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President Donald Trump’s supporters are in a political cult, explained a former Republican congressman. But they can be deprogrammed.

Interviewing filmmaker Mark Vicente about his upcoming documentary “The Narcissist’s Playbook” — which is described on IMDB as studying “four self-aware malignant narcissists” as they reveal “their manipulation methods, victim accounts, and expert analysis of narcissistic abuse patterns” — former Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois argued on his Substack that Trump supporters can be gradually eased out of their cult-like behavior.

“I often hear from people I engage with, in this case, Trump supporters, when they are able to see the truth and get out of that, so many of them, Mark, will ask me, ‘Joe, why the f—— didn't I see what was going on?’” Walsh told Vicente. “How did I not see what he was doing?”

Vicente replied that former cult members can be soothed if you remind them of the positive values that led them to join the cult in the first place. These, Vicente argued, can be preserved even after one leaves the cult itself.

“You want to change the world and the person says, ‘You know I'm going to help you do that because that's my mission,’ and there's a surge in your chest because your whole life, if you're politically active or whatever, you care about the world, you want that,” Vicente said. “So you become enamored with somebody that's offering you back your values. You're so attached to that that you can't see what's really going on. And you explain away. You take all the red flags and you turn them pink.”

To get to the point where those pink flags can be re-identified as red, however, the cult member must first be led to the realization they have been duped. Earlier in the conversation, Walsh explained how he has accomplished this with the many Trump supporters in his life.

“Just an anecdote: As I talk to people in the political world who love Trump, I find that I'm best able to help them see the light bulb and see the truth when I put nuggets in truth in front of them repeatedly and they realize they've been lied to,” Walsh explained.

Last month Walsh used his Substack to point out one big issue where Trump supporters’ own stated values can be used to call out their cult-like behavior.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh wrote on his Substack. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Then, despite Trump’s actions against Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, they still support him.

He added, “And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters? What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a psychiatrist who taught at Yale and authored the book “Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul,” told this journalist for Salon shortly before the 2020 election that Trump would likely reject the results if he lost because of his “pathological narcissism,” which trickles down to his supporters.

“Those with pathological narcissism are abusive and dangerous because of their catastrophic neediness,” Lee explained. “Think of a drowning person gasping for air: a survival instinct just may push you down in order to save one’s own life. In the manner that the body needs oxygen, the soul needs love, and self-love is what a toxic narcissist is desperately lacking. This is why he must overcompensate, creating for himself a self-image where he is the best at everything, never wrong, better than all the experts, and a ‘stable genius.'”

She later added, “Just as one once settled for adulation in lieu of love, one may settle for fear when adulation no longer seems attainable. Rage attacks are common, for people are bound to fall short of expectation for such a needy personality—and eventually everyone falls into this category. But when there is an all-encompassing loss, such as the loss of an election, it can trigger a rampage of destruction and reign of terror in revenge against an entire nation that has failed him.”

President Donald Trump has set “the world on fire,” according to a former Republican strategist who worked for President George W. Bush — and it’s entirely because of Trump voters.

In a Wednesday Substack essay titled “Why the world is on fire,” political consultant Steve Schmidt argued that America is sending the planet toward World War III but is not “branding” it or using a “marketing campaign.”

“There has been no debate, no plan, and no thought given by Donald, his stooges and politicized generals about the second-and third-order effects of their decisions,” Schmidt said. “This is escalating.”

With 15 nations involved in combat, and Russia still at war with Ukraine, Schmidt concluded that we now “have war, chaos, economic crisis, corruption and insanity served up non-stop, extolling the wrong against the right, while abusing American citizens with violence, including murder.”

As he summed it up earlier in the editorial, “We had peace, and we chose Trump.”

Last month, Schmidt and former CNN anchor Jim Acosta blasted the Supreme Court for even allowing Trump to run for president and gain as much power as he has upon taking office.

“Seems to me a part of this is … that the Supreme Court, under John Roberts, released this Frankenstein, and now they don’t know how to rein him in. They’ve tried to cut him off at the pass [on some things] but John Roberts is responsible for this mess,” Acosta said.

