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Republicans are beginning to panic, according to a new CNN report, as a major rift appears to be growing between President Donald Trump and a top party leader at a time when everyone needs to lock in for the midterms.

As CNN noted in a new weekend report, Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune appear to have gone largely radio silent with one another, with "days, if not weeks" passing between times when the top senator hears from the president. Thune has suggested that the two only speak "more on an as-needed basis" lately, in stark contrast to Trump's dynamic with House Speaker Mike Johnson, who "sometimes can’t get [him] off the phone."

Johnson has been noted as one of the more committed and enthusiastic lieutenants for the president in Congress, making their active relationship somewhat unsurprising. Thune, by contrast, has drawn significant ire from Trump in recent months over his insistence that the SAVE America Act is dead on arrival in the Senate. The bill — which would implement major voter ID requirements and has been called Trump's "No. 1 priority" — lacks the support in the Senate to overcome the filibuster threshold, with Thune being obstinately opposed to altering those rules to pass the bill.

"While the two have never been personally close, with the mild-mannered Thune far different in style than the mercurial and combative president, they were in much more frequent communication at the start of Trump’s second term, according to senators and people who know both," CNN explained. "Trump would frequently praise Thune’s leadership as the Senate GOP leader ushered through his agenda and often bit his tongue when he disagreed with the president, whether it was about an incendiary social media post or a policy like sweeping tariffs that hurt his constituents in South Dakota. Yet in their private talks, Thune uses a very direct approach with Trump, bluntly explaining what can and cannot be accomplished in the Senate, GOP sources say, far different than other Republicans who tend to follow the president’s orders, no matter how implausible."

This increasingly frosty relationship has some in the party sweating about the damage this could do to the party in the coming midterms, which they are already expected to lose badly to Democrats.

"We need to be talking up the wins, talking about how crazy Democrats are, and instead we are knifing each other," one anonymous GOP senator told CNN.

“The infighting is not really productive,” Sen. Jim Justice, a West Virginia Republican, said. “There’s no point in going round and round and round.”

“I would say we’re all longing for a relationship with the White House where we work more in harmony,” Sen. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, added.

Voters appear to be more than fed up with the mystery and scandal surrounding Sen. Mitch McConnell and his health, with The Daily Beast reporting that attendees at a major political event hijacked proceedings with chants about the missing senator.

McConnell, the Kentucky Republican best known for his years as the Senate Majority Leader, has not been seen or heard from in public since being hospitalized in mid-June, reportedly after being found unconscious at his home. Despite his office's claims that he is on the road to recovery, and its release of two supposed proof-of-life photos of the senator alongside his wife, many observers remain unconvinced, with some spreading conspiracy theories claiming that his true condition is being kept a secret until after the point at which a special election would be triggered to replace him.

Now, voter anger over the mysterious situation is becoming unavoidable, with The Daily Beast reporting on Sunday that attendees of Kentucky's Fancy Farm picnic hijacked the event with "Where's Mitch?" chants, led by Democrats in attendance. McConnell has been a notable fixture of the event, attending it regularly for around 40 years, making his current absence all the more striking.

"Last year, McConnell gave a speech that included an attack on Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, declaring that he would 'outlast a church-closing governor,'" The Daily Beast detailed in its report. "This year, attendees—led by Democrats—chanted 'Where’s Mitch?' over and over, highlighting the senator’s conspicuous absence."

The report added later: "The situation is heightened by the upcoming Aug. 3 deadline for the state to call a special election in case of a Senate vacancy. If McConnell does not resign, or otherwise vacate the seat, by Aug. 3, he will hold onto it until his term is up in January 2027. His successor will be elected in the general election in November."

McConnell's office announced earlier last week that, in light of his current situation, he would not be able to attend this year's Fancy Farm picnic.

"There’s no place I’d rather be on the first Saturday in August than with the good people of western Kentucky, feasting on pork and mutton,” the statement from McConnell's office read. “When I first attended forty-two years ago, Fancy Farm was a pretty lonely place to be a Republican. But, my, how times have changed. Today, western Kentucky is a conservative Republican sea of red. So I hate that I’ll miss the fun this year, but I’m sending my best wishes to the St. Jerome community for a successful picnic."

Donald Trump took a massive risk, according to a new breakdown from The i Paper, when he "gambled everything" in his presidency on one thing, and now, it is a bet that he continues to lose.

In a piece published Sunday, veteran Washington reporter Simon Marks wrote that, like clockwork, Trump has once again "backed down at the last minute" from his threats to carry out enormous strikes against Iran if a peace deal was not reached, this time just days after making the threats in the first place. This time around, Trump claimed, again, that a new deal is coming together, something that most observers might have a harder time believing, given how often he has made such claims.

Marks noted that Trump has seemed to revel in his ability to move markets with his pronouncements about the Iran war, but this time, he argued, his claim is "unlikely to elicit more than a collective shrug by oil traders, let alone any drop in prices for struggling Americans."

