his image."

While Paramount's merger could still ultimately prevail, Goldberg noted that this pause could still cause it significant pain. If the delay lasts until next summer, it could cost the studio around $2 billion in fees. It could also force it to accept a settlement, whereby it agrees to spin off and relinquish control of CNN, or to make promises about protecting jobs within the company.

“I think it’s seismic,” media reporter Oliver Darcy told Golberg. “And it certainly puts into question whether this deal will cross the finish line.”

CNN took a beating online this week, as various commentators called out the network for its participation in the White House Correspondents' Dinner (WHCD) after reports emerged that its "leadership was furious" over comments President Donald Trump made attacking its journalists.

The latest WHCD took place on Friday evening, having been delayed when a gunman attempted to carry out a shooting at the previously scheduled event. CNN had a notable presence at the dinner, with anchor Wolf Blitzer presenting an award to Wall Street Journal reporters who uncovered new ties between Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Trump also took aim at anchor Kaitlin Collins during his address that night, comparing her appearance to that of Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer who has been the target of considerable right-wing outrage, with the remark being criticized as both misogynistic and transphobic.

On Monday, Semafor released a new report noting that CNN staffers were "livid" about Trump's attack on Collins, with some leaders at the company reportedly considering "scaling back" its involvement in next year's dinner or "skipping it altogether." The outlet had previously committed to attending the event to celebrate the work of its reporters and to avoid seeming like they were making a political statement by opting not to attend.

Given CNN's participation in the event, and the hand it had in boosting its profile this year, several prominent users across social media raked the network over the coals in response to the report, suggesting that they should not have attended it at all, as well as for their extensive coverage of Trump overall.

"They ought to be furious at themselves for sustaining the dinner with their attendance," journalist John Harwood wrote in a post to X.

Responding to Harwood's post, Canadian journalist Annie Dufour shared her own reaction to the WHCD from Friday.

"From Canada, this was painful to watch as a journalist," she posted. "American Media has fallen short of its role as a pillar of democracy. Complacent. Coy. Accommodating. A Vichy Press, almost. When it should have been unyielding, brave, and bold. You reap what you sow."

"They should scale back their coverage of the lunatic president who spewed all of this hate at Kaitlan and CNN. And journalism as a whole," journalist Sophia A. Nelson posted.

"They were also shocked to discover that gambling is going on at Rick's Cafe in Casablanca," journalist Brian Lowery posted, referencing a scene from a classic film to suggest that Trump's diatribe should have been an obvious outcome.

President Donald Trump's rage failed to squash the momentum of a new book that acts as an often embarrassing exposé of his second term, with Axios revealing in a new report that it is on track to smash sales records.

Last month saw the publication of Regime Change, a hotly anticipated new book from New York Times reporters and Trump experts, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Based on years of extensive reporting and interviews with close sources, the book exposes Trump's unprecedented abuses of power since his return to the White House, as well as various unflattering new details, including his staff's attempt to go behind his back over the Epstein files and his disgusting bedroom snacking habits.

These explosive revelations and more have made the book a notable sales success, especially for a non-fiction title in an age when concerns are rampant about the decline of reading. According to an Axios report from Wednesday, Regime Change has surpassed 500,000 units sold across its first month of publication, based on combined hardcover, audiobook and e-book sales figures. This is a significant milestone for any book, and also seems poised to make Haberman and Swan's Trump exposé the bestselling non-fiction title of 2026.

"Reports of the death of the nonfiction book have been greatly exaggerated," Matt Latimer, co-founder of Haberman's literary agency, Javelin, told Axios.

"This doesn't necessarily mean that Trump books are back," Keith Urbahn, the other co-founder at Javelin, added. "It's still uphill sledding for political books... This book is different. Maggie and Swan pierced the veil of a White House that has been pretty locked down on scoops and scenes. 'Regime Change' is a unicorn of publishing. It goes well beyond political circles to people who are hungry for a narrative and frame to make sense of Trump 2.0. Even Trump and his team aren't disputing the facts."

In its own report about the sales milestone, The Daily Beast noted that the success comes as a major blow to Trump after he attempted to smear and bury the book as a "Fake News" hatchet job on Truth Social.

