On Friday, a prominent MAGA journalist called it: “The State Fair debacle is the end of @realDonaldTrump as a cultural force.”Alex Berenson – a veteran journalist who gained MAGA fame for his vocal COVID denial and voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 – posted this declaration to social media along with a photo of an almost completely empty National State Fair, at the center of which stood a mini mockup of the Commander in Chief’s crumbling triumphal arch. “Trump has always been uncool in a cool way,” Berenson continued. “He’s so in love with himself and his own awful taste you appreciate him even if you hate him. But this is just a box-office bomb, and it makes him look so old.”His dismal assessment comes amid rampant reports of the fair’s many disappointments. The event – much touted by Trump in the weeks preceding it – has been characterized by thin to nonexistent crowds, prompting the crowd-size-obsessed president to fly into a rage and fret that no one will show up to his 4th of July rally. His own supporters have called it “really disappointing,” “unnecessarily vanilla,” and “like a silent protest.” Even Fox News ditched the affair after wasting too much airtime on “live shots of empty grass.”The National State Fair is part of the wider celebrations marking the United States’ 250th birthday, which have been plagued by controversy, scandal, and failure for months. In May, the fair concert series fell apart within hours of its lineup announcement as musicians quit, saying they’d been misled about the event’s pro-Trump connotations. Somewhere along the way, Trump decided the Reflecting Pool needed to be painted, and that debacle spun out into Algaegate. This and other projects have been riddled with accusations of no-bid contracts and shady dealings. Berenson’s assertion that the end of Trump is nigh comes as the MAGA movement descends into “civil war.” The president has lost some of his most important political and media allies, like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The ‘Relectant Right’ who played a key role in his 2024 election have soured. And even the white working-class voters who are his most loyal support base have drifted away. Overall, Trump’s approval ratings have plunged to historic lows, increasing to just 37 percent in recent days.
Despite a deadly heatwave sweeping through Europe, the US president’s ineptness has created reason for optimism on the climate crisisSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereTwo real-life climate-themed movies are playing in parallel across the globe. They are about the world today, but they are also a snapshot of the future. The first is a slow-building horror story; the second, a feelgood summer hit. Both are worth watching.Horror films are suddenly box-office gold, so let’s start there. The World Health Organisation says the extreme, record-breaking heatwave blanketing Europe has killed more than 1,300 people. But everyone knows that number will end up a dramatic understatement. Continue reading...
Reporter Katie Phang recently nabbed a huge win against interim AG Todd Blanche and his crusade to keep the Epstein files under wraps. After months of stalling by the administration of President Donald Trump and ignoring the letter of a new law demanding the release of the sex-trafficker’s files, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan opened the floodgates on Trump’s longtime friend. Sullivan sided with former MS NOW show host Katie Phang in her lawsuit demanding the Trump administration adhere to the Epstein Transparency Act.Now, fresh off her big win, Phang tells “Left Hook” podcaster Wajahat Ali that Blanche, Trump and his entire crew appeared to be a bunch of idiots who had no real plan to protect Trump from being implicated in the Epstein files.“They're damned if they do and damned if they don't,” howled Phang. “You either produce it and now we have information that I and others can track down and do more reporting on, or you don't … it means they're trying to hide s——.”“If I were them I'd comply,” Phang told Ali. “I'd say ‘here are the names of the co-conspirators. Here are the names of the bad people that sent these terrible f—— emails. Here are the names of possible perpetrators. Have a nice day.’ But they are so dumb the way that they play this game. They had no f—— strategy and p—— off a federal judge like Emmett Sullivan … [who] told [Trump conspiracist] Michael Flynn to his face ‘you are a traitor to this country.’”Sullivan’s ruling means Blanche now must explain to a court why he shouldn't be forced to release names redacted from emails and documents that reference potentially damning videos and allegations of abuse of minors. Also included in redacted info includes the potential names of Epstein’s co-conspirators, as well as potentially damaging FBI interview notes from a victim who claimed Epstein introduced her to President Donald Trump when she was only 13.Phang told Ali that she had no doubt Sullivan put Trump administration in terrible danger.“Starting last year right … in the spring of 2025 they convene in the situation room about the Epstein files and it's not just the vice president of the United States, JD Vance there,” said Phang. “It was also then-attorney general Pam Bondi. It was FBI director Kash Patel. It's the deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino. It was then-deputy attorney general Todd Blanche. … It's the White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. It's the White House council … and a slew of other people. If something [fatal] had happened to that situation room pretty much … the entirety of the trump administration upper echelon would be f—— exterminated.”“The fact that you convene all those people repeatedly in the Situation Room you don't have to be a Rhodes scholar to figure out that there is something politically toxically horribly bad for the President of the United States [in those files],” she said.Phang added that she deliberately targeted Blanche in the suit to make him the prime target.“Unlike in other lawsuits when the DOJ is being sued and they parade in some junior federal prosecutor who has to go hat-in-hand to sit there and explain what happened or why they didn't do it, I only sued one person,” Phang said gleefully. “So, Todd Blanche … is gonna have to show up. You can't just send in some lackey.”
