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Some Republicans fretting about the upcoming midterms on social media could not seem to squeeze into a comfortable position Tuesday night after incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) lost his seat to Republican challenger Ken Paxton.

MAGA faithful delighted in the news, with right-wing pundits like Nick Sorter crowing victory Tuesday night after results rolled in.

“HEY THUNE: Texas is sending a MESSAGE to you. You could’ve avoided this ENTIRE PRIMARY and KEPT John Cornyn if you would’ve just passed the SAVE America Act,” Sorter said on X. “You snubbed us, thinking you could just BUY elections. YOU WERE WRONG. Voters are REBUKING you.”

“The day of the RINO is over and the RINO's who are still in the Senate better take notice,” yowled MAGA influencer Bill Mitchell on X.

“Go against President Trump and his America First agenda at your own peril,” said another. “The old Republican Party is dead. The voters are fully behind Trump, and opposing him is now a career-ender. Just ask John Cornyn, Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Adam Kinzinger, and the rest of the never Trump losers who got primaried, booed off stage, or exiled into political oblivion.”

“Paxton will face Democrat James Talarico in November, win that election, and begin representing Texas come January in the senate,” said right-wing radio host Clay Travis on X.

But other, less jingoistic conservatives appeared to twitch their fingers at the news.

“Dems will be happy to get Paxton with all his baggage,” said former Fox News sportswriter Robert Lusetich under Travis’ X post.

“Paxton will win easily after Democrats spend over $100 million convincing themselves Talarico has a chance,” Travis posted directly beneath Lusetich — but Lusetich was unconvinced.

“But think of the ads that $100m buys, Clay! 2023 impeachment by his own party in the Texas House + long-running securities fraud indictments + federal whistle-blower investigations + Trump lackey,” insisted Lusetich. “Key though is 15-20 percent of GOP in Texas are Bush Republicans & they're staying home.”

Talarico himself was already courting bitter Cornyn voters on the night of his defeat, announcing on X: “I want to thank Senator John Cornyn for his years representing our state. We don’t agree on everything, but we both still believe in public service. To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign.”

Dem strategists and influencers, meanwhile, were already out in force and thrilled with the news, with one declaring on X: “Congrats Ken Paxton for handing the Senate to Democrats in 2026.

Another X Dem suggested: “Dems need to just run clips of Paxton being insane over and over and over again.”

President Donald Trump may believe himself to be dying and is acting without regard to his popularity for that reason.

That, at least, is the theory promulgated by commentators Wajahat Ali and Allison Gill in a Tuesday post on their Substack called The Left Hook.

“Trump is decaying, both in body and popularity,” Ali and Gill wrote. “The nearly 80-year-old vulgarian is a diminished man with historically low favorability ratings. He has dragged the GOP down with him. His actions are more reflective of a paranoid, weak King who knows his end is near and is desperately trying to sandbag against the vengeful wave that is about to topple his kingdom.”

They pointed out that, thanks to Trump’s plummeting approval ratings, Republican lawmakers like Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) are more comfortable standing up to the president on key issues. More broadly, South Carolina Republicans have defied Trump in his attempt to gerrymander their state, grand juries are defying Trump’s politically-motivated prosecutions and federal Republicans are refusing to go along with Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund to “subsidise the retirement of violent insurrectionists.” Perhaps most notably, “Trump voters are fleeing after he betrayed his promise of bringing down costs, releasing the Epstein Files, and ending forever wars.”

In a video accompanying their text article, the two pundits elaborated on their analysis. Ali pointed out that Trump has entirely erased the advantages he held in the 2024 election among Hispanic voters and young voters, and has even started to lose support among his base of white voters.

“MAGA is still loyal — it's a cult, it's a shrinking cult, folks,” Ali said. “And it goes to the point of what's happened in the past two to three months. I think he's betrayed them on three core promises. He promised, ‘Vote for me, inflation will go down.’ His dumbass, with the self-inflicted wound of his trade wars and his Iran war situation, has made everything go up.”

He added, “Speaking of the Iran war — second betrayal: no more forever wars. Apparently we're just having wars left and right. And then the third one was, ‘I'm going to show you that liberals are part of the deep state — they're raping everyone, I'm going to release the Epstein files.’ Oh, guess who's mentioned more in the Epstein files? Him.”