"Based on a very quick and boring briefing concerning the Magot Hagerman book about me, it is mostly made up, Fake News, largely fiction, as have been most of the things she has written about me for so many years," Trump's post read, later tarring Haberman as "a third rate writer and intellect."

In response, Swan, whom Trump did not mention, invited the president to respond in an on-camera interview "any time he wants."

MAGA Republicans and the Trump administration suffered a major setback when, on Monday, July 20, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín blocked a Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger that, opponents of the deal say, would put President Donald Trump's allies in charge of CNN. The federal judge issued a 14-day restraining order, which liberal economist Paul Krugman is applauding as a positive development.

Martínez-Olguín's restraining order doesn't kill the Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger altogether, but it does block it for two weeks.

"Good news: The second richest man in America might be prevented from taking over CNN," Krugman argues in a July 22 video for his Substack page. "That's the good news. The bad news is, aside from the fact that he probably will manage to pull it off anyway…. that that would be only a small piece of the ongoing takeover of U.S. media by oligarchs. And in turn, the media takeover is just part of the extraordinary exercise of power by the extraordinarily wealthy small number of men who have been wreaking so much havoc with America as we know it."

Opponents of the Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger fear that if it goes through, CNN will end up mirroring right-wing cable news outlets like Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax and One America News Network (OAN) — all of which are known for their favorable coverage of Trump. Paramount's Larry Ellison is a major Trump supporter, and Warner Bros. Discovery is CNN's parent company.

The Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Krugman warns, would accelerate MAGA's "takeover of the media."

"So, OK, (Larry) Ellison, or the Ellison family — because nominally, this is Ellison's son, (David Ellison), in charge of Paramount — has already acquired CBS and has hired Bari Weiss to basically corrupt and destroy that network," Krugman laments. "If the deal for takeover of Warner proceeds, then CNN will get the same treatment. I'm finding CNN a very good news source, just braver at taking on what's really happening than my old employer, the New York Times — which is a great news organization and may be more necessary than ever, but tends to be cautious. And CNN is a little bit less cautious."

Krugman continues, "But anyway, if he gets away with it, then CNN as we know it will almost disappear. It will almost turn into Fox News. Now, that won't be a profitable venture. There's already a Fox News, and so, creating another one is not going to actually produce a lot of profits, if any. But that's not the objective. This is buying influence."

In a civil defamation lawsuit against the BBC, U.S. President Donald Trump and his legal team are arguing that clips of him in a documentary for the program "Panorama" were edited in a way to make him look bad — a claim the BBC vehemently denies. The BBC, however, is fighting back, and according to i Paper reporter Simon Mark, they are "humiliating" Trump in the process.

"Little by little, week by week, the BBC is humiliating Donald Trump in a Florida courtroom that lies just 15 miles from his much-prized golf resort outside Miami," Marks explains in the UK-based i Paper. "Trump's defamation lawsuit, which is seeking $10bn in damages from the UK's public broadcaster over an October 2024 Panorama documentary that included clumsy editing of the president's inflammatory speech to his supporters in Washington on 6 January, 2021, is beginning to show signs of being on life support. On Tuesday, (July 21), Judge Enjoliqué Lett ruled in favor of the BBC's motion to force Trump and his businesses to divulge detailed financial information to support claims contained in the original lawsuit."

Marks adds, "That suit argued that (the BBC documentary) 'Trump: A Second Chance?' caused 'massive economic damage to his brand value, and significant damage and injury to his future financial prospects.'"

Lett, Marks notes, "gave the BBC the green light to try to force Trump's lawyers to hand over the president's financial records, in an effort to interrogate whether the broadcast's U.S. transmission truly resulted in financial damages."

"Trump, of course, has no intention of placing his financial data in the hands of BBC lawyers, and even during Tuesday's hearing, the president's attorney indicated that a massive climbdown may soon be underway," Marks observes. "Al Brito, leading Trump's legal team, told the judge that the president's claims against the BBC had 'evolved.' He said that an amended version of the lawsuit would soon be unveiled in which 'the damages are limited in a way that is different from when the case was originally filed. Even if there has been harm to the brand, we are not pursuing that as part of our damages,' he said, predicting that the amended lawsuit would have a 'far more narrow scope.'"

The BBC, Marks emphasizes, "smells blood in the water."

