white house press corps

Fiery guest blasts Sean Hannity to his face about GOP corruption

Mediaite reports Fox News entertainer and colossal Trump supporter Sean Hannity was “forced to sit back and listen as former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel trashed President Donald Trump and MAGA supporters for ‘ruining this country.’”

Hannity may have made a mistake when setting the vociferous Emanuel up as a guest on his Thursday episode of Hang Out with Sean Hannity.

The locking of antlers got underway after Emanuel described the Democratic Party as having a “pragmatic wing,” which is not aligned with the more left-wing Democratic Socialists of America — after Hannity maneuvered to frame the party as a mass enclave of extremists.

“You can see that in the governors of Virginia, you can see that in the governor of New Jersey, how they both won their primaries … and you can also see when you look at the primary process in Michigan and Wisconsin,” argued Emanuel. “Take the states. Fifty percent of the vote was not what you call the most dominant voice.”

Emanuel then popped back with: “I believe the biggest story of this election, and the biggest story of our party is that Mitt Romney, John McCain, Republicans, are leaving the Republican Party—”

At that point Hannity interrupted, citing examples like Joe Manchin and [John] Fetterman, who are examples of arguably un-Democratic party members.

But it was then that Hannity’s fiery guest unleashed a bigger issue plaguing Republicans in the midterms.

“Yeah, and look, both parties are going through it. I’m more than willing to talk about my extreme, but I notice that nobody wants to talk what’s become mainstream in the Republican Party: an acceptance of a level of corruption that is ruining this country, because corruption and capitalism, my dear friend, do not go together,” said Emanuel.

“I disagree with you. You know, both parties are guilty,” said Hannity, pulling out a quick dose of whataboutism. But Emanuel was not having it and blasted back: “Not to the level of this.”

Hannity tried to cut in, invoking the names of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, but Emanuel refused to entertain the both-sides tactic.

“When was the last time you saw anybody do a wedding with a Russian oligarch paying for it?” Emanuel demanded. “Usually, when you do a registration, it’s at William Sonoma, not at the Kremlin. No, no, I am not going to take … [President Donald Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard] Lutnick is negotiating with a company and his sons are doing the IPO for that company, and using public dollars.”

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'Straight-up bribery': Insider tears apart Trump 'plan' to loot Social Security

Editor's Note: After this article was published, AlterNet received the following email from the White House.

“The doomers and naysayers have consistently doubted President Trump: when he pledged to create the historic Trump Accounts, lowered prescription prices with Most Favored Nations, secured the border with no crossings, cleaned up our streets, ended taxes on tips, grew real wages, renegotiated broken trade deals, and reshored key manufacturing back to the United States," White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told AlterNet. "President Trump has consistently proven his doubters wrong, drawing a clear contrast with the Democrats’ record of historic inflation, unfettered illegal immigration, skyrocketing crime, and weakness on the world stage. With the continued support of the American people, President Trump will keep delivering real results.”

President Donald Trump and his closest advisers, including Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and the world's richest man Elon Musk, claim they want to fix waste in America's biggest and most important social safety net.

Their critics say they are simply coming up with excuses to loot Social Security.

America's $2.56 trillion worth of Social Security funds are a constant point of contention in current political debate. Liberals want to protect the program and accuse conservatives of using terms like "reform" and "modernize" as codes for cutting benefits and ultimately privatizing it into institutions they can access.

To address these issues Trump is sending $90 checks to senior citizens, although those checks hail from a mysterious provenance. He is also offering to pay every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of Congress during the midterm elections.

Democrats, by contrast, are trying to save the program. Democratic Senate candidates like Josh Turek of Iowa, James Talarico of Texas and Troy Jackson of Maine have argued that any serious financial issues facing Social Security can be addressed by simply forcing the rich to pay their fair share. Specifically, to keep the funds solvent past 2032, raise the current cap that says recipients are only taxed on earnings up to $184,500.

To learn more about the political dilemma facing Social Security, AlterNet spoke with President Joe Biden's Social Security Commissioner, Martin O'Malley.


This interview has been lightly edited for clarity, context and length.

ROZSA: I’m reading from NBC News. "A swath of Senate candidates across blue and red states are campaigning on raising Social Security taxes on higher incomes to prevent a benefit cut from taking effect in less than six years. Currently, Americans are taxed on earnings up to $184,500 to fund Social Security. These candidates, most of them Democrats, are calling for lifting that cap to boost revenues ahead of a fast-approaching 2032 deadline for insolvency." What are your thoughts on that?

O'MALLEY: Well, it’s the most straightforward way to strengthen Social Security for the far future, as well as increased benefits here and now. Right now, a person making a billion dollars pays nothing more into Social Security than a family making $184,000. So most Americans think that’s unfair, and that wealthier people should pay the same Social Security tax rate that all of the rest of us do, or rather the most wealthy people in America should pay the same Social Security tax rate that all of the rest of us do.

