Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) turned heads on Saturday after openly questioning why the U.S. war against Iran "started to begin with,” despite having personally lobbied for the United States to launch it.

Graham’s remarks come amid reports that President Donald Trump – who Graham notably didn’t name in his comments – is “close to a deal to end the war” with Iranian officials, according to a claim from Axios’ Barak Ravid on Saturday. The prospect of a deal appeared to trouble Graham, however, at least without first crippling Iran's military capacity beyond the point of recovery.

“This combination of Iran being perceived as having the ability to terrorize the Strait in perpetuity and the ability [to] inflict massive damage to Gulf oil infrastructure is a major shift of the balance of power in the region and over time will be a nightmare for Israel,” Graham wrote in a social media post on X.

“Also, it makes one wonder why the war started to begin with if these perceptions are accurate. I personally am a skeptic of the idea that Iran cannot be denied the ability to terrorize the Strait and the region cannot protect itself against Iranian military capability.”

Graham was widely mocked back in January after appearing “legitimately depressed” in the wake of Trump’s decision back in January to hold off on striking Iran. In March, it was revealed that Graham had “coached” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on how to convince Trump to bomb Iran.

For Graham to now question why the war he lobbied to start was launched “to begin with” caused concern among some onlookers.

“Reading Senator Graham's tweets is always really exciting because you really have no idea if you're getting utterly sycophantic sane washing of POTUS, or, entirely accurate and cogent geopolitical analysis,” wrote journalist Matt Gurney in a social media post on X to his more than 52,000 followers.

Journalist Chuck Todd noted how Graham was “trying so hard not to use the word ‘Trump’” in his remarks, writing in a social media post on X to his nearly 2 million followers, and political commentator Tommy Vietor offered Graham some advice.

“File this one under: things you should’ve thought through before starting the war,” Vietor wrote to his nearly 540,000 followers on X.

Graham has long been among the most vocal advocates for a U.S. strike on Iran, consistent with his long record of backing military action against other nations throughout his career, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mexico, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela, among other nations.

A dissent by 77-year-old Supreme Court Clarence Thomas in an Alabama death penalty ruling this week found two conservative justices siding with the minority liberal wing, and three other conservatives wanting nothing to do with his recommendations.

According to a report from Slate, Thomas’s dissent and urging to overturn precedent may have been too far afield for the tastes of Justices John Roberts, Sam Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.

Thomas's extreme position in the Alabama death penalty case Hamm v. Smith has exposed deep fissures within the conservative majority, with three justices distancing themselves from his call to overturn 25 years of precedent protecting condemned individuals with cognitive disabilities.

In his solo dissent, Thomas argued that nothing in constitutional history prevents executing people with intellectual disabilities and urged the court to overrule the landmark Atkins v. Virginia decision that banned such executions under the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

"Nothing in our history suggests there's anything unlawful about executing murderers now protected by Atkins," Thomas wrote, calling for the court to "restore the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause's fixed meaning."

Thomas specifically argued it would be constitutional to execute people with the cognitive abilities of a young child — a position so extreme that even his conservative allies refused to endorse it.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern reported that Thomas stood entirely alone in his position. "Roberts, Alito, and Gorsuch didn't sign onto Thomas' dissent," they wrote.

However, the three justices signaled they might be open to weakening intellectual disability protections if a state presents a "cleaner rule" for determining disability. "But this trio did suggest that if the court can't articulate a clean rule about who is intellectually disabled, it may need to overturn all protections against the execution of that whole class of capital defendants," Lithwick and Stern noted.

The dissent's rejection by even conservative justices is somewhat encouraging. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett notably refused to sign onto the Roberts-Alito-Gorsuch position suggesting potential openness to eliminating protections entirely.

However, Lithwick and Stern warned of future danger. "That is a bad omen, though it's encouraging that Kavanaugh and Barrett didn't sign onto it. The question now is: If a state can litigate this better and make a more coherent argument, will Kavanaugh and Barrett sign on then?" they asked.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a “last-minute” commencement speech Saturday in New York to West Point graduates, during which he made the startling admission that the Trump administration could very well be sending those graduates “to war,” and soon.

