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Sources say Trump begging Russia to make nice as punishing midterms loom

Sources tell MS NOW that President Donald Trump appears to be trying a less blowhard tactic for dealing with Russia as the U.S. enters the 70-day stretch before the November midterms.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin is making an already difficult midterm race for Trump and Republicans even harder by escalating his war with Ukraine and making Trump look weak. Putin is also supplying weapons to Iran to help the Iranian military kill U.S. soldiers in Trump’s unilateral war on that nation. And Russia is threatening to ratchet up tension with NATO nations.

Trump is known for fiery threats and speeches against his perceived enemies, but CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow on Tuesday to pursue a more quiet tack. Sources told MS NOW that he urged Russian officials to do three things: not attack NATO countries, end his invasion of Ukraine and stop sending military weapons and aid to Iran, two sources familiar with the matter told MS NOW.

“The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about sensitive national security issues, said the meeting was primarily about the war in Ukraine. But they said the U.S. war with Iran was also discussed,” reports MS NOW. “One of the sources said Ratcliffe told Russian officials that the United States remains committed to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that an attack on one member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be considered an attack on all.

But those same sources say Ratcliffe had to settle for delivering his low-key appeal to senior Russian intelligence officials, not with Russian President Vladimir Putin — who ducked the meeting.

Trump may be desperately raging against the inevitable as midterms wind down. Republicans have previously expressed extreme nervousness about their prospects in the 2026 midterm elections. From President Donald Trump's unpopular tariffs and lack of coordination with local candidates to the uncontested failure of his invasion of Iran, the prevailing view is that Trump is so unpopular and difficult to work with, it might hurt Republicans who are already struggling politically due to the poor economy.

Meanwhile, Trump is possibly catching on that Iran leaders are saving their most devastating attack for Trump’s midterm by dialing up the cost of U.S. fuel and food prices with their inextricable hold on several Middle East oil and fertilizer bottlenecks.

“And the reason for that is because [Iran leaders] believe in their head now that they have something of an upper hand here,” retired Gen. Jack Keane told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney. “I think as we get closer to the midterms, it’s likely they will.”

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Conservatives bushwhack Speaker Johnson’s 'weird' midterm message for GOP

Republicans are facing a hard uphill battle in their fight to retain the House and Senate majority, but critics on social media say the party appears to be toiling up the wrong hill entirely.

Conservative X account Republicans against Trump appeared to roll its eyes as they reposted Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to get Republicans re-elected this midterm—plaster them with President Donald Trump’s face.

“The president’s gonna look right in the camera and say, ‘I am on the ballot.’ Because even though his name isn’t, right, his administration, his legacy, the America-first agenda is,” said Johnson, speaking at a rally for Rep. Monica De La Cruz, (R-Texas) “We gotta get people to turn out.”

Hold the majority. Hold the majority,” said Johnson, quoting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, while acknowledging “this is one of our toughest elections.”

Critics rattled Johnson’s post in responses.

“Great idea, Mike,” said one progressive account. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Hey – this works for me,” said another.

“He wants to guarantee a Democratic landslide,” intoned another.

Hecklers destroyed Johnson’s advice because Trump’s polling is lower than it has ever arguably been in his two terms as president.

CNN Data analyst Harry Enten reported on Friday that as of the end of August, polls show that Trump being 21 points underwater, leaving him "stuck" in the basement.

“How low does he go?!" Enten said. "Well, this is a president who is stuck on empty. Stuck on neutral. Whatever kind of gas analogy you want to make.”

“The president's approval rating, simply put, is low. His net approval rating is low. It is staying low, and there is no sign he's getting out of the basement. He's stuck on the ground,” added Enten, comparing Trump’s numbers to former President George W. Bush, who lost his huge majority after the September 11 attacks.

With less than 70 days before the election, Enten said that it's clear he's "stuck" for good before November, and that he “simply doesn't see it going anywhere.”

This said progressive X posters, was reason to cheer Johnson’s plan to make the midterms every bit about Trump.

“The fact that they STILL tie themselves to him is just ... beyond weird. Almost a third of the country is registered as independent now (me) and I'm not sure this makes any sense. Wait, I'm SURE it doesn’t make sense,” said another heckler on X.

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Biographer says '300lb' Trump quaking in boots after celebrity deaths

President Donald Trump’s doctors and the White House might try to sell the argument that the president’s is at the peak of health and freshness, but the human eyes tells a different story. And however loud Trump may make his staff shout his vitality to the heavens, the president himself knows he just had a birthday, says Trump veteran biographer Michael Wolff. And that birthday did not come with a small number.

