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Comedian and satirist Munya Chawawa’s documentary “Wrestling With Trump” punches President Donald Trump in ways he should have been punched at the very beginning of his political career, says Guardian writer Lucy Mangan.

“Trump is the ultimate showman. He’s a master of it, a billionaire Barnum, but with a greed so insatiable it moves him ever further from entertainment into malevolence,” Mangun said. “If the Democrats had realized this earlier and recognized the strength the man was playing to and the particular voting public weaknesses he was preying upon, instead of sneering with distaste, then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Chawawa, however, takes the “underused idea” that Trump and his team’s campaigns and style of government “use the same playbook as that created by the U.S. pro-wrestling industry’s most famous promoters, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE),” said Mangan.

The connection is more than obvious, added Mangan. World Wrestling Entertainment was founded by Vince McMahon and his since-estranged wife, Linda. Vince quit the business 2024 in the wake of allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault, but his wife Linda is now the U.S. secretary of education.

One of the most-recognized tropes of fake wrestling is its habit of dividing “heroes” (white Americans) and villains (non-American, non-white Americans) with “Babyfaces” (good guys who play by the rules) “Heels” (who aren’t and don’t).

It works in the ring and at political rallies, said Chawawa, who notices Trump’s use of trash talk and his alienation of brown people to “rouse the bloodlust” and “make [voters] commit” to a world leader “who promises to rid the world of all the people perceived to be the cause” of white voters’ frustrations.

And then there’s the wrestling industry’s use of “kayfabe,” and its blurring of the lines between truth and lies. Chawawa, in his documentary, “speaks to MAGA folk who can call Trump a “blue collar billionaire” without batting an eyelid. It’s a sign of the “astonishing power” Trump has “to warp the senses, collapse contradictions and reconstruct a reality that suits him better,” reports Mangun.

“Kayfabe, in wrestling, is the pretense that everything is real – that the invective is unscripted, that the Heels’ and heroes’ backstories are authentic, that the moves are unchoreographed, and that the body slams, hip checks and chokeholds are as dangerous and painful as they look. For as long as the fight lasts, you live the illusion. Nothing is true except what you are told you see.”

COLUMBIA — The Senate on Tuesday rejected a push to redraw the state’s congressional lines just weeks before the primaries, with GOP leaders saying it’s legally unnecessary and wrong for South Carolina.

Senators’ 29-17 vote fell short of the two-thirds majority approval needed to proceed. Officially, senators refused to add redistricting to a resolution setting the rules for what the Legislature can do after the session ends Thursday.

That’s despite pressure from President Donald Trump, who called GOP senators personally over the last week and publicly prodded the majority caucus through his social media platform.

“I’m watching closely, along with all Republicans across the Country who are counting on their Elected Leaders to use every Legal and Constitutional authority they have to stop the Radical Left Democrats from destroying our Country,” the president wrote Monday night on Truth Social.

But Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said legislators need to stand up for what’s best for South Carolinians. And an overhaul that postpones congressional primaries and discards absentee ballots already cast — especially from military members overseas — to maybe create an all-GOP delegation will ultimately backfire, said the Edgefield Republican.

Overall, the confusion will lower voter turnout for a second set of primaries, he said, while motivating angry Democrats to vote in force in November.

Plus, he said, South Carolina shouldn’t just take orders from Washington, no matter who’s in the White House.

“The states are sovereign independent creatures,” Massey said, giving his colleagues a history lesson of the country’s founding and the rebel nature of South Carolinians.

“I’ve got too much Southern in my blood. I’ve got too much resistance in my heritage” to just rush through a map not created by South Carolinians, he said.

Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto agreed it’s not right to take a “map someone else gave us,” which will only exacerbate political divisions. The Orangeburg Democrat called it unfair to voters and the congressional candidates who may suddenly live in a different district.

Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms, noted that early voting starts in just 14 days. Other states that have changed their voting lines for the midterm elections did so months before people went to the polls.

“It’s almost impossible for us to pull this off, not without a tremendous amount of error added in,” he said. “What if we do pull it off? What do we have? Those who crafted this map had no interest whatsoever — they could care less about our communities.”

The entire effort started a week ago with a House GOP Caucus meeting. On Wednesday, the House voted along party lines to add redistricting to the off-session rules.

Legislation was fast-tracked at the president’s request.

After the U.S. Supreme Court threw out Louisiana’s congressional map as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering, the White House urged Republican leaders in both chambers to look at the ruling and South Carolina’s map.