“The Roberts court has destabilized our American society through partisan rulings,” Schmidt replied. “We have a corrupt Supreme Court with [Judge Samuel] Alito’s misconduct, Clarence Thomas’s misconduct, flying around with all these billionaire extremist doners from here to there and everywhere.”

He added, “The court has lost its reputation for a reason, and now we have Trump’s visage looming down at the American people from the Department of Justice, which is a corrupt institution that can’t be trusted, filled with corrupt prosecutor who abuse their oath, abuse the Constitution, and abuse the American people in the name of power.”

Also last month, Schmidt pointed out in a Substack post that the world’s billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Tim Cook have decided to bend the figurative knee to Trump, but that doesn’t mean the rest of humanity must join them.

“We recognize that the world's richest people of the most powerful corporations, the big media companies, the big tech companies, the big banks have made a decision for the privilege of resting their head on a Mar-a-Lago pillow,” Schmidt said in his Substack post. “They are satisfied to live on their knees, but we are not.”

In September, Schmidt’s disgust with Trump made headlines when he threatened to rent a billboard attacking Disney CEO Bob Iger for capitulating to Trump’s demand that talk show host Jimmy Kimmel be suspended for criticizing the Trump movement.

"We will put billboards up in L.A. with Bob Iger's picture, a yellow stripe under it and the word 'COWARD,'" Schmidt said. "It's a billboard town and everyone can reflect on it as they drive by ... the cowardice is appalling."

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday faced Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) during a contentious line of questioning about the deaths of American citizens at the hands of federal agents.

The House Judiciary Committee ranking member probed Noem on why she attacked slain Minnesota protesters Renée Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti as "domestic terrorists" before knowing any of the facts of the case.

Raskin walked through some statements from friends and family about Good and Pretti, who expressed compassion and love for all people.

Noem refused to walk back any of the mistakes by DHS in the days following the shootings.

"Based on what you know today, madam secretary, based on what you know today, were Renee Good and Alex Pretti domestic terrorists?" Raskin asked.

Noem claimed that there was still an "ongoing investigation," implying that the investigation could still find evidence that they were domestic terrorists.

"You didn't wait for the investigation or evidence. You proclaimed they were domestic terrorists at the time," said Raskin. "Why did you do that?"

Noem said only that the federal agents go "into dangerous situations." She went on to say that those situations included "violent rioters."

"So, you're proud of the fact that you called them domestic terrorists?" Raskin asked.

Over and over he probed her about the language she used, and over and over she refused to apologize or correct the record.

Appearing before the Senate on Tuesday, Noem refused to even look at American citizens who were arrested, detained and brutalized by agents in her department.

Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson told CNN after the Wednesday morning Pentagon press conference, "somebody's smokin' something."

During his briefing, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was asked how Iran had nuclear weapons when the administration said last year that they obliterated the weapons in the "12-Day War."

Hegseth told reporters that President Donald Trump believed Iran "had no intention of making a deal." He claimed that Iran didn't have nuclear weapons; rather, they "had the intentions" of getting such weapons. This conflicts with Trump's ongoing claims that Iran was at work on nuclear weapons again.

"They can’t do the nuclear… They’ve got to stop with the nuclear," Trump said in January at the World Economic Forum.

“After Midnight Hammer, they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, and in particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue. They’re starting it all over… One thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon," Trump said during his State of the Union address, mere days before the strikes.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand reported that Trump administration officials acknowledged during a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that they have major concerns about Iran's drone program because they haven't been able to intercept all of them, as evidenced by the six dead American soldiers in Kuwait.

During the briefing on Wednesday, both Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine agreed that the drones do pose a bigger problem than they anticipated.

The other problem, according to several reports, is that the U.S. is running out of weaponry because the administration has burned through the stockpile so quickly.

It was reported on Tuesday by several outlets that the military lacks the supplies to continue at the current level.

“It’s not panic yet, but the sooner they get here, the better,” a regional source told CNN.

Even the pro-Trump "America First Post" reported that Trump burned through five years of Tomahawk inventory in just three days.

