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Trump is 'miserable' and alone as MAGA coalition hinges on 'fear of his wrath'

Among critics of President Donald Trump — liberals and progressives as well as right-wing Never Trump conservatives and libertarians — there is a widely held view that his second presidency is considerably worse than his first. The second Trump White House is the focus of "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," a new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Sean Woods, in a late June review for Rolling Stone, describes "Regime Change" as "essential reading" for those who want to understand why Trump's second presidency is so chaotic and dysfunctional.

"President Trump, the most powerful man in the world — maybe in history — comes off in these pages as among the most miserable of humans, surrounded by sycophants and toadies, living in a gilded palace, filled with rage and bile," Woods says in Rolling Stone. "It's an unpleasant and chaotic portrait, one that could almost be satirical but for the fact that his wars, police-state tactics, and pettiest grievances have affected all of our lives."

One of the anecdotes in "Regime Change" that speaks volumes about Trump's state of mind, according to Woods, describes Trump's reaction to Tesla/Space-X head Elon Musk attacking Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill Act as an "abomination." Trump commented, "They always leave me. They always do this. This is why I can't have friends."

Trump didn't view Musk's criticism of the Big, Beautiful Bill as a major policy disagreement — he saw it as an act of betrayal.

"With Trump, it's always one d– – thing after another: Musk's DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) destruction of the federal work force already feels like another era, and that was barely a year ago. We are light-years away from the man who ran for office in 2016. Too much has happened in those 10 years. Swan and Haberman show why Trump, and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, have returned to Washington with vengeance on the mind and a ruthless desire to wield and abuse power…. It's immediately clear in Trump 2.0 that all the safety checks that existed in Trump 1.0 are long gone."

Woods adds, "Turns out, the presidential Cabinet really matters — and if it's staffed with the Pete Hegseths and Kristi Noems of the world, nothing good will come of it."

Another thing "Regime Change" brings out is how many people on the right have turned against Trump.

"As the Year 1 barrels along," Woods notes, "Swan and Haberman document the fallout. MAGA loyalists Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie and Tucker Carlson split with Trump over the mishandling of the Epstein files and the Iran war…. Former allies, Mike Pompeo, Bill Barr, and Mike Pence are now hostile to the White House and John Bolton has been targeted by Trump for vengeance."

Woods continues, "Bad blood and feuds surround MAGA, a coalition only held together by the president's will and fear of his wrath…. It makes for grim reading. No president, perhaps no person in public life, has ever fully embodied the Seven Deadly Sins the way Trump does. You see them all in him, even at 79, throughout these pages: lust, greed, pride, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth…. 'Regime Change' is essential reading to understand how, in just 18 months, Trump's presidency reached this dreadful precipice, and why, in the end, everyone leaves him."

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Exposed: MAGA is buying the 2026 midterm elections

On Thursday, the Washington Post launched a new tool that tracks campaign donations for the November midterms, and what it revealed is stunning. At this point, with just four months until the election, 9 out of 10 of the top megadonors are directly linked to the MAGA movement, and they're out-funding the Democrats by a long shot.

According to the Post, the top 50 individual donors have so far contributed $1.37 billion to campaigns for the upcoming races. $294 million of that has gone to Democratic candidates, $200 million has gone to unaffiliated candidates, and a whopping $875 million has gone into the Republican war chest. As the Post notes, all that cash “could prove critical for the GOP to maintain control of Congress in November.”

The top individual donors are comprised entirely of billionaires and “newly minted trillionaire” Elon Musk, who, along with eight other top GOP donors, are explicitly MAGA-oriented. While Musk was the top Republican donor in the 2024 election, currently that title goes to venture capitalists Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, who have contributed $91.2 million to President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc Super PAC and a pro-cryptocurrency Super PAC called Fairshake.

