centers for disease control and prevention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A prominent biographer of President Donald Trump has exposed new details about the reaction within his administration to his unusually sycophantic young aide, claiming that some in his inner circle have been "appalled" by the situation.

Natalie Harp, 34, is an executive assistant to the president, having previously worked at the right-wing One America News Network prior to becoming his full-time aide during his years away from the White House. She has become known to those close to Trump or familiar with his close associates as a "human printer," carrying around a portable printer that allows her to share hard copies of positive news coverage or social media posts about him, no matter where he goes. This, many have observed, has given her an inordinate amount of sway over the information that Trump receives.

Her oddly close relationship to the president has been documented since the start of his second term, with reports emerging that her "obsession" with him had raised alarms in the Secret Service, but she returned to the news spotlight in recent weeks after new revelations about her, including her adoring letters to Trump, were exposed in a new book from reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

Michael Wolff is a longtime journalist and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's personal and political lives, and in the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he provided his own details about Harp, her conduct concerning the president and the alarm that it has caused within his administration.

"Everything that he reads is funneled through Natalie Harp because she’s the human printer," Wolff explained. "The stuff that she prints out is this laudatory stuff. Anything laudatory, she’s searching for at all times and then giving to the president. Other things that will cause him ire—actually, that would be her agenda. So things that cause her ire—that will also cause the president's ire—that goes to him.”

Haberman and Swan's book generated significant headlines about Harp's letters to Trump, specifically one in which she proclaims that, "You are all that matters to me." Speaking further about her role, Wolff revealed more of the things that Harp has written in these messages.

“In this pile of papers, she also frequently includes personal notes to him, and notes that, you know, [say] ‘You’re the alpha and the omega,’ ‘The be all and end all,’ ‘What would I be without you?’” Wolff added.

He continued later: “Natalie Harp’s story is a piece of work. Everybody was in a major kerfuffle over this, including the Secret Service warning the president of the United States, or warning aides to the president whose job it was then to bring to the president whether they did or not, that they saw her as a danger to herself and to him... Those notes, the Natalie Harp notes, were passed to me by other aides of the president who were equally as appalled by this. And that’s one of the things that exists, currently, in the Trump White House, this tension that this is a person who the president has allowed to become really his closest confidant.”

President Donald Trump's administration has become mired in embarrassment over his latest botched remodeling project, but according to a new analysis from MS NOW, the threats he has made in response to the affair reveal him as both "comical" and "ominous."

As part of his ongoing campaign to remodel iconic fixtures of Washington, D.C., to his own liking, Trump made a big deal out of his plan to have the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool painted a color he called "American Flag Blue." Once the project — handed off to a GOP donor through a swift no-bid contract — was completed, it promptly blew up in his face, as the pool became overrun with green algae, which numerous experts have said was actively made worse by the change in color.

Despite the administration's efforts, the algae have remained, threatening to stick around as a highly visible embarrassment for Trump during the country's 250th birthday celebrations. In response to this predicament, Trump has tried to save face by claiming that the algae bloom was caused by vandals, with a former Olympian getting arrested and charged by the U.S. Park Police after touching a piece of peeling paint in the Reflecting Pool. Multiple other people near the pool, whom Trump accused of being "vandals," have also been arrested, though there have been no charges leveled against them.

Writing for MS NOW on Saturday, political strategist Symone Sanders-Townsend argued that "the ongoing debacle of the Reflecting Pool has been a helpful distillation of [Trump's] approach" to governance: "Make a big promise, use it to reward your allies, blame setbacks on your opponents, criminalize dissent and then attack the press."

"The first three steps are fairly common in politics, especially among populists with little experience in government," she explained. "But it’s the last two that turn Trump into something more than just a run-of-the-mill incompetent politician. Authoritarianism often begins with the habit of treating ordinary problems as criminal conspiracies. A court strikes down his policy, and he calls the judge 'crooked' or 'corrupt.' A protest escalates, and he calls the protesters 'paid agitators.'”

She added: "If an authoritarian government cannot accept criticism, then it has to label critics enemies. If it cannot admit a mistake, then it has to blame sabotage. And if it cannot accept failure, then it has to find someone to punish."

Sanders-Townsend further argued that while it may be "comical" to see Trump deploy this predictable authoritarian playbook over something like the Reflecting Pool debacle, it is also "ominous" and must be taken seriously. This sort of impulse, she explained, is exactly why the nation's founders "built a system designed to restrain power rather than indulge it."