In the latest episode of his podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff and co-host Joanna Coles discussed the shadow of death Trump inevitably feels creeping closer after the spate of recent celebrity deaths.

“Well, [singer] Dolly Parton passed, as did [actor] Tim Curry. Also 80. What do they have in common with the president,” Cole asked Wolff.

“Eighty is a seriously mortal moment,” said Wolff a longtime journalist and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's political career, including several books about his first term based on purported insider sources. “You’re in your 80s. This is your 9th decade.”

“Do you think he felt a tiny bit more fragile after Dolly Parton died?” Cole pressed.

“I’m absolutely sure he did. When I see people who are my age who go down I register it. I think everybody does,” answered Wolff, being mindful of his own age. “And just to point out. Everybody does, but in particular a 300lb pound man who stuffs himself with poison and who hasn’t done a lick of exercise ever might have an even more immediate reaction to other people’s mortality at his age.”

Trump appears to be suffering from a notable decline in his neurological condition, according to one clinical psychologist, who highlighted as evidence the "strange and unusual" tic that he cannot seem to control, among other seeming symptoms. Dr. John Paul Garrison, a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist who specializes in body language, discovered a distinct spasm on one side, possibly indicative of a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's or Lewy body dementia.

Other reporters and experts have flagged Trump’s bruising, his swelling and the disturbing secrecy the White House puts around his health. There has been significant discussion of Trump’s fitness for office over the past year due to a combination of his frequent, secretive hospital visits

New York Times Journalist Maggie Haberman – co-author of a bombshell book that exposed the Trump administration’s dirty secrets – delivered a brutally honest assessment of Trump’s physical and mental state. After detailing a series of issues with Trump’s fitness, she argued that his allies are “not transparent about his health.”

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WaPo catches Trump red-handed: White House faked ballroom progress

While the Trump administration told the Supreme Court that construction on President Donald Trump’s much-demanded White House ballroom was already “65 percent finished,” a new analysis of government documents by the Washington Post has revealed that number is far higher than the reality. “By the White House’s own standard for measuring the project’s progress, established in a confidential agreement with contractor Clark Construction,” reports the Post, “work on the controversial project was far less complete.”

As the Post elaborates, “The agreement, finalized before Clark began demolition last October, stipulates that payments to the contractor be proportional to the amount of work completed, and that work cannot begin until the government approves spending for it. Based on that, if 65 percent of the work has been done, then the government should already have paid 65 percent of the total cost of the project.”

But according to publicly available appropriations data, “as of the end of July, the White House budget office had approved $144 million in spending from an account used to pay for the East Wing and other White House projects. Even if that entire amount were spent on the East Wing, it would come to only about 24 percent of the $600 million estimated construction cost that Clark provided the White House in March.” What’s more, “In the same mid-August court filing in which the administration claimed 65 percent of the project was done, it said that it had already spent ‘around $200 million.’ If the government had spent $200 million on the East Wing project, the work would be just 33 percent complete, based on the $600 million budget estimate.”

“You really want to understand why there’s such a big gap there,” said retired D.C.-area architect and former president of the American Institute of Architects Carl Elefante, calling the government’s claim about the completion percentage “doubtful.”

According to the Post, “The 65 percent claim was made in a sworn declaration by Joshua Fisher, the director for White House Management and Administration, who is overseeing the construction project. In the declaration, Fisher did not explain how the percentage was calculated but said, ‘Work has progressed too far to go back to the drawing board.’ His assertion came as the administration asked the Supreme Court to allow work on the ballroom to continue after lower courts ruled that the project was probably illegal without congressional approval and that construction must stop. The administration argued in part that stopping work while courts considered the merits of the case brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation would cause ‘chaos in service of nothing’ because the project had already progressed ‘beyond the point of judicial intervention.’”

According to the Post’s calculations, “Measured by the expected duration of the work, the project is about 30 percent complete, according to the administration’s timeline. Fisher said in his declaration that construction began in late October 2025 and is expected to be complete in August 2028. That puts the work 10 months into a 34-month construction schedule.”

Trump is reportedly still “tinkering around” with details of the ballroom. According to the Post, “Some of those changes involve the ballroom’s exterior. Renderings that the administration shared with the Supreme Court this month included the addition of a new feature that Trump picked out — golden seals on the exterior of the ballroom — and the restoration of another feature, a staircase, that had been included in prior plans before being abandoned.”