Ali then focused on an issue that has not received as much attention in terms of Trump’s declining popularity, namely, his ongoing support of unregulated AI.

“I'll also say to that point — on the AI issue — I have seen in the past two months a bipartisan, growing rage against AI and AI data centers,” Ali said. “People really feel this, and I think we're seeing that play out in the candidates people are selecting in more local races. Even in rural America, they hate these data centers.”

In their text article, Ali and Gill argued that Trump is avoiding these realities by surrounding himself with an inner circle that does not challenge him, but that he cannot will these political problems away.

“Since sychophants surround Trump, he is insulated from reality and can ‘blink’ his way through the chaos,” Ali and Gill said. “However, we can clearly see the Emperor has no clothes and is suffering from swollen cankles and massive bruises on his palms. Trump just went to Walter Reed Hospital for the third physical of his second term, but don’t worry, he’s SUPER healthy, and there’s nothing to worry about.”

They continued by writing that although Trump wants to distract America from his controversies by having a UFC match near the White House, they concluded that “we truly live in the dumbest country, but the majority is finally, finally waking up.”

Ali and Gill are not alone in saying that those who still support Trump are acting like they are in a cult. In February, former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who used to avidly support Trump, explained that those who still do so reveal themselves to be cult-like.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh said. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Yet despite his belligerence toward Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, these people overwhelmingly still back him.

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

He continued, “You’ve got no argument against people calling you a cult. And if he takes us to war against Iran, and you clap and applaud and throw him flowers, Trump supporters, I will be at the front of the parade calling you a cult.”

President Donald Trump will leave power of his own accord if one thing happens, argues a longtime political expert — and that one thing is very much in the American people’s control.

“We’re looking to achieve a staggering, breathtaking, comprehensive, and total defeat of Trumpism. I think we can do that,” longtime Democratic strategist James Carville told Politicon on Tuesday. “But it requires all of us pushing in the same direction.”

Carville argued that, instead of rejecting the claim of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” the president’s opponents should embrace that label because it will help motivate them to vote for Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections.

“And you who are joining me on this podcast, you have it, and I’m proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself,” Carville continued. He then said that “better things are coming” precisely because he anticipates Democrats retaking at least the House of Representatives during the elections, which will allow them to hold Trump accountable. When they do so, Carville predicted, Trump will ultimately want to quit.

“And I think better things are coming because I think if he has still got his wits about him—and I hope he does—he’ll get the f--k out of there and leave, because his life is gonna be so godd--n miserable, he won’t know what to do," Carville argued.

Experts share Carville’s assessment. Speaking to AlterNet, one political polling expert anticipated that Democrats are poised to retake at least the lower chamber of Congress despite Republican redistricting efforts.

"We think Democrats are still favored to win the House, even though Republicans have helped themselves through redistricting," Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told AlterNet. "The national environment just seems like it'll be enough to push Democrats to the majority."

Carville has repeatedly called for Americans to unite behind the Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections as a way of reining in Trump, who he characterizes as an unhinged and anti-democratic president.

“You’re gonna win the presidency in 2028 and it’s a pretty good chance you control both the House and Senate,” Carville said in September, arguing about the GOP that “every time they get into power, they try to cut taxes for rich people and cut healthcare access to middle class people. They’ve done what you thought they were going to do.”

He concluded, “They can call that bill anything they want, it was still the most negatively viewed piece of domestic legislation in this century I think.”

President Donald Trump’s 11^th hour endorsement against incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn seems to have paid off in Texas as Trump’s champion Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton swamped Cornyn in the Senate primary, according to CNN and MS NOW projections.

Trump routinely targets Republicans he finds too independent by fielding or supporting more Trumpy candidates in primaries. More recently, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, became the latest victim of Trump's effort to back primary challengers for his perceived enemies within the GOP.

But Paxton is nothing if not a flawed candidate, according to critics. He is an adulterer who attempted to overthrow the 2020 election and who was nearly impeached by his own Republican senate. Sixteen Texas attorneys signed a 31-page complaint against Paxton, demanding he be disbarred for legal offenses.

Still, it will be Paxton, not Cornyn, who will face off against Democrat James Talarico, a state lawmaker, this November.

Both Cornyn and Paxton were found to be trailing hypothetical head-to-heads against Talarico last month in a Texas Public Opinion Research poll of 1,865 voters. That poll showed Talarico with a three-percentage point lead over Cornyn, 44-to-41 percent. But he leads Attorney General Ken Paxton by a wider, five percentage point margin, 46-to-41 percent, according to the poll.

