Corrections

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated for clarity.

President Donald Trump wasted little time on Monday attacking the beloved director and activist Rob Reiner, claiming that his death and that of his wife — with their own son being questioned by police — was the result of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” the president’s name for people who are strongly opposed to him and his policies.

Describing their deaths, which are being investigated as apparent homicide, as a “very sad thing,” Trump then called Reiner “a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star.”

He wrote on Truth Social that the death of Reiner and his wife was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.”

Reiner, the president alleged, “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

Critics immediately responded.

“Trump tried to punish people who criticized [Charlie] Kirk after he was killed. Now he’s doing this. What a sick deranged piece of trash human being,” declared Daily Kos reporter Emily C. Singer.

“What a sick man to use the death of a mother and father at the hands of their child as an opportunity for gleefully trying to score political points,” wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council.

“You want to ignore it. He wants the attention. But you can’t ignore it. Because it’s not just about him. It’s about a world where decency still matters. And this is about as indecent as it gets,” observed former Obama administration official Patrick Granfield.

“Rob has a legacy to be proud of. You are a stain on civilization, few will miss,” wrote Alexander Vindman, former Director of European Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council (NSC).

“Just sort of wonder what has to go through your head to decide to send this. Obviously no one around the president is there or willing to tell him he sounds psychotic and monstrous posting this,” remarked The Bulwark’s Sam Stein.

Editor's Note: This headline has been updated.

A new Pew Research Center poll shows that 70 percent of Latinos disapprove of President Donald Trump's job performance, sending a loud warning to Trump and Republicans ahead of next year's much-anticipated midterm elections, The Daily Beast reports.

"The Pew poll is a damning indicator of how voters could turn on Trump in his turbulent second term as immigration raids and inflation play out across the country," The Daily Beast notes.

Mark Lopez, director of Pew’s Race and Ethnicity Research, says this poll portends major red flags for Republicans.

“There’s no doubt that if people draw the connections to a particular administration or political party, this could have some political implications in coming elections,” Lopez tells Reuters.

Latinos comprise roughly one in five Americans — approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population, and their disapproval, The Daily Beast notes, "may signal problems ahead for the GOP."

In the 2024 election, Trump received approximately 46 percent to 48 percent of the Latino vote, which was a significant increase from his 2020 performance.

"But the new poll, of 4,923 Latino adults, shows that even among Trump-voting Latinos, his approval dropped from 93 percent in February to 81 percent," The Daily Beast explains. "A total of 61 percent believe Trump’s economic policies have made conditions worse for Latinos, and 68 percent of Latinos say their situation in the U.S. has gotten worse since last year."

This is a devastating development for Trump, The Daily Beast notes.

"It is the first time in nearly two decades of Pew’s Hispanic surveys that a majority say their situation has deteriorated," they explain.

The poll also shows that "more than three-quarters, 78 percent, also believe the Trump administration’s policies — including mass deportation plans — harm Hispanics, with 55 percent expressing grave concern about their place in the U.S. because of the president’s agenda."

With the GOP's razor-thin majority, these numbers could haunt them next November.

The poll also found that 52 percent of respondents worry “a lot” or “some” that the Trump administration could deport them, a family member, or a close friend. This is up from 42 percent in March, The Daily Beast explains.

"Whatever Donald Trump is doing in office in the minds of Latinos, it is not working. They have turned against him in massive, massive numbers," CNN's data analyst Harry Enten said last week.

Editor’s Note: This headline has been updated.

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday vowed to appeal after a judge threw out the Department of Justice's cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“We'll be taking all available legal action, including an immediate appeal to hold Letitia James and James Comey accountable for their unlawful conduct," Bondi said at a press conference.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie tossed the charges against Comey and James without prejudice, ruling that U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who had brought the charges three days ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline, had been unlawfully appointed. The judge ruled Halligan was installed “on an interim basis" after the previous U.S. attorney said there was not enough evidence to charge James or Comey.

“This case presents the unique, if not unprecedented, situation where an unconstitutionally appointed prosecutor, 'exercising power [she] did not lawfully possess,’ … acted alone in conducting a grand jury proceeding and securing an indictment,” Currie said.

But former prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said if Bondi carries her argument up to the Supreme Court, she’ll be putting it before a conservative judge who has already ruled against other U.S. attorney appointments that failed to meet the same merit.

“The way I view it … is that there's a number of issues. Remember that we've seen in New Jersey an opinion that was consistent with this opinion and that is that you have 120 days [for an AG] to get Senate confirmation. You've got one shot at the apple, and if you don't, then … the district in that specific location gets to appoint the U.S. attorney. You, the executive, do not,” Jackson told “Situation Room” hosts Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown. “We saw it happen in Nevada. Same ruling — an invalidly appointed U.S. attorney. We saw it happen in California. Why am I saying this? Because there’s precedent.”