"Traders realized weeks ago that the President’s declarations are not worth the space on Truth Social that they are afforded," Marks observed.

He further noted the reports suggested that, in fact, Trump's latest "TACO" was the result of being strong-armed into diplomacy by another country, exposing just how weak he has become.

"In fact, there is no indication that any breakthrough is at hand, or that a deal could emerge 'rapidly,' as the President suggested," Marks continued. "Instead, in a statement issued in Riyadh, the government of Saudi Arabia revealed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had strong-armed the President earlier on Saturday. In what is reported to have been an unusually candid call with Trump, the Crown Prince, known as MBS, 'stressed the need for the predominance of the language of dialogue to reduce escalation' – diplomatic-speak for 'we told the President to knock it off.'"

“Saudi Arabia’s message to Washington is becoming increasingly clear,” Middle East security expert and analyst Danny Citrinowicz wrote in a post to X, highlighted by Marks. “If the United States launches major strikes against Iran’s energy infrastructure, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states will likely bear the immediate consequences.”

Marks argued further that the decision to carry out a war against Iran has caused "only misery" for Trump, and continues to engulf his presidency and tank his approval ratings. A CNN poll recently found that just 28 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the conflict, while 21 percent approve of his handling of the ensuing gas price spikes.

"It has been 17 months since Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, accusing him of lacking the ability to win his country’s war with Russia," Marks concluded. "This weekend, Saudi Arabia’s leader delivered exactly the same message to Trump about Iran, with the added potency of it being true."

The Republican Party is trapped "in absolutely dire straits," according to a veteran Washington reporter, as President Donald Trump crashes to catastrophic new lows and tanks all of their plans to revive their prospects over the summer, with "no end in sight" for the bad news.

Evan McMorris-Santoro is a well-traveled national politics reporter who helped launch the outlet NOTUS, and this week, he appeared as a guest on host Molly Jong-Fast's political news podcast, "Fast Politics." During the conversation, the pair discussed the catastrophic new report about Trump's approval ratings, with Jong-Fast comparing the numbers to the "Bush Line," in reference to former President George W. Bush's horrendous approval ratings by the end of his second term, which left him a lame-duck pariah that the GOP abandoned in droves.

As Newsweek reported, three major polls this past week showed Trump cratering to historically low approval ratings. AP-NORC found just 33 percent of registered voters approved of Trump's performance as president, its lowest finding from his second term. A Quinnipiac poll, meanwhile, found just 32 percent approval, the lowest finding that the university has found throughout both of his terms in office. Finally, a CNN poll conducted by SSRS gave Trump a 34 percent approval rating, matching the low point from his first term.

Reacting to Jong-Fast's take on the news, McMorris-Santoro said that Trump had not quite fallen to the Bush Line — as Bush bottomed out with approval ratings in the 20s — but noted that his nonetheless abysmal popularity has been "especially bad for the Republicans, because... their entire electoral project in 2026 is really like hinging on Trump." He further noted how Republicans had been hoping to turn things around over the summer, putting particular emphasis on a strong July 4th, but now, all of those plans have fallen apart.

"I remember a few months ago, I was talking to some Republican strategists about the plan for the summer, you know, like what they were going to do," McMorris-Santoro detailed. "And some of them even said that they thought that maybe July 4th would be a highlight for them, that there should be this great moment where they could talk about, you know, America and being patriots and how unpatriotic the Democrats are and have this great divide. And they had sort of had this vision that this Iran war thing would kind of be behind them... and July would be a time when gas prices will be able to come down... And it would be like Trump will be back as a viable party leader for them, and really, this month has ended with them in absolutely dire straits."

He continued, explaining that Trump's numbers are now "very, very bad," and the party's allegiance to him has left midterm candidates across the country "boxed in," unable to get distance from him without angering the base of voters that still loves him. "Running towards him," on the other hand, is also a bad idea, as it would make them look more "toxic" to Trump-hating swing voters in the general election.

"So, this is basically as good a position for the polls as Democrats could get, really," he added. "Like this is like what they really, really wanted to see happen as now happened. And there's more to come. I mean, you know, the thing is, the things that made the polls bad, like the Iran war and other things like that, those are still going on... There's no end in sight for these negative poll numbers."

The content creator who bragged that she likes to preach on planes when people are trapped and must hear her message has now been kicked off a flight.

Whitney Lynn, a self-described singer and producer, posted a video of the incident online in which she appears to attack the flight attendant for waging "spiritual warfare," reported The Mirror.

"Demons don't like the name of Jesus," she said when staff began escorting her off the plane. She then lashed out at one of the people taking her off the plane, asking if he was from Puerto Rico because she "can't really understand" him.

"God bless everybody, if you know Jesus today, make him lord of your life and continue to spread the gospel. We are in the last days. We are being persecuted, persecuted to be a Christian," Lynn broadcasts to the trapped passengers.