As Massey spoke, shouting in the Statehouse lobby briefly got security’s attention. About 10 people paraded through yelling, “This is what democracy looks like. Don’t rig our map.” They were escorted down the steps and outside without issue.

Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee took up legislation on the next steps — bills that would delay the congressional primaries until Aug. 18 and advance the White House-endorsed map.

That map, which was first circulated by the House GOP last Thursday, uses “political data” to create seven GOP seats, said the map’s author, Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust.

According to the trust’s writers, the overhauled map gives Republicans the advantage in every district, with the smallest spread at 11 percentage points in the overhauled 6th District.

That’s the one safe seat for a Democrat, held by U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn since 1992. The map would draw him out of the district he’s represented for 34 years.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Luke Rankin said senators are being asked to just trust the map does as advertised, with no record or testimony to back it up.

“What you think you’re getting may not be what you get,” said the Myrtle Beach Republican, who ultimately voted “yes” anyway.

House hearing

Almost everyone who testified about the House bills opposed the effort.

The exceptions were two Republicans running for governor: Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Attorney General Alan Wilson.

Evette, who touts her alignment with Trump, told legislators they need to do what the president’s asking.

Trump “has made his expectations unmistakable. There is no more time for hesitation or half measures,” she said. “We must finish this redistricting work now, by any means necessary.”

Wilson, in his comments, decried gerrymandering along racial lines: “But partisan lines are a very different thing.”

“I know there’s a lot of disagreement, probably a lot of frustration and anger, but I do think this is a cause worth taking up,” he added.

While the House proposal would delay primaries for South Carolina’s seven congressional seats, it would leave contests for U.S. Senate, state House and statewide elections on schedule for June 9, with runoffs two weeks later.

Holding a second set of primaries in August could also cost taxpayers more than $3 million, when factoring in almost-certain runoffs. That does not include spending by county elections offices. It also doesn’t include the redistricting process itself.

The House bill originally suggested an Aug. 11 primary. But a House panel voted Tuesday morning to bump that back a week to give the elections agency time to retool its databases and mail out overseas ballots the required 45 days in advance.

Parties would have to re-open filing for candidates between June 1 and June 5. Should a runoff be necessary, it would take place Sept. 1.

Even so, elections Director Conway Belangia warned everything would have to go exactly right, otherwise “staff would have to work probably 24 hours a day to meet the deadlines.”

Meanwhile, nearly 8,247 total absentee ballots have been mailed and 354 of those have already been turned in, according to the election commission. And early voting begins May 26.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Ex-diplomat Brett Bruen clearly hit the White House where it hurts after posting on X that Trump was unprepared for his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“Not a single China expert. POTUS would normally have at least one NSC/State official to provide briefings,” posted Bruen on Tuesday. “Underlines how utterly unprepared he is for meetings with Xi.”

White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung apparently felt the sting of Bruen’s damage, however, posting on X soon after with an insult-laden rant filled with name-calling.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about you slope-brained, mouth breathing moron,” Cheung said. “Stop calling yourself an expert in anything, aside from sucking. Anyone that hires you (not many!) should get an immediate refund and payment for wasting their time.”

Bruen had cited an earlier post from News Nation White Correspondent Libby Dean, who posted a list of people joining Trump for his Tuesday meeting with the Chinese leader to discuss the mess Trump created with his attack on Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

That list includes President Trump, Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Secretary Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Ambassador Jamieson Greer, Stephen Miller and Cheung, himself, among others. None of these, said Bruen, were experts on China.

“Trump will arrive on Wednesday with many in China wondering how he got bogged down by a far lesser power in a war he started. Iran’s nuclear stockpile is exactly where it was, still under the rubble of an American bombing raid last June,” the Times reports. “The Strait of Hormuz, through which China gets more than 30 percent of its oil and a bit less of its natural gas, remains closed, with no obvious plan to pry it open again.

The Times reports that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said two weeks ago, that Trump is “humiliated” by a smaller power, having entered the conflict “with no truly convincing strategy.”

Brett Bruen served as the White House Director of Global Engagement during the Obama administration and has worked as a senior diplomat in multiple capacities throughout his career. His expertise in international relations and diplomacy has made him a frequent commentator on foreign policy matters.

Bruen has been critical of the Trump administration's approach to diplomatic engagements, particularly regarding preparation and staffing decisions. His posts on social media have gained significant attention within political circles and among foreign policy observers. The exchange between Bruen and Cheung reflects broader tensions within the administration over its handling of key international negotiations and the adequacy of expert consultation in high-stakes diplomatic meetings.