“I know how oftentimes the politics are ‘oh, this was a lunatic judge who made a lunatic decision.’ Nonsense. There's precedent for it,” Jackson said, adding that he was curious how Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito would vote, considering Alito is a staunch Trump advocate who has ruled reliably in favor of Trump on White House petitions to the court.

“When Samuel Alito was at the Department of Justice, he wrote a legal opinion indicating that exactly what this judge ruled as it relates to the dismissal of the indictment on Comey and Letitia James as to the 120 days [time limit] to get, a Senate confirmation,” Jackson said. “That's what it is. Now, this justice department takes a contrary view, but interesting. If it goes up to the supreme court, will he change his opinion on that, or will he be consistent with what he said almost 40 years ago?”

- YouTube youtu.be

Editor's Note: This headline has been updated.

Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) alluded to a secret tape of a call between President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in his comments on the House floor following a Tuesday Oval Office meeting between the two leaders. Vindman, in his remarksm called for the release of the transcripts of the call.

" Trump has the responsibility to release the transcripts of his call with MBS. You will be shocked by what you hear," Vindman posted on X Wednesday.

This comes, reports The Daily Beast, "one day after the president insisted Mohammed bin Salman had nothing to do with Khashoggi’s killing, despite U.S. intelligence officials concluding he ordered the hit, a former Trump national security insider has claimed there is explosive evidence to the contrary."

Vindman was a National Security Council staffer under the first Trump administration, whose work included reviewing certain calls between the president and foreign leaders, The Daily Beast explains.

"Vindman claims that one phone call he reviewed undercut Trump’s astonishing defense of the Crown Prince in the Oval Office on Tuesday, when he said of Khashoggi’s murder by Saudi agents: 'Things happen,'" they report.

“During my tenure on Trump’s White House National Security Council staff, I reviewed many of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders. Of all the calls I reviewed, two stood out as the most problematic,” Vindman says.

"The first, we all know, was between President Trump and President [Volodymyr] Zelensky, which resulted in President Trump’s first impeachment. The second was between President Trump and Mohammed bin Salman," he adds.

“After the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, I reviewed a call between the president and the Saudi crown prince. The American people and the Khashoggi family deserve to know what was said on that call. If history is any guide, the receipts will be shocking," Vindman says.

Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist, was murdered on October 2, 2018, by a team of Saudi government agents inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

His remains have never been found. U.S. intelligence and a UN investigation concluded that bin Salman approved the operation to capture or kill Khashoggi, an assessment Saudi Arabia denies.

When taking questions from journalists following his meeting with bin Salman Tuesday, Trump berated ABC reporter Mary Bruce after she asked the Crown Prince about his involvement in the murder.

"You’re mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen,” Trump said, adding that bin Salman "knew nothing about it and we can leave it at that."

"You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that," Trump snapped.

Trump hosted bin Salman at a state dinner Tuesday night with guests including Elon Musk, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang and billionaire investor Bill Ackerman.

Trump has long-standing financial ties to Saudi Arabia, including past business dealings and recent deals involving his family and the Trump Organization.

These connections have recently drawn scrutiny due to potential conflicts of interest, especially as the Trump family continues to pursue new business opportunities in the kingdom.

Simultaneously, Trump's administration has deepened the US's strategic defense partnership with Saudi Arabia, recently designating it a major non-NATO ally.

Vindman isn't backing down on his calls for the transcript of the call in what some say may be yet another Trump cover-up.

"Speaking on CNN on Wednesday morning ahead of Trump and the crown prince attending a Saudi investment forum, Vindman said the call he reviewed was equally disturbing and shocking 'in light of the enrichment that the Trump family has received in the ensuing years,'" The Daily Beast reports.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated with the addition of a video.

Lawyers for James Comey are in court on Wednesday as part of the former FBI director's case against the Justice Department. Comey claims he's being selectively prosecuted as part of a revenge effort by President Donald Trump.

CNN's crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz revealed one "startling discussion" in court during which "things got very intense very quickly."

One of the revelations was that the full grand jury never saw the final indictment of Comey before U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan announced it.

"I mean, this is a big revelation, Katelyn. Have you ever heard of this happening before?" host Pamela Brown asked.

Polantz said she's been in a lot of these DOJ hearings, and this one was "gobsmacking."

"It was absolute silence," she said. "You could see the entire room shift. And from that point on this was the only thing mattering in this case. This was the only thing the judge and others were talking about."

"In full, they had voted down indicting Comey because they had been asked to approve three different charges against him. That indictment was a no from the grand jury. And then there was no further discussion with the prosecutors to bring about the indictment Comey now faces," she explained.