Speaking to CNN after the press conference. Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson pointed to Gen. Caine's comments that they were switching from "stand-off munitions" to "stand-in munitions."

"What he's saying is that we're running out of precision-guided munitions," the retired general said. "That's what he's saying. That we're going to take advantage of our air superiority, our ability to loiter over targets and use other type munitions. In fact, the Secretary of Defense even talked about using dumb bombs, gravity-based bombs, and not laser-guided bombs."

He was asked if Hegseth's claim that the U.S. can outlast Iran was accurate.

"That's not how I see it at all. I mean, you know, it's going to take an awful lot to dig these people out. I mean, what we saw today was essentially the same briefing that was given in 2003 by Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers," said Anderson.

He recalled that when they announced the attack on Iraq, there was also no clear definition of the objectives.

"But what we saw was the Secretary of Defense was a tough, macho guy talking about killing and shamelessly sucking up to the POTUS, but he really wasn't giving any specifics on what the long-term objectives are," Anderson continued. "And I would say that we're going to be in the same situation we were in Iraq. We're going to be able to knock out their defensive capabilities, their offensive capabilities, establish air superiority, but they're going to go underground. These are tough, resilient people. They're going to be able to outlast us."

He cautioned that if anyone thinks the U.S. can "bomb them into submission from the air, somebody's smoking something."

New video from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Epstein deposition hearing shows her mocking MAGA Rep. Lauren Boebert to her face for asking a question about a "totally made up" conspiracy theory.

Clinton was questioned in a closed-door hearing in upstate New York last week about her potential connections to the deceased sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, maintaining her stance that she had never met the man before, and had at best maintained a casual acquaintance with his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also gave a closed-door testimony the following day.

On Monday, clips from Clinton's deposition began to circulate online, showing Boebert's line of questioning about the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory, and the former first lady's withering reaction. One particular clip, four minutes in length, was shared to X by New York Sun reporter Matt Rice.

"Pizzagate" originated amid Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, after conspiracy theorists became convinced that references to "pizza" in leaked emails from her campaign chair, Jon Podesta, were coded references. The spread of the theory led one believer to enter Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C., pizzeria, with a loaded gun in search of a basement he thought was used to hide victims, though the property ended up having no basement to begin with.

Despite this conspiracy theory being widely debunked as a complete fabrication, Boebert nonetheless questioned Clinton last week as to whether or not she had seen anything in the newly released Epstein files related to it.

"Have you reviewed any 2025-2026 Epstein files that were released that you believe reference or relate to those specific 2016 claims regarding the Podesta emails, Comet Ping Pong, pizza used as code possibly?" Boebert asked.

After questioning about the nature of Boebert's question and the "wacky Pizzagate scandal" from the former secretary's legal team, Clinton responded: "Pizzagate was totally made up. It was an outrageous allegation that ended up hurting a number of people, that caused a deranged young man to show up with his assault rifle and shoot up a local pizzeria. I can't believe you're even referencing it."

Boebert pressed further with an awkwardly phrased follow-up question about any Epstein investigations post-2019 intersecting with "Pizzagate-style theories about Democrat figures," to which Clinton said, "I have no way of answering [that]." The congresswoman asked another question about Clinton clarifying any content from the Epstein files that may have been misinterpreted in a way that would revive the Pizzagate claims. She insisted that the line of questioning was "reasonable" as Clinton's legal team objected.

Throughout Boebert's series of questioning, Clinton repeatedly grinned and shook her head. Near the end of the video shared online, she appeared to mock Boebert's question.

"I mean really, I expected a lot of interesting questions today, but Pizzagate was not on my list," Clinton said.

President Donald Trump has the loyal support of Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okl.), but in order to get it, Mullin has to say blatantly untrue things in public — and get called out for it.

Appearing on CNN with host Kasie Hunt on Monday, Mullin found himself on the defensive after insisting Trump’s invasion of Iran is not a war, only to be corrected by Trump’s own defense secretary.

“This isn't a war, we haven't declared war. Everybody wants to say,” Mullin told Hunt, prompting Hunt to play a clip of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying earlier on Monday that “we set the terms of this war from start to finish. We didn't start this war. But under President Trump, we are finishing it.”