Talarico leads Paxton with Black voters by +56, Latino voters +27 and college-educated voters +14. Nine percent of surveyed respondents remain undecided. Independents break for Talarico against Paxton 53 percent to 28 percent.

Democrats winning a major statewide election in Texas has long been seen as unlikely, but according to a new breakdown from The Atlantic, Trump's recent "casual betrayal" of an endorsement has given the party its best chance at an upset in decades.

“Trump may have cemented a set of very difficult circumstances for his party,” reported the Atlantic. “If Paxton wins on Tuesday, Democrats will probably be better positioned to win statewide in Texas than they’ve been in the past 40 years."

Critics complain that Trump’s endorsement means Republican financiers will have to invest more heavily to beat Talarico, which means less money helping vulnerable Republicans in other states, when Texas should have been an easy win.

Trump's vendetta against Republicans who defy him represents a significant shift in party dynamics.

Since his return to the White House, Trump has systematically targeted GOP lawmakers deemed insufficiently loyal, orchestrating primary challenges against sitting senators and representatives. Notable victims include Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who lost his primary after voting to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial, and Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who challenged Trump on government spending and the Epstein files. Trump has also threatened Senators Rand Paul and Lauren Boebert for supporting Massie.

These purges extend beyond symbolic gestures—Trump has mobilized campaign resources and Super PAC funding to ensure defeats, effectively establishing a loyalty test within the party that prioritizes personal allegiance over policy positions or constituent service.

President Donald Trump is forcing the Republican Party into a politically perilous position in advance of the upcoming midterm elections — and they are now relying on a gamble that traces back to former President Richard Nixon’s administration.

“Even as Congress abandoned plans to pass an immigration-spending package before Memorial Day, as Republicans revolted against the Trump administration’s pursuit of a $1.776 billion settlement fund for his allies, key House Republicans were discussing a sprint toward a third bill under the so-called budget reconciliation process that would advance by the end of next month,” reported Bloomberg's Zach C. Cohen on Tuesday. Cohen pointed out that Republican lawmakers want to pass three reconciliation bills, something that has not happened since Nixon accomplished this more than half a century ago.

“It’s a tantalizing tool for a party trying to defend majorities in the House and Senate while the high cost of living dominates voters’ economic anxieties,” Cohen explained. “But just because House Speaker Mike Johnson and top deputies have been huddling for weeks to find a constellation of policies that could get near-universal support, that doesn’t mean anything will become law, even with passage being completely within Republicans’ control.”

Yet this will be difficult because Republicans can only afford to lose two votes on any given day with full attendance to pass anything unless Democrats defect, which is unlikely. Considering that Trump has alienated many Republican lawmakers, from House members like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) to Senators like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Yet the issue is even deeper than this.

“The kinds of policies that help incumbent Republicans fend off primary challengers in heavily red districts don’t necessarily work with the general electorate in the purple ones, and vice versa,” Cohen wrote. “Deep cuts to social services could make headroom for what couldn’t fit within the deficit caps last year, but at a political cost that lawmakers may not be willing to bear. Enacting or even passing that bill out of one chamber before the August recess may give Republican campaigns enough time to sell to voters that they’ve taken action on whatever’s included, though Democrats would have their fair share of criticism that would be hitting screens and mailboxes as well.”

The result is that “absent a fiscal cliff like Republicans had hanging over their heads last year, it’s hard to get members to agree to acquiesce to the parts of the bill they don’t like.”

He concluded that “you can take at their word that there are corners of the Republican conference that fear what the ballooning national debt—roughly the size of the US’s gross domestic product—will do to the country’s ability to pay for the rest of its expenses that are crowded out by interest on bond payments, risking a potential catastrophic default on the national debt. But addressing the deficit has always been seen as an issue that requires bipartisan support.”

In short, “It’s difficult to find about $2 trillion in savings annually without considering both spending cuts and tax increases, which neither party has the political fortitude (or support) to shoulder alone. So Republicans are trying to tackle the most intractable problems of our day with the narrowest of majorities.”

The GOP is determined to pass this legislation to distract from Trump’s unpopular $1.8 billion slush fund for his supporters and $1 billion ballroom. The consensus among Republican lawmakers is that those issues will be politically toxic for them in the upcoming midterm elections, despite their recent efforts to gerrymander in key states to their advantage.