“Now, today, we are going to send you – we're sending you to lead, we're sending you to forge warriors, and we're sending you – perhaps – to war,” Hegseth told the nearly 1,000 West Point graduates.

“And you are ready. The world today is at a crossroads, just as it has been for the past 250 years of our great republic. You are stepping into the arena at a time when the stakes could not be higher.”

Hegseth’s admission comes amid growing speculation that President Donald Trump may authorize a new wave of attacks on Iran this weekend. Multiple outlets have reported that Trump is actively preparing to launch strikes against Iran, and thereby end the ongoing but weak U.S.-Iran ceasefire. And on Saturday, Trump teased a full U.S.-takeover of Iran, while also saying there was a “solid” chance that by Sunday, he may decide to blow Iran “to kingdom come.”

The remarks also come in contrast with comments he made leading up to the 2024 election, when, during an appearance on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” he said that “the last thing” he wanted was his “son deploying” overseas for an armed conflict.

President Donald Trump went on the attack Saturday morning with eyes on a fresh target: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who he labeled a “Dumocrat” and a “lying sleazebag,” but was soon hit back with a scathing rebuke from the California Democrat.

Posted on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump’s attack on Khanna included an image that appeared to have been created with generative artificial intelligence that depicts the California Democrat with vampire-like fangs, wearing horns and a sheep skin, while also clutching dollar bills.

The image was condemned as “absolutely demented” by independent journalist Aaron Rupar and as “offensive” by left-wing activist and media personality Cenk Uygur. Khanna, however, took a different approach in his response, and used the attack as an opportunity to take a jab at what he characterized as Trump’s misplaced priorities.

“Congratulations on your wedding Donald Trump Jr.,” Khanna wrote in a social media post on X, referencing Trump Jr.’s Saturday wedding in the Bahamas – which Trump decided to skip due to his “love for the United States of America.” “Sorry for distracting your Dad with this important work.”

Khanna wasn’t the only one to make the observation that Trump skipped his own son’s wedding due to time constraints, but still found the time to make a flurry of social media posts Saturday morning.

“He skipped his son’s wedding so he could post deranged AI slop like this,” wrote podcaster and television personality Hemant Mehta in a social media post on X.

Brought on to discuss acting Attorney General Todd Blanche using his DOJ position to boost the fortunes of Donald Trump, the president’s niece lashed out at Trump’s kids who are also benefiting.

Speaking with MS NOW host Ali Velshi, psychologist Mary Trump attempted to explain why Blanche is gaming the system for his boss, particularly by approving a sweetheart deal that blocks the IRS from reviewing tax filings that Trump, his family and his associated businesses made in the past.

As the New York Times reported on Saturday, “…the IRS faces its most profound legal and ethical test yet: a demand to drop any audits of Mr. Trump, his family members or their ‘affiliates’.”

Asked by host Velshi why the president is getting away with such abject corruption, Mary Trump replied, “Because the corrupt, illegitimate supermajority of the Supreme Court made it clear that Donald can never be held accountable as long as he was acting, no matter how criminally in his official capacity.”

“And now, again, the DOJ, which is, let's be clear, Donald Trump's personal defense firm,” she remarked. “And you said earlier, Todd Blanche is his personal attorney, and has just said that Donald and his useless children can do whatever they want with their businesses and with American taxpayer dollars. And there will be no accountability whatsoever.”

“This is the thing,” she later added. “I mean, this fits right into Donald's psychopathologies. He's always needed to convince people, including himself, that he's a winner. Right? So, therefore, he deserves to win and he should be allowed to do whatever it takes in order for him to win, including cheating by rigging a system in his favor.”

"[It’s] much deeper than that, and this is the problem,” she added. “Donald knows that he's not a winner, and he is incapable of winning without cheating. What is mind-blowing is the long line of people who continue to be willing to engage in the most abject sycophancy and corruption in order to help him, and that's why we have to stop seeing him as the main problem. Right? And look at the system, and particularly the Republican Party and the corrupt supermajority in the Supreme Court.”

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As President Donald Trump appears to inch closer toward authorizing a major U.S. military operation this weekend, renowned international security expert Robert Pape warned the president on Saturday that he may very well be walking directly into what he called “the biggest trap yet.”