Hunt then asked Mullin if stood by his earlier statement that this is not a war.

“What he declared on us was war — meaning the Ayatollah declared war on us,” Mullin replied. “We are not at war with the Iranian people. The Ayatollah declared war on us, we've already taken him out, and now we're eliminating the threat."

"[T]his isn't Iraq," Mullin later said. "We made that very clear. Pete Hegseth — Secretary Hegseth — made that very clear. This isn't the same approach. Keep in mind, we took out the leader within an hour.”

“After 9/11, Kasie, we said never again, never again will we be caught flat-footed, never again will we ignore someone like Osama bin Laden when we knew what his intentions were but didn't take him out,” Mullin continued. “We knew what the Ayatollah's intentions were. They had been chanting ‘Death to America’ for 47 years. We gave them that opportunity. Not a war of choice.”

Although Mullin told Hunt that Trump’s Iran war strategy is radically different than Bush’s Iraq war strategy, he has in fact given contradictory ideas about his vision for Iran. New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel wrote on Monday that Trump “said he hoped the military and Guard Corps would surrender their weapons to the people, even though the same hardened forces killed thousands in the streets in January,” which was part of the reason Trump cited for invading Iran in the first place. He has said that his goal is "freedom for the people" of Iran, but then said he has “three very good choices” in mind as to who he will install to take over the country, although he later said “actually, nevermind, we killed those choices."

Similarly, although Trump has downplayed the severity of America’s invasion of Iran, he also told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday that “we haven't even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn't even happened. The big one is coming soon.”

Editor’ Note: This story has been updated.

While making his first remarks to the nation from the White House about his military attack on Iran that began on Saturday, President Donald Trump came under fire for taking time to discuss his $400 million ballroom and drapes.

“We have a lot of great service members here with us, too, in this beautiful building, isn’t it? Beautiful?” Trump told the audience. “We’re adding on to the building a little bit. We’re improving the building. See that nice drape?”

“When that comes down, right now, you see a very, very deep hole, but in about a year and a half from now, you’re gonna see a very, very beautiful building. And there’s your entrance to it, right there. In fact, it looks so nice, I don’t think I’ll even, I think I’ll save money on the doors, ’cause it can’t get more beautiful than that.”

“I picked those drapes in my first term. I always liked gold, but I think we can save a lot of money. I just saved… I just saved curtains. But, uh, it will be. It will be spectacular. It’ll be the most beautiful ballroom,” he said.

Critics blasted the president’s remarks.

“American troops are dead and Trump is on TV talking about the drapes…” remarked The Lincoln Project.

“Trump just explained about the attack on Iran that ‘I don’t get bored. There’s nothing boring about this.’ Despite that, he is now talking at some length about gold drapes and ‘the most beautiful ballroom,'” commented columnist Niall Stanage.

“In a war that’s already killed four Americans, Trump says it could last beyond 4-5 weeks because he doesn’t get ‘bored,'” observed Scripps News’ Simon Kaufman. “Moments later, he moves on from Iran and talks about ballroom renovations and drapes.”

“Trump demonstrating his mental disfigurement by bragging about his ballroom and chuckling immediately after claiming that ‘we grieve’ for 4 US soldiers killed in the war he just initiated,” wrote journalist John Harwood. “Trump does not possess empathy and does not grieve for any other person’s misfortune.”

Noting that the president sounded “exhausted and not good,” foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen observed “the difference” in Trump’s “demeanor and affect when talking about the war and then the ballroom is so different.” She also said that “it is evident the war is becoming more of a s — — than he expected.”

“It’s worth noting that Trump is putting infinitely more effort into selling his ballroom to the American people than anyone in his administration is on selling the attack on Iran,” wrote conspiracy theories expert Mike Rothschild.

“Trump started an unnecessary war in the Middle East with no real strategy, there’s already American military loss of life and this guy is obsessing over the damn drapes and his $400 million gilded ballroom project,” remarked former political commentator Tara Setmayer. “How is this making America great????”