ROZSA: What do you expect the political backlash to this to be? Where do you think it will come from?

O'MALLEY: Ooh, I think if there’s any pushback from it, it’ll come from the 6% of Americans who make more than $250,000 or more than $400,000, depending on where Congress decides to scrap the cap. So people like Donald Trump have always hated Social Security. They feel like employers pay into it, but employers don’t get anything back from it like individual workers do. And that’s been true from the beginning of the program. But in terms of organized opposition, there aren’t many small businesses that are paying salaries in excess of $184,000. So I actually think as people come to understand the solution and what’s at stake as that cliff gets closer and closer, I think you’re going to find broad public support for requiring that the wealthiest of Americans pay the same Social Security tax rate that all of the rest of us do.

ROZSA: Trump is saying that he will pay every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain the midterms, which to me sounds like socialism, but then they say that Social Security is socialism. And so my argument is there seems to be an inconsistency, a, dare I say, expediency to what is or is not defined as socialism. Does that make sense?

O'MALLEY: Yeah, but look, I don’t think that’s socialism or capitalism, that’s bribery. That’s paying people to vote a certain way. If he stood outside a polling place in Baltimore and around the corner from it was offering to give people $5,000 to vote for him, they’d put handcuffs on him, if he were a citizen. So that’s not capitalism or socialism, that’s just straight-up bribery.

ROZSA: All right. So overall, what are your thoughts on what needs to be done to keep Social Security solvent?

O'MALLEY: Yeah, the solution is very straightforward. The reason Social Security’s Baby Boomer surplus is being depleted sooner than they thought way back in the ’80s is because of income inequality. It’s because of the fact that as it’s currently structured, the wealthiest people in America pay almost nothing into Social Security, and they need to pay the same Social Security tax rate on their earnings that all of the rest of us do. And whether you’re an Independent or Republican or a Democrat, every American wants to see Social Security strengthened except for people like Donald Trump or Elon Musk or Vivek Ramaswamy or these other multimillionaires and billionaires who are the folks who have resented the program ever since its beginning.

ROZSA: I’ve never understood that resentment. I don’t understand why the people who have so much money are so upset about people who have less money receiving a little bit of extra help.

O'MALLEY: Yeah. Well, if they don’t have money to spend, they’re not gonna— If we go back to the days when millions of seniors died in poverty, when orphan kids had to sell themselves on the streets, that’s not very good for anybody’s profits in America. So, yeah, it’s the age of gilded greed, and with a lot of shades of eugenicist philosophy.

The notion that some people are useless, as Elon Musk said, non-character players. That guy, he said that empathy is the greatest weakness in the Western mind. The rest of the world, though, thought that empathy is what allowed us to create this land of opportunity, the strongest democracy once upon a time in the world, and the strongest economy, and the post-World War II era, up until the present, as hard as they worked to undermine it and its currency. Yeah, so the reason Elon Musk doesn’t like Social Security is not because he was able to find any gross inefficiencies and waste or even single prosecution of an illegal immigrant receiving benefits. No, he dislikes the program because he thinks that some human beings are waste. People that are too disabled to work in his economy are waste, just elderly. They’re waste.

ROZSA: I’m now going to bring up a personal observation here. Elon Musk, like me, is autistic. Donald Trump, although he has never been diagnosed, shows signs of ADD, which means if he is ADD, he’s also on the neurodiversity spectrum. I find it galling that they view disabled people as wastes when they are themselves disabled, and if they hadn’t been born rich, could also have been viewed as wastes. What are your thoughts on that observation?

O'MALLEY: Yeah. The biggest waste of money in America is the buckets and buckets of tax breaks that we continue to shower on the wealthiest of individuals and corporations. That’s the biggest waste in America.

ROZSA: I agree. So again, is there anything else you’d like to say before I close the interview?

O'MALLEY: Given how many Americans have earned their Social Security benefits and how much support there is for the program, it’s surprising to me, not that some candidates are saying that wealthier people should pay the same tax rate as the rest of us, but what’s surprising to me is knowing that people like Ken Paxton and Vivek Ramaswamy and Ashley Hinson are still talking about cutting it or privatizing it. That’s what surprises me. It’s not that people would want the fairness of the same tax rate for wealthier people, for the wealthiest people, but that some of these politicians, Republicans, are still talking about privatizing and cutting it. I don’t get that.

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Fox host backpedals after highlighting Trump's ongoing problems

On Thursday, a Fox Business host outright apologized after admitting that the inflation dogging President Donald Trump’s second administration is here to stay. According to longtime Fox financial analyst Cheryl Casone, not only is inflation not “transitory,” as Trump’s allies have argued, but another rate hike is coming and it’s just a matter of when.