While leaving the plane she lashed out at one flight attendant walking behind her saying, "you totally pushed my bag."

When she spoke this week to The Washington Post, she claimed that they're the perfect audience because, “They have no choice but to hear the truth. When I have a gift, and I have a life raft, if you’re drowning, I want to give you that life raft so you can be saved.”

In another video from early July, Lynn "preached" at passengers waiting to get off of the plane in San Diego, speaking about Jesus and the weather to all passengers who looked disinterested.

In a separate video posted earlier this month, Lynn delivered a post-flight preaching session as passengers waited to disembark in San Diego. As she spoke for a little over a minute about the weather, Jesus, sin, hell, redemption and heaven, all other passengers remained disengaged and did not look around.

“I just love a captive audience," Lynn boasted in the clip description.

There are no bans on preaching on airplanes, but passengers must remain seated and buckled into their seat belts unless the seat belt sign is off.

Flight attendants have strict rules about following directions from the flight crew. Anything that interferes with a crew's duties or anything considered "disruptive behavior" is a violation of federal law, says FAA regulations. One federal law (49 U.S.C. § 46504) outlines punishments of a fine or imprisonment for not more than 20 years, or both. The FFA outlines that passengers must follow crewmember instructions "at all times" while on board.

Speaking about Lynn to The Post in its profile of her, Pastor Rodney Kennedy said that he's not a fan of the non-consensual preachers.

“I don’t have any problems with people articulating their faith,” he said. “But I think it requires a relationship and level of trust and a level of permission."

He worries that force-feeding unwilling participants a message about Jesus can send people in the opposite direction.

“I think that ultimately it’s a turnoff and it kind of reinforces the ideas that they already had about Christians,” he said.

Most of her videos struggle to get more than 1,000 views on YouTube, but the recent videos appear to be close to 5,000 views.

On Friday, she posted her video of her chatting with police.

"Hi! You guys are looking for me! Hello. I'm the wanted one. I'm the wanted one for telling people about Jesus. It's a crime. It's a crime. Oh my gosh. Okay. So, I preached the gospel and I, you know, I'm a content creator, but everywhere I go, so I'm on my way to San Diego to street preach and do outreach and, um, so I preached the gospel while we were waiting. I said, 'Oh, we're waiting. Perfect opportunity.' Yeah," she said in the video.

The police explained that you can't have arguments with flight attendants, noting it's one of the ways people get kicked off planes frequently. The officer said many people are removed "for much less."

Lynn didn't respond to their comments; she began to quote the Bible again.

She did mention that the flight attendants wouldn't engage or say anything to answer her questions. She said that she films everything because "people want to see this."

"Well, let's get you to the main terminal, that way we can, you know, get you situated," the officer is heard saying.

A prominent Republican influencer, who frequently supports President Donald Trump, used his podcast and X on Wednesday to argue that the GOP leader risks alienating his base by appearing “impotent.”

Erick Erickson, a conservative commentator who went from opposing Trump in 2016 to endorsing him in both 2020 and 2024, talked on his podcast about how voters perceive Trump as failing to help them with their economic problems or winning the Iran war he chose to wage. The pundit even questioned whether Trump’s struggles in Iran are due to a munitions shortage, and added that even Trump’s attempts to prosecute his perceived political enemies have overwhelmingly fallen short.

“When you keep claiming you can do stuff that you really can't do, you eventually instill in your base that you're impotent, and they'll seek out someone else,” Erickson warned on X.

Erickson is not the first commentator to use the term “impotent” to describe Trump’s current term. In June Nick Catoggio from the conservative publication The Dispatch used Trump’s failure to renovate the Reflecting Pool as a symbol of his perceived impotence.

“Between the war on algae and the war abroad, Trump has never looked more pitifully impotent than he does right now,” Catoggio argued. “The perfect metaphor for his first year back in office came when, without warning, he demolished the East Wing to make way for his precious ballroom. That episode captured the political zeitgeist of 2025: Americans had elected a caudillo who cared not a bit about the country’s civic traditions and would bulldoze them—literally—to get what he wanted, whether the other branches liked it or not.”

He added, “The reflecting-pool idiocy is the perfect metaphor for his presidency in 2026, coinciding as it does with our national humiliation in Iran. Postliberalism promises effective problem-solving through energetic authoritarianism, but as things stand, not only can’t the authoritarian in chief forcibly open the Strait of Hormuz, he can’t even successfully clean a public pool in D.C. The zeitgeist has flipped.”

In 2025 Editorial Board editor John Stoehr similarly argued that the president has displayed his impotence, on that occasion by failing to quell ongoing accusations that he sexually assaulted underage girls with his longtime friend, the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“As far as MAGA is concerned, every question about the Epstein scandal is downstream from the fact that Trump didn’t use the power he was given to do what he was supposed to do,” Stoehr wrote. “Even if Trump manages to paper over the scandal – by getting convicted child-sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to say nice things about him, for instance – he still can’t explain his impotence. Indeed, the more he papers it over, the more he deepens the appearance among his own people that he’s weak.”

