'Did the rapture happen?' Mockery ensues as Fox News broadcasts from empty Trump event
Far Left
The internet had a hilarious response to the low attendance at President Donald Trump's Great American State Fair on Monday.Reporters broadcast live from the sparsely-attended fair commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, marked by bad weather that canceled rapper Vanilla Ice's performance, power outages melting ice cream, a Confederate flag display that ignited a firestorm and lackluster reviews from attendees. Journalist Aaron Rupar commented on a Fox News reporter's live report from the celebration."Did the rapture happen overnight? Fox & Friends is broadcasting from a completely empty Trump state fair on the National Mall," Rupar wrote on X.Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) described a similar scene."I went to the Great American State Fair this weekend…and it really was as empty as reported. **And where did the rest of our taxpayer dollars go?" Stansbury wrote on X.Another D.C.-based reporter questioned the turnout, sharing an aerial video view from the Freedom 250 Ferris wheel."The Great American State Fair on Saturday at 2:15pm. What do you make of the crowd?" Jon Michael Raasch, The Daily Mail's White House correspondent, posted on X.Strategist Christopher Webb responded to reporting from MS NOW at the location."The Great American State Fair was really just the remaining MAGA faithful refusing to admit it’s over," Webb wrote on X.Lawyer David Lurie joked about the situation."Confused attendees thought they were supposed to invade the Capitol," Lurie wrote on Bluesky.Did the rapture happen overnight? Fox & Friends is broadcasting from a completely empty Trump state fair on the National Mall pic.twitter.com/fIdDJZG4FA— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 29, 2026
The opening weekend of the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., was, to put it simply, miserable. It was extremely muggy, with rain pouring down seemingly every hour. A child rolled around in the grass, crying and screaming, "I. WANT. TO. GO. HOME!!!" Creed's "Higher" blared over the loudspeakers, and a sparse crowd milled about the various exhibitions. The bare bones setup-flimsy, fake two-dimensional columns that looked like something Wile E. Coyote would run into while chasing The Road Runner-left much to be desired, as America's 250th anniversary was celebrated with kitsch and...
Andy Burnham, the United Kingdom's likely prime minister-in-waiting, turned down an invite from President Donald Trump for the upcoming 250th anniversary of American independence, Politico reported on Monday.A spokesperson for Burnham told Politico that he won't attend the U.S. embassy's "Great American Jubilee" at U.S. Ambassador Warren Stephens’ official residence in Regent’s Park on Tuesday due to a "scheduling clash." The swanky celebration is expected to draw dignitaries, military brass and business leaders, and will feature a performance from country music superstar Tim McGraw."Invitations have been sent to every major party leader," according to Politico. "Previous attendees include former Prime Minister Liz Truss, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and outgoing U.K. PM Keir Starmer, who attended in 2023 before he entered office."Last week, Trump sneered at Burnham, calling him a former "mayor of a town" and "extremely liberal."Burnham was expected to be approved as the U.K.'s next prime minister on July 20, Politico reported.Burnham wasn't the only person to turn down Trump. Pop star Katy Perry declined to perform at America250 celebrations in Brussels over the weekend.
Pop star Katy Perry turned down an invite to perform at President Donald Trump's America250 celebrations in Brussels — and his MAGA ally had a public meltdown over the snub, The Daily Beast reported on Monday.Ambassador Bill White lashed out at Perry after she declined to appear at the MAGA event at Cinquantenaire Park in Belgium, which featured performances from Zac Brown Band and Alexis Wilkins — FBI Director Kash Patel's girlfriend — at the invite-only celebration. The singer was already scheduled to headline Belgium’s Werchter Boutique festival that weekend, which ended up getting canceled due to bad weather."So we were gonna have Katy Perry. Who cares?" White told the crowd. "Karma is a b----. You know the joke? She was gonna perform last night. She got rained out."White said in February that he knew Perry had a contract for the festival that same weekend in Belgium. Despite that, he said organizers would still try to get her to perform."Her contractual obligations prohibit her from talking about other events in Belgium until that concert is sold out," White told The Bulletin, a Belgian news outlet. "So maybe she will come the next evening, maybe not."
A Republican senator stepped up to correct President Donald Trump after he became confused over the bill that he has said is the "No. 1 priority."Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) posted the correction on X on Monday after Trump called him out directly as one of five Republican senators blocking the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, Trump's top election-overhaul bill."all Dumocrats, and our five Republican Senate Hold Outs, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, and Mitch McConnell must vote to SAVE OUR COUNTRY," Trump posted on Truth Social after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him on mail-in ballots."Mr. President, I don't know which version of the SAVE America Act you're referring to, but I am a cosponsor and support the latest version," Cassidy fired back on X."I don't know which staffer misled you, but thank you for your attention to this matter!!""Btw, it's irresponsible to postpone signing the Housing bill due to the SAVE Act," Cassidy added. "We need to start delivering relief to people for the high cost of housing ASAP!!"Trump had told House Republicans in March that passing the SAVE America Act was the "No. 1 priority" for Congress and vowed he would "not sign anything" until it passed — including a bipartisan housing bill already on his desk.That housing bill remains unsigned.