Reporting suggests that the Trump administration is actively preparing to launch a new wave of strikes against Iran, and officially end the ongoing but weak U.S.-Iran ceasefire. The president teased a full U.S.-takeover of Iran Saturday morning, and later said there was a “solid” chance he decides to blow Iran “to kingdom come” by Sunday.

“The administration may be approaching a dangerous decision point. And the real danger is not simply another round of strikes on Iran,” wrote Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, writing on his Substack. “The real danger is that Trump may be approaching the biggest Smart Bomb Trap yet.”

The “Smart Bomb Trap,” as he called it, was the notion that a quick resolution to the U.S. war against Iran could be achieved with “one precise strike” targeting Iran’s new supreme leader or senior leadership. As noted by Pape, the U.S. war against Iraq began with a series of strikes targeting former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, similar to how the ongoing U.S. war against Iran began with strikes targeting former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei.

With the U.S. war against Iran hammering Americans’ pocketbooks both at the gas pump and elsewhere, and with the GOP’s midterm outlook growing more dire, such an option would be hard to resist for Trump, Pape argued.

“The possibility that one precise strike could suddenly end the crisis, collapse the regime, restore deterrence, and produce a dramatic political victory,” Pape wrote.

“For any president under pressure, that possibility becomes extraordinarily difficult to resist. Especially for Trump, whose instinct in crisis has repeatedly been to search for decisive demonstrations of strength through precision force.”

However, the unique and asymmetrical circumstances that have allowed Iran – which has military spending roughly 130-times less on its military – to block the Trump administration from achieving its stated war objectives, Pape cautioned, could very well backfire spectacularly.

“Iran would still retain dispersed missile capability, underground infrastructure, asymmetric escalation pathways, and – most importantly – the ability to widen economic disruption across the Gulf faster than Washington could stabilize it,” Pape wrote.

“Especially if the US attacks Iran’s leaders, retaliation could well include Saudi, UAE, and Kuwaiti leaders – the leadership of countries that Iran would surely like to weaken decisively as US allies crucial to future basing of more military power against Iran in the future. That is the key asymmetry in this war.”

Appearing on MS NOW on Saturday morning, the New York Times' Glenn Thrush claimed acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has no one to blame but himself as he gets battered by Democrats, Republicans and in the press as he does Donald Trump’s bidding.

And it shows in his face, he noted.

As bad as Donald Trump’s week was, the man who took fired Attorney General Pam Bondi’s place was raked over the coals in a Senate hearing and then was berated by Republican senators in a closed-door meeting described as "incredibly hostile."

That led Thrush to tell the hosts of “The Weekend” that Blanche has looked deflated in all of his public appearances.

“The one thing you can say about Todd Blanche is you definitely want to play poker with the guy, because just look at his face I mean, he looks miserable,” he observed. “He, like, wears his agony on his face and he's just being he's just reaping what he has sown as somebody who refuses to say no to Donald Trump, he has simply not turned down any request.”

“And this, as we were reporting and figuring out how this all came down, it seems that this huge thing that he has sort of blown up the Senate and created this enormous rift in his party was an expedient so that they could get out of having to actually pay Donald Trump money, which Blanche and folks at the White House actually believed would have been a bridge too far,” he added.

“So believe it or not, this fund, this weaponization fund, which everyone is calling a slush fund with no rules, no guidelines on who will distribute the money, and apparently no guardrails was actually considered to be the best of other alternatives. This was actually their best possible plan,” he revealed.

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Amid growing speculation that the Trump administration is preparing to resume hostilities with Iran this weekend, President Donald Trump revealed Saturday that a final decision would likely be made by Sunday, with there being a “solid” chance that the United States would “blow [Iran] to kingdom come,” according to Axios.

Axios reporter Barak Ravid revealed Trump’s remarks after claiming to have had a phone call with the president Saturday morning, the details of which he expanded on in the outlet’s exclusive report.

“Trump said it was a ‘solid 50/50’ as to whether he would be able to make a ‘good’ deal or else ‘blow them to kingdom come,’” Ravid wrote in Axios’ report.

