President Donald Trump, not even halfway through his second term in office, is about to see his worst fear realized as he faces a reckoning within the Republican Party, according to a new analysis. The Atlantic analyst Jonathan Lemire argued this week that Trump has "crashed into reality" as he "flails" both internationally and domestically. "Recent months have delivered a reckoning for Trump, who has crashed hard against some real limits," wrote Lamire. "His approval numbers have sunk, and Republicans are finally, in small doses, beginning to defy him." The president predicted his war with Iran would be a quick surgical strike but it has now metastasized into a five-month quagmire with mounting casualties, depleted weapons stockpiles, and surging gas prices making him "just the latest U.S. president to be humiliated by hard-liners in Tehran," wrote Lemire.National policy has stymied as well. "Trump has demanded that the Senate blow up the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act, which would make voting more difficult and require voters to provide proof of citizenship," Lemire noted. "But Republicans have refused." Once the midterms conclude, Trump will face the grim future, he wrote."Trump could face his worst fear," wrote Lemire. "Irrelevance. He will be a lame duck, down to his final two years in office, and at some point will no longer be the nation’s top topic of conversation. As focus shifts to the presidential primaries, Trump risks disappearing from the headlines. Even some of his closest allies don’t know how he’ll react," he wrote.What comes next for Trump looks worse, Lemire wrote."Trump may no longer be among each day’s top stories—arguably for the first time since he came down the Trump Tower escalator more than a decade ago. It’s not as if he will suddenly vanish; he’ll aim to play GOP kingmaker, and he’ll still be commander in chief. But he’ll be staring at life as a private citizen again," he predicted.
WASHINGTON -- President Trump vowed Wednesday to "beat the f—ing s— out of" Iran in response to a surprise missile attack by the Islamic Republic targeting US troops stationed in Jordan.
A Republican trying to defend President Donald Trump's legacy was shut down on live television Wednesday with one simple question that he would not answer. The argument erupted on CNN Wednesday morning ahead of a contentious Senate hearing, when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will haul in his longtime bogeyman Dr. Anthony Fauci back to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as part of his ongoing quest to determine the origins of the coronavirus. The Kentucky Republican posted online more than 1,100 pages of the physician's diaries written during the pandemic on government computers. Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright admitted he found the situation frustrating."What burns my biscuits the most is you have this political theater that will happen in the United States Senate today with Sen. Rand Paul, but there's no interest in the fact that you have the screw worm sending everyone on the run," said Seawright. "The fact that you see recall after recall and foods that basic everyday Americans are afraid to even deal with, and all the challenges that came along that come along with this current administration, and there's no sense of accountability in that regard."The Daily Signal's Rob Bluey tried to argue the hearing was more than political theater, saying it did address an issue that Americans cared deeply about."There will be fireworks today, I agree with you on that point," Bluey said. "But it's the role of Congress, in this case Sen. Rand Paul, to have oversight and hold this this government employee, former government employee who was paid $400,000 a year with our tax dollars and who lied to the American people repeatedly about the origin of Covid.""Respectfully, how do you know that?" Seawright interjected."Because it's in the diary," Bluey replied.Paul has long maintained that Fauci covered up evidence supporting the "lab leak" theory, and the senator's website highlighted a Feb. 1, 2020, diary entry covering a conference call with prominent scientists who Fauci noted had not all been in "total agreement" about the origins."This might not be the last time that the United States finds itself in a situation where we have a global pandemic," Bluey argued, "and holding that person accountable, getting answers, holding the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, accountable for what its role was, and then think about all of the losses that our country experienced, not only in terms of jobs, but the schooling. I mean, I have kids, it affect my family's life profoundly."That's when Seawright posed the question Bluey would not answer. "Can someone remind me who was in charge when we were going through the Covid 19 pandemic?" Seawright said. "Because I think sometimes that gets lost in the conversation. Who was the president?" "Apparently, Anthony Fauci thought he was," Bluey retorted. "Well, who was in charge?" Seawright asked. "Who was the president?"Trump was in charge during Covid." - YouTube youtu.be
President Donald Trump revealed new details Wednesday regarding a supposed phone call he had with former President Joe Biden following his 2020 election loss, one that he claimed was “well received,” but “not acted on.”Trump’s claim was couched in a lengthy rant shared on his social media platform Truth Social against Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022. Trump downplayed Fauci’s influence during his first administration, while alleging that Biden later made the health official a “king.”“Fauci was largely taken out of play, and then along came Sleepy Joe Biden, who made Fauci a ‘King!’” Trump wrote. “I called Biden to tell him Fauci was no good, either didn’t have a clue, or was dishonest. The call was well received, but sadly, not acted on. Biden went on to give Fauci vast destructive power. The rest is history!”Fauci has come under renewed scrutiny after the publication of his COVID-19 pandemic-era diary. He’s scheduled to testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee Wednesday, where he’s expected to be questioned on his knowledge of gain of function research and the origins of the COVID-19 virus.“His ideas were CRAZY! Also, I said from the beginning that the Virus came from the Wuhan Laboratory in China. Fauci strongly disagreed, always trying to protect China. I Inherited Fauci, who was there since the 1980’s, but with each passing day, relied less and less on him,” Trump wrote. “He made too many bad calls, like on MASKS. Remember at the beginning he was an anti-masker. He then switched to a super-masker. In any event I didn’t let him shut the Country down, although he wanted to. I went the Federalist way, and let the governors decide. The Republican governors did a much better job than the Dumocrats.”