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'You have failed': Judge tears into Trump DOJ lawyers in IRS case

On Friday, a federal judge put Department of Justice lawyers on blast for their "untenable" explanations as to why they won't provide information about President Donald Trump's lawsuit against the IRS. “You have failed on both ends of the discovery process,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis told Justice Department senior counsel Andrew Block. “That cannot continue.”

According to Bloomberg, "At a hearing on Friday, a federal magistrate judge in Alexandria, Virginia, accused the U.S. of failing to comply with court rules by refusing to fully respond to questions about the origins of the arrangement with Trump. The judge gave both sides another chance to reach an agreement before he takes a heavier hand in dictating what the government must produce. However, he did order the release of certain preliminary disclosures in the next week. The lawsuit in Virginia by a group of Trump critics challenges a now-defunct plan to create a $1.8 billion fund for victims of alleged government 'weaponization' as well as a still-active order from Attorney General Todd Blanche immunizing Trump, several of his family members and his company from audits into past tax filings. As part of that arrangement, Trump dropped his lawsuit in Florida against the IRS."

A key sticking point in the case, explains Bloomberg, "involves requests by the challengers for the names of individuals involved not only in creating or executing the fund plan and the broader settlement agreement, but also in the 'conception' of the terms. Blanche announced he would abandon the fund plan in response to Republican opposition, but Trump has continued to express support for the idea and the settlement agreement hasn’t been formally changed."

On Friday, Judge Davis said the Justice Department had to produce names or explain why such information would be protected under attorney-client privilege or other rationale, but noted that it had done neither. According to Bloomberg, the judge declared that, "The government’s stance on what’s known as discovery — the exchange of evidence and information in litigation — was 'untenable.'" Toward the end of the hearing, the judge told Block that although he understood “you’re not running the show,” the rules apply to all parties involved.

The judge's assertions come as Trump has received a string of blows in court. Earlier today, for example, a federal judge denied his request to have the appeal against his felony convictions transferred to a higher court, which would have fast-tracked his case to the Supreme Court. In that case, the judge said the arguments presented by Trump's attorneys were "neither new nor legally sufficient."

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The fine print: Trump hypes new 'Space Force' academy — but there's a catch

The White House announced today that President Donald Trump would be signing an executive order to start a space force academy like the Naval Academy and Air Force Academy, but his info came with certain caveats.

Speaking at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Trump said “the rapid growth of the Space Force and the commercial space industry and the expansion of our ambitions to the moon and far beyond the moon” inspired the new academy.

“It’s clear that we need to educate and train an entire generation of skilled service members, engineers, civil operators and everything else to do what we have to do,” he continued.

Then he made the big announcement.

"And we'll continue, and I think by leaps and bounds. And that's why in a few moments I will sign an executive order to begin the process of creating a new national academy. It's called the US Space Academy. That's a big deal. So you think of West Point and you think of Annapolis and you think of the Air Force Academy and you think of the Coast Guard Academy is great. They're all great. But uh, we're going to have the Space Force now. We're going to have an academy for what the people in this room love the most. That's exciting. That's really exciting. And I'm going to be choosing a location very shortly," said Trump.

Except that isn't exactly true.

While Trump might choose his own preferred location, his executive order doesn't establish the academy. In fact, the EO doesn't even make specific demands of Congress.

Reuters reporter Patricia Zengerle explained on X, "The order creates a commission to create a proposal for an academy, and, in theory, at least, an academy would have to be authorized/funded by Congress."

The text of the order reads, "Sec. 2. Establishment and Composition of the Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy. (a) There is hereby established the Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy (Commission). The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shall serve as Chair of the Commission. The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST) and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy (APEP) shall serve as Vice Chairs of the Commission. The Deputy Administrator of NASA shall serve as Executive Director."

The order continues, stating that the commission would then submit its proposal within 120 days of the order. However, Trump doesn't appear to have made appointments to the commission yet.

The order also mandates that all applicants must have specific "prerequisites ... including citizenship status, security clearances, and government employment or military status."

It wasn't until the end of Subsection 3 that the order acknowledged that Congress still needs to fund it with the language: "legislative actions necessary to implement the Commission’s recommendations."

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Biographer says White House 'filled with morons' to make Trump feel smart

President Donald Trump’s veteran biographer says President Donald Trump is a man with questionable intelligence. But because he also has an extremely sound sense of insecurity and still wants to be the smartest person in the room, that means weeding out the people with higher I.Q.s.