“Investors have been handling high gas prices and whatever inflation there is in the economy, and they've actually been handling the higher rates as well,” claimed Fox Big Money host Jackie DeAngelis. “They're not happy about it, but they've been dealing with it.” Indeed, polling shows that Americans are not happy about it, with 25 percent approving of Trump’s overall handling of the economy, 17 percent approving on cost-of-living, and 65 percent saying his policies – specifically tariffs and the war with Iran – have directly contributed to rising costs.

“Do you really believe that they're going to they're going to do another hike before the midterms?” wondered Casone, noting that the Fed seemed to be signaling another hike was on the way and guessing it would come in December. “Inflation is not going away. It’s not transitory,” she admitted suddenly. “I can't believe I just said that. Sorry, everybody.”

Despite Trump’s promise to bring prices down “on day one,” inflation has remained persistent over the course of his second term, with core inflation standing at roughly 3.4 percent, well above the Fed’s 2 percent target. The key factors driving that inflation have been tariffs and the fuel cost hikes caused by Trump’s war with Iran. According to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York published earlier this week, for example, “levies put in place last year by the Trump administration drove up consumer goods inflation by an estimated 2.9 percentage points as of February.” As the Washington Post explains, “That disrupted a slight downward trajectory in inflation; without tariffs, ‘goods prices would have fallen slightly,’ the researchers found. The study estimates that ‘about a quarter of a tariff increase is passed through to consumer goods prices.’ Tariffs added to price increases for both imported and domestic goods, it found.”

On Fox, the panel went on to discuss rising mortgage rates, ultimately concluding that Americans would just get used to it. As one panelist put it, “Remember back in the 80s, there were higher rates. You just have to renormalize that to the Gen Z right now. Seven, eight percent mortgages sound ridiculous, but as we get further down the road and we're just used to that, it becomes the normal.” Polling consistently shows that housing affordability is among Americans’ top concerns.

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Trump's use of profanity suggests he is literally losing his mind: expert

President Donald Trump uses a lot of profanity, and more so recently than he has in the past. Experts are debating whether this is a sign of cognitive decline or simply his naturally vulgar personality — and when AlterNet spoke exclusively with two mental health professionals, their opinions deviated considerably from that presented by a politically centrist linguist who writes for The New York Times.

"Some have argued that the uptick in Trump’s lexical filth is a symptom of cognitive decline, a disinhibition suggestive of dementia," wrote The New York Times' John McWhorter on Thursday. "I doubt it. The increase in his use of profanity is what you would expect, given how language works."

McWhorter disagreed with this analysis, and to explain why he broke down the three types of profanity.

"Stage 1 is blasphemous words," McWhorter wrote, noting that Trump frequently uses them, while "Stage 2 is sexual or graphic words about the body, and Trump revels in those" and "Stage 3 is racial and other slurs against groups," which Trump employs sparingly.

McWhorter added, "Today, it is such words that qualify as truly profane. We often think of slurs as distinct from swear words, but it’s an indication that they are, in fact, today’s profanity that even someone as heedless of etiquette, decorum, restraint and reflection as Trump has tended to avoid them."

He continued, "Because the Stage 1 and Stage 2 words are now more naughty than profane, Trump uses them to thumb his nose at propriety. In this, he is like an 11-year-old, snapping towels at people in the locker room — and snapping them ever more to get a rise out of the people looking on."

McWhorter concluded, "Yet he does not typically risk Stage 3 profanity. Amid his staggering megalomania and chronic logorrhea, Trump, if only for pragmatic purposes, maintains a twinkle of — of all things — decorum."

Two mental health experts disagreed with McWhorter's analysis.

Dr. David Reiss, a psychiatrist who contributed to the book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President," said that McWhorter is "trying to read Trump’s mind, if there’s any mind there to read."

"It’s possible that it’s intentional," Reiss said. "I mean, he’s that stupid to be doing it. I mean, it’s really not a good strategy, in my opinion. But I can’t say it’s not, because I can’t read his mind. But it also very well could be either cognitive decline or just disinhibition due to stress, due to medications, due to other medical issues. It could be any or all of those. And to say that anyone knows for sure other than his neurons, not without neuropsych testing. So could he be correct? Yeah, I can’t say he’s not correct. Do I think if he’s likely correct? I give it a 20 percent chance off the top of my head. But no one knows for sure."

When AlterNet asked Reiss why he gave McWhorter such low odds of being correct, Reiss argued that "I think Trump probably is getting more desperate and more disinhibited. And whether that includes loss of cognitive functioning for reasons could well be, but I can’t say definitely yes or no without looking at legitimate neuropsych testing, not just a screening that they give him. A full battery of neuropsych testing, MRI. You couldn’t say for sure. If I was betting on—which I wouldn’t, because you know who owns it—I would bet that there’s some cognitive decline mixed in with desperation. But I wouldn’t bet a lot on it. It might not be, because only his neurons know for sure."

Psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham, formerly of Tufts University and one of a group of 36 health professionals wrote an open letter to Congress warning that President Donald Trump in May, described McWhorter's article as "excellent" — but then, like Reiss, disagreed with the linguist's take.

"I could not disagree with him more strongly, for the following reasons," Abraham said. "In fact, there will be a test, and I’ll put the test at the end of this discussion. There’s evidence that, as time goes on, Trump is becoming increasingly less inhibited. And that is a function of the prefrontal cortex, the front of the brain, which governs conscience, judgment, insight, that sort of stuff. And the consequences of what you say. And so, sure, he is trying to up the ante of shock value, but I think he’s doing it in a way that is really unpremeditated, impulsive, and disinhibited."

He added, "This is what makes him so dangerous with respect to weapons of mass destruction, because he is increasingly disinhibited. Now, the test for my hypothesis of increasing disinhibition, of course, would be a very nice MRI of the brain, but we’re not gonna get that so easily. Also, it would be good if he had neuropsychological testing. That would be a very strong set of clues about prefrontal function. We’re not gonna get that either. And so what we need to do is to wait for him to say the N-word, because it’s clear through his history that he’s a racist. But he has so far refrained from using the N-word in public. When he gets to that point, that I think will be further confirmatory evidence that he has a progressive form of disinhibition, which of course makes him even more dangerous as a president."

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The real Epstein files secret isn’t what you think it is

The AP ran a headline that said it all. "Can $1 billion buy victory in the midterm elections? Some Republicans fear the answer is no," read the topline item from yesterday's "Morning Wire." However, that was apparently too on the nose for some GOP readers. Later, the AP changed the headline to read: "Can $1 billion power Republicans to victory in the midterms?"

It doesn't matter, though. The fact that Republicans are spending $1 billion on congressional elections is a grotesque revelation. It tells us who the Republicans are, what they value and what they expect from democratic politics. That's more money than you, me and everyone we know will see in our lifetimes. Whether the AP asks if it can "power Republicans to victory" or "buy victory" for the GOP seems like a distinction without a difference.

The Republicans are spending obscene sums for two reasons. One is they took for granted congressional seats in red states and red districts. Some are suddenly in deep trouble. No one foresaw the president campaigning in Nebraska this week, but farmers there have been hit by a costly double-whammy – Donald Trump's tariffs and Donald Trump's war. They're so mad an independent candidate is dead even with incumbent GOP Senator Peter Ricketts.

The second reason is related to the first. Because they took those seats for granted, they got a late start buying media time. They are paying more now to run ads than they would have months ago. The AP said MAGA Inc, the president's PAC, "has been charged roughly $894 per airing, according to AdImpact, while Texas PAC has been charged roughly $809 for a mix of broadcast and streaming." For the same mix, Democrat James Talarico paid about $290.

But there's more here than Republicans making up for lost ground. One billion dollars is a reflection of who they are. They believe authority is their birthright. As a consequence, they believe there's nothing morally wrong with "buying victory." The Republicans are anti-political. They resent competing democratically. They would rather pick their voters, for instance through gerrymandering, than humiliate themselves with the chore of earning votes. As Mark Jacob said, with a precision rare in our discourse: "The clear message of Republicans is that this country is owned by white people and everyone else is renting."

Some white people are renting too. They just don't know it or, if they do, they are choosing to side with the Republicans in the hopes of getting more than people they believe are their inferiors. That cynicism might pay off in good times, with a Democrat overseeing the economy. But with a Republican in charge, it backfires. Nebraska farmers voted Trump, but don't like the consequences. They believe they own America, too. Now their rent is going up.

The pain has been exquisite. Well-meaning advisors tell the Democrats to capitalize on it. The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell said they have "a generational opportunity to reestablish a relationship with rural voters betrayed by Trump." Longwell said the formula is simple.

"Focus on solutions to cost of living issues, including healthcare," she said. "Commit to a secure border without inhumane deportations. Deprioritize divisive social issues. No new wars. A more careful approach on AI policy and data centers. Care about working people."

Other than AI and data centers, these have been part of the Democratic platform since at least the Obama administration. The problem isn't Democrats failing to send the message. It's rural voters failing to hear it. The reality is they want what the Democrats are offering, but not from the Democrats. They want it from the Republicans. They never get it, of course.

That's why they get so mad.

There may be "a generational opportunity," but I don't know if it can be realized through enticements. A better way might be through "tough love." Let GOP voters feel the consequences of empowering men who take them for granted, who try to "buy victory" rather than earn it, and who act like democratic politics is a chore that's beneath them.