"The Reflecting Pool is simply the latest reminder that, in Trump’s Washington, the line between politics and criminality is growing dangerously thin," she continued. "That’s because the common thread is not just inflammatory rhetoric. It is the growing weaponization of government against ordinary political activity and the ordinary people who engage in it. When a president begins treating ordinary politics as criminality, it does not stay rhetorical for long. Eventually, someone gets investigated. Someone gets detained. Someone gets arrested."

President Donald Trump's latest vanity project unveiling drew withering criticism online, with the likes of George Conway and Mehdi Hasan ripping him to shreds for his "dumb" presidency.

On Friday, Trump officially unveiled a new design for U.S. passports, meant to commemorate the country's 250th birthday. In keeping with his second-term obsession with plastering his name and face on as much as he can get away with, these passports feature a likeness of Trump, standing over the Oval Office's Resolute Desk, in front of text from the Declaration of Independence. In a Truth Social post about the design, Trump claimed that it also included the message, "Welcome, but be good!", though this was not visible in any of the images he shared.

While the design itself has received its own avalanche of mockery, others have honed in on the odd message that Trump claimed the passports would include, suggesting that it indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of what passports actually are, prompting Mother Jones to ask in a headline, "Does Trump Know How Passports Work?"

In a post to X, Josh Orton, president of the Demand Justice political action committee, posed a similar question about the passports.

"'Welcome, but be good?' What?" Orton posted. "Does Trump think visiting citizens of other countries get US passports?"

Mehdi Hasan, the founder of Zeteo and former MS NOW anchor, responded to Orton's post with a searing indictment of Trump's intelligence, lambasting him as "the dumbest man" to attain higher elected office across a broad swath of the world.

"Donald Trump may be the dumbest man ever to be elected to high office in the West and I’m including Tommy Tuberville here, too," Hasan posted.

George Conway, the anti-Trump conservative lawyer, then responded to Hasan's post with his own dig at the president's lacking intelligence.

"Yep. He's dum-with-a-B dumb," Conway posted, referencing Trump's much-mocked recent claim that many people did not know that "dumb" is spelled with a B at the end.

According to the administration, the passports featuring Trump's likeness will soon become the default design issued at the passport agency in Washington D.C., with other designs remaining available online and in other states and territories. When the idea was initially put forward, there was widespread concern that it would become the only option available to anyone looking to obtain or renew their passport.

National Intelligence acting director Bill Pulte has installed as his chief of staff a woman who worked on election-related schemes for the Republican National Committee, according to former U.S. officials.

“Christina Norton, the former R.N.C. official, has also served as Bill Pulte’s chief of staff at the federal housing agency he leads. But much of her recent work for the G.O.P. has centered on election issues, including efforts to monitor voting sites during the 2024 presidential election,” reports the New York Times.

While at the R.N.C., the Times reports Norton oversaw a poll watcher program that included conservative conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who helped spread the “Pizzagate” stories about child abuse at a restaurant in Washington.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said the mission of Pulte’s office was supposed to be countering foreign threats, not importing “election denialism into the intelligence community.”

“If reports are true that Bill Pulte, whose installation as acting D.N.I. already raises serious legal questions, is bringing a former senior R.N.C. official who cavorted with election deniers and conspiracy theories into O.D.N.I. as his chief of staff, Americans have every reason to fear that this administration is once again eroding the wall between our intelligence agencies and domestic elections,” The Times reports Warner saying in a statement.

Rep Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee had his own issues with the appointment, saying Pulte’s office is supposed to ensure “they report on legitimate foreign threats to elections, not [President]Donald Trump’s imaginary ones.”

“Trump was explicit when he appointed Bill Pulte to a job he had no qualifications for that he had elections in mind,” Himes said in a statement.

CNN reported Pulte came into his appointed post ready to fire people, and began "asking for a list of every employee in the office so he could assess whether to fire them.”

Juliette Kayyem, CNN's senior national security analyst and ex-assistant secretary of Homeland Security said Pulte was “there for one reason, and that is to satisfy the president's agenda of politicizing the intelligence community.”

“It's not [just] a personal opinion,” Kayyem added. “By statute, Bill Pulte is not qualified for this position. The Director of National Intelligence is supposed to come from the intelligence community. Bill Pulte is a businessman with strong ties to MAGA and to Trump."

President Donald Trump's "Board of Peace" initiative has been exposed as a plot to grant its member states "sweeping immunity," per a report from The Guardian, protecting them from "any arrest, detention or legal proceedings in the courts," among other things, as a result of its most contentious goal.