Other top individual contributors include financiers Jeff and Janine Yass, Miriam Adelson (widow of Trump ally and megadonor businessman Sheldon Adelson), shipping magnates Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his spouse Anna, hedge fund manager Paul Singer, cryptocurrency investing brothers Comeron and Tyler Winklevoss (who, incidentally, claimed Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them), and businesswoman Diane Hendricks. Between them all, they most frequently contributed to MAGA Inc as well as the Republican Congressional and Senate Leadership Funds, in addition to donating to groups that promote specific issues like AI, cryptocurrency, and school deregulation.

The Post’s tool also lists the top 10 organizational donors, and here again, Republican and MAGA groups dominate. Six of 10 groups are specifically GOP, a number of which are directly linked to Trump, like Securing American Greatness, Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, and the crypto company Foris Dax. While the top two organizational donors — cryptocurrency companies Coinbase and Ripple Labs — aren’t technically political groups, they are aligned with the Trump family’s crypto business and primarily fund Republican candidates. Of the remaining two donor groups, one is AIPAC, which gives to candidates on both sides of the aisle.

As NPR notes, Republicans “have more money to spend, but they’ll need it.” Part of the reason there has been such a rush to dole out cash on the part of conservative donors involves the major headwinds faced by GOP candidates going into the midterms. Trump’s disastrous war with Iran, abysmal economy, brutal immigration crackdown, and mishandling of the Epstein files have proven so unpopular that many experts predict that the Republicans will lose their majority in the House and maybe even the Senate.

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'Blindsided' Alito sat 'stone-faced' with anger after Sotomayor exchange

Justice Samuel Alito was triggered by his colleague Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday at the U.S. Supreme Court as the two were reading the rulings on the final dozen, or so, decisions for the term. According to one CNN reporter, Alito was "stone-faced" and made excuses for himself after her comments.

Speaking about the incident, CNN's Dana Bash teased the comments by calling it "really explicit" in their ideological divide.

"It really was an and it boiled over in this one encounter between Justice Alito and Justice Sotomayor," agreed Joan Biskupic, CNN's chief Supreme Court analyst.

After Alito finished reading the decision that involved migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, which dealt with the language over whether someone had "arrived" or "not arrived" in the United States, Sotomayor stepped in.

Biskupic explained that the debate over that case involves U.S. Border Patrol agents who will block people from "arriving" in the U.S. by preventing them from stepping over the border.

After Alito finished explaining why it was a "perfectly legitimate for the administration to do — to block these asylum seekers," the analyst said that Sotomayor stepped in to say, "I have a dissent here."

Justice Alito paused, Biskupic said, "So, he must have known that something was coming from her."

She addressed the "moral imperative of allowing asylum seekers who are fleeing serious persecution from coming to America, allowing them to come to America."

“The consequences of today’s decision are predictable,” she read. “More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not."

She then began citing specific incidents of the U.S. turning back people who were later persecuted and killed. She recalled the infamous incident involving the voyage of the M.S. St. Louis, in 1939, in which 937 passengers, almost all of whom were Jewish refugees, attempted to flee to the United States from Nazi Germany. It first went to Cuba and then to the U.S. The Americans turned them back.

"She finishes," continued Biskupic. "She takes, you know, about three times as long as Sam Alito had taken to deliver the actual opinion. And the first thing he says before he starts to recount the temporary protected status opinion that 'If I had known what the dissent was going to say I would have explained my ruling more.' And he just sits there kind of stone-faced, and everyone's like wow, and you know he definitely suggested he was blindsided."

Biskupic added, "I have a feeling that she might have said, maybe right before they were going on the bench, you know, 'Hey Sam, I've got something to say. But then he goes, with anger dripping from his voice to then detail what happened, what they were ruling in the temporary protected status case is."

Justice Elena Kagan had her own dissent in that second case, but chose not to read it, Biskupic said, "probably because there had been enough fireworks for the morning."

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MAGA candidate downplaying big part of his history in make-or-break Senate race

On Election Night 2026, Democratic and GOP strategists will be paying very close attention to the outcome of a U.S. Senate race in North Carolina — where former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley is up against centrist Democrat and former Gov. Roy Cooper. Whatley is making his connection to North Carolina a prominent theme of his campaign, but according to NBC News' Matt Dixon, he is downplaying the major role that Michigan plays in his history.