Also in 2025, conservative commentator Joe Perticone from The Bulwark said that Trump’s control over the House of Representatives had rendered House Speaker Mike Johnson into someone politically impotent.

“Mike Johnson’s speakership is somewhat different from all these,” Perticone opined. “His overriding project has been to cede whatever power and decision-making he can to the White House, and this has, in turn, given shape to an unusual legacy, one defined by impotence.”

He continued, “In recent months there has been a strange spirit of bipartisanship among frustrated House members, who have relied on the previously rare tactic of discharge petitions to circumvent Johnson. The latest such bill directly pushes back on the Donald Trump administration in a policy area the MAGA movement finds particularly divisive: aid to Ukraine.”

President Donald Trump’s seeming cognitive decline is so serious, experts have worried about his control of America’s nuclear arsenal. Trump’s aides insist that the reports of his supposed mental health issues are exaggerated — but a new survey reveals Americans are not buying it.

“The Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll, conducted July 14-17, 2026, among 1,514 U.S. adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points, found that 46 percent of Americans rate Trump's mental sharpness as president as ‘poor,’” Newsweek reported on Wednesday.

This figure, which is only four points lower than the number of Americans who believe President Joe Biden was cognitively not fit for office, occurs roughly a month after Trump turned 80 and thereby became only the second octogenarian to serve in the White House — following Biden himself.

The Trump White House protested against these findings in a statement to Newsweek. White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the venerable magazine that the president is “the sharpest and most accessible President in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises.”

Ingle did not stop there.

“President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the last administration when Democrats and the legacy media intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people,” Ingle continued.

Speaking to AlterNet in May, psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham (formerly of Tufts University) — chief signatory of a letter to Congress by a group of 36 top physicians and mental health experts warning about Trump’s apparent decline — broke down the signs that Trump is deteriorating.

“There has been a frightening progression of symptoms,” Abraham told AlterNet at the time. “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!”

Abraham added that to address Trump’s potential issues,“the solutions have to be political.”

He argued, “They include invoking the 25th amendment, impeachment, or convincing him to resign as Nixon did. None of these are an easy lift, especially with a loyalist cabinet and Congress. But the irony is that our leaders don’t lead as much as they follow. A recent poll by the Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos group found a majority of [Americans] do not believe the president is physically or mentally able to discharge his duties. The public is waking up to these dangers. As they do, the political landscape may shift towards removal of a defective and dangerous leader.”

A Republican congressional candidate in Florida who openly embraces President Donald Trump’s agenda is calling for a Democratic ex-president to be deported.

In a 30-second video, Belinda Kesier promoted her candidacy for Florida's 22nd congressional district by arguing that she would not only deport undocumented immigrants, but also aim to deport the Democrat she blames for America’s supposed immigration problem, former President Joe Biden.

"I'm Belinda Keiser, and I approve this message because we should deport Joe Biden for what he did,” Keiser proclaimed at the end of the ad, one of many she has run in her bid to claim that seat. Earlier in the same video a narrator vowed that Keiser would “stand with President Trump” and that her goal would be “to deport illegals, to protect American families and American jobs.”

Keiser has been endorsed by a number of Florida politicians who are also leading figures in MAGA world. These include Reps. Aaron Bean, Jimmy Patronis, Neal Dunn and Randy Fine.

Dunn, who is leaving office after his current term, said that Keiser “has served our state well leading her private sector work, which has helped propel many young professionals into the workforce. She knows what Florida needs and has demonstrated that with her support of Republican ideals and principles. Belinda would be an excellent addition to the caucus and the effort to continue to Make America Great.”

Similarly, Fine described Keiser as a staunch supporter of Trump’s MAGA movement.

“Belinda has been a friend since I first entered politics, and I have seen firsthand what she has done to fight for Florida,” Fine told Florida Politics about his endorsement of Keiser. “She has been a champion for our nation-leading higher education system and the future of every Florida student. Belinda has done so much for this state, and I could not be more excited for her to join me in the fight in Washington to Make America Great Again!”

In pre-Trump America Keiser’s statement might have been shocking, but Trump and his supporters have openly advocated for persecuting the president’s political opponents — and sometimes done more than that. Trump has pursued charges against former FBI Director James Comey, arguing that his posting of a picture spelling '8647' with seashells was a threat against the president. He has also pursued indictments that experts agree are tenuous and likely politically-motivated against Democrats including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, California Sen. Adam Schiff, Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado and Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania.

Trump has also indicted his own former national security adviser, John Bolton, another of his critics.

President Donald Trump joked about his "friend" he insulted who is using one of the popular weight-loss drugs Trump refers to as the "fat drug" or the "fat shot."