"The corporation's lawyers say Trump's legal team are dragging their feet over efforts to schedule the president's deposition in the case," Marks observes. "The corporation continues to call for the entire lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that the BBC is not the broadcasting powerhouse in South Florida that the president claims."

President Donald Trump went on an incoherent rant on Monday that once again put on display his apparent difficulty staying focused on a single subject.

While speaking on the TV program “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Trump meandered away from discussing the two-year anniversary of the assassination attempt against him in Butler, PA in order to talk about co-host Ainsley Earhardt being engaged to his longtime friend, Fox News personality Sean Hannity.

“Well, let’s put it this way. So I’ve known Ainsley longer than the two of you. I’ve known her through a great gentleman, a very handsome man named Sean Hannity,” Trump told “Fox & Friends.” “She seemed to be attracted to him for whatever the hell reason, right?”

He continued, “So I’ve known her for a long time. And I once told her a long time ago, I said, ‘This is a very dangerous—being president is a very dangerous profession.’ I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that, Ainsley? I wouldn’t have run.’”

The Daily Beast called the president's answer "bizarre." In the past, Trump himself has characterized his meandering style in interviews as "the weave," while critical journalists have accused the mainstream media of "sanewashing" Trump by refusing to emphasize the unusual way he answers questions.

"As applied to Trump," Columbia Journalism Review's Jon Allsop wrote in 2024, "the idea is that major mainstream news outlets are routinely taking his incoherent, highly abnormal rants — be they on social media or at in-person events — and selectively quoting from them to emphasize lines that, in isolation, might sound coherent or normal, thus giving a misleading impression of the whole for people who didn't read or watch the entire thing. ... If journalists are sometimes sanewashing Trump, why are they doing it?"

This is not the first time in recent days that Trump has made gaffes which raise questions about the 80-year-old politician’s fitness for office. Speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a NATO summit last week, Trump referred to Iran as “the Islamic Republic of Japan” and mistook Zelensky for Russian President Vladimir “Putin.”

“There was absolutely and utterly no awareness that he had said the wrong country's name… You can even see him emphasizing this fact,” psychologist and body language expert Dr. John Paul Garrison said at the time. “He does that when he feels very strongly about something. You can see he's raising his eyebrows right here — he wants everybody to hear what he's saying. And there's no attempt to correct this. He has no idea based on everything I'm seeing that he just said the wrong country's name.”

Speaking with AlterNet in May, psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham (formerly of Tufts University) elaborated on the traits Trump has displayed which suggest he may be declining. Abraham co-signed a May letter from a group of 36 top physicians and mental health experts urging Congress to investigate Trump’s health and remove him from power through the 25th Amendment if necessary.

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

President Donald Trump's has made "casual butchery of the innocent" a common occurrence in his administration, according to a new analysis from The i Paper, which further argued that his conduct is, in key ways, even more bloodthirsty than the mob.

The piece, published on Saturday, hailed from veteran reporter Patrick Cockburn and dug into the growing list of violent acts committed against the innocent that Trump and his allies are racking up, including one which he dubbed "the worst single atrocity in U.S. military history since the Vietnam War."

"On the first day of the US-Israeli attack on Iran on [February 28], US missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyiba girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran, killing at least 168 children as they sat at their desks along with 14 teachers – according to the Iranian media – in what may be the worst single atrocity in US military history since the Vietnam War," he wrote, later adding. "The slaughter of the schoolgirls by feckless US military commanders is but one ghastly example of the moral depravity of America during Donald Trump’s second presidency. Trump boasts of assassinating the 86-year-old Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but makes no mention of the killing by his side of his daughter, daughter-in-law and a 14-month-old granddaughter whose name was Zahra Mohammadi Golpayegani."

He continued: "For the US government, casual butchery of the innocent has become the norm. In the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, US Southern Command has carried out some 196 extrajudicial killings of people in boats whom it claims, without producing any evidence, were 'narco-terrorists smuggling drugs into the US.' According to an Amnesty International report on the killings, the US has released and not prosecuted survivors from the air strikes on their boats, strongly suggesting that it has no proof they were carrying drugs."