“Bragging about his ‘beautiful ballroom’ while he’s supposed to be explaining the somber decision to go to war,” wrote The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser. “It’s one of the most politically tone deaf things I’ve ever seen from a POTUS, including this one…”

During his first presidency, Donald Trump famously clashed with a long list of traditional conservatives he appointed — including a secretary of state (Rex Tillerson), two U.S. attorneys general (Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr), a national security director (John Bolton), a White House chief of staff (Gen. John F. Kelly), a defense secretary (Jim Mattis), and, in the end, a vice president (Mike Pence). Some of the conservatives who served in the first Trump Administration, including former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Miles Taylor, Pence staffer Olivia Troye, and ex-White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham), endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.

But the second Trump Administration is considerably different. Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a traditional conservative, far-right MAGA Republicans dominate Trump's administration this time. And Trump made a point of picking mostly staunch loyalists this time.

In an article published by The Guardian on March 1, journalist David Smith stresses that although Trump's second administration is a "clown car," there are no signs that a shakeup is coming anytime soon.

"In the past two weeks alone," Smith explains, "(Democrats) saw a health secretary who boasted about snorting cocaine off toilet seats; a homeland security secretary who allegedly fired a pilot for leaving her blanket on a plane; and an FBI director who chugged beer with Olympic hockey players in Italy at taxpayers' expense. In all of U.S. history, there has never been government leadership quite like it."

Smith continues, "Although these individuals swear undying fealty to the president, their colorful and erratic antics may prove his political undoing. Yet there is no hint that the man who became famous for saying 'You're fired!' on reality TV has any intention of casting them aside."

Seneca Project founder Tara Setmayer, a Never Trump conservative, believes that Trump is now leading the worst administration in U.S. history.

Setmayer told The Guardian, "If you elect a clown, he brings the circus. This is the Cabinet that we currently have. It is the most corrupt, incompetent, and embarrassing Cabinet in the history of the United States, and unfortunately, it's the American people who are paying for it, literally and figuratively. When you look at Donald Trump's Cabinet, and how they have performed, you have to ask yourself: How are any of these people making America great again?"

Elections expert Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, draws a major distinction between the first Trump Administration and the second.

Sabato told The Guardian, "There were actually some good people in Trump's first Cabinet, which probably saved us, saved the country. But this time, I don't recall a Cabinet in my lifetime with this many problematic characters who are just awful and who normally would never have been selected and if somehow they'd slipped through would have been fired by now. Trump keeps them around because, in a way, they may look him better. They're so awful…. You have to use this kind of twisted psychology in analyzing Trump."

Many of the double-digit victories that Democrats enjoyed in November were in swing states or blue states, from three Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention elections to Democratic now-Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger flipping a GOP-held seat by 15 percent. A gubernatorial election in blue-leaning New Jersey — which has had two Republican governors since the 1990s (Christie Todd Whitman and Chris Christie) — was expected to be close. Instead, Democratic now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli by 14 percent.

But in some special elections in 2026, Democrats performed shockingly well in a few deep red districts.

In an article originally published by The Conversation and republished by Salon on March 1, Charlie Hunt — a political science professor at Boise State University in Idaho — poses the question: does this series of Democratic wins spell disaster for Republicans in the 2026 midterms?

"On February 7, 2026, Chasity Verret Martinez won a special election to fill a vacant seat in the Louisiana House," Hunt explains. "That's an outcome that might not mean very much to people outside of the state or even outside her Baton Rouge-area district. But Martinez is a Democrat who took 62 percent of the vote in a district that had given Donald Trump a 13-percentage-point victory in the 2024 presidential race. And her win came a week after Democrats seized a Texas Senate district that had supported Trump even more strongly — a result that immediately triggered concern in Republican circles."

Hunt continues, "Because fewer people turn out for special elections, they're considered an early predictor of partisan enthusiasm heading into regularly scheduled elections. And with the 2026 midterm elections less than nine months away, analysts are already scrambling for indications of the likely outcome."

With Democratic victories in special elections, Hunt emphasizes, it's important to note the margins of victory and where the elections took place.