The judge then began asking questions about the missing pieces of the grand jury testimony. The transcript had chunks missing, even in the judge's copy and he wanted to know why.

"The judge asked the question: 'The operative indictment in this case, that document was never shown to the entire grand jury?'" she cited.

Tyler Lemons, the prosecutor at the table with Halligan said, "no."

Another thing Polantz found surprising is how much the argument went back to Halligan.

"Is she a puppet? Is she a stalking horse of Donald Trump [...] sent in to bring this case?" the judge asked at one point.

"And the prosecutors kept saying, 'No, she was making decisions on her own,'" Polantz explained, describing Halligan as nodding vigorously in agreement.

Once it became known that the full grand jury didn't see the indictment, it was about a different matter entirely, and Halligan became very "short" with the judge, Polantz said.

Editor's Note: The headline has been updated for clarity.

Prices have risen so high at fast food landmark McDonald's under President Donald Trump's leadership that " traffic from one of its core customer bases, low-income households, has dropped by double digits," reports the LA Times.

"The struggle of the Golden Arches — long synonymous with cheap food for the masses — reflects a larger trend upending the consumer economy and making 'affordability' a hot policy topic," writes Suhauna Hussein.

Executives of the fast-food chain say "the higher costs of restaurant essentials, such as beef and salaries, have pushed food prices up and driven away lower-income customers who are already being squeezed by the rising cost of groceries, clothes, rent and child care."

Analyst Adam Josephson says that prices are rising everywhere—especially at McDonald's.

"Happy Meals at McDonald’s are prohibitively expensive for some people, because there’s been so much inflation,” Josephson says.

Josephson and other economists point to Trump's K-shaped economy as the reason for shrinking traffic of low-income consumers.

Meanwhile, all is well for companies catering to higher-income consumers, like Delta Airlines, where data shows that while their main cabin revenue fell 5 percent for the June quarter compared to a year ago, premium ticket sales rose 5 percent, "highlighting the divide between affluent customers and those forced to be more economical," Hussein writes.

The same is happening with luxury brand hotels, where "revenue at brands including Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis is up 2.9 percent so far this year, while economy hotels saw a 3.1 percent decline for the same period, according to industry tracker CoStar."

“There are examples everywhere you look,” Josephson says.

Consumer credit deliquency rates, Hussein explains, show how badly low-income households are suffering under Trump.

"Households making less than $45,000 annually are seeing 'huge year-over-year increases,' even as delinquency rates for high- and middle-income households have flattened and stabilized," says Rikard Bandebo, chief strategy officer and chief economist at VantageScore.

As rents have increased, the amount families have left over after paying for housing and utilities has fallen to record lows, Hussein notes.

“It’s getting tougher and tougher every month for low-income households to make ends meet,” Bandebo says.

Prices at fast-food restaurants are skyrocketing, too, up 3.2 percent year over year, at a rate higher than inflation “and that’s climbing” according to Marisa DiNatale, an economist at Moody’s Analytics.

“It has always been the case that more well-off people have done better. But a lot of the economic and policy headwinds are disproportionately affecting lower-income households, and [McDonald’s losing low-income customers] is a reflection of that,” DiNatale says.

McDonald's has previously offered budget meals, and tried doing so last year, with a $5 deal for a McDouble or McChicken sandwich, small fries, small soft drink and four-piece McNuggets.

In January it offered a $1 menu item alongside an item bought for full price, and launched Extra Value Meals in early September, but, Hussein writes, it didn't "immediately cut through to customers."

DiNatale says companies are weary of passing along higher costs to customers, saying, "A lot of businesses are saying, we just don’t think consumers will stand for this. [Consumers] have been through years of higher prices, and there’s just very little tolerance for higher prices going forward.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated with CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane’s reporting, including a statement from United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.

Two federal prosecutors have been put on leave after filing a legal brief that described the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as being carried out by "thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters," according to ABC News Washington managing editor Katherine Faulders.

The two prosecutors, Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White, Faulders posted on X, "were locked out of their government devices and informed Wednesday morning they will be placed on leave just hours after filing a sentencing memorandum in the case of Taylor Taranto, the sources said."

Taranto is a military veteran and Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendant who was convicted in May 2025 on separate firearms and hoax-threat charges. He had been previously pardoned by President Donald Trump for his involvement in the January 6th insurrection.

A day before Taranto's arrest in June 2023 when he was found near the home of former President Barack Obama with two guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, as well as a machete, he claimed he would use a car bomb to drive into the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

"In their sentencing memorandum, Valdivia and White used only two sentences to detail Taranto's involvement in the Jan. 6 attack," reported Faulders and ABC's Alexander Mallin.

"On January 6, 2021, thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol while a joint session of Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election," the memorandum said. "Taranto was accused of participating in the riot in Washington, D.C., by entering the U.S. Capitol Building. After the riot, Taranto returned to his home in the State of Washington, where he promoted conspiracy theories about the events of January 6, 2021."