Cockburn further cited a statement about these strikes from Amnesty International, which called them both "illegal" and "immoral," and accused the Trump administration of normalizing "extrajudicial killings." He went a step further, echoing the common comparison of Trump to a mob boss and likening his government to a "gangster underworld." However, he also argued that this comparison might, in fact, not be fair to the mob.

"This goes to the moral heart of the matter," Cockburn wrote. "The thought processes and behavior of the Trump administration in these cases resemble those of the gangster underworld, pitiless in targeting the weak and defenseless, respectful only of those who respond to violence with greater violence. If anything, the American Mafia arguably operates with greater moderation than Trump has here, making a distinction between civilians and its criminal rivals."

A Fox News contributor harshly criticized those who subscribe to conspiracy theories about the assassination of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, arguing that the ongoing trial of alleged assassin Tyler Robinson amply demonstrates that he acted alone.

“Just reviewing some of the courtroom notes, some of the color from the courtroom, Erika Kirk, when she walked in, there was eye contact with the judge, and you just have to wonder what’s going through her head when you think about all her battles so far battling against the defense that has been trying to delay this trial, to keep the media out of the courtroom and how hard this has been for her,” Fox News host Sandra Smith told Fox News contributor David Webb on Monday.

Webb replied, “And her statement…’The public should see this.’ This assassination was public, which speaks to the public interest. More on the process.”

The journalist then explained how the early stages of the trial have shed light on the ludicrousness of claiming that Kirk’s death was part of a greater conspiracy.

“The death penalty arguments that were initially made, the defense wanted that taken off,” Webb said. “That is a negotiation tool for prosecutors. And that’s why it should be there, in my opinion. There should be everything on the table. The fact that they’re also trying to taint this, this slow process, is about dragging it out to introduce any form of doubt, right? Oftentimes you think of jury nullification or polluting the jury pool, or even the public jury, which matters in this case.”

He added, “The evidence, by all terms so far, shows that he committed this act. I don’t think that’s the question. It’s a matter of how far the punishment goes. So they haven’t been able to take the death penalty out. Hearsay evidence is being allowed in, the testimony by [Robinson’s former roommate and romantic partner Lance] Twiggs being giving by statement. So now it’s degrees for the defense.”

Webb finally concluded, “But the fact is this is a public interest case. There have been high-profile assassinations throughout our history, unfortunately. And the public should also see this because justice has to be both public and served.”

“Yeah, amen to that,” Smith responded.

Ever since Kirk’s death, the stories around the shooting have proven to be fertile ground for conspiracy theories. In March Joe Kent, President Donald Trump’s former National Counterterrorism Center Director argued to right wing commentator Tucker Carlson that he believed a “foreign nexus” was behind Kirk’s death.

“Things really got going on Tuesday when Kent told conservative writer (and two-time failed California gubernatorial candidate) Michael Shellenberger he’d be willing to testify in accused Kirk murderer Tyler Robinson’s defense that the FBI botched the investigation,” observed The Bulwark's conservative pundit Will Sommer at the time. “Kent told Shellenberger he was warned his own inquiry into Kirk’s murder—which he operated from his government post, separately from the FBI—could hurt the prosecution against Robinson.”

Kent then added to Carlson, “I was definitely warned of that over and over again. If I end up having to [be called as a witness], then I’ll do it. It’s not something I’m seeking.”

In the classic 1950 film “Sunset Boulevard,” aging silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) pretends that Hollywood is still as it was when she was at her peak, creating a grotesque charade that obscures unpleasant realities. Drawing from rumors that this is President Donald Trump’s favorite movie, conservative writer David Frum wrote in The Atlantic on Sunday that Trump’s 4th of July speech similarly ignored the ugly truth about the Republican’s second term.

“The very first sentence of the document honored on July 4 invoked ‘a decent respect for the opinions of mankind,’” Frum wrote. “Throughout their history, Americans have been highly conscious of the opinions of others about their experiment in republican government. In his first July 4 message to Congress in 1861, Abraham Lincoln declared the fate of the American Union a contest of urgent interest to ‘the whole family of man.’ Or as Ronald Reagan often said, quoting the Bible via John Winthrop: America is like a city on a hill; the eyes of the whole world are upon it.”