The Supreme Court's decision to allow the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for many Haitian migrants has triggered serious outrage from the left — and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales can’t help but notice the glaring issues in leftist logic.“Now, seems like it would be kind of common sense. It’s in the name. It’s the T in TPS. Temporary. Temporary. There is an actual definition of the word 'temporary.' It means 'not forever,'” Gonzales says, pointing out that they were supposed to have this status for months, but instead they have had it for nearly two decades.“Democrats, Haitians, anyone who has the liberal brain rot — they're losing their entitled little minds about it,” she adds.Founder and CEO of the Immigrant Family Services Institute Dr. Geralde Gabeau yelled to crowd cheers, “This is the time for all of us to raise our voices and to say this country is also our country, is also the country of our immigrant because we are the one who built it.”“I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to ask you for your receipts, ma’am,” Gonzales comments.“'Haitians built this country' is the argument that they made,” she adds.However, celebrities have historically made their home sound like a place no one should want to leave, as Susan Sarandon, Conan O’Brien, and even Bill Maher all have donned shirts that read “Haiti is great already.”“They were pretending like it was just this wonderful, beautiful country; it’s not a third-world s**t-hole,” Gonzales comments. “And now all of a sudden, they’re back to like, ‘No, no, you can’t send them back. No, don’t do that. It’s too big of a s**t-hole.’”And CNN’s Jake Tapper is among those pleading.“I heard Stephen Miller, who’s driving a lot of this, say that Haiti is safe for Haitians, and I just looked at the State Department’s website, and they have a level four 'do not travel' advisory for Haiti just from a few months ago,” Tapper said on CNN.“Crimes include robbery, carjacking, sexual assault, and kidnappings for ransom. That doesn’t sound safe to me,” Tapper added.“'Do not travel' is not for Haitians. That’s 'do not travel' for the United States. That advisory is to American citizens traveling to Haiti, not Haitians going back home,” Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told Tapper.“I understand that, but based on everything I’ve read, including the U.N. and Human Rights Watch, it doesn’t sound safe for Haitians. More than 8,100 killings documented last year. Those weren’t Americans. Haiti is among the top five countries with the highest rates of rape and sexual abuse, with more than 1,200 cases of sexual violence last year,” Tapper replied.“So Haitians are making Haiti unsafe, and somehow we are expected to import them. These are criminals,” Gonzales comments.“Why would it be our duty to import anyone from any unsafe country in the world?” she asks. “The obvious conclusion is you are only going to make our country less safe.”Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Lady Liberty is visual shorthand for our dynamic country and its promise of freedom. She isn't merely a stodgy statue mired in another era — she is timeless.
A legal expert shared a sobering warning on Thursday about President Donald Trump's continued efforts to dismantle birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court rebuffed his latest attempt. Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, told Michael Popok, a lawyer and host of "The Intersection" podcast, on a recent episode that the Trump administration's birthright citizenship case was "just the tip of the spear." Last year, the administration signed an executive order stripping birthright citizenship from people who are born in the country but whose parents are here illegally. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Wednesday that the executive order was unconstitutional. Wofsy warned during the interview that the Supreme Court's decision is not the end of the road for the Trump administration's efforts. "What cases like the Birthright decision show is that we can keep fighting and we can win these fights," Wofsy said. "There are battles so fundamental and central to who we are as a country that we can overcome.""I hope that gives some hope to those who may be feeling a little hopeless in this moment, but I also don't want to at all undercut that this is an incredibly frightening and demoralizing time for so many people in our communities," he continued. "This is an example of our allies, our communities, the American people, who stood up and said no to this idea of rewriting a fundamental constitutional guarantee, and we held the line in this case," he added. "It's an example of why we have to keep fighting, but it is by far not the end of the fight."
An FBI supervisor scrambled to retract her praise for a departing Chicago agent after the bureau branded him disloyal to President Donald Trump, a move a former agent warned could cost her career.FBI Detroit Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Runyan accidentally forwarded the resignation email of Chicago Special Agent in Charge Douglas DePodesta to her entire Detroit division, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. In it, she called DePodesta someone who "will always be a part of the FBI Detroit family."The FBI's official Rapid Response account on X had already weighed in on his departure:"It's simple: Anyone who is not on board with THIS FBI under the leadership of President Trump — which has achieved the lowest murder rate ever — is free to leave," the FBI statement said.Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent once touted by Republicans as a whistleblower after his security clearance was suspended under former President Joe Biden, called out the FBI statement on X.Seraphin had asked the bureau about DePodesta's departure. The Chicago Field Office told him in writing that it was FBI policy not to comment on personnel matters — then the bureau's own social media account did exactly that."The FBI does not comment on personnel matters," Seraphin wrote on X. "Except when they do."The next morning, Runyan walked back her praise. "Yesterday, I forwarded out SAC DePodesta's email without reading it fully and understanding the full context. It was a mistake on my part, and I should have demonstrated better discretion on what I communicate," Runyan wrote, as posted by Seraphin.DePodesta's last day is Monday, July 6.Seraphin warned that under FBI Director Kash Patel, such mistakes have had "career ending consequences."