“We think Democrats are still favored to win the House, even though Republicans have helped themselves through redistricting,” managing editor Kyle Kondik of the political analysis publication Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told AlterNet. “The national environment just seems like it'll be enough to push Democrats to the majority.”

President Donald Trump recently nominated Kari Lake, the failed Arizona Republican candidate for senator and governor, to be US ambassador to Jamaica — and Arizonans are expressing their chagrin.

“The former Phoenix newscaster doesn’t have any obvious connection to the country, other than having vacationed there on repeated occasions, and her history in the public eye evidences a distinct lack of diplomatic tact,” reported Phoenix New Times' Zach Buchanan on Tuesday. “But who knows, maybe the post will fit her like a glove. Maybe it’s not, as many in the political realm see it, an obvious demotion to get a troublesome Trump acolyte out of his orbit.”

Prior to being Trump’s ambassadorial nominee to Jamaica, he tried to appoint as director of Voice of America, an international broadcaster funded by the US government, with the goal of transforming it into a right-wing partisan outlet modeled after One America News (OAN). After a judge ruled her ineligible to serve in that position, Trump pivoted to appointing Lake as ambassador to Jamaica.

"President Trump on Monday appointed Kari Lake, a fierce ally of the president who had led the administration’s efforts to shutter Voice of America and other federally funded news groups, as the next ambassador to Jamaica," the New York Times reported at the time. "Her appointment, if confirmed by the Senate, would end her tumultuous time at the parent agency for federally funded news groups that broadcast to countries with limited press freedom, such as China, Russia and Iran."

Lake was not the only failed MAGA gubernatorial candidate to be awarded an ambassadorship as a consolation prize.

"Lake’s nomination coincided with the president also tapping Pennsylvania’s Doug Mastriano — another prominent Republican election denier who launched a gubernatorial campaign that failed — to serve as U.S. ambassador to Slovakia," MS NOW’s Benen reported at the time. "The far-right state senator will also need to be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate. Time will tell when and whether Lake and Mastriano receive the support they’ll need on Capitol Hill, but their nominations are emblematic of a larger pattern: The White House sure does like to hand out ambassadorships to those whose earlier political plans didn’t quite work out."

Yet while Trump may like the idea of Lake as America’s representative to Jamaica, Buchanan reported that many Arizonans do not feel the same way.

“Said Instagram user bluej1801: ‘My apologies to the good people of Jamaica,’” Buchanan reported. “Added user ‘Little.glimmers: What a kick in the crotch to Jamaica, sheesh.’ User Trejondunkley appeared to take the news hard: ‘As a Jamaican Arizonan, I just gotta ask what I personally did to deserve this.’ User Ciao_sasa had an alternate idea: ‘Mars would be better.’ On Facebook, Atom was thinking along similar lines: ‘OK, and hear me out, but have we considered somewhere more exotic and maybe further away?’ For Troy, the first reaction was perverse curiosity: ‘Can’t wait to hear her patois.’”

Buchanan added, “Jim seemed to recognize the reality of the political machinations at play: ‘Donald is slowly moving her to Antarctica.’ Along those lines, James made fun of Lake’s avowed enthusiasm for the job, although he made a horrible pun in the process: ‘Hey Marco, I’m making Kari Lake an Ambassador to a Caribbean Island!’ ‘Oh, Jamaica?’ ‘No! She WANTS to go!’”

President Donald Trump’s FBI director, Kash Patel, has repeatedly been accused of firing agents who do not explicitly show partisan loyalty to Trump’s Republican Party. Now those alleged partisan terminations have reached a celebrated agent — one who worked on a case concerning endangered lawmakers nearly a decade ago.

Deputy Assistant Director Emily Morales was fired by Patel, as reported by MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian on Tuesday, allegedly because she did not arrive at a pro-Republican conclusion about the 2017 congressional baseball shooting by James Hodgkinson.

“It was unclear whether the letter cited her role in the 2017 assessment, but the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a personnel matter, said her removal was widely perceived inside the bureau as the latest in a series of firings of nonpartisan FBI agents who did their jobs in a way that drew disfavor from President Donald Trump or Republicans,” Dilanian reported.