The Board of Peace initially began as part of Trump's plan to carry out a peace deal in Gaza and to facilitate the rebuilding of the region. By the time it was formally established, it had expanded into a more generalized international peacekeeping organization, with critics expressing concern that Trump, who would remain chairman even after leaving the White House, was using the group to try and replace the United Nations. Among the nations that accepted the invitation to join the board, many are considered to be authoritarian states or dictatorships, with prominent democratic U.S. allies declining to join.

On Saturday, The Guardian obtained a "sensitive but unclassified" four-page resolution, in which the Board of Peace plotted a "sweeping grant of legal immunity for itself," specifically for its actions in Gaza. The resolution would also permit the board to obtain property in the region "free of charge."

As the report noted, it remains unclear how broad the scale of this proposed immunity is planned to be.

"The four-page resolution, labeled 'sensitive but unclassified', extends broad protections to every member of the Board of Peace and its administrative affiliate, the office of the high representative (OHR), as well as to the Palestinian technocrats, international military forces and nonresident contractors lined up to perform work in Gaza," The Guardian explained. "It defines legal processes from which they would have immunity as 'any arrest, detention or legal proceedings in the courts or other entities in Gaza.'"

The report added later: "It is unclear if the document is attempting to relieve the Board of Peace and its affiliates from prosecution in international courts, in addition to potential claims in Gaza."

As the chairman, Trump would retain the ability to override this immunity, "pending majority support from his peace board." A representative for the board dismissed concerns about the intentions of the resolution.

"There is no operative resolution or immunity framework of the kind described in your questions," the representative told The Guardian. "Any suggestion that this process is designed to create lawlessness or impunity is wrong, misleading and gets the issue entirely backwards."

"Six lawyers specializing in US contracting law and international armed conflict reviewed the draft resolution for the Guardian," the report added. "If the resolution goes into force, they said, it is unclear how Board of Peace officials, soldiers, and contractors would be held accountable if there are shootings or accidents that affect Gaza residents, or even how the group might resolve routine disputes over business or land use there."

Daily Beast reports a Trump endorsement could be a problem for more and more voters in the general election, according to information taken from Reuters.

“President Donald Trump’s deal with Iran has done little to boost his standing among his own voters,” said Daily Beast reporter Wiktoria Gucia. “Interviews conducted by Reuters with Americans who voted for the 80-year-old president suggest many remain skeptical of the agreement he struck this month to end the war that sent gas prices soaring above $5 a gallon.”

Trump voters went so far as to say they would reconsider backing candidates endorsed by the president in the upcoming midterm elections.

"A lot of people say: 'Why should I vote when the president's not doing what he promised?'" said Juan Rivera, 26, while canvassing Latino neighborhoods.

Hispanic voters were central to Trump’s 2024 victory, with the president winning 48 percent of the Latino vote — a 12-point improvement from four years earlier, according to the Pew Research Center. However, he is now bleeding support among this key voter bloc.

Steve Egan, 65, from Tampa, Florida, voted for Trump but became disillusioned as the president’s 2025 tariffs hit his business. Egan told Reuters that when deciding who to vote for in the upcoming midterm elections, any candidate endorsed by Trump would be “the kiss of death.”

A number of Trump voters speaking with Reuters said they were disappointed with the president’s handling of the war with Iran, arguing that he failed to deliver on what he set out to achieve. Others said that entering the conflict ran counter to his earlier promise to avoid foreign entanglements.

“We need to truly weaken the Iranian regime instead of this, ‘beat them up a little bit and then step back and let them rebuild,’” Terry Alberta, 65, told Reuters.

Rivera, similarly, told the outlet that the Trump “criticized his predecessors about negotiating with terrorists, and he’s basically done the same exact thing.”

One Trump voter speaking with Reuters complained that the Iran attack appeared to benefit oil companies at the expensive of increased pump prices. Another argued Trump’s war had “triggered greater international hostility toward the United States.”

And while Trump’s memorandum of understanding he signed on June 17 originally appeared to have broad support among Republican voters, the Beast reports prominent Republicans have grown to question the fine print and whether it delivers on the president’s claimed objectives of disarming Iran and freeing the Iranian people from their onerous government.

“I hate to say this in this deal. The biggest loser is the United States and India,” proclaimed “Bolling” host Eric Bolling.

“I will say that the early returns do not look wildly promising at this point,” lamented MAGA influencer Ben Shapiro. “… Let's be very clear. This is the vice president's deal. It does not have support.”

Former Republican Steve Schmidt says House Speaker Mike Johnson is not so clueless that he can’t see the future, and that future involves a Democratic majority in the House, and lots of scrutiny.

“Mike Johnson seems like he needs to be reminded about an important reality,” said Schmidt on his “Warning” substack. “Most people drown because they panic, not because they can’t swim. Mike Johnson is panicking.”