According to Axios, Trump is expected to meet with his son-in-law Jared Kushner, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance later on Saturday to discuss Iran’s latest peace proposal, which included a proposal to fully re-open the Strait of Hormuz, Drop Site News reported.

Iran’s proposal, however, would “defer nuclear enrichment talks,” per a senior Iranian official speaking with Drop Site News on the condition of anonymity, a potentially fatal inclusion given Trump’s past claim that he would not accept a deal that omitted the matter of Iran’s enriched uranium.

Ohio Senator Jon Husted (R-OH) can’t be too thrilled with John Kasich’s appearance on MS NOW on Saturday morning after the popular former Republican governor refused to say if he would vote for him and questioned if he will be re-elected.

Brought on to talk about the Republican infighting over, among other things, Donald Trump’s angering GOP lawmakers for pushing for a $1.8 billion “weaponization” slush fund, Kasich was asked by “The Weekend” co-host Jackie Alemany about voting for Husted.

“I want to put you on the spot about the Ohio Senate race,” she began. “Obviously, you have Senator Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill JD Vance's position, who's running against Sherrod Brown. Can we get a little bit more into sort of your prognostications of how the state of Ohio — you know, whether or not it's a still a MAGA stronghold? If you think Husted is going to be able to keep the seat and who you're going to be voting for?”

“I mean, you haven't endorsed Husted. Are you going to be voting for Sherrod Brown?” she pressed.

“Well, I guess, unless you're a voting machine, you're not going to know what I'm going to do,” he demurred. “I don't go telling people how I vote.”

“But look, here's the situation with this,” he added. “This is going to be extremely close. Jon Husted has the difficulty of being an incumbent, you know, at a time where he doesn't have any of the benefits of being incumbent, which is the statewide name ID. Sherrod Brown ran, he's older. I think you're going to hear a lot more about that and, you know, he lost the last time. Is he going to try again? But here's what we do know: There's going to be an unbelievable amount of money spent here.”

“A real interesting question is with the race in Texas, where they're going to have to pour a lot of money and the Republicans will need to hold that Senate seat. What does that do for all these other races where they need lots of money? Let me also say one thing -- in other words, I don't know who's going to win. I think it's going to be extremely close.”

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Could we really be at the point where Republicans have had enough? Or will they regroup after the holiday, after getting fresh threats from Donald Trump—and perhaps violent warnings from his thugs—and once again bow to him?

That remains to be seen. But this week we saw something we’ve yet to see in Trump’s second term: The GOP completely melting down, canceling votes, going home, angry at one another and at Trump, all tearing one another apart. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other leaders stood there bewildered, trying but failing to explain this mess to the press.

We like them tearing one another apart, for sure. The outrageous, unprecedented $1.8 billion terrorist slush fund, coming right after the billion dollar ballroom, was enough to throw Senate Republicans into chaos and recriminations, with Sen. Mitch McConnell, to offer just one example, attacking Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche—who’d stunningly accused critics of just not understanding how normal all of this is—charging that he was engaging in “utterly stupid, morally wrong” behavior.

Given a June 1 deadline by Trump to re-open the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration agencies, Senate Republicans crashed and burned, leaving town and blowing through that deadline. Democrats have been enormously successful at stopping funding of ICE and DHS’s immigration enforcement agencies, keeping them shut down (even as ICE has plenty of money from the big bad bill).

The GOP has been forced to try to pass the ICE funding via budget reconciliation, which only requires 51 votes. But then Trump made them add the ballroom with a price tag of a billion dollars—previously supposedly being paid by private donors—into the bill. The Senate parliamentarian ruled the ballroom couldn’t pass in reconciliation. In the meantime, on his revenge tour, Trump destroyed the careers of both Louisiana GOP Senator Bill Cassidy and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky who now appear to be going on their own revenge tours against Trump until the end of their terms.

Trump always does himself in. Cassidy, fresh off losing in his primary last week to a Trump-backed MAGA candidate—as Trump was determined to slay Cassidy after he’d voted to impeach him for inciting an insurrection back in 2021—voted for the war powers resolution in the Senate, this week becoming the deciding vote to finally pass the measure that would mandate Congress decide on the war in Iran.