Perhaps the best way to help Trump voters is by allowing the painful experience of the GOP brand to play out. Self-interest drove them to Trump. Let it drive them to the Democrats. We're all in this together. United, we stand. Divided, we fall. But values are not enough for some people. They won't choose democracy unless it's a means of survival. Millions of Republicans didn't choose Franklin Roosevelt because he was charming. They chose him, in the depths of the Great Depression, because they understood they were hurting themselves.

Ask Me Anything: October 8, 2026

I asked you to ask me anything. Here are some questions I got. If you want to ask me something for next week's Ask Me Anything, leave a comment below or send a reply.

E Wade asks:

Where are we now on getting the remainder of the Epstein files released?

My answer:

Where we are is paralysis. As long as Donald Trump, or a Republican successor, is in the White House, the entirety of the Epstein files will never be seen. That said, there might not actually be much to them, at least not in ways most seem to believe. Lindsay Beyerstein explained in March the real Epstein story is probably about financial crimes. Epstein probably did the sex crimes, Lindsay reported. Maybe a few others did, too. But, she said, the pedophile ring is almost certainly not as broad and global as alleged. What is probably broad and global, however, is financial crimes, perhaps including espionage. As they say, follow the money. Ron Wyden's office has been. "My investigators have confirmed the Trump administration is hiding interview documents it conducted with some of Epstein’s banks, and there could be more," the Oregon senator told MeidasTouch last week. "There’s no limit to how far Scott Bessent, Kash Patel and Todd Blanche will go to continue this cover up."

Carl Gibson asks:

It almost seems like Trump has been deliberately sabotaging the midterms. If there was a how-to guide for how to screw up your party’s chances of staying in office, he’d be following every step. Do you think he’s deliberately trying to throw the midterms? Kicking 760,000 people off of their health coverage weeks before an election really serves no purpose other than to make life harder for people, including a lot of his own voters.

My answer:

I asked myself the same question in May. Here's what I said: "After all this time, we still interpret the president through a partisan lens that attempts to explain his behavior. Everyone assumes he wants his party to keep the House, at the very least to avoid impeachment. It's because of this assumption that Republicans are growing frustrated. 'The president was elected to juice the economy, to bring down inflation, to stop illegal immigration and to get away from woke culture,' a GOP pollster told the Times. 'If his highest goal were to maintain control of Congress, he would not be doing what he is doing.' We should consider the alternative: that control of Congress is not his highest goal."

What is his highest goal? Donald Trump, obviously.

How that will manifest after the midterms is hard to say. What's certain is he won't accept the outcome, even when he blames the Republicans. He already laid the groundwork for alleging fraud. On Sunday, he wrote on his social media site: “In Detroit, Philadelphia, California, and numerous other US Cities and States, the results, with much smaller numbers, will often take weeks to Rig, I mean, calculate. Voting in America is CORRUPT!!!” For allegations of fraud to work, however, Americans have to trust him. In an interview with the Connecticut Mirror, Jim Himes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said there's the rub. Trump "no longer has any meaningful public sentiment on his side." Himes added: "That was not true on January 6, 2021. A president who is despised by two-thirds of the American population is a much less scary force than one who has the support of 60 percent of the population. So public sentiment really matters, and it is not on his side.”

lindsrn.bsky.social asks:

How do you balance caring for your mental/physical/emotional health while swinging between anger at all the chaos around you and how so many applaude it, feeling sadness over all of the death and destruction, and trying to manufacture some type of genuine hope to keep trying to lead positive change?

My answer:

Hope is found in two things: a) evil people die and b) good people always do good things, leaving their works behind. Progress is usually two steps forward, one step back, but there is no stopping democratic politics. It is the force of change in the world. That said, I stopped believing in the inherent goodness of the American people. Voters will trade democracy for money and status. But there is no good if there is no struggle, and sometimes, the struggle is just to wait. As Charlie Chaplin once said: "So long as men die, liberty will never perish."

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Trump tailor spills the tea on president's 'cheap' suit

An online frenzy erupted after President Donald Trump unbuttoned his suit jacket during a high-profile campaign rally in Nebraska, accidentally revealing the interior label of the budget-friendly corporate retailer Jos. A. Bank. The unexpected wardrobe choice marked a stark, unprecedented departure for a billionaire president who has historically been associated with ultra-premium, custom menswear throughout his entire career in business and politics.

Trump’s preference for hyper-exclusive fashion brands is well-documented across decades of public life. In his popular 2004 book Trump: How to Get Rich, he explicitly declared a "tremendous loyalty" to the historic Italian luxury fashion house Brioni, which famously supplied his entire high-end wardrobe for his long-running television show The Apprentice. Prior to his landmark 2016 presidential election victory, official campaign spokespeople also confirmed his ongoing fondness for custom garments hand-tailored by the legendary, Brooklyn-based outfit Martin Greenfield Clothiers.