Speaking at an event for mothers, Trump bragged about bringing the cost of drugs down through his TrumpRx program. According to Trump, the same box in London is $87 and in New York, he said, it's $1370. It's a story that Trump has told for about a year, though the numbers change.

"He could be a famous guy," Trump said about his friend. "He's begging me not to release this name. He's a very highly neurotic, very sort of a fat slob, but he's a brilliant man. We know many of those people. He's a brilliant guy, actually."

"But, said, uh, President, what's going on here? He didn't need the money. He's rich as hell, but he just couldn't understand why he had to pay so little in London," rambled Trump. "He went to London, and he couldn't understand it. He said this is crazy and [it] actually motivated me in a certain way, because he was very smart. He actually, he did a study, he actually sent his people and he traced this medicine. And he found out it was the box here is the same box as he had in New York. He made the same plant and it costs, you know, 10 times more here than it did in London, and that there were worse stories than that. And I said that's it, it's over, we're going to do it. That got me really motivated."

Trump repeated that his friend was desperate not to have his name released publicly.

"He's begging me not to release his name because he is a well-known person, and I so destroyed his reputation in terms of his physicality," said Trump. "Just as I said, you know, you've had a big impact on medicine because you got — you got to be better than any normal person could have."

Trump told Americans that Medicare would eventually cover the weight loss drug. The Trump administration announced in early November that it had struck a deal with leading GLP-1 pharmaceutical manufacturers, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. He claimed that Americans would soon be able to obtain the GLP-1 medications at a lower rate for all Americans. It hasn't happened yet, however.

There were already talks about getting lower prices for those on Medicare, but AARP explained that the drug price negotiation program won't become available until 2027.

Last week, CBS News reported that Trump pledged to make drugs cheaper, but thus far many have actually increased.

“No chance,” is what some close to Democratic politics would tell you about their chances in Florida this year.

However, according to a new report from The Hill, the mounting failures of Donald Trump have given some in the party "renewed optimism" about the now deep-red state, believing that the president could "scramble" the dynamics in his own backyard and hand them a highly sought-after Senate.

While Florida has changed immensely since its swing state days, when it broke for Barack Obama in both of his elections, The Hill reported on Friday that there are some within the party who believe that Trump's economic failures and the runaway affordability crisis that he has directly caused could have a distinct impact on Florida, and potentially drive voters back to the blue side.

"Florida has been a source of deep frustration for Democrats in recent election cycles — something that has been made worse in recent days as [Gov. Ron] DeSantis’s redistricting effort is expected to take more House seats from Democrats," the outlet explained. "But a string of recent Democratic wins — from the Miami mayoral race to the flip of a state legislative seat in President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago district — has given Democrats some renewed optimism even as they eye the Senate seat. Democrats also believe Florida’s affordability crisis could scramble the political dynamics."

"It’s the economy stupid on steroids here,” Fernand Amandi, a Democratic strategist in Florida who helped Obama succeed in the state, told The Hill. “Any betting person would still put the safe money and the smart money on Republicans because Democratic performance has been atrocious. But if there was ever an environment that was stacked against the Republicans, I’ve never seen an environment as bad as this one."

The quality disparity in the Senate race is also fueling hope that Democrats could manage a win in November. The seat is currently held by Republican Ashley Moody, who was appointed to the seat by DeSantis after Marco Rubio joined the Trump administration last year. Incumbents who attain their seat in this manner, without selling themselves to voters, are generally considered to have a disadvantage when they seek their first election.

Democrats are also fronting Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the Ukrainian-born official who became a "national figure" after playing a key whistleblower role during Trump's first impeachment proceedings. His stature has led to a massive $8.19 million fundraising haul by the end of March.

Despite that impressive sum, prognosticators still say the race leans Republican, with many arguing that Florida is too far gone for Democrats to bother with, when there are much more competitive races to worry about.

“No chance,” Florida-based Democratic mega donor John Morgan told The Hill. “Florida is still Trump country ... Florida is redder than Indiana.”

For many years, far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz party seemed entrenched in Hungary. Orbán didn't come to power via a military coup d'état like Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile in 1973 but rather, was voted into office. Orbán, however, did everything he could to undermine Hungary's system of checks and balances, making it very difficult to replace him as prime minister.

But on Sunday, April 12, Orbán was voted out of office after 16 years in Hungary's parliamentary elections, and it wasn't even close. Center-right Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar, running with the Tisza party, won by roughly 19 percent. U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were bitterly disappointed, having given Orbán their enthusiastic support.

Journalist Steven Greenhut, in an article published by the libertarian Reason on April 24, examines the implications that Orbán's double-digit defeat has for the MAGA movement in the United States. MAGA, according to Greenhut, now finds itself looking for another foreign despot to idolize.