And Senate Republicans became livid with Trump on Tuesday for endorsing Ken Paxton in next Tuesday’s Senate primary runoff in Texas, after they’d spent millions trying to help Senator John Cornyn keep his seat. As I wrote earlier, some Senate Republicans think the GOP could lose Texas because of Trump’s endorsement.

Cassidy, unchained, then made it clear he was not about to fund any ballroom for Trump. (By the way, politicians like Cassidy are not to be lauded now; they went along with it all when they thought they’d be saved, and ultimately they’re cowards.) So did several other Republicans in the Senate. The ballroom was pretty much doomed. Democrats had been ready to add a ton of amendments to the ICE funding bill about the ballroom and make Republicans vote on it.

But once that was out of the way, Democrats had something else about which they could add amendments to the ICE funding bill: the terrorist slush fund, taxpayer dollars stolen by Trump and his crooked acting attorney general in a bogus “settlement” on a bogus “lawsuit.” The idea that money would be going to people who committed all kinds of crimes—the Orwellian “Anti-Weaponization Fund”—including violent criminals who’d attacked the Capitol and bludgeoned cops, landed like an atom bomb on Capitol Hill. The story blew up across the country—people were outraged—and you know the congressional switchboard was jammed.

Again, how stupid is Trump? You would think that as inflation continues to soar and gas prices are skyrocketing as a result of his badly managed war of choice, he’d at least wait on establishing this “fund” for a few days, until the DHS vote was passed. Sure, it would still be an issue moving forward and cause a blowup among the GOP anyway—and is another disaster for them for the midterms—but you’d at the very least get DHS opened up and have Republicans going home with some sort of accomplishment.

But no, they go home instead to an uproar from their constituents about this “fund” in addition to the war and gas prices.

But wait, it gets worse. After the Senate passed a war powers resolution—thanks to Cassidy, who Trump could have counted on sticking with him if he’d not backed a primary against him—more Republicans in the House got some balls. Just before the House was to vote on a war powers resolution on Thursday, bumbling House Speaker Mike Johnson pulled it because he didn’t have the votes to defeat it, and, like the Senate leader, sent everyone home. This was beyond embarrassing and just contributed to the GOP meltdown. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania—a Republican who was going to vote for it—said the votes won’t be any different when they come back, so they should have just voted.

This is beyond a s--t show. The GOP seems to be coming apart at the seams, under the weight of Trump, who has no clue about what he’s doing.

Apparently, the anger among GOP senators over the slush fund—and the fear of taking votes—was compounded by Todd Blanche privately meeting with them Thursday, in what was described as a contentious meeting that became a disaster.

This is how we know the White House is freaking out too, unable to manage Trump or the Congressional GOP. By sending Blanche to answer questions before senators earlier in the week in a public hearing—at the last minute canceling a trip he’d planned—they clearly weren’t expecting the uproar over the slush fund to be so big. As with the war in Iran, they were completely unprepared. The private meeting with GOP senators didn’t change anything, and seemed to make it worse.

All of this shows that while Trump is simply out of his mind—nothing surprising—the White House is in a bubble, as most Republicans have been. But Senate and House Republicans are starting to experience reality outside the bubble. It’s all becoming too intense for them. Again, we’ll have to wait to see if this is a real breaking point, but so far it’s looking like their turmoil will continue. And Democrats just need to keep stoking it.

• Michelangelo Signorile writes The Signorile Report, a free and reader-supported Substack. If you’ve valued reading The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism.

While American voters have increasingly soured on President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy, Republican voters have largely remained consistent in giving the president passing marks on the issue – that is, until a new survey revealed the first cracks among GOP voters, Axios reported Saturday.

“Trump's approval rating has been dropping for months, but the University of Michigan's May consumer sentiment survey released Friday revealed something more striking: Republicans are beginning to lose confidence in the economy, too,” wrote Axios’ Mike Zapler in the outlet’s report.

According to the survey, GOP and independent voters’ view of the economy hit an all-time low of Trump’s second term, with overall sentiment hitting a historic all-time low. In February, about 8 in 10 Republicans approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, but as of this week per another poll, that figure dropped to around 6 in 10.