Whatley, a Generation Xer, was born in Michigan on October 7, 1968 but moved to Watauga County, North Carolina with his parents as a teenager and attended high school there. However, he started high school in East Lansing, Michigan.

During an interview with far-right media figure Mark Levin, Whatley said, "I grew up in a tiny little town in North Carolina called Blowing Rock. We have one stoplight and a Hardee's. You know, I went to church, and I played sports — and I worked."

Dixon, however, reports that according to records, Whatley "spent most of his childhood away from North Carolina."

"He was born in Michigan and stayed there until his early high school years," Dixon explains. "He then lived in Blowing Rock for roughly three years before going elsewhere in the state for college…. Whatley's picture appears in the 1983 East Lansing High School yearbook, when he was a freshman. The first time his picture appears in the Watauga High School yearbook, the school he attended while living in Blowing Rock, was as a member of the sophomore class in 1984."

Dixon notes that Whatley's campaign website, as of June 25, "says he was 'raised in Blowing Rock' and makes no mention of his Michigan roots."

"In September, he told The Talk Station, 'I am a kid who grew up in Blowing Rock,'" Dixon observes. "And in January, he told the 'Agriculture in North Carolina' podcast that he 'grew up in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, obviously a very small town.' Whatley has been careful not to say that he was born there, according to interviews reviewed by NBC News. He has, however, not always corrected others when they say so."

North Carolina, a swing state, presently has a Democratic governor, Josh Stein, and two Republican U.S. senators: Ted Budd and Thom Tillis, who isn't seeking election in the 2026 midterms and will be exciting Congress in early January 2027.

Jason Husser, who teaches political science professor at North Carolina Elon University in North Carolina, doesn't expect Whatley's connection to Michigan to be a major factor in the Senate race but says it could be a minor one.

Husser told NBC News, "I see two dimensions here: whether it contributes to a perception of inauthenticity for Whatley, and whether depth of childhood ties matters to voters. On the former, it likely doesn't help Whatley persuade or 'win back' those who already were leaning for Cooper, but I doubt it moves the needle much on the latter."

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Federal judge delivers massive blow to Trump’s 'rank voter suppression' scheme

On Thursday, a federal court judge blocked President Donald Trump's executive order, which was essentially an effort to enact his voting-rights restrictions without legislation.

Trump's executive order mandates the U.S. Post Office maintain a list of Americans aged 18 or older to "confirm to be United States Citizens." They would then be the only people able to receive and send mail ballots. Anyone not on Trump's list would be unable to use USPS to mail their ballot to the election departments. Those responsible for building the list of voters: The states themselves.

Writing about the executive order, former federal prosecutor from Alabama, Joyce Vance said, “The point emerges early on. This is not an EO about ensuring election integrity. It’s an effort to let politicians, namely this president, influence election outcomes instead of letting voter elect their chosen representatives.”

In response to Trump's order, USPS then required new rules forcing states to turn over their voter rolls, and any failure to comply meant USPS wouldn't send their ballots.

On Thursday, Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts blocked parts of the order.

It isn't the only case in courts; there are 23 states and the District of Columbia that are opposing the suit in court, along with various interest groups and political parties.

Judge Carl J. Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a Trump appointee, is navigating one of those cases, though he has yet to issue a preliminary injunction. He said that the main reason is that the Trump administration hasn't developed rules, made the lists or stopped anyone from getting their ballots yet. Though Talwani's ruling ensured it was paused for now. For example, it's unknown whether Trump's order would mandate all Americans to re-register to vote before November.

Vance called the order "rank voter suppression, removing decision making authority from the states and vesting it in the Trump administration, which has repeatedly demonstrated its interest in winning, even if that means keeping Democrats from voting or refusing to count their votes when they do."

Trump has been fighting for the bill officially titled the "Safeguard American Voter Eligibility America Act," which would, among other things, require proof of citizenship to register to vote. It's illegal to vote if you are not a citizen. As it stands, the law already has very tight restrictions, but state and local authorities verify citizenship on their end. The document requirement would mandate that only a few options could be used, such as a birth certificate or a passport.