“He’s filled the administration of the second term with unqualified people, morons of one variety or another, because he can’t have people who are clearly smarter than he is,” said Michael Wolff a veteran reporter and author best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's political career, including a series of books about his rocky first term.

In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he and co-host Joanna Coles discussed exactly why Trump appears to be surrounded by a mile-thick throng of idiots. According to Wolff, it’s all a matter of appearance and control.

“Trump learned from his first term that even tenuously competent officials might challenge him — or decide they were smarter than he was. (It’s a constant source of paranoia for the president.) So, this time around, he’s stacked the deck with dummies, and is surrounding himself with people whose main qualification is loyalty. The result is an administration in which almost no one is willing to tell him he’s wrong,” said Wolff.

“People have a very hard time understanding the full sense of a man who is the president of the United States who is — as he’s said about so many other people — as dumb as a brick himself,” said Wolff.

But then you must couple that with the fact that Trump also doesn’t have anyone else around him who might think independently and have the wherewithal to deal with the kind of high-capacity problems that typically assault a presidency, Wolff said.

“He can’t have people who’s smarter than he is, who — as they did in his first administration —went around saying what an idiot he is,” Wolff confessed to Coles.

Look no further than Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as example of a knuckle-dragging imbecile who makes even someone of Trump’s low caliber feel smart. Hegseth, said Wolff, arrived at the Pentagon “wildly underqualified, and his own insecurity is exactly what makes him the ideal Secretary for Trump.”

“Donald Trump’s interest in Pete Hegseth is that he is a groveler and a flatterer,” said Wolff. “Actually, during the first administration, many people at Fox News were intent upon sucking up to Donald Trump. You only got ratings during that period if you had a relationship with Donald Trump. But Pete Hegseth was looked at within the White House as the most hopelessly shameless person. He was a joke during the first administration, but not to Donald Trump. He told Trump exactly what he wanted to hear, and then shared war stories with him. And that’s the moment in which they bonded. That’s what catapulted him into this wholly unlikely position of being the Secretary of Defense.”

President Donald Trump’s veteran biographer says President Donald Trump is a man with questionable intelligence. But because he also has an extremely sound sense of insecurity and still wants to be the smartest person in the room, that means weeding out the people with higher I.Q.s.

“He’s filled the administration of the second term with unqualified people, morons of one variety or another, because he can’t have people who are clearly smarter than he is,” said Michael Wolff a veteran reporter and author best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's political career, including a series of books about his rocky first term.

In the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he and co-host Joanna Coles discussed exactly why Trump appears to be surrounded by a mile-thick throng of idiots. According to Wolff, it’s all a matter of appearance and control.

“Trump learned from his first term that even tenuously competent officials might challenge him — or decide they were smarter than he was. (It’s a constant source of paranoia for the president.) So, this time around, he’s stacked the deck with dummies, and is surrounding himself with people whose main qualification is loyalty. The result is an administration in which almost no one is willing to tell him he’s wrong,” said Wolff.

“People have a very hard time understanding the full sense of a man who is the president of the United States who is — as he’s said about so many other people — as dumb as a brick himself,” said Wolff.

But then you must couple that with the fact that Trump also doesn’t have anyone else around him who might think independently and have the wherewithal to deal with the kind of high-capacity problems that typically assault a presidency, Wolff said.

“He can’t have people who’s smarter than he is, who — as they did in his first administration —went around saying what an idiot he is,” Wolff confessed to Coles.

Look no further than Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as example of a knuckle-dragging imbecile who makes even someone of Trump’s low caliber feel smart. Hegseth, said Wolff, arrived at the Pentagon “wildly underqualified, and his own insecurity is exactly what makes him the ideal Secretary for Trump.”

“Donald Trump’s interest in Pete Hegseth is that he is a groveler and a flatterer,” said Wolff. “Actually, during the first administration, many people at Fox News were intent upon sucking up to Donald Trump. You only got ratings during that period if you had a relationship with Donald Trump. But Pete Hegseth was looked at within the White House as the most hopelessly shameless person. He was a joke during the first administration, but not to Donald Trump. He told Trump exactly what he wanted to hear, and then shared war stories with him. And that’s the moment in which they bonded. That’s what catapulted him into this wholly unlikely position of being the Secretary of Defense.”

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Trump just put $4 billion on the chopping block in deep red Missouri

At a time when the Republican Party is fighting for life under an unpopular president, an economic analysis reveals the red state of Missouri is looking at serious problems as President Donald Trump escalates his prolonged trade war between the U.S. and Canada, according to the Kansas City Star.