Yet Trump’s second term has been marked by efforts that do not reflect the best in America’s character, according to Frum. He singled out four acts of imperialist aggression, two threatened and two actualized. The threatened aggression includes bluster toward Canada, referring to America’s northern neighbor as “the 51st state” and ominously proclaiming that he is going to conquer Greenland from Denmark. He also has waged actual wars against Venezuela and Iran.

“Trump’s preferred rhetorical style on such occasions is to brag about the strength of the U.S. military, how nobody can equal it, how it crushes all before it,” Frum explained. “He reportedly tells his inner circle that he personally is a more powerful warlord than Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan. The authentic Trump does not care about any ideals beyond national fearsomeness and personal enrichment. But somebody got some ill-remembered fragments from the Before Times about freedom onto Trump’s teleprompter—and on this unusual occasion, Trump read the fragments without balking.”

He added that, much as the fictional Desmond deluded herself into believing the world was applauding her, the real Trump and his supporters refuse to admit that the president’s actions have made him unpopular rather than popular throughout the world.

“Americans may not wish to acknowledge what Trump has done to their standing in the world,” Frum wrote. “Such denial does not change reality. Norma Desmond’s last lover—and doomed narrator—delivers a verdict on the fading star’s descent from delusion into madness: “The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.”

He concluded, “Americans have not clung to their dream nearly desperately enough, but they too are now enfolded in something dark and diminished.”

The event, which was also controversial for Trump’s seemingly flippant behavior toward Gold Star Families, is not the first move associated with Trump to attract the conservative’s ire. In June 2025, Frum blasted Trump for pulling America toward a Middle Eastern war with his seemingly reckless foreign policy.

"President Donald Trump is being pulled toward war in the Middle East by his predator's eye for a victim's weakness and his ego's need to claim the work of others as his own," Frum wrote. "But since his 'unconditional surrender' social-media post on Tuesday, other Trump instincts have asserted themselves — above all, his fear of responsibility."

He added, "Trump enjoys wielding power. He flinches from accountability. Days ago, Trump seemed to hunger for entry into Israel's war. A dramatic victory seemed poised to tumble into somebody's lap. Why not his? But as the hours passed, Trump reconsidered. Instead of acting, he postponed. He said that a decision would come within 'two weeks.'"

Two months earlier, Frum claimed that Trump does not understand how energy prices work.

"On March 31, the national average price of gasoline at the pump surpassed $4, the highest level since the post-pandemic shocks of 2022," Frum wrote. "One-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas usually flows through the Strait (or Hormuz), but hasn't since Iran began impeding the waterway in early March. Yet Trump continues to insist that Iran's partial closure of the strait isn't a problem. Markets don't agree with Trump, and neither do his poll numbers."

He concluded, "How did Trump get Hormuz so wrong? The answer reveals one of Trump's most characteristic and most fateful mistakes: his steadfast refusal to acknowledge that Americans live in a world economy."

A new editorial from the Wall Street Journal has, as one reporter argued, given the game away about which Republican the Murdoch media empire wants to succeed President Donald Trump in 2028.

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, a group traditionally seen as a leading voice in the American conservative movement, released a new piece titled, "Rubio Holds the Line on Hezbollah," hailing Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a new deal that attempts to rein in the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, which threatened to undo the peace deal with Iran.

"The U.S. has brokered another Middle East deal and, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio taking the lead, this time the deal tries to box Iran out," the board detailed. "The U.S.-Israel-Lebanon Trilateral Framework signed Friday focuses on the only real way for Beirut to regain its sovereignty: disarming Hezbollah, Tehran’s Lebanese Shiite proxy.”

It continued later: "Some Iran analysts associated with Vice President JD Vance have criticized the framework as 'incompatible' with the memorandum of understanding with Iran. But Trump administration sources tell us this framework is the U.S. interpretation of the MOU’s language regarding Lebanon. On this the Vice President backs Mr. Rubio; nobody on the Trump team wants to force Israel to cede all of southern Lebanon to Iran’s proxy, as Iran demands... Hezbollah wants to turn Lebanon into Gaza. The Rubio accord gives Beirut and Israel the best chance in years to prevent that catastrophe.”

While the piece largely focused on praising the deal as an important step forward and did not comment on the political fortunes of those involved, some argued that such conclusions were still evident. Marc Polymeropoulos, a retired CIA official and national security contributor for MS NOW, argued that this piece was another sign of Rupert Murdoch's conservative media empire taking a side in the 2028 GOP presidential battle.