President Donald Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative, or MAHA, has been featured prominently at the Great American State Fair, but on Monday, Fox News raised a few eyebrows with its coverage of the MAHA celebrations juxtaposed with footage of attendees attempting to eat as many pancakes as possible as quickly as they could.“This morning, four younger Americans put their stomachs to the test with a pancake eating contest – that’s tough on any day, let alone in this kind of heat,” a Fox News host said, speaking over footage of the contest’s participants, along with the banner headline: “Great American State Fair Celebrates MAHA Movement.”“The guy who won appeared really worried he wasn’t going to be able to keep the pancakes down, but in the end, he made it.”The irony of Fox News promoting Trump’s health initiative over footage of fair attendees gorging themselves on batter bread wasn’t lost on onlookers.“Fox: GREAT AMERICAN STATE FAIR CELEBRATES MAHA MOVEMENT. Fox footage: *people gagging on pancakes and nearly puking*,” wrote independent journalist Aaron Rupar Monday in a social media post on X to his more than 1.1 million followers.Matt Rein, an attorney and pro-Democratic Party influencer, poked fun at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with a reference to his past eating habits, which include stuffing a bear’s corpse into a car to skin and eat later.“RFK Jr.'s all-you-can-eat sauerkraut contest is up next!” Rein quipped in a social media post on X.And House Majority PAC, a Democratic super political action committee, called Fox News’ coverage of the pancake eating contest the fair’s “best highlight so far.”
President Trump railed against Monday's Supreme Court ruling that allows states to keep counting ballots after Election Day and urged Congress to pass his voter ID legislation that would severely restrict mail-in ballots.
President Donald Trump suffered a major setback in his efforts to federalize voting in the upcoming midterm elections, according to a right-leaning legal scholar.“I think this is a significant loss for Republicans who have wanted to try to rein in the way that we do our elections,” Jonathan Turley told Fox News’ Dana Perino on Monday. The George Washington University Law School professor was discussing the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling permitting states to count mail-in ballots after Election Day, even though Trump — who believes mail-in ballots are predominantly used by Democratic voters — tried to ban counting any of them after Election. “California, of course, is the nightmare where you can go for weeks without a decision.”He added, regarding right-wing Justice Samuel Alito’s lashing out at the decision, “And just as Alito really lashes out and says this undermines the integrity of the process, the faith in the process of voters — and that is a sentiment that is shared by many — what the court is saying is that you can’t use this federal law to achieve that purpose, that there is room at the elbows here for states like Mississippi to count ballots that had been postmarked before Election Day.”The Supreme Court’s decision breaks a recent pattern of the judges siding with Trump and Republicans, especially on cases involving race, a trend that has caused many critics to accuse the jurists of partisanship given that six of them are Republicans and three are Democrats. In the mail-in ballot case, two conservative judges — Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Amy Coney Barrett — joined the three liberal judges to create the narrow majority.“The ruling, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is a setback for President Donald Trump, who has frequently criticized mail-in voting, claiming without offering evidence that it is rife with fraud,” NBC News explained. Journalist Jamie Dupree pointed out that, despite Trump’s hope to reduce Democratic votes by suppressing mail-in ballots, “that issue is now off the table for the 2026 midterms.”This is not the only way that Trump has attempted to guarantee he retains control of the Senate and House of Representatives by federalizing the midterm elections. He also suggested he would purge voters from the rolls using DOGE and state-shared voter files, advocated strict voter ID laws, threatened to send ICE and radical groups to polling locations and implemented partisan gerrymandering. The last move was made possible when the Supreme Court overturned large portions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.“What they all add up to is a desire to avoid any accountability to the voters in the midterm elections — to ensure, to preordain the outcome of a midterm that he thinks is going to go badly for him,” Dan Vicuña, Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation at the nonprofit good government group Common Cause, told AlterNet earlier this month. “We know, from the Big Lie of the 2020 election to spurring on a violent revolt to overthrow a free and fair election, that he has no respect for democratic norms, for the voice of the people. This is entirely about his own power and his own ego. He will even invest in protecting that ego and protecting his power at the expense of the needs of the public. People are suffering with high gas prices and affordability issues, and he does not care. All that matters is protecting his power, and he has no interest in whether he does that through democratic means.”Regarding the attempts to federalize elections, such as by his recently-overturned attempt to impose deadlines on mail-in ballots, Vicuña suggested those efforts are illegal.“I think some of these attempts to federalize, to nationalize elections are clearly illegal,” Vicuña argued. “You've seen some of that overreach already struck down — attempts to order independent agencies to force a strict voter ID requirement on people. That has been rejected. Common Cause is in court challenging the latest executive order to turn the United States Postal Service into some election administration agency and to create a further bureaucratic layer to make it more difficult to vote by mail. In terms of the president's authority to order around USPS, it's illegal. In terms of USPS's authority to become some sort of national election administration agency, it far exceeds the legal authority that Congress gave to the postal service. The statute describing what kind of work the postal service would do is about postal service work — processing mail and selling stamps. It has nothing to do with election administration.”