Trump may have tried to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in his latest sleight to Canada, but there’s nothing symbolic about the impact of the 50 percent tariffs the Trump administration levied on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. There’s also nothing symbolic about the pain of the retaliatory tariffs Canada plans to impose on roughly 700 American products beginning Sept. 8.

“The Kansas City metro area exports about $4 billion in goods to Canada annually, including vehicles, plastics, chemicals and agricultural products," according to a 2025 study by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

“Any variation in tariffs may be sensitive,” said Ariel Dvoskin, who studies trade theory and teaches economics at the University of Missouri Kansas City, “and the [50 percent] variation that we are talking about right now … would substantially affect the exports from KC.”

Dvoskin pointed out that a whopping 37 percent of Kansas City’s exported goods go to Canada, which puts this Trump-voting state in a nasty bullseye. “When you increase tariffs, of course, those who suffer first are workers because prices go up and their real wages go down," Dvoskin said.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce study identified Kansas City as one of the U.S. cities that would take the hardest hit in a trade war between the North American allies, with Kansas City the third-most vulnerable city in a prolonged trade dispute because of its dependence on Canadian demand.

The info was based on 2023 data, but Andrew DiCapua, the chamber’s principal economist and the study’s author, told the Star that the results still apply today.

“Kansas City really is at the center of this trade war,” DiCapua said. “ … It raises costs for businesses. I mean, someone needs to pay for this. Even if it’s not passed on to consumers right away, someone still needs to pay for the tariffs. So smaller businesses that rely on these supply chains are going to have to eat those costs.”

Frank Lenk, director of economic research at the Mid-America Regional Council, told the Star that Kansas City’s auto industry is among the clearest targets because vehicles are one of the region’s largest exports and much of that trade is tied to Canada. Lenk added that Trump’s trade war can also hike manufacturing costs for companies like Ford and General Motors because parts and materials move back and forth across the border before final assembly.

They can either absorb those costs and threaten their financial integrity and workers or pass the costs down to customers in a colossal wallop.

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Far-right activist and Kanye West associate nabbed by federal agents

The far-right activist known for being among the first to be removed from Twitter is now in ICE custody, TMZ reported on Friday.

Provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was snatched by ICE in Louisiana and is currently being held in a detention center there, inmate records show. TMZ said that the circumstances are not clear, but he was detained at an airport.

Yiannopoulos worked for Kanye West as his "chief of staff," until the two parted ways in 2024. He was also part of the Ye24 campaign and served as director for political operations.

West is scheduled to perform on Friday night in New Orleans.

TMZ recalled that one of the more recent Yiannopoulos scandals was when he accused West's dentist of supplying the rapper with nitrous oxide for recreational use. The dentist denied the allegations.

Yiannopoulos is from the U.K., and not an American citizen. He has been a far-right media personality for years and has become prominent through the Gamergate controversies. He wrote for Breitbart News and drew attention with his deliberately confrontational online persona. He marketed himself as a gay conservative opponent of feminism, Islam, “political correctness” and social-justice movements, but critics say his public career relied on inflammatory attacks and harassment of marginalized groups.

Twitter permanently suspended Yiannopoulos in July 2016 after actress Leslie Jones received a torrent of racist and sexist abuse following his posts about her "Ghostbusters" reboot. Twitter said he had violated its rules against “inciting or engaging in targeted abuse or harassment," though he denied responsibility and called the ban censorship. His account was later reinstated under Elon Musk’s ownership, NPR reported.

Opposition to him also stems from other controversies, including past statements appearing to defend sexual relationships between adults and underage boys. The fallout cost him his Breitbart job, a planned CPAC appearance and a book contract in 2017, KERA News recalled.

In late 2022, West introduced the far-right provocateur as his campaign manager and adviser. Yiannopoulos later said he helped arrange the infamous Mar-a-Lago dinner between Donald Trump and West, in which white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes also appeared.

Infighting in the West universe ultimately drove Yiannopoulos out. The West campaign’s treasurer later resigned and alleged that Yiannopoulos submitted potentially falsified invoices and engaged in improper campaign transactions. Yiannopoulos denied any wrongdoing. The association between West and Yiannopoulos added to the controversy surrounding both men, as it combined already inflammatory public conduct with Yiannopoulos’s record of far-right activism and online provocation.