Johnson’s overly frank claims about a future without a Republican majority in the House were quite the admission.

“If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats… impeachment’s not even the big concern,” Johnson said before a live audience. “They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the cabinet, his donors and friends … half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. I’ll take care of you. We’re going to win the midterms.”

It was “an astonishing statement,” said Schmidt, comparing it to dialogue written for Burgess Meredith playing the Penguin in the old ‘Batman’ TV series: “I run the protection program.”

“Mike Johnson isn’t panicked because he believes innocent people will be persecuted,” said Schmidt. “He’s panicked because he understands that accountability may finally be coming to Washington. He knows there will be subpoenas. He knows there will be hearings. He knows there will be oversight. He knows investigators will begin asking questions that should have been asked years ago — and he knows the answers may be devastating.”

Johnson isn’t afraid of unfair investigations, Schmid added. He’s afraid of fair ones.

“He’s afraid of evidence. He’s afraid of witnesses. He’s afraid of documents. He’s afraid that Americans will finally see the greatest spasm of political corruption in our nation’s history in all of its staggering breadth,” Schmidt said.

President Donald Trump did not commit corruption in a vacuum, he explained. He did it with the help of a MAGA Congress — the worst Congress in American history. House Republicans abandoned their constitutional responsibilities while Trump likely engaged in cryptocurrency schemes and sold presidential pardons. They also stood by while Trump politicized the DOJ and other state agencies for the benefit of party over country.

“They protected power instead of checking it. They chose personal loyalty over constitutional duty. They became accomplices through silence, indifference, and submission,” said Schmidt, adding that the American people deserve scrutiny of every corrupt act, investigation of every abuse of public office, and accountability for every official who violated the public trust.

“Every investigation should follow the evidence. Every criminal referral should be based on facts. Every prosecution should meet the highest standards of fairness and constitutional due process. That’s what separates the rule of law from authoritarianism,” said Schmidt. “Mike Johnson understands this perfectly. That’s why he sounds panicked.”

A former MAGA darling lashed out against the Trump administration this week, accusing it of manipulating the stock market as it tried to strategically hide signs that its Iran ceasefire is failing.

On Friday evening, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. had carried out new military strikes against Iran, claiming that they were in retaliation for an attack the Middle Eastern nation carried out on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump called a "foolish violation" of the recent "memorandum of understanding" it recently signed. Iran claimed that the ship was targeted because it was using an unauthorized pathway through the Strait.

In a post to X on Saturday, the Kobeissi Letter, which tracks news about "global capital markets," highlighted something notable about the timing of the announcement.

"BREAKING" The US Pentagon delayed publicly announcing US strikes on Iran until after the US stock market had closed at 4 PM ET on Friday, per NBC News," the account posted. "The timing of the announcement was reportedly intended to 'reduce the immediate impact on financial markets.'"

This sort of effort has become commonplace during the second Trump term. Given that the president is famously known to be the most concerned about television ratings and stock market performance, his administration has frequently tried to manage the release of information that might cause markets to tumble, making sure that the news breaks after they close for the day, and preferably heading into the weekend as well.

This became especially evident during the Iran peace talks, when Trump would often hype up an impending deal as the weekend approached, only to then begin issuing threats again during the weekend, when markets would not be able to react to renewed hostilities.

Responding to the Kobeissi Letter's post, ex-congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a stalwart Trump supporter and darling of the MAGA movement, made the accusations clear.

"Two things here: 1. The ceasefire is not holding," Greene wrote in a post to X. "2. They are manipulating the markets for insider trading."

Salon reports right wing media is freaking out over a slew of Democratic victories this year and preemptively pleading to the Supreme Court to save them from the results of democracy.

This tactic involves demonizing the electorate that votes Democrat and excluding them from the electoral process as much as constitutionally possible.

“This is what happens when you import the third world,” Fox News talking head Jesse Watters recently growled about New York’s primary results, wile describing it as “a third world takeover.” Laura Ingraham, said Salon, also labored to connect progressive politics with foreignness rather than domestic political preferences.

“The entire lead-up to July 4, I consider it one big trigger warning to the Mamdani minions,” Ingraham said. “They’re happiest when foreign flags are flying. Because to them, red, white and blue ... is like sunshine to a vampire.”

Steve Bannon was no better on his “War Room” podcast, said Salon writer Sophia Tesfaye, calling New York a “foreign city.”