Valdivia and White were furloughed due to the government shutdown and were informed they would be put on administrative leave when the government reopens, the sources told Faulders.

"It's unclear if Valdivia or White were given a reason for their suspensions, though the moves come following months of turmoil in the Washington, D.C., U.S. attorney's office where multiple career prosecutors faced removals or demotions related to their involvement in prosecuting the more than 1,500 defendants charged in connection with the Capitol attack," Faulders and Mallin noted.

"The news of this move is reverberating around the Justice Department — it's another warning. You cant, as a prosecutor, tell what you believe as the truth about the January 6 riots without having some risk to your future on the job," said MSNBC justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian.

According to CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane, the Justice Department accused the two prosecutors of citing “conspiracy theories” about Jan 6, "and [ascribing] blame to Trump for posting Obama home address."

"While we don’t comment on personnel decisions, we want to make very clear that we take violence and threats of violence against law enforcement, current or former government officials extremely seriously," read a statement from former Fox host turned United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro. "We have and will continue to vigorously pursue justice against those who commit or threaten violence without regard to the political party of the offender or the target."

Editor's note: This headline has been updated.

A social media exchange between Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and conservative activist Riley Gaines ignited a firestorm among MAGA Republicans on Monday.

Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer and vocal critic of transgender women in women's sports, shared a photo on the social platform X of Ocasio-Cortez with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (D) at a rally in New York held Sunday.

Gaines wrote, "We're being destroyed from within."

Ocasio-Cortez reacted to her post and wrote, "Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn’t have come in fifth."

The remark referenced Gaines's fifth-place finish at the 2022 NCAA Swimming Championships, where she tied with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), a staunch ally of Gaines' and advocate for legislation aimed at restricting transgender women from competing in women's sports, criticized Ocasio-Cortez's comment.

In a post reacting to Ocasio-Cortez's remarks, Tuberville wrote, "What happened to 'support all women' @AOC? @Riley_Gaines_ is a 5x SEC Champion and 12x NCAA All-American. Not to mention she’s a patriot who has fought every day for women and girls. Meanwhile, AOC thinks 'women’s rights' just means abortion."

Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, energized nearly 13,000 supporters at a rally in Forest Hills, Queens, on Sunday. The event, under the slogan “New York Is Not For Sale,” featured prominent endorsements from Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez.

Mamdani, who is leading in the polls, emphasized his platform focused on rent freezes, universal childcare, affordable housing and expanded education.

Editor’s Note: This story originally misstated Ross Douthat as being "on the extreme right." Read the updated version below.

Although New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and Brooklyn-based blogger/software developer Curtin Yarvin are both on the right, there are major differences between their viewpoints. Douthat is traditional conservative but not far-right, and he is a Donald Trump critic who wants the United States to remain a democratic republic — whereas Yarvin is on the extreme right and openly calls for the U.S. to abandon liberal democracy and move to an authoritarian system."

In his October 7 column, however, Douthat finds some common ground with Yarvin: Both see Trump's second presidency as problematic — although for different reasons.

"It seems that Curtis Yarvin and I agree: The Trump administration is not making the most of its mandate, and it may be setting conservatism up for defeat in 2028," Douthat argues. "Where Yarvin, the great proponent of absolute monarchy, and I differ is on where and why the administration is struggling. I think the Trump White House is leaning too hard into an unpopular form of post-liberalism — deploying Caesarist power on behalf of the president's longstanding obsessions (tariffs!) rather than the issues that actually elected him (inflation!), and turning too forcefully and obsessively against internal enemies while the concerns of swing voters are neglected."

Douthat continues, "Yarvin, predictably, thinks the administration is not being post-liberal enough. In a recent Substack post, he argues that going after specific enemies is a poor substitute for, say, abolishing the entire judicial branch by fiat, and that the only thing lamer than what the Trump administration is doing already would be some sort of desperate pivot to 'bread-and-butter governance.'"

Douthat goes on to examine Trump's influence on U.S. politics, arguing that Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Republican Ronald Reagan were the most influential American presidents of the 20th Century. And he expresses doubts about how much power the MAGA movement will have in the future.

"This is where the Trump administration is obviously falling shorts: It has acted aggressively, but it hasn't persuaded the majority of Americans that those actions mostly serve the general good," Douthat argues. "It has consolidated presidential power, but it hasn't consolidated the potential majority coalition that was within view in 2024. Which means that all those bold actions will be vulnerable, and all those powers could pass to a liberal president in four short years, unless Trump or his would-be heirs can do the work that Yarvin disdains, and persuade more of the public that popular issues and anxieties are actually central to this populist presidency's work."

Ross Douthat's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).