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are planning on sending troops to polling places during the 2026 midterm elections, according to a recent report by The New Republic.

“The Republican National Committee announced Tuesday that it has deployed poll watchers and election observers in at least 17 states for the midterm elections,” The New Republic’s Hafiz Rashid reported on Tuesday. “In a post on X, RNC Chairman Joe Gruters posted an audio clip where he said, ‘We’ve already deployed field staff and we’ve hired state directors and election integrity directors.’”

Although Gruters did not specify which states he was targeting, he made it clear that this is part of the GOP’s plan to retain control of Congress during the 2026 midterm elections.

“We focus on the big picture,” Gruters said. “We focus on winning. We have a plan. We’re executing the plan.”

As Rsahid reported, Trump himself has said he is considering sending the National Guard and ICE to voting locations in November.

“It’s a disturbing thing for Trump to say, just two days after he called for an ‘Election Integrity Army,’” Rashid wrote. “In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed that Republicans had one in 2024 ‘in every single State to preserve the sanctity of each legal vote’ and attacked Democrats for forming their own elections task force led by former Attorney General Eric Holder.” In light of Trump’s rhetoric and the RNC’s actions, Rashid argued that “it appears that the RNC has heard Trump loud and clear, and is taking action. It’s on top of everything else the Republican Party is doing to meddle in the midterms and beyond, from mid-decade redistricting that disenfranchises Democrats and Black Americans to spreading election-denial conspiracies from 2020. It has even installed election denialists in local governments and election boards across the country.”

He concluded, “Deploying ICE agents or National Guard troops at the polls seems to be a ploy to frighten people of color from voting, and is unprecedented. It appears that the midterms are shaping up to be a tense battle in more ways than one.”

As conservative columnist George F. Will wrote in The Washington Post earlier this year, Trump has had multiple chances to litigate the 2020 presidential election, and has had all of his core claims thoroughly debunked.

“Someone should read to him ‘Lost, Not Stolen,’ a 2022 report by eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists),” Will explained. “They examined all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters. Twenty cases were dismissed before hearings on their merits, 14 were voluntarily dismissed by Trump and his supporters before hearings. Of the 30 that reached hearings on the merits, Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”

Will added, “Trump’s batting average? .016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” Therefore he wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

I had dinner recently with a group of political operatives — sophisticated people who for years have been advising politicians and candidates. During dinner they shared with me their fantasy, which they gave 30 percent odds of becoming a reality within the next four months.

In my dinner companions’ fantasy, Trump’s failed war will elevate gas and food prices so high and long that much of the Republican base will begin turning against Trump. And Trump’s mental problems will become even more obvious.

Faced with all this, JD Vance promises Marco Rubio that he’ll appoint him vice president if Rubio joins Vance in seeking to oust Trump under the 25th Amendment.* Rubio agrees.

Vance and Rubio then approach House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune for confidential discussions in which they broach the possibility. Johnson and Thune give Vance and Rubio their tacit support.

Vance and Rubio then get Pete Hegseth to sign on, promising Hegseth that he’ll keep his job. They get Todd Blanche to sign on by promising him he’ll be appointed permanent attorney general.

Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, and Blanche are what Thune and Johnson need to make the 25th stick.

This arrangement serves everyone’s interests. For Vance and Rubio, it avoids what could be a messy 2028 primary election in which the two are pitted against each other. As president, Vance gets a head start on being elected president in 2028. As vice president, Rubio is heir apparent in 2032 (when Rubio will be only 60 years old) or in 2036.

As president and vice president, Vance and Rubio end Trump’s tariffs and his war, which have caused prices to soar, upset the Republican base, and turned much of the world against America.

Hegseth gets the job security he’s desperate for. Blanche gets the promotion he covets.

Republicans in the House and Senate get rid of Trump, who’s become an albatross around their necks and who they fear, if he remains in office, will cause them to lose control over the House and Senate in the midterms — and could lead to a congressional rout in 2028.

The plan is finalized when Trump is away at Mar-a-Lago. It’s executed in a conference call to Trump — during which Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, Blanche, Johnson, and Thune notify Trump he’s no longer president.

Trump screams, hollers, pounds his Mar-a-Lago desk, and threatens legal action, but there’s nothing he can do. He’s out of office.

I listened intently as my dinner companions spelled all this out. “So you really think there’s a 30 percent chance of this happening?” I asked them.