"From the WSJ Ed Board to the NYPost, pretty clear where Murdoch owned pubs are now heavily tilting for ‘28," Polymeropoulos posted to X in response to the piece. "All in on Rubio, and their disgust is palpable with JD Vance and his (now an open secret in DC) alliance with [Iran war critic Trita] Parsi…"

Vance remains the nominal favorite to succeed Trump as the 2028 GOP presidential nominee, almost exclusively because of his position as vice president. As the months wear on, however, his unpopularity has some power brokers in the party looking elsewhere, with Rubio emerging as a new favorite.

Murdoch's preference for the secretary of state is far from a new development. In their recent book about the second Trump term, journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan revealed that Trump pressed the conservative media tycoon about his thoughts on Vance and Rubio right in front of the two men. Murdoch said that Vance "has the potential to be great," while he said flat out that "Rubio is brilliant."

Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume this week tore into President Donald Trump over the spiraling negotiations with Iran, saying it is clear that his administration is "being jerked around by an Iranian regime" like every other administration of the past.

Hume made an appearance on the Monday episode of Special Edition, where host Bret Baier pressed him about the current situation surrounding Iran and its unsteady ceasefire deal with the U.S. Despite being heavily touted by Trump and his allies, the deal seems to be ever on the verge of collapse, with the U.S. firing on Iran after it attacked a ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which it claimed was using an unauthorized path.

Baier shared an X post from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in which he asserted that Iran would follow its parts of the deal if the U.S. did the same, and accused the Trump administration of "unreasonable saber-rattling and baseless threats." Hume said that it remains uncertain whether Pezeshkian, who does not appear to be in control of all the parties involved in Iran's side of the negotiations, would respect a deal that was agreed upon, arguing that Iran is "absolutely notorious for going back on deals, violating ceasefires, violating memoranda of understanding"

"And of course, there's the question of whether they have any control over the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is independent to a great extent of the broader government," Hume said. "It’s hard to resist the conclusion that the President of the United States is being jerked around by an Iranian regime in much the same way that previous administrations have been jerked around."

Hume is long-tenured veteran at Fox News, previously hosting Special Edition until 2008, and remains one of the voices on the conservative network willing to take Trump and his coalition to task for their failures. In April, he warned the GOP that, if elections were held then instead of November, it would have been almost certain that the party would lose badly.

“I think people are concerned about the economy, and the Republicans are likely to pay a price for that,” Hume said. “There’s some hope among Republicans that if we get a successful outcome of this war in Iran, or above Iran actually, that the gasoline prices and other prices will come down, people will feel better about the economy, that [President Donald Trump's] program will bring about some strengthening growth, that some of the measures he’s taken in terms of taxes and regulation will pay off, and that they’ll have a chance of doing well in the midterms.”

He added: "I think the House is a long shot for [Republicans] because the margin is so tiny and historical precedent is so strong that the in-party loses in the midterm in a new president’s first term. I think if the election were held today give how we’re in the middle of this conflict that the House would be obviously gone and a chance that the Senate would go, too.”

A Grammy-winning and platinum-selling musician has been exposed for a planned performance at a Trump-family-owned "MAGA millionaire club," according to a new report from The Daily Beast, after previously throwing their support behind President Donald Trump's political agenda.

According to the outlet's Sunday morning report, rapper and businessman Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson will put on a performance on July 3 at an expensive and exclusive Washington, D.C., club with close connections to the Trump family.

"The Grammy Award-winning rapper will take the stage at Executive Branch, the swanky Georgetown club co-owned by the president’s eldest son [Donald Trump Jr.], on July 3, sources told the Daily Beast," the outlet reported. "Trump Jr. opened the club, which charges an annual membership fee of $500,000, alongside financiers Omeed Malik and Christopher Buskirk of 1789 Capital."

As the report also noted, Jackson's support for Trump has shifted erratically over the years, often seeming highly influenced by negative public reactions.

"For his part, 50 Cent has a history of shifting his stance on Trump, 80," the report detailed. "In 2019, the rapper told The Daily Beast that Trump had offered him half a million dollars to attend his inauguration but that he turned it down because 'every dollar is not a good dollar.' The following year, he voiced support for Trump before later tweeting, 'F——k Trump, I never liked him,' reversing course amid backlash."