The financial and qualitative contrast between these traditional legacy brands and his new off-the-rack outfit choice is incredibly stark:

  • Brioni: Bespoke custom suits from the Italian designer frequently retail for upwards of $8,000 per ensemble.
  • Martin Greenfield Clothiers: Custom-tailored American ensembles typically cost clients around $1,500.
  • Jos. A. Bank: Ready-to-wear, mass-market catalog options routinely sell to consumers for under $300.

Joseph Genuardi—the highly respected former head tailor at Martin Greenfield who personally fitted Trump, former President Barack Obama, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg—shared his immense surprise regarding this sudden wardrobe shift. Genuardi, who currently operates his own independent business called Genuardi Master Tailor, speculated that the sudden pivot might point to a last-minute travel or wardrobe malfunction on the campaign trail.

"My first instinct is that maybe there was a problem with the original suit that he was going to wear," Genuardi explained in an interview with The Washington Sun. He noted that because Jos. A. Bank operates nearly 200 physical storefronts nationwide, it serves as an incredibly accessible option "if you need it in a pinch." Genuardi also humorously compared the resulting internet memes and intense online backlash to the infamous 2014 media uproar over Barack Obama's tan suit—an outfit Genuardi ironically helped fit during his own tenure at Martin Greenfield.

The fashion choice has drawn intense scrutiny stretching far beyond simple aesthetics, with political critics quickly pointing out the glaring irony regarding Trump's fierce "America First" economic platform and his frequent, aggressive implementation of sweeping global tariffs.

Prominent menswear commentator Derek Guy pointed out on X (formerly Twitter) that the visible tag clearly indicated the suit came from Jos. A. Bank's lower-end, imported product line rather than their premium Joseph Abboud imprint, which is proudly manufactured inside the United States. "I wonder why Trump chose the cheap import over the US-made suit," Guy noted to his followers.

Official corporate filings strongly reinforce this manufacturing divide. According to a July 2026 registration statement formally filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jos. A. Bank's parent company, Tailored Brands, openly disclosed that approximately 60% of its direct product sourcing spend for the 2025 fiscal year went to factories located overseas in Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and China. The company explicitly highlighted rising geopolitical tensions, shifting trade policies, and unpredictable international tariffs as material risk factors that could adversely impact its extensive overseas supply chain.

While it remains entirely unclear if the budget suit was a highly calculated populist statement designed to appeal to blue-collar voters ahead of the upcoming midterm elections or simply a genuine wardrobe emergency, Genuardi remains highly skeptical that the president's luxury taste has permanently changed. "President Trump is a man of means," Genuardi concluded, noting that while budget suits are perfectly acceptable for average consumers, they simply lack the premium canvas and high-quality internal components the president typically demands.

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MAGA calls for eliminating FBI over bombshell Susie Wiles claim

President Joe Biden is alleged to have overseen spying of Susie Wiles, a former lobbyist who now serves as President Donald Trump's chief of staff. On Thursday Republicans officially blasted the Democrats for the scandal — with one senator suggesting it might be time to get rid of the FBI.

"Newly released documents reveal the extent of the FBI’s monitoring of President Donald Trump’s now-chief of staff Susie Wiles, showing investigators tracked phone metadata reflecting her contacts with attorneys, journalists, campaign officials, Trump Organization personnel and Secret Service contacts," wrote Fox News' Ashley J. DiMella on Thursday.

"Documents released Monday by the White House detail 'Plasmic Echo,' the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and other presidential records that led to the FBI’s 2022 search of Mar-a Lago and later included possible obstruction of the investigation," she added. "The records show the FBI tracked Wiles’ phone activity from at least February through May 2023, cataloging who called her, whom she called, when the calls occurred and how long they lasted."

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) suggested that this news story about Biden's FBI spying on Wiles justifies potentially eliminating the bureau entirely.

"Not sure how the FBI survives this," Lee wrote. "Or whether it should. Maybe it’s time to start over."

"Unbelievable," Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) posted on X. "This makes Watergate look like child’s play. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I’ll be requesting that the Chairman hold a hearing on this immediately."

The House Majority Whip, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), wrote "cc: The Fake News Why aren’t you talking about this? Biden’s FBI spent months secretly tracking Susie Wiles’ phone, logging calls with lawyers, journalists, campaign aides, and even Secret Service. The Democrats are CROOKS!"

Elected GOP officials were not alone in dogpiling on Democrats. Jared Wise, a former Jan. 6th defendant and Justice Department employee, argued on X that "the abuse of J6 defendants is at least 1000x whatever happened here, but not a single person in the DC uni-party establishment has the courage to look."

He added, "History will show the J6 persecutions to be among the greatest civil rights violations in US history, and the people currently running DC to be among the most cowardly."

Some offered a contrasting take, arguing that the outrage was overblown.