“Could be higher if the war continues,” one of them said, and the others agreed. Another of them thought the odds already higher.

“I can’t decide whether to be elated or worried,” I responded.

They laughed, but I was serious.

_____

To remind you: Section 4 of the 25th Amendment states that “whenever the Vice President and a majority of … the principal officers of the executive departments … transmit to the president pro-tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.” Section 2 of the 25th Amendment states that “whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

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

Intelligencer Senior Editor Margaret Hartmann says the White House is getting increasingly touchy about President Donald Trump’s growing problem with nodding off in front of millions of viewers.

“We’ve all been there: You’re in some dull meeting and you’re fighting to keep your eyes open because you stayed up too late attacking your enemies on Truth Social and posting weird AI slop about how you’re the greatest president of all time,” said Hartmann, referring to Trump’s recent all-night Truth Social rage-slam.

“[W]e can all identify with these videos of Donald Trump struggling to stay awake during a meeting yesterday on maternal health,” said Hartmann. “Unfortunately for Trump, he can’t just admit that he’s a nearly 80-year-old man who gets drowsy sometimes because (a) he’s president of the United States and (b) he won reelection, in part, by repeatedly attacking ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden for his decrepitude.’”

And because of this inability to admit the obvious, Team Trump must devise other explanations for “why the president regularly closes his eyes for long periods of time in public.”

“Sometimes they ... [marvel] about how Trump is an unstoppable ball of energy, despite evidence to the contrary. The president himself has insisted that he never nods off in public. Two years ago, he said that sometimes he just likes to ‘listen intensely’ and rest his ‘beautiful blue eyes,’” reports Hartmann.

Only now, the White is tempering its outlandish claims with a fair bit of hostility.

“He was blinking, you absolute moron,” White House’s rapid-response team snapped on X.

“This response was weirdly aggressive,” said Hartmann, pointing out that Reuters national security correspondent Idrees Ali didn’t even claim Trump was sleeping on the job. He merely shared an un-doctored photo what looked like Trump doing the obvious thing that senior citizens sometimes do at public engagements.

And in any case, Trump’s eyes were “often fully closed or downcast” when others were speaking, including one moment, 22 minutes into the video, where Trump shut his eyes 18 seconds.

An 18-second “blink” really strains credulity, said Hartmann.

“Though, isn’t sleeping, in a way, just a regular hourslong blink?” Hartmann added.

A longtime Pennsylvania judge who ran as a Democrat is dropping his affiliation with the Democratic Party over what he sees as antisemitism, and U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) is weighing in.

Justice David Wecht “said in a statement he is switching his party affiliation to independent due to an ‘acquiescence to Jew-hatred’ becoming ‘disturbingly common among activists, leaders and even many elected officials in the Democratic Party,'” Politico reported.

“I can no longer abide this. So, I won’t,” said Wecht, who once served as vice chair of the state Democratic Party. “I am no longer registered within any political party.”

Judge Wecht said that antisemitism used to be found more often on the far right, but since the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018, he said, “that same hatred has grown on the left.”

“Increasingly, it has moved from the fringe to the mainstream. It is the duty of all good people to fight this virus, and to do so before it is too late,” he said.

Lamenting that the Democratic Party has “changed,” Wecht said that “hateful anti-Jewish invective and actions are minimized, ignored, and even coddled.”

Senator Fetterman, whose own intention to stay affiliated with the Democratic Party has been questioned, knows Judge Wecht, according to Fox News.

“I know David and his legendary father, Cyril,” Fetterman wrote in a post on X. “As I’ve affirmed, I’m not changing my party — but I fully understand David’s personal choice.”

Fetterman also appeared to agree with Wecht, saying that the “Democratic Party must confront its own rising antisemitism problem.”

Pittsburgh’s NPR station WESA reports that Fetterman, “like Wecht a Pennsylvania Democrat, has also criticized the party, particularly in recent days as Democrats in Maine seem all but certain to nominate Graham Platner, who had a Nazi tattoo, as their candidate to challenge Republican Susan Collins for her Senate seat.”

President Donald Trump does not care about anyone but himself, a former Trump supporter argued on Tuesday — and, he added, is also talking like a crazy person.

“He belongs in a room with padded walls,” former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) argued in a Substack video on Tuesday. “Put all of that aside. Most importantly, American voter, he doesn't give a f—— about you.”

Walsh explained that, while it is inherently problematic for the president of the United States to be “up all night posting stuff” on social media, the issue could be at least partially less concerning if Trump was at least discussing ordinary people’s problems. Instead, he posts primarily about issues that only matter to him personally.