"After all, a Democrat just barely squeaking by in a state legislative race may not look very impressive on its face," Hunt argues. "But if that race took place in the rural heart of a red state, it could raise hackles among Republicans…. On average, (Democrats are) running ahead of (former Vice President Kamala) Harris' 2024 margins by a whopping 13 percentage points. That's better than they did in 2018, when they ultimately picked up 40 seats in the House and seven governorships across the country."

So far in 2026, according to Hunt, the results of special elections are a bad sign for Republicans.

"In the 2026 election cycle, as in previous ones, prognosticators and political professionals are looking to the outcomes of these intermittent races at various levels of government as a gauge of how voters are feeling about the two parties," Hunt observes. "And the results from the first 15 months of the second Trump Administration appear to spell very bad news for the Republicans…. There's no telling for sure whether these indicators will turn out to be truly predictive until November. But all of them should be sounding alarm bells for Republicans."

President Donald Trump launched strikes into Iran Saturday morning in the second bombing campaign on the country. CNN's Kaitlan Collins couldn't help but notice that his reasoning behind it doesn't make much sense.

Speaking to Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calf.), who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Collins recalled, "a lot of the president's supporters had heard [in 2024], no more regime change, no more endless wars. The vice president, JD Vance, I asked him about this and what exactly the argument was here, given they said seven months ago that they had obliterated Iran's nuclear arsenal."

When she asked Vance about it, how they were going to justify to the American people that a war against Iran was necessary, he said he wouldn't "make any news on Iran today."

"But the principle is very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon if they try to rebuild a nuclear weapon, that causes problems for us," Vance continued.

It prompted Collins to question: "Congresswoman, do you understand how the United States can go from having obliterated Iran's nuclear program as the White House insisted last summer, to now saying that part of the justification for these strikes is to ensure that they cannot have a nuclear weapon?"

Jacobs said that it makes it clear there's no real plan around the attack.

"I think this just goes to show how completely incoherent their strategy is or lack thereof. And look, I know a lot of my colleagues are also trying to justify this, saying that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear weapon. I agree Iran should never be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. We had a deal that, while imperfect, was actually working towards getting there, and instead Donald Trump pulled us out of that deal," Jacobs said.

Indeed, Badr Albusaidi, Oman's foreign minister, spoke with Vance, he told CBS "Face the Nation," and relayed the message that "the peace deal is within our reach.”

He also added, “I don't think any alternative to diplomacy is going to solve this problem.”

- YouTube youtu.be

Larry and David Ellison, the billionaire father-and-son buying up media empires and making them support President Donald Trump, are being skewered by a Hollywood legend, longtime acting superstar Jane Fonda.

In a satirical video from Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment, Emmy-nominated actor Ed Begley Jr. asks an unseen casting director how his work has been. He replied with a depressed tone.

“It’s been slow,” Begley said. “You know, there’s only the Rush Hour movies. It’s one flavor.”

The video references how the Ellisons, who purchased Paramount earlier this year, have now been able to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery after Netflix dropped its competing bid following a White House meeting. In the same video, Fonda jokes “I can’t get any movies that I want made. I’m hoping Rush Hour... will please the right people and maybe I’ll get a job.” The video also includes appearances from Hollywood stars like Yvette Nicole Brown, Kirsten Vangsness, Bobby Berk, Jodie Sweetin and Anthony Roy Davis.

Fonda’s video references how Trump reportedly used his influence to “fast-track” production on a new sequel in the “Rush Hour” action comedy franchise. Trump also reportedly has had discussions with Paramount about firing specific CNN reporters who he dislikes, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar.

“President Donald Trump is not the sort of old-fashioned Republican who believes businesses should operate unfettered from government interference,” reported The Week at the time. “Instead, he is now telling Netflix to fire a prominent board member who once worked for the Obama administration.”

In this vein The Bulwark, a conservative publication, speculated that Trump’s desire to create a monopoly of pro-Trump media outlets will not reach fruition simply by taking over CNN.