On Wednesday, a separate ruling struck down the citizenship requirements in his bill.

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Red state launches 'unprecedented' attack on separation of church and state

Texas is poised to pass what the New York Times calls a “sweeping” new state book list, which will codify a batch of books that must be read by millions of students in the state’s public schools, including the Bible.

According to the Times, “The list was being debated by the Texas State Board of Education this week. It is expected to be approved on Friday. While the specific texts were still being edited and finalized, the list is expected to reflect the priorities of the state board, which has a 10-to-5 Republican majority.” The proposed list so far includes uncontroversial titles like Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, Night by Elie Wiesel, and Hamlet by William Shakespeare, but it will also require that students read at least one Bible excerpt each year, starting in the 4th grade. This has “spurred fierce debate.”

Texas education officials assert that the Bible “is an essential piece of literature and important for understanding America’s founding and culture.” Critics argue that mandating the Bible violates the separation of church and state “and is part of a broader effort to infuse Christianity in Texas public schools."

“The government of Texas, let alone any American government body, should never be in the business of imposing one religion on everyone,” said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which has previously challenged a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms.

As the Times notes, it is so unusual for an entire state to mandate a reading list that it may be “unprecedented.” The list will shape the reading habits of a generation of Texas students, who represent 11 percent of the nation’s students, and is being created in response to a Texas law enacted in 2023 requiring education officials to select at least one essential literary text for each grade level. But the board went further, creating an extensive list from which teachers will be required to work. They will be allowed to assign books not on the list, but will need to find time to accommodate the additional reading by cutting back from other curricula.

In addition to including the Bible, the list has also been criticized “for putting an emphasis on older texts, often written by white and male authors, in a state where more than half of students are Hispanic or Black.”

“With a list that’s so extensive, would teachers have the time or space to choose texts that are a great fit for their students, their classrooms, their region?” said Markesha Tisby, president of the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts, which has argued for narrowing the list to allow teachers more choice. “Texas is extremely large and very diverse.”

The list does not include commonly taught titles like Romeo and Juliet, the Great Gatsby or To Kill a Mockingbird. It does, however, include The Children’s Book of Virtues, an anthology of stories edited by William J. Bennett, the Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan, as well as Margaret Thatcher’s eulogy for Reagan.

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Legal experts lash out at 'racist' Supreme Court ruling

Legal analysts and scholars are lashing out at the U.S. Supreme Court conservatives after another round of decisions.

Taking to social media on Thursday morning, commentators trashed one ruling in particular: President Donald Trump's decision to block asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The case concerned the temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants, which the U.S. had allowed until Trump paused it in 2021. The law states that any noncitizen who is “physically present in the United States” or “arrives in the United States” can apply for asylum. Anyone who announces that they seek protection are entitled to have their claim evaluated, according to the Constitution.

What the High Court did was play on the technicality of the asylum seekers' location.

"The Supreme Court’s rightwing majority rules that courts cannot review the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to terminate temporary protected status for refugees fleeing particularly dangerous countries," complained Kate Riga, who covers the Supreme Court for TPM.

"In effect, this means that thousands of Haitian and Syrian refugees will be sent back to places so dangerous that, in Haiti’s case, the State Department recommends leaving behind dental records to help identify remains," she added before bashing Justice Samuel Alito's ruling, in particular, as "racist."

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie also bashed Alito by paraphrasing the justice.

"Sam Alito: It is the worst kind of discrimination to create majority-minority congressional districts and so we are going to kill the Voting Rights Act. Also, Sam Alito: There is nothing we can do if the president cancels legal status because he thinks the United States is a white country," said Bouie.

"It is abundantly clear from Alito's jurisprudence that he thinks the only real racism is discrimination against white people," Bouie added. "Like, this is sophistry. Why does the administration oppose TPS Justice Alito? Why does it reject asylum claims from virtually every group of people other than white South Africans?"

Jerry Edwards, associate professor of law at West Virginia University, wrote, "Samuel Alito shares Andrew Johnson's vision of the Constitution." Johnson was widely considered a white supremacist, the Constitution Center explains.

