Fox News posted a glowing birthday tribute to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday — complete with a saluting photo and celebratory graphics — and the mockery from conservatives was swift."HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Secretary of War Pete Hegseth turns 46 today," Fox News wrote. "From serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to leading the Pentagon, Hegseth has spent decades advocating for America's warfighters and national defense."Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist and former RNC communications director, didn't mince words in responding. "The next time I'm on Fox, I will call this out. Embarrassing." His post was reposted by Gregg Nunziata, the Republican lawyer who had already spent the day publicly criticizing Trump officials' conduct.Jonah Goldberg, the conservative commentator and co-founder of The Dispatch who left Fox News over its 2020 election coverage, responded with a twist on the network's old slogan: "Fair, Balanced, and Unafraid. Wink."Jay Nordlinger, a senior editor at National Review, was equally dry: "Is this the kind of thing a news network does? Manifestly (as Bill Buckley would say)."Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger replied without a word — just a photo of President Trump appearing to sleep at a Cabinet meeting.Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson asked the obvious question: "This is from a news outlet?"The next time I'm on Fox, I will call this out.Embarrassing. https://t.co/VHI9N56Qka— Douglas Heye (@DougHeye) June 7, 2026
The advancement of both Republican candidates ensures that voters in each district will see a Democrat-versus-Republican matchup on the November 5 general election ballot.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth urged European leaders on Saturday to remain vigilant against the threat of what he described as “dangerous ideologies” coming to the continent, invoking the lessons of D-Day to warn about modern-day immigration. “In the years since these beaches, much of the West, in some places, in some quarters, and in…
The US defence secretary was speaking in Normandy, 82 years after allied forces launched their operation to liberate Nazi-occupied north-western Europe.
A California Republican operative went viral this week for doing something unusual in her party: publicly fact-checking a right-wing election conspiracy theory — and refusing to back down when Rasmussen Reports pushed back.Elizabeth Barcohana, who works with the Los Angeles GOP, stepped in after Rasmussen posted a claim that a single ballot drop in the LA mayor's race had contained zero votes for Republican candidate Spencer Pratt — the reality TV personality from The Hills running for LA mayor — while every other candidate gained thousands. "Virtually every candidate received votes except for Spencer Pratt," Rasmussen wrote. "Impossible."Barcohana called it false. "No, it did not happen," she posted, sharing a batch composition chart showing Pratt's orange bar appearing consistently across every single ballot drop. "This is fake news." She further noted that Rasmussen was recycling an NBC screenshot taken before the network's graphics team had corrected an error — meaning the "evidence" of fraud was a screenshot of a mistake that had already been fixed.Rasmussen didn't fold. Instead, the polling firm told Barcohana to "wake up," name-dropped someone it claimed was a federal investigator, and accused her of not understanding "what is going on in national election integrity."Barcohana's response to an anonymous user cut to the heart of the problem: "THIS is why you don't see Republicans fighting back against all of this. No one believes us no matter what we say when we push back on things that aren't true which demoralize our voters, so they would rather just keep quiet and not hit a hornet's nest of angry voters."The exchange drew notice across the aisle. "How does one deal with a company that exists to poll elections but then casts doubt on the actual results with loony conspiracy theories?" asked Garrett Archer, a data journalist at ABC15 in Arizona. Damin Toell, a conservative activist, was more pointed, calling Rasmussen "the zombie husk of Rasmussen Reports, which just grifts off garbage conspiracy theories without any concern for how it suppresses Republicans from voting."Drew Savicki, a political analyst, called it "fascinating watching a California Republican struggling to push back against the online conspiracy theories being promoted by so many in her party."Republican strategist Mike Madrid kept it simple: "Wait...is this a Republican standing up for math, facts and evidence? What kind of sorcery is this?"