Megan Brenan, a senior editor with Gallup, noted that the drop in GOP voters’ support on Trump’s handling of the economy was “a crack we’re seeing,” with a Gallup poll released Friday also finding Republicans’ view on the economy had dipped in the past four months to its lowest level of Trump’s second stint in the White House.

With Democrats already projected to take back control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections – and possibly the Senate – Zapler noted how “even small cracks in Republican confidence,” such as the aforementioned drop in support on Trump’s handling of the economy, only “add to the litany of warning signs for the GOP this year.”

As part of an interview with Kentucky Democrat Charles Booker, who is running for the seat now held by retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R), MS NOW host Jonathan Capehart was left, as he put it, “bereft of words,” after watching a flagrantly racist ad being run by GOP nominee Andy Barr.

Capehart told his guest, “Well, Mr. Booker, in order to win, you're going to have to beat Republican Congressman Andy Barr. He's got — he's getting a lot of backlash for a campaign ad where he tells Kentuckians, quote, ‘it's not a sin to be white.’”

In the ad, a smirking Barr tells Kentucky voters, “You know what DEI really stands for? Dumb evil indoctrination. Woke liberals spew it. Corporate losers fall for it. But thanks to Trump, America is rejecting that trash and I'm leading the fight to end it for good.”

“I'm Andy Barr and it's not a sin to be white. It's not against the law to be male. And it shouldn't be disqualifying to be a Christian. I'm Andy Barr, and I approve this message to give woke liberals something else to cry about,” he added.

After the clip ran, Capehart sat with his mouth open before admitting, “Okay, that was my first time seeing that ad in full. My breath has been taken away. I am bereft of words. Your reaction to that?”

“Well, well, good lord, he knows enough to be ashamed of himself, but he doesn't care enough to do anything different because he sold out,” Booker offered. “He's trying to get close to a man in Donald Trump who cares only about himself. And he's weaponizing hate, racism. The playbook — we're tired of that bs. People see through it and they're laughing at them because they know he's a fraud.”

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When asked about the Trump administration’s new $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded settlement for those alleging unfair targeting by Biden's Justice Department – including violent Jan. 6 Capitol rioters – a GOP strategist told CNN Saturday that not only was it a “political miscalculation,” but that the fund could be politically toxic in the midterm elections.

Named by the Trump administration as the “anti-weaponization fund,” the settlement agreement was reached after President Donald Trump agreed to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over his tax returns leaking in 2019. Among those eligible for payouts from the taxpayer-funded settlement are those who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and Trump’s donors, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was forced to admit this week.

When asked about the fund during an appearance on CNN Saturday, GOP strategist Jeanette Hoffman gave a less-than-charitable reading of what she characterized as the Trump administration’s misplaced priorities.

“I think it was a political miscalculation. You saw what happened: half the Senate caucus was extremely frustrated, you had people like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) saying it's disgusting, morally bankrupt, stupid; you had [Sen.] Thom Tillis (R-NC) saying this is 'stupidity on stilts,' [Sen.] Susan Collins (R-ME) asked a lot of questions about it,” Hoffman said.

“So I don't think they're going to get their way on this. The message is wrong, this is not something that Republicans want to be talking about – Jan. 6 when we're coming back into midterms – and I think the administration has other priorities they need to focus on to really accomplish things for the American people in the next several months.”

Any hope that fired Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem might have had about running for office once again in her home state of South Dakota likely died a quiet death on Friday after new polling showed voters want no part of her anymore.

According to a KELOLAND Media Group/Emerson College poll, 67 percent of surveyed voters — 586 respondents — said they would oppose Noem running for office in South Dakota again. Only 22 percent said they would support her candidacy, while 11 percent remained unsure.

According to the KELO report, the rejection represents a stunning reversal for Noem, who won the South Dakota governorship in 2022 with 62 percent of the vote. The former congresswoman and governor had long harbored national political ambitions, at one point lobbying Trump to make her his 2024 running mate.

Those national aspirations appear to have been permanently damaged by her tenure as DHS secretary, during which she became one of the Trump administration's most reviled and ridiculed cabinet members.