“Trump’s head is stuck in the 80s so he may not have noticed that cable is dying,” conservative commentators Tim Miller and Amanda Carpenter wrote in their Friday podcast episode. “All he can think about is getting his greedy little hands on CNN so he can make them say nice things about him. But independent outlets—like The Bulwark— are changing the media space and are beyond the reach of a corrupted FCC. Nevertheless, our screens are going to be filled with vast quantities of pro-MAGA propaganda.”

One business journalist speculated that the Ellisons purchased Warner Brothers Discovery precisely so they could control CNN.

“The question nobody is asking is the one that keeps me up at night: what has already been arranged for the one asset the president demanded change hands, in the one company where someone quietly built the legal infrastructure to make it happen, five months ago, before anyone was looking?” business journalist Audrey Henson wrote on Substack prior to Netflix’s withdrawal being announced.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walked into a House hearing and exposed the real cover-up involving the investigation files for trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Columnist Paul Waldman penned a piece Saturday shaming Republicans in the House Oversight and Reform Committee for spending more time on "Pizzagate" conspiracy theories than on helping survivors of Epstein's decades of abuse.

While Republicans hoped to "embarrass Democrats," Waldman said, they "ended up embarrassing themselves."

While speaking to the committee, Secretary Clinton flipped the script on Republicans as they hoped to humiliate her. Instead, she highlighted just how unserious the GOP has been when it comes to handling the Epstein case.

"This is the nature of the Republican response to the unending Epstein scandal: from Congress, the kind of buffoonery represented by the Clinton deposition; and from the administration, an insistence that Trump is unconnected to or 'exonerated' from a scandal whose central figure long counted the president as a friend," wrote Waldman.

He went on to mock claims from President Donald Trump's Justice Department that it would investigate itself to better understand what went wrong in the Epstein investigation.

It noted that there isn't merely one set of missing documents, "But among the millions of pages of Epstein files that have been released were massive amounts of heavily redacted documents with names and other information blacked out. In some cases, that was done to protect the identity of victims, but not all."

He recalled reports from last July in which Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) wrote a letter to the DOJ saying he was made aware of as many as 1,000 FBI personnel sifting through the files to "'flag' any records in which President Trump was mentioned."

Bloomberg News later reported that Trump’s name was removed from all of the files for "privacy" reasons.

Thankfully, the DOJ isn't made up of "the skilled operators" necessary of carrying out an expert conspiracy. Instead, Waldman said the "bumbling partisan hacks. ... They’d have a tough time mounting a comprehensive cover-up of Trump’s ties to Epstein, simply because those ties are so public and extensive."

While Republicans might be trying desperately to tie Epstein to the Democrats, and make it go away, Waldman explained that the scandal is bigger than a typical political scandal. What happened to the girls and women is horrific, but the anger goes beyond getting them justice and dips into the anger Americans have over elite, powerful men getting away with such crimes. Both sides of the political aisle are angry, "no matter how many times Trump says he was 'totally exonerated.'"

There is no greater example of the powerful elite that gets away with whatever they want, Waldman said, recalling his father bailing Trump out of financial blundersand funding his projects. He even admitted in the "Access Hollywood" video that he can assault women and get away with it because he's "a celebrity."

“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything," Trump said in the video.

"That’s the rot in the American elite that this scandal has revealed," Waldman closed. He argued that whatever distractions Republicans try to throw up, it won't help the scandal disappear.

President Donald Trump is doomed in the upcoming midterm elections, says an ex-Republican congressman — and the reason may surprise you.

“This is the biggest reason why Trump and Republicans in November are gonna get their a—- handed to them” in the midterms, former Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois said on his Substack on Thursday. “I've been saying this for a year now. One word: cruelty.”

Elaborating on how Trump’s immigration policies come across as so cruel that they will turn off independent voters, Walsh described Trump’s abuse of immigrants as “abject, raw, n----, wide open cruelty” in the name of an “ugly, extreme, dark, hateful, unconstitutional, un-American immigration enforcement.” Because even Americans who oppose illegal immigration tend not to be sadistic, Walsh argued, Trump will suffer immensely for this cruelty during the midterms.