"Legions of conservatives — including the sitting vice president — have flocked to Hungary to champion the wonders of Viktor Orbán's self-described 'illiberal" government," Greenhut explains. "If you're not up on political lingo, the term 'illiberal' does not refer to modern liberalism, but to the classical liberalism of our founders. Right-wing post-liberalism is about replacing limited government with something like elected autocracy…. Hungarian voters handily rebuked him and his Vladimir Putin-friendly Fidesz party…. despite President Donald Trump's fawning support."

Greenhut continues, "It's been splendid watching the weeping and gnashing of teeth from American MAGA supporters. In an admirable and hard-hitting column in Fox News, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) noted that 'Hungarian politics has persisted as an object of intense fascination in certain corners of the American right.' He found this affinity 'endlessly puzzling,' as 'America's self-proclaimed national conservatives spoke of Orbán's Hungary as an oasis of traditionalism amid the wasteland of an ailing, liberal and decadent postmodern Europe.'"

Greenhut notes that Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts "slammed" McConnell's column in an April 13 post on X, writing, "7-term Republican Senator celebrates Hungary becoming a vassal state of the EU" — a post that, Greenhut laments, shows how "deformed" parts of the American right have become.

Juho Romakkaniemi, CEO of the Finland Chamber of Commerce, called Roberts out on X, posting, "Excuse me, sir. Unfortunately you don’t seem to understand what you are talking about. Hungary was a corrupt slave state of Russia. Now it took its sovereignity back. Being a Member of the EU is not ’being a vassal’, but being a part of something bigger - for not to be bullied."

Greenhut observes, "In Hungary, the country sank on the Freedom Index, as the Cato Institute explained. Its attacks on private property and exertion of state control over industry have caused its economic fortunes to fall behind its neighbors…. I would never have believed that modern conservatives would behave like 1980s leftists. Instead of looking for inspiration from illiberal foreign or domestic leaders, they need to rediscover the classical liberal values that made our nation so free and prosperous."

President Donald Trump's overnight posting spree is prompting questions from those online about his mental stability.

Trump's final post on TruthSocial came about 2:45 a.m. EDT with a post about conspiracy theories around the "birth tourism industry."

It isn't unusual for Trump to go off on a TruthSocial posting spree, and it's the second time in a week.

The spree began about midnight EDT and lasted over an hour. For a moment it seemed like he might stop, but about 90 minutes later he began sharing content from filmmaker Clint Eastwood.

It was just one of 16 posts that ranged in attacks on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama, claiming that they were both part of some kind of conspiracy to keep him from the presidency in 2016. At one point, he shared a post saying that Clinton and Obama committed treason.

The comments prompted liberal political commentator Harry Sisson to question if the president had lost it.

He wrote on X, "It's 1 am in the morning, and Trump is awake ranting incoherently. He's now calling for the 2020 election to be 'permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect.' Someone check him into an insane asylum."

Trump posted at one point: “If it is true, the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT”

"Trump had another mental health episode and spiraled out of control on social media last night," said Sisson, listing off the topics that Trump posted about.

"Trump’s 1:13 AM post is basically a nocturnal emission of late-night brain static," said satirical influencer SundaeGirl.

Columnist and editor Philip Bump commented on Trump's attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center, characterizing it as: “I say you threw garbage in my lawn therefore I own your house.”

He later added: "Also: does this suggest that the contrived SPLC lawsuit is what Patel was talking about with his claim about an imminent crackdown on the 2020 election?"

Clinical psychologist Dr. Tracy King expressed alarm last week about what she said was a troubling cognitive trend in his nighttime social media behavior, reported the Irish Star.

The post about Eastwood comes from a fake story that has been circulating online for years, and one account has been fact-checked. Snopes debunked it in 2020.

The spree comes a few days after the Wall Street Journal posted a bombshell report that Trump was too agitated to be in the crisis room where the military was working on saving two airmen forced to eject over Iran.

Ghislaine Maxwell appeared before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Monday, where she was poised to face questions about documents pertaining to the investigation into her activities with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell has been convicted of being an accomplice and was willing to speak in great detail to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. But when it came time to testify before the House behind closed doors, she refused to give information.

Maxwell's attorney said she would answer questions openly if President Donald Trump granted clemency. She has been asking for a new trial, but it's unclear if that is possible. The attorney also mentioned that neither President Donald Trump nor President Bill Clinton is "culpable" in any wrongdoing.

Oversight chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) has been criticized by former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton after he subpoenaed them. The Clintons have requested that the full hearing be public.

Comer claimed a "standard deposition" is behind closed doors. He argued that he would release everything immediately, so it doesn't need to be public, but that raised the question of why it must be kept behind closed doors if it's going to be released.

Hillary Clinton previously attacked Comer on X, asking why he was refusing to hold the hearings in public. She told him if he wants the first, then "bring it on" in public.