Dilanian pointed out that in 2021, the FBI aroused the anger of House Republicans when it concluded Hodgkinson was “motivated by a desire to commit an attack on Members of Congress. … This conduct is something that we would today characterize as a domestic terrorism event.” Christopher Wray, who was FBI director at the time, deduced that Hodgkinson’s behavior did not meet the FBI’s definition of domestic terrorism as it existed in 2017.

“The FBI case file makes clear this case was a premeditated assassination attempt on Republican congressmen by a radical, left-wing political extremist, who was seeking to affect the conduct of our government,” the FBI concluded at the time.

Tonya Ugoretz, another former FBI employee who claims she was fired several months ago for pulling an FBI report that falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was meddled with by the Chinese government, denounced the firing of Morales.

“Tactical reports give an understanding of information as it’s known at the time. Anyone with crisis response experience knows that information can change, and usually does,” Ugoretz said.

She added, “The FBI’s actions are choking the capabilities that help it stop criminals, spies, hackers, and terrorists before they act. I don’t know if they’re doing it intentionally or out of ignorance, and I don’t know which is worse.”

Steve Schmidt, who served as an adviser to President George W. Bush, has argued that in addition to his partisanship, Patel’s reported drinking problem has impaired his ability to effectively do his job.

“He's angry — so angry and affronted,” Schmidt said on his Substack, describing his fear of being fired by Trump due to the president’s well-known contempt for alcoholism. “He recognizes that it's all slipping away. What the performance at the hearing validated was this, from ‘The Atlantic’ story that kicked it all off [to] when he was locked out of his computer and he melted down and he panicked. You got a sense yesterday of what a Kash Patel meltdown looks like.”

Schmidt added that because Patel is widely viewed as an incompetent FBI director, 2,800 FBI agents left last year since he took over (four times the normal attrition rate). The former Bush adviser expressed alarm that Patel’s potential drinking problem is endangering America’s national security.

“This was the premier law enforcement agency,” Schmidt said. “The respect for it is crumbling faster than the morale inside of it is, which is saying something. Kash Patel is unfit. He is untrustworthy. Kash Patel is a buffoon. And yesterday, he was the latest buffoon unmasked at a congressional hearing.”

President Donald Trump is trying to create a climate of fear in America, but his former Homeland Security chief of staff told MS NOW that the courts are punishing him for his effort.

“Just think about this — our friend Kyle Cheney over at Politico, I think as of earlier this month, documented that there had been 10,000 cases judges had thrown out of people illegally put in immigration custody,” Miles Taylor told Nicole Wallace on MS NOW. “That's just one type of case — 10,000 thrown out. There's a 9-to-1 loss ratio when the government gets challenged on illegal detention. That is breathtaking. And that's just immigration.”

He added, “Then you look at the big constitutional suits against this administration — big separation-of-powers issues, big violations of law. There are hundreds of those cases, I think north of 700 in the courts, and the administration has been losing those 2-to-1 in the lower courts. They are on a crime spree across this administration. The numbers show it. And you can't believe the administration when they say, ‘Well, that's liberal activist judges’ — 72 percent of the time, Republican-appointed judges are ruling against them. They're getting their b—— kicked in the courts because they're breaking the law.”

Taylor, who served in Trump's first term in the Department of Homeland Security, added that, while these might seem like failures for the administration, they are not once you realize that their goal is intimidation.

“Here's the thing, Nicole — they kind of don't care if they win these cases, because their goal is just to scare people about getting sued,” Taylor explained. He then pivoted from breaking down the culture of fear’s impact on immigration policy to the culture of fear’s impact on the economy.

“If you need evidence of that, Andrew Ross Sorkin the other day at CNBC noted that CEOs are refusing to even talk about how Trump is tanking the economy,” Taylor pointed out. “Think about the fact that he's ruining these companies, putting them in danger from high inflation, but no CEO is willing to speak up about it. Why? Because they privately tell Andrew Ross Sorkin that they're scared of being attacked by the president. So the fear campaign is working to a certain extent — it's making folks afraid to go up against Trump, because even if these lawsuits won't be won, they're just worried about having to be sued in the first place.”

He concluded, “That's why the Trump administration is doing this.”

Earlier this month, Taylor also argued that Trump’s policy of instilling fear has turned the Republican-controlled Congress into a rubber stamp for the president, even though GOP lawmakers by and large personally dislike the president.