Journalist John Harwood posted on X, "fake outrage intended to fool those who don't know any better."

Wiles has long been regarded as one of the more level-headed members of Trump's staff, staying on board to manage his Oval Office even after receiving a cancer diagnosis.

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Fox News claims Biden FBI heavily monitored Trump official Susie Wiles

On Thursday, a new report by Fox News claimed that the FBI closely monitored the communications of now-White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles during its investigations into President Donald Trump's mishandling of classified documents. According to Fox, the investigation resulted in a "sprawling" catalog of her contacts with attorneys, journalists, campaign officials, Trump Organization personnel, and Secret Service.

"Documents released Monday by the White House detail 'Plasmic Echo,' the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and other presidential records that led to the FBI’s 2022 search of Mar-a Lago and later included possible obstruction of the investigation," writes Fox. "The records show the FBI tracked Wiles’ phone activity from at least February through May 2023, cataloging who called her, whom she called, when the calls occurred and how long they lasted. The documents show Wiles was in contact with at least 21 attorneys, along with campaign personnel, Trump Organization contacts, Secret Service contacts and journalists, offering a fuller account of the reach of the bureau’s monitoring."

Reuters first reported in February that FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau had subpoenaed phone records belonging to him and Wiles while they were private citizens as part of federal investigations involving Trump. Fox claims that the newly released documents indicate that the investigation was more "sprawling" than previously known, "revealing how investigators mapped Wiles’ phone contacts across Trump’s legal, political, business, media and security circles over several months." Wiles' contact entries spanned journalists linked to CNN, the Washington Post, and Politico, while dozens of others are identified by labels such as "Lawyer," "Campaign," and "USSS." According to Fox, "The records do not reveal what investigators were seeking to establish through those contacts, what was discussed or provide reliable durations for the calls."

Fox reports that the probe was launched by the FBI and Justice Department in March 2022, with then-FBI Director Christopher Wray seeking authorization and Attorney General Merrick Garland approving the investigation. This was later placed under special counsel Jack Smith, whom Garland appointed in November 2022 to oversee the ongoing investigation. At the time, Wiles was running Trump’s political operation and serving as a top campaign adviser.

Commenting on the report, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis raged to Fox News, "Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power. Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple. Those responsible must be held accountable." These allegations come as Trump's allies have attempted to relitigate their attacks against Smith, most notably during a recent Senate hearing, during which Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) saw his accusations against the former special counsel blow up in humiliating fashion.


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Trump team lays groundwork as insidious blame game plan revealed

On Thursday, a new report revealed that President Donald Trump may be preparing a “blame Canada” approach to coping with Republican midterm losses. According to the Canadian outlet the National Post, Trump is expected to “lash out,” and there are already signs that he is teeing up the United States’ northern neighbor as his target.

“Last week, Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro told Canadian lobbyists to ‘get the hell out of our country’ and warned that ‘if you interfere in our elections in Maine and Michigan, you will pay even more dearly,’” writes the Post. “Navarro’s approach? Blame Canada! We heard a similar accusation last year from Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, who equated Canada’s anti-tariff advertising in the U.S. to electoral meddling and warned of consequences.” With actions like this in mind, wonders the Post, “could Canada become a scapegoat for Republican losses?”

“It’s certainly the case that the administration will probably latch onto any sort of external cause to blame bad election results,” said Alfredo Carrillo Obregon, a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington. He explained that while he doesn’t think it would be Trump’s “primary explanation... it’s not off the table that someone like Peter Navarro could go onto whatever news outlet he gets interviewed at these days and say that Canada is at fault.”

According to Christopher Sands, director of the Center for Canadian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Trump and his allies may try to cast hostility toward Canada through a partisan lens. “If Democrats do well but are nonetheless seen as the enemy, and Canada is associated with just one party,” he said, “then it becomes harder to have conversations with Republicans who you’ll need unless the Republicans are completely wiped out. That may be part of what the Trump administration’s hoping — to push Canada into a partisan alliance that it can then condemn Mark Carney with all the Democrats that they don’t like.”

Richard Stern, vice president of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom, told the Post that Trump and the Republicans have been incentivized to shift blame onto Canada for their own policy failures. The U.S. administration has been frantic to paint the tariffs as a foreign policy tool that foreigners pay for when they are really “an offensive, aggressive tax that’s been levied on the American people,” he said, noting that politicians running for reelection “don’t want to tell voters, ‘I’ve done something terrible to you.’ They want to point the finger overseas and at other people.”

But according to Christopher Hernandez-Roy, acting director and senior fellow at the Americas Program of CSIS in Washington, efforts to blame Canada are unlikely to land with the broader American public. “I think President Trump lashing out in the face of a loss is … almost a certainty,” he said. “They can … try to blame Canada, but … I don’t see how that’s really gonna get much traction.” Stephen Nagy, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, predicts that whatever he targets, “I suspect Trump will do what he always does based on Roy Cohn’s rules of winning, taught to a young Donald Trump: center on relentless aggression, total denial and never admitting defeat.”