When the Trump Administration, with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was aggressively downsizing a long list of federal agencies, the future of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was very much in doubt. Critics of President Donald Trump feared that FEMA would be eliminated altogether.

A year into Trump's second presidency, however, FEMA remains. Trump appeared to back down from eliminating FEMA.

But according to NOTUS reporters Anna Kramer and Torrence Banks, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is holding up more than $1 billion in "hazard mitigation funds."

In an article published on January 28, Kramer and Banks report, "Since July, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved hazard mitigation grants that cost more than $100,000 in only three states, according to a NOTUS review of publicly available data and internal FEMA documents. The three states to get through the logjam: Georgia, North Carolina and Oklahoma. As of December 31, before the North Carolina and Oklahoma projects were approved, Noem's office was sitting on $1.3 billion in requested funds — all of which had been approved at the regional level, according to documents obtained by NOTUS."

The NOTUS reporters add, "This is the first time the scope of Noem's funding hold on the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program has been reported."

According to Kramer and Banks, "hundreds of projects across nearly all 50 states, four territories and two tribal nations remain stuck at Noem's level elected representatives in 10 states."

Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Washington State) told NOTUS, "Unfortunately, Secretary Noem has virtually frozen FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program."

Michael Coen, who served as FEMA's chief of staff under the Biden Administration, warns that holding up Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funds could be dangerous.

Coen told NOTUS, "HMGP is authorized by Congress. The Trump Administration's failure to execute mitigation is reckless and I believe a breach of duty. Lives will be lost during future disasters that could have been avoided. HMGP funding is one of the few tools the federal government has to reduce future disaster costs and suffering."

Read the full NOTUS article at this link.

When Donald Trump was facing four criminal indictments, two of them stemmed from his efforts to overturn the United States' 2020 presidential election results: a federal case prosecuted by then-special counsel Jack Smith for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and a Georgia case prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Both of those cases were doomed when Trump narrowly defeated Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.

In 2020, Trump and his allies claimed, without evidence, that Democrats stole Georgia's electoral votes from him — a claim that two prominent Republicans in the Peach State, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, pushed backed against. Kemp and Raffensperger adamantly maintained that then-President-elect Joe Biden won Georgia fair and square.

Kemp and Raffensperger spoke publicly and on the record. But according to New York Times reporters Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim, other Republicans spoke candidly about Georgia's 2020 election results in closed-door testimony from 2022.

In an article published on January 13, Fausset and Hakim explain, "Transcripts of secret grand jury testimony from the Georgia election interference case against Mr. Trump and his allies, obtained this week by the New York Times, show just how alarmed and exasperated a number of senior Republicans felt about the president's efforts to overturn an American presidential election. The testimony, given in 2022, is emerging at a time when Mr. Trump is again raising complaints about his 2020 defeat and voicing regret that he did not order the National Guard to seize voting machines after the election."

Those transcripts, according to the Times reporters, "were part of the investigative file" in Willis' election interference/RICO case against Trump and others and were "conducted by a special purpose grand jury."

Republicans who testified included Kemp, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and former Georgia House Speaker David Ralston.

Describing the testimony, Fausset and Hakim report, "Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina found President Trump's claims of election fraud in 2020 'unnerving.' Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia described Mr. Trump's efforts to get his state's lawmakers to intervene a 'fruitless exercise.' David Ralston, a former speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, called the plan to create slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states he had lost 'the craziest thing I’ve heard.'"

Graham, according to Fausset and Hakim, had no doubt that Biden won Georgia when he spoke to the grand jurors in 2022.

Graham testified, "I have told him more times than we can count that he fell short…. If you told him Martians came and stole votes, he'd be inclined to believe it."

Recalling a conversation with Trump after the 2020 election, Ralston testified that "right off the bat, I've got to tell him I disagree with him."

Read Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim's full article for The New York Times at this link (subscription required).

A union-backed auto worker at Ford Motor Co. was caught on video heckling President Donald Trump as a “pedophile protector” when he visited a Dearborn factory on Tuesday ahead of his address to the Detroit Economic Club. The video that has now gone viral shows Trump responded in kind by mouthing an expletive at the worker, twice, and displaying a middle finger as he walked away.

Now, the union says the worker has been suspended while Ford looks into the matter.

A representative from the UAW told Michigan Advance that they could confirm that he was suspended but the length of the suspension was unknown. The union was also uncertain about the process that would follow to investigate the matter.

A message seeking comment from Ford to confirm if the worker was fired or suspended was not immediately returned on Tuesday evening.

In a statement to the Advance, White House communications director Steven Cheung called the worker “a lunatic” who was “wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage.”

“And the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response,” Cheung said.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) said she spoke to a well placed source in the worker’s local union who said he was facing disciplinary action.

“Ford said they can’t talk about it because it’s a human resources issue,” Tlaib said. “In the past, when President Obama (went) onto the plant floor and other times people have said some terrible things, they didn’t get fired.”