"So, you want to know why people self-censor?” Taylor wrote for The iPaper. “It is situations like mine. Trump and his acolytes realize they don’t need to arrest everyone, they just need to make enough public examples that everyone else decides speaking up isn’t worth the cost."

He added, "I’ve been texting with some of those elected GOP leaders over the past few weeks, urging them to follow suit, to speak out. I know they’re appalled by Trump. When he was threatening genocide, they said so – to me, in private messages. But not one of them has spoken out publicly. In some ways, I understand why, because I’ve seen what speaking out costs. But what they don’t get is that their silence is making it worse for them, not better. Intimidation is a vicious cycle. As soon as you cower, the current grows stronger. The ones doing the intimidation face less resistance, realize their tactics are working, and double down. Unfortunately, the numbers have proven this to be the case in America."

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The stress cracks are undeniably starting to show in the White House, if explosions from White House staff are an indicator.

MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace cited White House spokesperson Steven Cheung’s social media response to Mike Pompeo criticism of a deal being negotiated by the Trump administration to end the Iran war, telling the one-time Trump ally to “shut his stupid mouth.”

“Mike Pompeo has no idea what the f—— he's talking about. He should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals. He's not read into anything that's happening, so how would he know?” Wallace quoted Cheung saying.

“Yeah, that's some top notch communicating from the communications director right there,” said Atlantic Staff Writer Tom Nichols, adding that the White House is clearly at the point of breaking over their botched Iran war, which has inflamed voters’ fuel and food prices.

“[T]his was a little glimpse into what I think is kind of sweaty panic inside the White House that this is all going south on us, our own allies, and our own most sycophantic supporters,” said Nichols. “I mean, when you're getting scored on by [Sen.] Lindsey Graham, that that's got to sting.

“What were they thinking?” Wallace asked Nichols, regarding their war endgame.

“Donald Trump thought this would be a war that would bring him glory. I think that's what he was thinking. ‘I shall be the liberator of Iran.’ And I think the second thing they were thinking is this regime will collapse. … But once that didn't happen, they didn't know what to do and they still don't know what to do. And I think what you're seeing now, again, is the kind of panicky, sweaty search for a face-saving exit.”

And until they find it, Trump knows both he and his Republican Party will share the blame for the inflation hikes and resulting midterm damage.

“Are we really saying that if we don't get good terms from the Iranians that the president is going to restart a major war in the Middle East on what -- Labor Day? Just before an election? Good luck with that! I think the Iranians probably don't take that very seriously. And I don't think others do as well. I think that's probably why people like Sen. [Roger] Wicker (R-Miss.) and others are panicking about hearing that because they're in a box now, and the only people who can get out of it are in the White House.”

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The White House went on the attack on Tuesday, lashing out at CNN and others for questioning the president’s health after he went to Walter Reed for his third checkup in 13 months.

The Rapid Response 47 social media account, an official Trump White House account, posted numerous screenshots of CNN reporters and commentators blinking or posing with with their eyes closed, while claiming that they had taken a “nap” on-air, or “fell asleep,” while accusing them of “baselessly speculating about President Trump’s health.”

“Did @KateBolduan and her guest on Fake News CNN just fall asleep mid-interview? Their eyes are closed! What are they hiding about their health?” one post read.

“@DanaBashCNN falls asleep ahead of her 55th birthday next month. What is going on?” another asked in all-caps.

“Is ‘Dr. Jeremy Faust’ sundowning?” questioned a third.

“Brianna Keilar says nap went ‘perfectly’ after falling asleep live on air. Rumor is she also failed her cognitive exam (unlike President Trump— whose was perfect!)” declared still another.

Mediaite had reported that “CNN’s medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner delivered a startling health assessment of President Donald Trump ahead of another physical exam for the commander in chief at Walter Reed Medical Center.”

“And finally, the president has severe daytime somnolence,” Reiner said, as Alternet reported. “He falls asleep very often. He’s fallen asleep in the Oval Office on multiple occasions with people talking to him in the Cabinet Room, and was concerned yesterday that he might have fallen asleep at Arlington National Cemetery during Memorial Day observances, and chronic insomnia is a severe illness. It can result in an increase in risk of dementia, a decrease in cognitive effects in older people,” he continued.

After Trump’s physical exam, the White House declared the president received a “perfect bill of health” from his doctors.