The Emerson College poll surveyed 875 South Dakota voters, including approximately 450 Republicans, 221 independents, and 201 Democrats. The results show consistent opposition to Noem across party lines.

The same poll showed 52 percent approval for President Trump in South Dakota and 38 percent disapproval of current Gov. Larry Rhoden — suggesting Noem's unpopularity is not reflective of broader state Republican sentiment but rather specific to her damaged political brand.

President Donald Trump floated the idea of a U.S.-takeover of Iran Saturday with an image of a map of the Middle East nation overlaid with the American flag, and the caption in the form of a question: “United States of the Middle East?”

Trump shared the image on his social media platform Truth Social, and amid growing speculation that his administration is preparing to launch a massive attack on Iran sometime this weekend. Signs supporting a U.S. attack commencing this weekend include the president’s abrupt cancellation of his weekend plans in New Jersey, as well as Iran shutting down much of its airspace until Monday.

Trump has already set a precedent for a hostile U.S.-takeover of a sovereign nation after declaring full U.S.-control of Venezuela in January after the Trump administration’s unprecedented attack on the South American nation and abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro.

The United States and Iran have been in a fragile ceasefire since early April, and peace talks between Washington and Tehran remain stalled. Iran has warned that it would “spread war beyond the Middle East” were the United States to launch another attack.

British media personality Piers Morgan pleaded with President Donald Trump Saturday morning amid growing speculation that his administration was preparing to launch a massive operation overseas this weekend, one that Morgan said, if carried out, would unleash “mayhem.”

“All the signs are pointing to the U.S. and Israel launching another huge attack on Iran,” Morgan wrote Saturday morning in a social media post on X. “I urge President Donald Trump not to do it. This war’s been damaging enough without yet more mayhem being unleashed.”

While the United States and Iran have been in a ceasefire since early April – albeit, one that has been violated repeatedly – Trump abruptly “cancelled his weekend plans in New Jersey and returned to Washington” on Friday, fueling speculation that his administration was preparing to renew hostilities with Tehran. In turn, Iran has closed its airspace over the western part of the country and postponed all flights in the region until Monday out of fear of an attack from the United States.

Right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, an influential figure in the White House and self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe,” also suspected the Trump administration was planning to attack Iran this weekend. However, as a diehard supporter of Trump, the idea of the United States launching another wave of attacks on Iran – the first of which in late February commenced with the bombing of an Iranian girls’ elementary school that killed 156 civilians, including 120 children – left her excited rather than concerned.

“Part of me wants to go to sleep, but then I feel like if I sleep I will miss the Iranian regime getting glassed for threatening to assassinate Ivanka Trump,” Loomer wrote in a social media post on X, referencing an alleged assassination plot reported on by The New York Post. “Tough decisions.”

A combination of bad Donald Trump polling and highly controversial proposals like his so-called “slush fund” to compensate allies who feel they were victimized by President Joe Biden’s DOJ for their criminality has finally given GOP lawmakers the nudge they needed to abandon him and save their own careers.

According to MS NOW, a single week of Republican defiance saw GOP lawmakers strip $1 billion in security upgrades — including $220 million for Trump's new East Wing ballroom — from their reconciliation package, move closer to backing a resolution forcing Trump to end the Iran war without congressional authorization, and abruptly cancel a vote on $72 billion in additional funding for the administration's immigration and deportation agenda.

The week coincided with Trump's approval rating falling to 37% in a New York Times/Siena poll — the lowest of his two terms combined. Gas prices averaging roughly $4.50 per gallon nationwide have become a constant reminder to voters of the economic pain inflicted by his Iran war.

Republicans are increasingly bleak about the party's electoral prospects. "A freaking disaster [is] coming," one House Republican told MS NOW, speaking anonymously to discuss the election frankly.

A former Trump administration official was more direct: "If the election were held today, we'd lose the Senate and the House."

Republicans have finally reached a breaking point over Trump's controversial $1.8 billion "slush fund" designed to compensate allies who claim victimization by the Biden administration's DOJ — despite their criminality.

"Republicans have realized they are being scammed and this is the week where they said enough. I can't imagine any Republican ever allowing money to be paid to anyone who harmed law enforcement," a former Trump administration official admitted to MS NOW.