“It would be one thing if the president United States were up all night posting about what he's going to do about the price at the pump, posting about how he is going to help fix the economy, posting about what he's going to do about rising inflation, posting stuff about how he's going to improve the absolute stalled job growth in this country,” Walsh said. “It would be one thing if he were posting stuff all night that pertained to you that was about making the American people, helping to make the American people better off helping the American people get by. It would be one thing if he were posting stuff about how to end his war.”

Yet the potentially redeeming quality of at least being obsessed with voters’ problems does not exist here, Walsh said, because the president’s posts are entirely self-absorbed.

“But Donald Trump, again, didn't do any of that,” Walsh said. “Nothing he posted last night has anything to do with any issue you give a f—— about. Nothing he rage tweeted last night has anything to do with an issue impacting your life.” Instead he has posted primarily about his private vendettas against other public figures and desire to build a White House ballroom, which Americans overwhelmingly oppose.

“Man, if I'm an American voter, and I am, that would move me,” Walsh said. “That's what would influence my vote. That's what would p—— me off. He didn't say s—— last night about me and my family and my community and this economy. He didn't say s—— last night about the fact that for the first time in the last eight, nine years inflation now has superseded wage increases.”

He added, “So inflation now is in this country is eating up any and all wage increases any Americans might be receiving. Trump didn't post anything about that last night. He doesn't care about you. He doesn't give a f—— about you. I've said it before: Donald Trump is a sociopath. If you don't know what a sociopath is, Google it. Donald Trump is humanly capable of caring only about himself. Donald Trump is humanly incapable of caring about anyone or anything but himself. Oh, yay, we put him in the f—— White House.”

While Walsh did not mention this in his post, Trump himself seemed to confirm Walsh’s suspicions earlier on Tuesday when he bluntly stated that he does not think about Americans’ financial comfort as he prosecuted the war against Iran. Speaking to a group of reporters before a meeting with international representatives, Trump admitted that Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz is hurting American voters by raising prices on gas, food and other essentials.

He added that he does not care.

“Mr. President, what extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal [with Iran]” a reporter shouted at Trump.

“Not even a little bit,” Trump replied. “The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

Former U.S. Army Major Harrison Mann anticipates that President Donald Trump's "last-ditch effort" in Iran will fail.

Speaking to CNN, Mann detailed his expectations for Trump's upcoming meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, predicting the president will ultimately walk away empty handed.

"I'm expecting Trump to try another last-ditch effort to try and extricate himself from the mess he made in the Middle East," Mann said. "In the past weeks. He's kind of made appeals to China already to try and help open the Strait of Hormuz, to try and help pressure Iran. I think that's the remaining silver bullet he hasn't really tried yet."

Trump left Tuesday for China, where he will discuss the Iran war, tariffs and other matters. One Democratic strategist said on Tuesday morning he expects Trump to figure out some kind of deal he can negotiate with Xi Jinping so he can have a "win" of some sort.

Mann thinks that Trump will ultimately be "disappointed with the response" from the Chinese leader.

"There's a misconception that Trump has — and I think a lot of folks in DC do that — you know, China is a really close ally of Iran. And China can apply this leverage that will make Iran open the Strait," Mann continued. "It's true that they have a trade relationship that, from the Iranian perspective, China is a really important trade partner and oil importer. But China has tried to be a friend to everyone in the region."

Mann added that China also imports from Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. They also sell weapons to the two countries.

"A couple of years ago, China brokered a resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi and Iran. And so I think it's really unlikely that President Xi would decide to really weigh in heavily on Trump's side of this conflict or on any side at all," he explained.

CNN host Briana Keilar said that the only person who is really in control of ending the war is Trump himself.

"It's really up to him if he wants to pull the plug, though. I mean, that's in his power here," she said.

As Trump might say, he has no cards, Mann explained.

"When it comes to finding some resolution to the war with Iran, Trump is operating from a position of incredible weakness. And I, unfortunately, as an American who's bearing the costs of this war, he continues to be out of ideas. He continues to threaten to do the same thing over and over, whether it's bomb or some kind of war crimes. We already tried that. It didn't work. And he's going to try a kind of last-ditch diplomatic route as well," said Mann.

He said that his fear is that Trump will come out of the meeting with Xi having failed and see his only option "to start bombing again."

The economic situation, he predicted, will continue to get worse, and it will specifically hurt his own MAGA voters.