Retired CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos responded to a recent assertion that President Donald Trump has made a U-turn on Ukraine as Russia continues to attack. Outgoing Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) this week complained from the Senate floor that Ukraine still hasn't received the $400 million appropriation Congress approved in 2025."I asked Secretary Hegseth why the Pentagon is taking so long to send this critical aid to Ukraine. He didn't have a good answer," said Durbin. "President Trump needs to send $400 million in funds immediately. They're desperately needed in Ukraine to stop Russian advances. Doing so will help bring President [Vladimir] Putin to the negotiating table. Secretary Hegseth also needs to move $200 million that we appropriated and president signed into law for the Baltic Security Initiative to help frontline NATO allies prepare for Russian intimidation and retaliation."Polymeropoulos said he's dubious about whether Trump has truly made such a shift in his stance on supporting Ukraine. The only thing that will convince him is "substance," he said," not just vibes.""Where is the 400 million?" he questioned of those cheerleading Trump's pivot. Reports this week revealed that Russia has sold off half of its gold reserves, Radosław Sikorski, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, said. Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and Ukraine's Minister of Economy, translated a recent interview with Sikorski, quoting the Polish leader as saying that Moscow has sold off 44 tons of gold. "It’s a sign Moscow is running low on resources. This winter may be Putin's last chance to break Ukraine, so Europe's help decides if Ukraine wins," said Sikorski. He added that he didn't see Trump swooping in at the last minute to win the war for Ukraine. Secretary Marco "Rubio's call with [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov lasted 37 minutes. I don't see grounds to expect a breakthrough from that. Real progress needs Putin himself to lower his ambitions about conquering Ukraine, and I don't believe that's happening," Sikorski said. "Russia keeps testing NATO's response threshold with provocations like drones crossing into member states' territory. Naming these as deliberate tests actually lowers the odds Moscow repeats them, since a provocation everyone expects can't deliver its shock," he added. Poland, he said, is ready to add "our own newest Patriot-class interceptor technology" to the fight, since U.S. support is up in the air.
We are now under 100 days until the midterms, and Republican strategists and GOP leaders have all come to the same conclusion for their caucus: keep Donald Trump's name out of your mouth, and ostensibly keep him off the campaign trail.Operatives close to the White House are reportedly telling incumbents and challengers alike — privately, one assumes, so the boss doesn't find out — to stop echoing his line on the Iran war, stop defending his economic numbers, and build their own case to voters instead.They'd be fools to attach themselves to him, even in some red districts where inflation has really come home to roost. Trump's almost “worst ever” approval rating is in the mid-30s and sinking. The war is closing in on half a year old, with no clean end in sight.Gas prices are up, "affordability" is the word Democrats have successfully claimed as their own, and every additional minute Trump spends talking is, by the party's own admission, a minute of bad news for candidates trying to get their messages through and survive in November.It all sounds reasonable and doable, except for the fact that one variable in this equation is petulant and predictable. When you tell Donald Trump no, or that he needs to be managed, nothing in the man's history suggests he knows how to do that.What's actually coming down the pike for Republicans isn't pretty and will make their plans look like chop suey. Does anyone say that anymore? Well, we can say it literally, because if Trump’s economic chaos continues, the only thing Americans will be able to afford to eat are cheap cans of chop suey.Trump is heading into the fall with a wish list that has absolutely nothing to do with food prices, reality or what's on voters' minds. He's obsessed with the SAVE Act, which is a loser in the Senate. He is still gunning for funding for his anti-weaponization fund, eager to provide updates about his gilded ballroom, and determined to sell the Iran war as successful when everyone, except he and Hegseth, knows it's a catastrophic failure.Standing between Trump and all of it is a small but real bloc of his own party. Jilted Sens. John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy have shown they're willing to buck him now that the chains are off after Trump sank their re-election hopes.Sen. Thom Tillis has already called parts of Trump's agenda "theater" and made clear he isn't interested in absorbing the blowback from ramming through election-law changes months before voters go to the polls.In the House, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie is making it his life's mission to buck his party when it counts and say no. Individually, none of them can stop Trump, but together they can make his life miserable by blocking the SAVE Act, trying to rid the bill, once and for all, of the anti-weaponization funding, and denying him the permission and funds to keep the Iran war going.And that is exactly the problem, because a boxed-in Trump doesn't respond well to being told "no." Instead, he has a long history of reacting by getting louder, angrier, and, in his current demented state, more demented.In 1990, he opened the Trump Taj Mahal on a mountain of junk-bond debt after financial advisers warned him the numbers didn't work for the economy at the time. When an analyst went public predicting the casino would fail, Trump's answer was to fire the analyst. The Taj Mahal missed its debt payments within months and was in bankruptcy court within the year.And who could forget Trump's insistence on promoting his favorite drug, hydroxychloroquine, from the White House podium? After federal scientists told him, repeatedly and on the record, that there was no evidence it did anything for COVID-19, he took it upon himself to play doctor and tout the drug's nonexistent benefits.He kept pressuring regulators to protect its emergency authorization right up until the clinical trials came back and the FDA had to reverse course in public.And more recently, when military and intelligence officials warned that an open-ended bombing campaign in Iran risked a war with no exit, he launched it anyway, relying on his "gut instincts" and, most assuredly, his spoiled brat persona to try to prove he knew more than military generals.Being told "no" has never once made Trump smaller. It has always made him bigger, louder, and more determined to prove the people telling him no were wrong. And what's wild about the whole thing is that Trump has always been wrong, even though he thinks he's always been right, which is yet another reason why he will ignore the word "no."Each of the examples above shows that Trump takes the word "no" as a personal insult, and hearing "no" from his own party, which he built and claims to have rescued, is going to be too much for him to handle.He is going to hit back publicly, make it all about him, loyalty to him, and betrayal of him, and remind everyone watching that he is the one being wronged.While the GOP insists on message discipline on the campaign trail, off the trail it will be...