As Politico's Kyle Cheney cited, "SCOTUS majority says there are 'race-neutral' reasons why Trump/Noem ended TPS but notes that their commentary on Haitian immigrants would have 'scandalized the public just a short time ago.'"

Lawfare editor Tyler McBrian commented, "Every SCOTUS opinion now is like "in a 6-3 opinion, the Court rules that doctors can start prescribing cocaine to children again."

Constitutional scholar Robert Black wrote, "Y'know how I'm always saying that when people say 'I'm not racist' what they mean is 'I am correct in my racist beliefs?' Well, uhhh, Supreme Court edition..."

One responder asked, "So is the idea here that courts are obligated to see if they can construct even a ludicrous non-racist rationale for a policy before they can rule against it?"

Edwards replied to the comment saying, "Only if the conservatives want to rule in favor of the government. Not long ago, Thomas and Alito had an absolute meltdown when SCOTUS denied cert in a case race-neutral affirmative action case because they claimed two of the school board members made racist comments (proving it was an AA policy)."

But Alito wasn't the only one drawing criticism. Justice Clarence Thomas penned his own individual opinion on the matter.

As appellate attorney Gabriel Malor wrote on BlueSky, "Justice Thomas, writing only for himself, says that the Fifth Amendment's due process clause does not guarantee equal protection."

He referenced Thomas' statement saying, "Because the Fifth Amendment has no Equal Protection Clause, this Court was wrong to read equal protection into it in Bolling v. Sharpe ... And even the Due Process Clause does not prohibit some discrimination, it would not do so in a case about immigration status."

Associate Professor Evan Bernick at the University of Illinois School of Law said he would refrain from yelling about the ruling at length. Instead, he wrote, "I'm just going to observe that the equal protection analysis is almost entirely unsupported by citations to relevant authority. There's a cursory cite to one leading opinion and then a bunch of handwaving. Nothing in the Constitution or even SCOTUS doctrine — even at its worst — requires that we think about race in the context of immigration decisions this way, and we simply should not."

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Rubio raises questions with bizarre excuse for bringing Trump son-in-law to meeting

During a late June visit to the Middle East on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with leaders of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait to discuss foreign policy matters — including President Donald Trump's ceasefire agreement with Iran. Trump's son-in-law Michael Boulos was sitting next to Rubio during a meeting with UAE's president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi — and Boulos' presence is raising questions.

On X, formerly Twitter, Rubio posted a photo from that meeting, noting that he discussed the memorandum of understanding signed by the U.S. and Iran as well as "efforts to secure full and safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz" and "regional stability."

The New York Times' Edward Wong is among the reporters drawing attention to the fact that Boulos, who is married to President Trump's daughter Tiffany Trump, was sitting next to Rubio.

Wong, on X, observed, "Trump's son-in-law, Michael Boulos, sits next to Rubio in this meeting in UAE with Sheikh MBZ, the country's leader. Boulos is a businessman who has no official post (his father has one). He visited UAE in May 2025 with Trump for a business event."

Wong, in a separate tweet, noted, "On that May 2025 trip, Michael Boulos and Tiffany Trump were at a business roundtable in UAE at which President Trump gave a speech."

Speaking to reporters in Kuwait City, Kuwait, Rubio was asked about Boulos and responded, "Oh, Michael Boulos? His brother lives here. He was just at the meeting to catch up."

Rubio also told reporters, "I'm a good friend of Michael. So we had a chance to catch up."

But journalists are pointing out that Boulos doesn't actually serve in the Trump administration in an official capacity, and they find his presence during Rubio's meeting with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan odd and Rubio's explanation vague.

CNN's Aaron Blake, formerly of the Washington Post, tweeted, "From Rubio's exchange with reporters on this — > Q: Sir, can you clarify — can you clarify what the role of Michael Boulos was today?.... RUBIO: Oh, he was there to see his brother who lives here. He was just there to see me and catch up."