@michiganadvance #trump #epsteinfiles @Distillsocial ♬ Quiet Music – Stacey Barelos

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor) also told the Advance that the union confirmed that the confrontation meant the man was facing disciplinary action.

Dingell also said she was inquiring with Ford about the status of the man’s employment, and if he was being suspended and investigated in violation of his free speech rights.

“When you’re on a factory floor with union members that have strong feelings, you need to be prepared for whatever they’re gonna say, and I hope they’re not firing him because I believe in free speech,” Dingell said in an interview. “The UAW worker was expressing his right to free speech, and I’m asking questions as to what has happened.”

The video, which was first published by Distill Social shows Trump walking around a raised portion of the Dearborn F-150 plant when the worker, who is not seen on screen, yells to Trump and calls him a “pedophile protector,” a reference to Trump’s widely reported connections to deceased pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein and the Trump administration’s bungling of a new law that ordered the FBI to release all of the files that the department had available to them.

Some have seen the constant delays from the FBI and the slow walk to release the files as Trump protecting either himself or his wealthy elite friends from scrutiny or a clear connection to Epstein.

In response to the confrontation, the Democratic National Committee denounced Trump for being “more concerned with his ego than his spiraling economy, where job cuts are skyrocketing, hiring has slowed, unemployment remains high, and prices continue to soar.”

“As working families struggle to make ends meet in Trump’s economy, the Trump family and their wealthy donors keep getting richer — there’s no bigger ‘F-you’ than that,” said DNC Senior Advisor for Messaging, Mobilization and Strategy Tim Hogan in a statement. “The real question is: Why does the mere mention of Epstein set him off?”

Tlaib echoed that point.

“The worker could have said anything, but this worker felt compelled to say you’re protecting a pedophile. I feel very strongly that Ford Motor Company is sending a message that people can’t stand up for sexual abuse survivors,” Tlaib said.

What does Trump have against Minnesota? Not only is ICE causing mayhem in Minneapolis, but Trump is halting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for social services programs there, according to a Tuesday announcement from Health and Human Services.

It’s not just Minnesota. Trump is also stopping billions in funding for social services in Colorado, Illinois, New York, and California.

Why? Could it be because all of them are led by Democrats and inhabited by voters who overwhelmingly rejected Trump in 2024?

It’s not the first time Trump has openly penalized “blue” states. What’s new is how blatant his vindictiveness toward blue states has become.

Angry at Colorado’s votes against him in three successive elections and at its refusal to free Tina Peters — the former clerk of Mesa County, who was convicted in 2024 of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed plot to prove they had been used to rig the 2020 election against Trump — Trump has cut off transportation money to Colorado, relocated the military’s Space Command, vowed to dismantle a major climate and weather research center located there, and rejected disaster relief for rural counties hammered by floods and wildfires.

Two weeks ago Trump used the first veto of his second term to kill a pipeline project that had achieved bipartisan congressional support, to provide clean drinking water to Colorado’s parched eastern plains. (Trump’s action enraged Republican congresswoman and formerly dedicated Trumper Lauren Boebert, who stated: “Nothing says America First like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in southeast Colorado, many of whom voted for him in all three elections.”)

If there were any doubts about Trump’s sentiments toward Colorado, he posted a New Year’s Eve message telling Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, and Daniel P. Rubinstein, the Republican district attorney in Mesa County who prosecuted Ms. Peters, to “rot in Hell,” adding “I wish them only the worst.”

Is it even legal for Trump to reward red states and penalize blue ones? In a word: No.

In early December, Justice Department lawyers openly admitted that Trump withheld Department of Energy grants to Minnesota and other states according to “whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect and/or has recently elected Democratic candidates in state and national elections.”

It’s the first time the Trump regime clearly acknowledged in court that which states get what depends on whether most people in a state voted for or against him.

What’s the legal argument? Trump’s Justice Department lawyers claim that such overt political vindictiveness “is constitutionally permissible, including because it can serve as a proxy for legitimate policy considerations.”

This, my friends, is utter rubbish.

Punishing states based on whom their residents voted for directly violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which requires that the government treat citizens equally under the law: No “State [shall] deprive … to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Penalizing a state for how its citizens vote also violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Voting is one of the most basic forms of speech in a democracy; it cannot be abridged or punished depending on for whom one votes.

And it violates a president’s duty under the Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” At the least, this requires that a president apply the law in a nonpartisan way. Congress may award grants or benefits to certain states and not others, but this power is reserved for Congress, not the president.

The issue will almost certainly end up in the Supreme Court. Although my expectations for our highest court could not be much lower, I’d be surprised if the justices sided with Trump here.

Any other result would effectively allow Trump to pit red states against blue and wreak havoc on the very idea of a national government.

Trump has made it clear he regards himself as president only of the people who voted for him. But that’s not how the Constitution works. Nor is it how American democracy works.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.