President Donald Trump sparked a firestorm late Tuesday night with an endorsement of a House candidate in Michigan — and his shocked fans on Truth Social let him have it.“It is my Great Honor to endorse Amir Hassan, who is running to represent the fantastic people of Michigan’s 8th Congressional District!” Trump wrote. “Amir Hassan has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Representative from Michigan’s 8th Congressional District — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”His MAGA followers were not happy — Despite campaign literature in which Hassan says “Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior," followers raged at Trump for endorsing a Muslim. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul," one Trump supporter wrote. "No political gain is worth insulting our Christian faith. No Muslims in America. No Muslims in office.”That was a common theme in the comments under Trump’s post.Trump supporter Conita Drew wrote a 542-word reply.“Have you lost your mind, endorsing Muslim candidates," Drew wrote. "What has happened to you? You are not the man that I voted for three times, you have no wisdom whatsoever where Islam is concerned.”“Honestly??? Why????" ranted “Proud conservative” Kimberlee. "Do you think there are already too many foreigners in congress??? Don’t you think enough is enough at this point????” “THATS A HARD NO FOR ME. NO MUSLIMS IN OFFICE PERIOD!” stated JeffV4JC, who claims in his profile, “Jesus Christ is my God and, Donald J Trump is my President.”JoniMarieForLiberty warned, “YOU ARE BEING MISLED, President Trump! This guy is a snake in the grass. Muslim and never voted for a republican in his whole life. Moved to Michigan last summer and immediately filed to run for office. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!”“His name gives me pause. Call me racist 🤷🏼♀️ but I am merely being cautious. Obama comes to mind,” advised “Loyal Trump supporter” Billie.Mad1Macs was short and to the point, writing: “NOPE.”
Staff at CBS News' flagship news magazine "60 Minutes" are voicing sharp discontent over network chief Bari Weiss' latest round of hires, with insiders saying they doubt the new additions belong on one of television's most storied broadcasts.The most contentious pick is conservative New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat, who joins despite having no reporting background and minimal on-camera experience, reported Status. Newly installed executive producer Nick Bilton praised Douthat in an internal memo as a rigorous thinker with deep empathy, a characterization industry insiders reportedly found laughable.“The idea that Ross can be a ‘60’ correspondent is a joke," snorted a veteran TV executive.According to the New York Post, insiders mock Bilton interviews as an excuse for him to air grievances about CBS — calling them "therapy sessions."The Post reports Bilton is telling people he's “assembling ‘The Avengers of news.'" “We’re journalists,” one source said. "Not Marvel movie characters."Douthat isn't the only addition raising eyebrows. Writer Sebastian Junger, former VICE correspondent Gianna Toboni, and ex-Sky News host Sir Trevor Phillips — who has faced past accusations of Islamophobia — round out the new roster of contributors and correspondents, alongside CBS veteran Norah O'Donnell's promotion to full correspondent.Industry figures who spoke with Status measured the newcomers against legends like Mike Wallace, Diane Sawyer, Ed Bradley and Scott Pelley, concluding the new hires wouldn't have made the cut in that earlier era.“These are the most coveted on-air jobs in TV news,” said another news veteran.Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison installed Weiss, who lacked experience in broadcast news and once bragged about not owning a television, as CBS News editor-in-chief in October, and critics say CBS has lurched rightward since her arrival and grown reluctant to air anything critical of the Trump administration.Viewers have rejected the changes under her stewardship.CBS Evening News, anchored by Tony Dokoupil, is on pace to average just 3.8 million viewers in July, marking its fourth straight month below 4 million. CBS Mornings fared even worse, pulling in its lowest monthly average, 1.6 million, in the show's history. One CBS executive told Status the overhaul has driven ratings to record lows, with little sign the "60 Minutes" changes will reverse the trend.CBS News has not yet responded to a request for comment.