Rubio was once a scathing critic of Donald Trump, repeatedly attacking him when they were competing for the GOP nomination in the United States' 2016 presidential race. But Rubio and Donald Trump later made amends, and now, he wears multiple hats in Trump's second administration. In addition to serving as secretary of state, the 55-year-old former U.S. senator is acting national security adviser.

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'Solely to inflate Trump’s ego': The one image that explains how he rules

On Wednesday, representatives of NATO met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in an effort to bolster his reluctant commitment to the alliance. According to reporting by the iPaper, they brought “visual aids” that had less to do with pleading their case than with stoking “Trump’s ego.”

As iPaper political editor James Ball writes, “Trump is not in a good mood with NATO right now. The US President has been repeatedly grousing that the Western alliance was not there for him during his recent conflict with Iran – he repeatedly demanded that they help him reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even though he also insisted he didn’t actually need their help. That has left Nato secretary general and former Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte in the unenviable position of trying to keep Trump onside, just to hold NATO together.” This comes at a precarious moment, in which the war between Russia and Ukraine has reached a critical juncture.

According to Ball, Rutte is an expert at handling Trump. “even if it comes at a heavy cost to his own personal dignity.” The former lavishes the latter with praise, concedes when Trump criticizes NATO, and rarely pushes back.

“His meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday, however, crossed a new threshold even by Rutte’s standards – because the secretary general had brought along visual aids to help make his case to the President,” writes Ball. “These were not complex diagrams explaining defence procurement, or even the current situation on the front lines in Ukraine – instead, they were ludicrously simple charts designed solely to inflate Trump’s ego.”

As Ball notes, it was obvious that the charts were “tailored precisely to Trump.” Each was enormous, mounted on its own easel, and had no more than 10 words, the lettering of which was gold and embossed in 1990s Word-Art style, “and the messaging was designed to tell Trump he was a massive success.”

“THE TRUMP 47 EFFECT,” declared one, showing “NATO Europe and Canada” spending an extra $258 billion in two years. The other blasted “THE TRUMP TRILLION” while crediting the president with an expanded $1.2 trillion in defence spending since 2016.

“Rutte likely judged his target audience correctly,” writes Ball. “The US President gets a daily briefing by the intelligence agencies about the state of the world – unparalleled access to what’s going on, unimaginable to most of us. During Trump’s first term, the president himself admitted he found these repetitive, and didn’t like reading much. ‘I like bullets or I like as little as possible,’ he told Axios. ‘I don’t need, you know, 200-page reports on something that can be handled on a page.’”

Because of Trump’s disdain for reading and lack of focus, briefings became limited to just twice a week, and those briefing the president were advised “only to present one side of the argument, to cut their brief to a page, and to include diagrams wherever possible. Donald Trump’s attention span would not extend to nuance, details, or even to a second page of information.”

As Ball concludes, “Trump has not got more attentive in the years since. So, ridiculous as they might have made him look, Rutte’s giant, golden, flattering bar charts were probably a good tactic in trying to win the president over to his side. What a way to run the world.”

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White House melts down at old Trump foe over Reflecting Pool jab

Former CNN reporter Jim Acosta has long been a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump. Now, the White House has renewed its attacks after the reporter dared to fact-check the claims about the Reflecting Pool.

Acosta appeared to trigger the White House on Wednesday with his live report from the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Like many journalists, researchers, Washington D.C. locals and tourists, Acosta went to the pool to see for himself if Trump's claim of vandalism was accurate.

There was no 250-350 foot gash sliced into the lining of the Reflecting Pool.

“Went looking for the 300-foot ‘slit’ or ‘slits’ in the reflecting pool Trump keeps lying about,” Acosta wrote on X. “Didn’t find any of that. But did find plenty of signs [that] the paint on the bottom of the pool has simply disintegrated.”

Trump has spent the week claiming that the pool had been vandalized, alleging that Democrats were to blame.

Speaking to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday, the president, embroiled in a war in Iran, wanted to focus instead on the "thugs," he said, who had hurt his pool.