The report added: "While 50 Cent has not commented publicly on Trump’s politics, his appearance at the Executive Branch appears to signal a change of heart on his part. The club has become a gathering place for well-connected figures within and around the Trump administration. Members reportedly include White House artificial intelligence adviser David Sacks, crypto investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and State Department Under Secretary Jacob Helberg. Former Rep. Mike Gallagher is also said to frequent the club as a guest."

In 2024, Jackson made headlines when he claimed in an interview to have turned down a $3 million payday to perform at a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden. He claimed to be "afraid about politics" because of the hostile reactions any given stance could elicit, further citing the career downfall of Kanye West after he expressed strong support for Trump and the MAGA movement.

Jackson is reportedly just the latest in a string of hip-hop artists who have performed at Trump Jr's club, following on from the likes of Busta Rhymes, Ja Rule and Timbaland.

President Donald Trump's recent speech for America's 250th birthday celebration was riddled with "significant" signs of possible "neurological decline," according to one licensed pathologist, particularly his numerous slurred mispronunciations of certain words and phrases.

On Wednesday, Trump delivered a speech at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., as part of the "Great American State Fair" event that has been plagued with controversy in recent weeks. The online discourse after the event was dominated by videos that appeared to show crowds leaving midway through his speech, leading to more speculation about the event's lackluster crowd sizes, but according to one medical professional's observations, Trump's own words indicated that something could be seriously wrong with his cognitive health.

Hilary Shae is a licensed speech-language pathologist specializing in concussion recovery, and she has also emerged as a political content creator who offers professional insights into the signs that Trump may be suffering from notable physical and neurological decline. In her latest video from Saturday, she highlighted some of the things that Trump struggled to pronounce throughout the speech, including things like "250th anniversary," "magnificent," "ancient ruins," "Los Angeles" and "horizon."

In some cases, Trump's attempt to pronounce these words trailed off near the end, and in others, he mispronounced the word entirely, often not bothering to double back and try again. As Shae explained, these speech difficulties were "consistent" with certain conditions that can be caused by things like dementia or suffering a stroke, two things that she has previously suggested that Trump might be struggling with, based on his observable symptoms. These flubbed lines, she added, are often referred to as "phonemic paraphasias."

"Phonemic paraphasias are when the motor speech required to coordinate words and syllables together are not coordinated appropriately," she explained. "For example, if I wanted to say 'telephone,' but I accidentally said 'tephelone,' that would be a phonemic paraphasia, because my sounds got mixed up.

She continued: "And that is what's happening a lot of the time with Donald Trump's speech. The coordination for the syllables and order... the more syllables that you have, the higher level motor coordination is required to maintain appropriate speech-sound coordination."

Shae also suggested that this issue could be the result of dysarthria, a condition in which the weakening of muscles required for speech can cause patients to struggle speaking, causing them to sound slurred or slowed down. She argued that this is one of the more recent symptoms that Trump has shown, as is noticeable when he trails off at the ends of certain words, especially ones that are three or more syllables long.

"The fact that there are so many examples of these speech difficulties in one 30-minute speech means that Donald Trump is getting worse," Shae argued. "Whatever is going on, whether it's dementia, whether it's a stroke, whether it's a combination, whether it's congestive heart failure, whether it's whatever it might be, his neurological abilities are declining significantly."

The Great American State Fair kicked off on Wednesday night, June 24 with a speech by President Donald Trump on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The Trump administration is touting the Fair, which continues through July 10, as a celebration of the United States' 250th anniversary. But Trump's critics are arguing that the opening felt more like a partisan MAGA rally than an actual celebration of America's achievements as a democratic republic.

One of those critics is Media Matters' Matt Gertz. During a late June appearance on The New Republic's podcast "The Daily Blast," Gertz stressed that turnout at the Great American State Fair's opening was a major disappointment — citing the MAGA themes as a key factor and attacking Fox News' glowing coverage as painfully awkward.

Fox News, according to Gertz, went out of its way to "carry water" for Trump with its Fair coverage.