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Judge slaps down Trump’s 'dead horse' move to transfer felony convictions

On Friday, a federal judge denied President Donald Trump’s attempt to transfer the New York criminal case that resulted in his 34 felony convictions to federal court, which would have allowed him to fast-track his appeal to the Supreme Court. According to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a Clinton appointee and senior district judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the arguments provided by Trump’s attorneys were “neither new nor legally sufficient.” As the judge declared, “He has failed to show good cause and diligence.”

While All Rise News Editor-in-Chief Adam Klasfeld notes that “Trump's gambit here was pretty low stakes” as the appeal will likely still work its way to the Supreme Court — it will now have to pass through the New York judiciary first — Klasfeld also points out that “this finding doesn't bode well for Trump.” Trump’s attorneys argue that he has immunity under a previous Supreme Court decision, which ruled presidents are immune while conducting “official acts,” and that his felonies should be overturned. Judge Hellerstein, however, has bad news for the president, writing, “The trial evidence shows no relationship to official acts,” and that the evidence cited “showed the absence of anything that could qualify as an official act.”

Found guilty of 34 felonies in 2024 relating to falsifying business records to disguise hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, Trump received an unconditional discharge in 2025 that upheld the charges but eliminated prison, financial and probationary penalties. While he has previously expressed a desire to pardon himself, state convictions cannot be overturned by federal pardon, so Trump hopes the Supreme Court will do it for him.

Trump’s attorneys had made previous requests to have the case transferred, and were denied each time. During those oral arguments, reports Klasfeld, “Hellerstein left little doubt that he would reject Trump’s effort a third time on multiple grounds. First, Hellerstein indicated that Trump waived his right to transfer the case to federal court by first choosing to litigate the fallout of the Supreme Court immunity’s decision in state court. ‘That’s a strategic decision,’ the 92-year-old jurist said.” Then, “with an adverse state court ruling imminent, Trump filed his second removal request nearly 60 days later — after the statutory 30-day clock expired. Hellerstein said that Trump’s lawyers were seeking a ‘second bite of the apple’ after losing in New York, which the removal statute doesn’t allow.”

“I think we are beating a dead horse,” said the judge when Trump's lawyers asked for the transfer a third time. According to Klasfeld, “Toward the end of oral arguments, Hellerstein noted that Trump is ‘not above the law.’”

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Trump’s dull NASA speech torn to shreds: 'Astronauts training for boredom'

President Donald Trump flew to Texas on Friday where he awarded members of the Artemis II team the Congressional Space Medal of Honor ahead of a fundraiser for Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Ken Paxton.

With the full team behind him, Trump began his speech, which immediately drew mockery.

"We’re watching the astronauts train for the boredom of space," said "marketing guy" Ron Shillman on X.

"So inspiring," said the wry Jeopardy! champion Hemant Mehta.

"I am sad to report that I have developed Trump's habit of reacting to my own dumb thoughts that internally surprise me by saying 'Everybody thinks... but actually...'" mocked teacher Mike Mitchell.

At one point, Trump bragged about the stock market and commented on foreign investment numbers that experts question. The crowd was completely silent.

"Just a brutally awkward speech that is going over like farts in church," said one poster.

It drew swift reactions from followers like the Republicans Against Trump organization, which commented, "He’s so out of touch with ordinary Americans."

Social media strategist Devin Duke explained, "He's speaking to scientists. They hate him."

"This is the most awkward event of all time because Trump is actually psychotic. His alternate reality is clashing mightily with the actual human beings who still work at NASA. The galactic cringe is the result," quipped Jim Stewartson, who writes "The Mind War," about psychological war on democracy.

"He dirties, he corrupts, he sullies, he corrupts, he stains, he corrupts, he corrodes, he corrupts, he tarnishes, he corrupts, he breaks, he corrupts, he destroys, he corrupts, he f—— stuff up, he corrupts, he ruins, he corrupts, he s—— all over everything, he corrupts," said former Rep. Joe Walsh about the Trump speech.

Fox News did cover the speech live, but as Acyn Torabi found, the network "cuts coverage of Trump’s speech as he rambles about how he’s not calling Democrats 'Dumocrats.'"

At one point, Torabi captured in Trump's speech that he tried to go for an easy applause line, saying, "Don't forget I was the one that gave you Space Force, and we had no space force." He continued, saying, "When people heard about it, they thought we were kidding. They thought it was like comic book stuff." The audience remained quiet.

"Donald Trump ruins everything," replied one person.

After the speech, astronauts spoke to members of the International Space Station, where Trump complimented one astronaut on his mustache.


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