“They just told me a little while ago,” Trump claimed. “Six have been arrested, and like six or seven are under investigation. They had pictures and everything else. They went to the bottom, and it’s not a paint job, it’s very expensive, it’s not rubber — but it’s like rubber — and they went down with probably a box cutter or a very sharp razor of some kind or knife, and they cut, and then they started ripping it up.”

“You know, one of the guys, he’s a member or a big player to ActBlue,” Trump added, referencing the Democratic Party fundraising platform. “He’s a big Hillary supporter, he’s a big supporter of Sleepy Joe Biden.”

Trump had previously said that the lining was Impenetrable.

It's not clear what Trump is talking about. The National Park Police have released a video of one woman sifting through the waters on the edge for a piece of the pool to take with her. Over the weekend, tourists were grabbing pieces as souvenirs, CNN reported.

Acosta, who had once been banned by the White House, walked over 4,000 steps around the perimeter of the pool searching for the massive gash and wasn't able to find it either.

“You can’t see a slit. There are no slits that he’s been talking about. It’s all a lie," he concludes.

That's when the White House snapped.

Using the official @RapidResponse47 account on X, the White House responded, “Jim, you are truly one of the dumbest individuals to have ever existed. Please seek professional help."

A White House spokesperson commented on the allegation: "It is shameful that elected Democrats would lie to the American public about the deranged vandalism that has taken place at the Reflecting Pool. President Trump generously spearheaded the restoration of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and it is now reflecting beautifully despite the vandals’ attempt to destroy it."

Trump has long attacked Acosta, who frequently asked him questions that so angered the president that he reacted defensively.

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Air Force colonel blasts 'MAGA cult' after Trump official’s 'vulgar' insult

On Wednesday, a statement by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy prompted a prominent retired military prosecutor to reveal his unvarnished thoughts about what he called the “vulgar” “MAGA cult.”

This criticism flared after Duffy spoke at the National Mall as part of the country’s 250th birthday celebrations, from which a slew of musical performers had quit over the hyper-partisan nature of the event. After the likes of Martina McBride, Flo Rida, the Commodores, and several other acts dropped out, a military brass band replaced them. Following the band’s performance, Duffy took to the stage accompanied by his family and declared the band was “way better than those libtards that cancelled on us.”

Duffy’s statement has drawn broad condemnation, including from retired Air Force colonel and Guantanamo Bay military prosecutor Moe Davis, who posted, “Secretary Duffy’s youngest daughter Valentina has Downs Syndrome, yet he’s perfectly comfortable standing there and throwing out ‘libtard,’ a MAGA word used to degrade people, at a public event on the National Mall because that’s how debased, immoral, and vulgar the MAGA cult is.”

Davis wasn’t the only one disturbed by the remark, as social media lit up with responses slamming Duffy’s words. As CNN senior political reporter Aaron Blake put it, “In one sentence, Duffy both complains about the musical acts who canceled and completely legitimizes their stated reason for doing so.”

Conservative commentators, however, felt differently. The far-right outlet the Blaze, for example, reposted a clip of Duffy’s statement along with a laughing emoji, while a slew of pro-President Donald Trump bot accounts reshared the footage with positive statements. For his part, Duffy posted another clip of his family onstage during the event, asserting, “FIND LOVE, GET MARRIED, HAVE KIDS.”

Many viewers were not swayed by his appeals to family. Duffy “just called democrats ‘libtards’ in front of his Down Syndrom daughter,” noted one. "’Christian’ Republicans are all Godless frauds.”

This isn’t the first time Duffy’s actions have prompted criticism. As Moe David noted, Duffy “spent a lot of his official time on the public payroll driving around the country filming a documentary that was funded by many of the corporations he’s supposed to regulate.”

This is in reference to a recent road trip documentary series the Transportation Secretary filmed with his wife. The couple first entered the public eye as reality television stars in the 1990s, appearing on separate shows before meeting during the filming of Road Rules: All Stars in 1998. When it was revealed earlier this year that the couple had been filming a series during Duffy’s tenure in office, allegations were raised of conflict of interest due to the fact that he was in charge of regulating the very companies funding the show.

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