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'Monumentally dumb': MAGA Republican scheme blows up in Trump country

The effort by President Donald Trump to redraw the congressional districts of Missouri in order to benefit the Republican Party has been blocked in court, causing confusion among voters and leading some Republican candidates to find themselves facing a more difficult battle ahead of the November midterm elections.

The redistricting controversy has angered voters all over Missouri, including those in strongly Republican areas, while the Democrats claim that their campaigns have been given a boost by the failed attempt.

Fred Wellman, the Democratic candidate running against Republican Representative Ann Wagner in Missouri's second congressional district, described the initiative as "monumentally dumb" and stated that fundraising and volunteer involvement increased following the courts' rejection of the map, according to The Guardian.

The Republicans had wanted to convert Missouri's six-to-two lead in its U.S. House delegation into a seven-to-one ratio. Acting on Trump's advice, members of the GOP approved new boundaries in September 2025 that would have diminished the district based in Kansas City and currently represented by the Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver.

However, an organized petition campaign cast the plans into question. The group called People Not Politicians gathered over 300,000 signatures requesting a referendum on the map, which then led to legal action regarding whether the districts could come into effect without prior voter approval.

The Republican Missouri Secretary of State, Denny Hoskins, at first refused to certify the referendum on the grounds that the state's petition procedure did not cover redistricting; however, in September the Missouri Supreme Court disagreed and instructed the state to use its earlier congressional boundaries.

On September 25, the U.S. Supreme Court kept the result as it was, preventing a further effort to reinstate the map which had been supported by the Republicans for the November election. The redrawn districts had already been employed in the August primaries, which caused uncertainty as to which candidates voters would encounter in November.

As absentee voting got underway, more than a million voters were affected according to The Associated Press because the authorities and the courts had given conflicting instructions as to which version of the map should apply to the November election.

Eric Leventhal, who is a voter in the St. Louis area and backed Wellman in the primary, said to The Guardian that he didn't any longer know which congressional district he resided in and described the whole thing as "dizzying and embarrassing, frankly."

At the same time, Cleaver stated that he had come across Republican voters who were willing to back him following the redistricting controversy. He described the original action as "pure, undistilled cheating."

Wellman stated that the legal reversal had made the district more competitive in relation to Wagner and had brought attention to his campaign outside of Missouri; however, the result of the election has still not been decided.

Missouri voters will also be voting on Proposition A in November, with a rejection of the legislature's 2025 map resulting from a 'no' vote and approval of the map for future use coming about with a 'yes' vote.

Even though they have suffered setbacks in the courts, Republican officials have indicated that further redistricting attempts are still possible following the midterms.

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DOJ seeks grand jury indictment of ex-Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson

Punchbowl News reports that former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson is next on President Donald Trump's revenge list.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division presented evidence to a federal grand jury this week alleging that she "lied to Congress," sources told the outlet.

Hutchinson spent several days testifying to the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 after the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump has long maintained that what she said was a lie, so a key piece of the case will be whether the DOJ can prove something she said was false, particularly in the Washington D.C., federal court, which has not been a successful place for District Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

Among her more jarring allegations were that a Secret Service agent told her that the president lunged at him as he drove back to the White House following the speech on the Ellipse. According to Hutchinson, Trump wanted to go to the Capitol to see his supporters as they marched. He'd promised them moments before that he would be with them, but the Secret Service hadn't planned for that.

She also alleged that Trump didn't care about the magnetometer catching his supporters carrying guns, making it clear that he knew they weren't there to hurt him.

So far, Trump has used his Justice Department to target former FBI director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, prosecutors who investigated him, law firms connected to opponents and news organizations whose coverage he dislikes.

Reuters even documented at least 470 targets of administration retribution by November 2025, including 112 revoked security clearances.

But even failed indictments didn't stop Trump. After Comey posted an image on Instagram showing seashells spelling out "86-47," he was targeted by the FBI and DOJ, claiming he was making a credible threat against the life of the president with the post.

The campaign has also extended beyond criminal investigations and firings of government staff. Trump ordered restrictions on law firms’ security clearances, federal contracts and even access to government buildings, including the federal courts.

Trump swears he's not pursuing any revenge. As recently as Wednesday, Trump alleged that he could have "gone after" Hillary Clinton, and former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama — but hasn't.

Critics argue the pattern turns government power into a tool for personal punishment. He's forcing the targets to spend buckets in legal costs and face professional consequences, even if prosecutions fail or the courts block his executive actions.

For Hutchinson, the question now is whether the Justice Department can prove a crime, or whether the process itself becomes the punishment for testifying against Trump.

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