“We disagree on a lot of issues, but America is not a cruel place and the American people are not cruel,” Walsh said. “We do not f—-- support the cruelty that these mass federal thugs have been engaged in on our streets. Cruelty more than anything else is going to kick Republicans in the a— in November. By the way, a lot of Republicans know it.”

Walsh then detailed human rights abuses that have occurred due to the actions of immigration law enforcement.

“This must not be what America is,” Walsh said. “It's what Donald Trump is doing his damnedest to turn America into. And I know, because I talk to them every day, there are Americans that f—-- applaud what Trump is doing with ICE. But most Americans don't. Most Americans don't. And I believe that these most Americans — as I've said before — come November, they will crawl butt—n---- across broken glass for a mile to vote. And they'll do that to vote to make crystal f—- clear that what ICE is doing now, what Trump is doing now with immigration enforcement, must not be what we are.”

Democrats, despite not doing enough about illegal immigration in Walsh’s estimate, can now run with Trump’s cruelty.

“And if Democrats dropped the ball, man, that pendulum has swung right through the other wall,” Walsh said. “And we will not be this.”

Walsh has been an outspoken critic of the MAGA movement within the modern Republican Party. Earlier this week, Walsh described Trump voters as “cultists,” adding that he used to be a Trump voter himself.

“When it comes to my former congressional colleagues — these Republican members of Congress, and all these conservative right-wing talk radio guys and Fox News guys, the world I used to be a part of — man, I'll call them members of a cult till the cows come home,” Walsh said. He later added that “if you don't like me calling you a cultist, if you don't like it when I call you a cult follower of Donald Trump, then don't act like one.”

Walsh has also harshly criticized Trump’s immigration policies, such as describing ICE agents as “thugs.”

“What these heavily armed masked thugs lawlessly roaming our streets are doing is the utter opposite of law enforcement,” Walsh said. “And there's a reason, by the way — I talk to cops regularly — most cops in this country detest what ICE is doing.” He then used sarcasm to criticize agents who violate the Constitution because they say they are “afraid.”

“Can you believe it?” Walsh said, facetiously pretending to be indignant at an unreasonable order. “They want judicial warrants! The American people are demanding that ICE have and use judicial warrants if they want to enter a home or a private business, you know, those pesky judicial warrants! That pesky Constitution!”

Donald Trump is extremely likely to use pardons to keep members of his staff, and even himself, out of legal trouble after his term ends, according to one former pardon attorney.

Liz Oyer previously served as a career attorney for the Department of Justice, with a focus on pardons from 2022 to the end of her tenure in 2025. She was fired by Trump after refusing to reinstate MAGA-friendly actor Mel Gibson's gun rights. She now makes frequent appearances across various news and political media, offering legal analysis and criticism of Trump's leadership.

This week, she made an appearance on the most recent episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, where she told host Joanna Coles that, in her estimation, Trump is "likely" to use his pardon powers for "members of his administration who may have committed crimes in the course of their official duties." In fact, she said that it is a distinct possibility that these pardons have already been drafted, in case anything happens to him in the near future.

"Frankly, it would not surprise me if he has already written some of those pardons and signed them and has them stashed in a drawer somewhere, just in case something should happen to him," Oyer said. "To make sure that the people who have worked for him in this administration are protected."

Trump previously asserted in 2018 that he would have the "absolute right" to pardon himself, claiming that numerous legal scholars were in agreement, though he did not name any. Precedent is not on his side in that argument, however. In 1974, the DOJ released an opinion finding that the president did not have the legal authority to pardon themself for any crimes. That idea could be overruled by a Supreme Court decision, though the Court has never weighed in on the matter.

For her part, Oyer said that it is unlikely Trump will need to test the legal waters and pardon himself, given how unlikely it is that he will face prosecution for anything. This is because of the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that granted presidents immunity for actions taken as "official duties" while president, a definition broad enough to encompass almost anything.

"There’s not a clear answer under the law as to whether the president can pardon himself," Oyer said, later adding, "He knows that he’s not likely to be able to be held accountable criminally for anything he’s doing during his presidency, and therefore he probably won’t need a pardon because of the broad legal immunity that the Supreme Court has already given him."