“Go look at Mamdani’s base,” Bannon told his audience. “It’s foreign. These sanctuary cities — this is all by design.” Daily Wire pundit Matt Walsh was even less subtle, saying “Third world communists are the enemy,” on X. “They’ve taken over our greatest American city. They’re taking over one of our two major political parties. They hate this country. They hate white people. They hate our heritage and traditions.”

“The danger of this commentary lies in its explicit de-legitimization of the democratic process itself,” said Tesfaye. “When a citizen votes for a candidate who happens to hold democratic socialist views, conservative media treat the voter as an illegal interloper whose very participation in the franchise is a form of national contamination. And they’ve turned to the nation’s highest court as a counter-majoritarian shield, framing an ordinary shift in municipal politics as an existential emergency that justifies the legal dismantling of a century of constitutional consensus.”

Tesfaye referred to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who claimed in a series of his own posts following Tuesday’s New York results that Democrats had “imported a new electorate.”

“Appearing later on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, Miller told viewers that ‘a vote for any Democrat anywhere for any office is empowering a party that wants to strip this country to the bone,’" said Tesfaye. “This is the kind of overheated language that has become so normalized on right-wing television that it barely registers as remarkable.”

“Within the same news cycle as these election results, conservatives turned their attention to a series of favorable Supreme Court rulings for the Trump administration on immigration policy,” Tesfaye added. “A 6–3 decision allowing the continuation of certain border restrictions was celebrated not simply as a legal victory, but also as a cultural one. The right’s reaction to these rulings exposed the raw ethno-nationalist impulses driving the judicial pivot.”

On a recent podcast, Megyn Kelly revealed her personal delight at the court decision.

“Look, this has been going on for over a dozen years,” Kelly said of the migrant populations. “Go home, get out! We know our country is better than yours! That’s because we filled it with our work ethic and our culture and our values! You being here only dilutes it for us, those who built it and live it!”

“The Trump administration’s effort to reinterpret that guarantee — excluding children of undocumented immigrants — has long been considered a legal long shot. But in the current climate, it has taken on outsized symbolic importance. For many on the right, it represents a way to redraw the boundaries of national belonging through judicial power rather than electoral competition,” said Tesfaye. “This is why the reaction to the New York primaries so quickly converged on the courts. If cities are ‘lost,’ if the electorate is ‘changed,’ then the judiciary becomes the arena where outcomes can still be controlled.”

The right-wing media ecosystem, said Tesfaye, is making a real-time argument that the solution to democratic elections producing outcomes conservatives hate is to ensure that fewer of the people who voted in them are legally recognized as citizens.

A biographer of President Donald Trump is sounding the alarm about plans for a 2028 "auto-coup" being in progress, citing the widely criticized recent moves of his defense secretary, which have even caused his past colleagues at Fox News to turn against him.

On Friday, foreign policy reporter Laura Rozen took to X to react to a story from the U.S. military publication, Stars & Stripes, about the concern emerging in the Pentagon over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership in light of the shocking early retirement of the well-regarded Gen. Christopher Donahue. Rozen noted that even Fox host Brian Kilmeade had spoken out in shock about the move. Hegseth famously worked as a co-host on Fox & Friends Weekend before his appointment by Trump.

"Huge loss for our country," Kilmeade wrote in a post cited by Rozen. "Like losing Tom Brady in prime of career."

"In January, Kilmeade visited USAREUR-AF (U.S. Army Europe and Africa) headquarters in Wiesbaden, where he did a segment on Donahue’s command and its efforts to develop new combat tactics that better use drones and artificial intelligence," Rozen wrote further in her post. "USAREUR-AF has been at the forefront of those efforts, with Donahue’s Eastern Flank Deterrence Line concept for NATO serving as a blueprint for how to manage networks, data and drones to get an edge. At one point during the visit, Kilmeade called President Donald Trump and introduced Donahue as his soldiers gathered around. ‘You’re doing a fantastic job. Your reputation is great,’ Trump said."

Difficulty responding to modern drone technologies and tactics has been cited as one of the U.S. military's major failings in the war with Iran, making Donahue's departure in this light all the more concerning.

In his own post to X, Seth Abramson, an attorney and outspoken critic of Trump, who has written several books about his life and career in politics, warned that something much darker was underway with Hegseth's recent trend of blocking promotions for certain military officers.

"Pete Hegseth is removing or blocking the promotions of all military officers who he has determined would not participate in an illegal pro-Trump self-coup (auto-coup) in 2028," Abramson argued. "You can believe me now or believe me in 2028. Either way, stop seeing what Hegseth is doing as random."

An "auto-coup" refers to a coup that is orchestrated by an existing official in order to stay in power against the will of outside forces, such as a president remaining in office despite losing reelection or being term-limited.