President Donald Trump was torched on Sunday over what critics labeled his “embarrassing” outburst with NBC News’s Kristen Welker, an outburst that preceded the president ending the interview and storming off.Aired earlier on Sunday, Trump was pressed by Welker on his false claims of the 2020 election being “rigged.” Trump responded by raising his voice, attacking the media, and declaring the interview to be over before standing up and leaving.Trump is no stranger to abruptly ending interviews after being challenged on his claims. In 2020, Trump cut an interview with CBS News short after facing what he categorized as “unfair” questions, per Adweek, and in 2022, he ended an NPR interview after being pressed on his false claims of election fraud.The most recent incident, however, sparked widespread commentary given the intensity with which Trump berated Welker prior to his leaving.“This man lost his mind a long time ago,” wrote Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) in a social media post on X. “It’s shameful that Republicans in Congress continue to enable him in every way. He’s destroying this country and his mental decline and erratic behavior is a national security crisis.”Tim Nichols, a staff writer with The Atlantic, called Trump “emotionally unstable,” and described his outburst as a “man [going] on [a] paranoid, babbling rant.”Neikias Duncan, an analyst, podcast host and writer, described the clip of Trump’s outburst as “such an embarrassing watch.”And Hemant Mehta, another podcast host, writer and reality television star, used the incident to urge Republican voters to reconsider this November.“His brain is broken and if you vote for any Republican at any level, this is what you're supporting: being an a------ at every turn, no matter what anyone says, because that's what the party is,” Mehta wrote in a social media post on X.Trump Calling Welker “crooked” “stupid” and then the ultimate—“darling”—for asking him what evidence he has that elections are rigged? What is “crooked” is the money for the ballroom, what is “stupid” are the tariffs. And what is “darling” is a first class journalist. https://t.co/Ar6zvB4jy9— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) June 7, 2026
President Donald Trump may have sunk his standing with Republicans heading into the midterm season after he bullied Kristen Welker of NBC News on Sunday morning, according to one analyst. Welker interviewed Trump in Wisconsin for "Meet the Press," where the two discussed the ongoing war in Iran, the Trump administration's $1.776 billion so-called "anti-weaponization fund," and the upcoming 2026 midterm election. During the interview, Trump became combative when Welker challenged his assertions about who could receive payments from the weaponization fund. The president became so angry that he abruptly ended the interview and stormed off set. Saniqua McClendon, president of Vote Save America, told MS NOW's Alex Witt on Sunday that Trump may have pushed more Republicans away with the outburst. "Donald Trump's a bully. He's been that before, throughout his 2016 campaign, before he got into the White House," she said. "Right now, he's used to manipulating the media to get what he wants. And typically, he spends a lot of time with right-wing media who just kind of praise him all day. That's most of what's in the White House press briefing room. He enjoys that when he can do these press conferences.""So, if someone challenges him with the truth, he gets upset," she continued. "He's not used to being held accountable. But I think as we get toward the midterms and he gets into a lame-duck position, there are a lot fewer Republicans who are kind of coming around him. And so he's just out there by himself being a bully. And I do think it will start to have an impact, because a lot of these Republicans are going to be asked about his behavior ahead of the midterms. And then as we go into the primaries next year."Trump's outburst happened at a time when Republicans seem open to going against Trump for the first time in nearly a decade. Last week, the House of Representatives voted to curb Trump's war powers in Iran. Republicans also joined Democrats to approve additional aid to Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression, a measure that Trump publicly opposed.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) on Sunday said Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte is “not qualified” to permanently serve as Director of National Intelligence pointing to his lack of experience in the realm of national security. “He’s not qualified for the long-term position, that’s been clear on this. He has no national security…
While a New Mexico legislative committee began its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s sprawling compound known as Zorro Ranch last week, one veteran journalist warned that the effort is analogous to “the fox guarding the henhouse,” flagging what they described as a major “conflict of interest.”Established in February by the New Mexico Legislature, the New Mexico Truth Commission was afforded $2 million in spending and granted subpoena power to investigate the potential criminal activity at Epstein’s New Mexico property, the site of which multiple women have claimed to have been sexually abused as minors.The issue, journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez warned in an analysis published on her Substack Saturday, was that the commission, “in reality,” appeared to be “mostly public relations crisis management and damage control for a political establishment in New Mexico that suddenly realized the world could see just how corrupt they’d been with regards to Epstein for decades.”“The commission recently selected a law firm to lead its investigation, and when you look hard enough at the firm you start to see that the commission is mostly a PR stunt that doubles as a bag of cash for political donors,” Valdes-Rodriguez wrote.That law firm was Fadduol, Cluff, Hardy & Conaway (FCHC), an Albuquerque-based personal injury law firm. As flagged by Valdes-Rodriguez, the firm’s founding partners each “donated the maximum allowable contribution of $2,300” to the presidential campaign of former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was accused by prominent Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre of being sexually trafficked to by Epstein. Richardson had also accepted $100,000 from Epstein in campaign contributions in his re-election bids for governor, according to news reports.“[Richardson] is a central figure in the very conduct the commission is supposed to be investigating. Whoops. Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving,” Valdes-Rodriguez sarcastically wrote.“If that seems like a conflict of interest, rest assured the people who selected this firm, who also got political donations from its members, have considered the matter carefully and arrived at the conclusion that it is fine.”