Gertz told podcast host Sargent, "It's been a tough few months for people who have to carry water for Donald Trump every night…. And basically, they're trying to use what should be a celebration of the Declaration of Independence, of America’s 250th birthday, as a partisan wedge issue, as a cudgel against the Democratic Party, while simultaneously talking up Donald Trump and his ability to pull a huge crowd and get them together for a big rally. So, the failure, I think, of the kickoff event is a pretty big problem for them in the medium term as they try to keep that message going over the next 10, 12 days."

Gertz described attendance on Wednesday night as a major disappointment.

The Media Matters report told Sargent, a former Washington Post columnist, "Originally, this was supposed to be a big concert with a bunch of different artists who were scheduled to play. But as it became more and more clear that these Freedom 250 events are extremely partisan, the artists decided to drop out. And eventually Trump kind of threw up his hands and said, instead of having this concert, we’re going to launch the state fair with what he called the greatest rally ever. It doesn’t seem to have worked out that way."

Sargent pointed out that Trump "seems very sensitive" about the "low turnout" on June 24, lamenting that he "tried to turn a celebration of America's 250th birthday into a Trump rally." When the "Daily Blast" host described Trump's Great American State Fair speech as an "imperial, dictatorial display of self-glorification," he got no argument from Gertz.

The Media Matters reporter told Sargent, "I mean, I think what we have here is a president who does not respect any sort of separation between himself and the country at large. And so, he views the idea of celebrating the nation's birthday as one and the same with celebrating himself. I think there's no clearer way to see that than how he decided to kick off the festivities with what he personally described as a rally speech — a partisan speech in which he sort of ran down what he claims are his accomplishments and talked about himself, rather than the nation, rather than what brings us together. And that becomes more and more fraught as he becomes more and more unpopular."

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

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

"Today, my wife [and] I

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

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

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

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

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

Right-wing journalist Ben Domenech isn’t aligned with GOP wisdom that the Republican Party should do well in the November midterm elections. In a lengthy written conversation with The New York Times, Domenech says he is “skeptical.”

“Republicans still seem to think that, thanks to redistricting and their advantages in fund-raising, they could buck historical trends and hold on, perhaps even in the House,” Domenech told the Times’ John Guida. “They’re just scared about gas prices. Personally, I’m skeptical.”

Looking specifically at Maine, which Republicans see as the “linchpin” to holding the Senate majority, according to Guida, Domenech also sends a warning. The race will be between U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Democratic insurgent newcomer Graham Platner, who has already faced numerous scandals.

“The interesting thing about this whole focus on Maine is that if you talk to Senate Republican staff and consultants, they’re actually less worried about it than other states,” says Domenech. “This is partially because of Platner’s shall we say unique collection of scandals and challenges, but it’s also because of enormous faith in Collins as a survivor.”

Collins, 73, is running for her sixth term after being first elected in 1996.

Guida points to a Politico report on a memo that states: “the political fundamentals in Maine remain challenging, and it is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win.”

“I think that’s correct,” says Domenech, “and top Republicans should actually be more concerned.”

“Platner clearly has energy behind him. He speaks to a desire on the left for a strong message, and he’s shown no signs of bowing to pressure to get out for a more centrist-coded candidate,” he adds. “Collins is absolutely capable of winning, but national assumptions are taking over based on her last election, in 2020, when she came back from what seemed like a deep hole by keeping her campaign hyperlocal.”

Domenech says that Republicans do have some concerns, specifically about three states Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024: Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.

In Ohio, former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown is seeking to return to the Senate, and is running against “an appointee who has never won a Senate election, Jon Husted.”

In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola is running against Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent who “has the advantage there, but again, we’re talking about a unique state, and Peltola is an Alaska Native,” says Domenech. That race is now considered a “toss up” by The Center for Politics’ “Crystal Ball,” which also now rates the Ohio race as a “toss up.”

Iowa could become a difficult race for Republicans as well. Domenech warns it “could turn out to be a real test for Trump’s tariff policies, which have been a decidedly mixed bag in many of the states that backed him. The president will probably have to take that argument to the people of Iowa himself.”

Overall, says Domenech, Republicans’ confidence “comes from a belief that Democratic radicalism, particularly the various examples of what they view as a renewed cultural leftism in opposition to Trump during his first term, will play in their favor.”