GOP lawmakers cited Trump's erratic governance as justification for their rebellion. One House Republican criticized what the lawmaker described as "flip-flopping" on Iran negotiations from one Truth Social post to the next, and treating Taiwan like a "bargaining chip."

"He's pushing it too far. The list goes on and on," the House Republican said.

A second House Republican told MS NOW that Republicans "feel more confident in criticizing [him] because the poll numbers aren't as high as they were," adding that if Republicans had a "Memorial Day wish," it would be to exit the Iran war entirely.

A source close to the White House revealed the fundamental shift in Republican calculations, telling MS NOW's Laura Barrón-López and Mychael Schnell, "In many ways I don't think they [GOP lawmakers] fear the president anymore. Many have realized you can outlive Trump, politically speaking."

Your Honor,

I’m here to claim my share of the Trump Administration’s $1.8 billion slush fund payouts based on the severe emotional trauma I experienced on January 6th. The residual PTSD from that day has left me incapable of finding a full-time paying job in politics, and I still haven’t landed a book deal yet. I realize neither of those things has a direct correlation to the events of the day. Still, since so many MAGA snowflakes are whining about how they’ve “suffered” once people found out they plotted to overthrow our government, I figured I could claim similar residual trauma and financial stresses.

While I wasn’t physically at the Capitol, I did watch the day’s events play out live on television and on Twitter, and the images from that day have never left my mind. I was already living with the daily trauma of being trolled on Twitter by MAGA all day, every day, since the early days of the Trump campaign.

Plenty of us were already under a lot of duress by the time the 2020 election was meant to be certified, and January 6, 2021, was supposed to be our redemption for suffering through four years of Trumpism, complete with a pandemic to make it even more of an Orwellian nightmare. We didn’t even have COVID vaccines yet, and we were still trying to figure out how to function as a nation under continuing quarantines and lockdowns. After holding our collective breaths for nearly a week in November while the election results were tabulated, we finally got the emotional lift we needed when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared the winners.

The silver lining of the Coronavirus was drawn across millions of unhackable paper ballots, and as Congress gathered to certify the results, I sat at my desk to watch then-Vice President Mike Pence hand our country back to actual patriots, instead of the lunatics who’d swarmed the Ellipse to listen to Donald Trump lie to them in person for a change.

I remember laughing out loud, as the kids say, when Trump promised to walk to the Capitol with them when he doesn’t even walk between holes on the golf course. And once they got there and stood behind the barricades, I remember saying to the TV, “Yeah, yell all you want, that’s not going to stop them from certifying the election.”

And then, Your Honor, I watched as the same crowd who claimed to love our country pushed through the security barriers, attacked our Capitol Police, and breached the seat of our government.

I saw them break windows. I watched them climb up the outside walls of the Capitol. I gasped in horror at the images they were livestreaming, the bear spray, the flagpoles, and the screaming as they maniacally marauded through the halls of the Capitol. I heard them chanting Nancy Pelosi’s name. I heard them yelling, “HANG MIKE PENCE!” Soon after, I saw the images of the gallows someone had constructed. After they hung Trump’s Vice President, who would be next?

You know, just another tourist visit.

I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing in the moments before Ashli Babbitt was shot as she attempted to enter the Speaker’s Lobby. I thought I was going to watch this police officer die live on camera, and I couldn’t stop crying.

I saw this guy brag about stealing classified information from Nancy Pelosi’s office.

All of my tweets from that day are still live, as are the tweets from Republicans demanding Trump call off his crowd. Lindsey Graham had a spine for a second, not that anyone seems to remember.

All of this, Your Honor. We witnessed all of this, and any repeat viewing brings back the same feelings of violation from that day. As if they’d broken into all of our homes, destroyed all of our property, and smeared their bodily fluids all over our walls.

And it’s only gotten worse in the subsequent years, Your Honor, because nobody has ever held Trump accountable for staging a failed insurrection against the United States of America. Trump should’ve been arrested the moment he finally and unceremoniously shuffled away from the White House on the day Joe Biden was inaugurated.

I don’t know why that never happened, or why he was never convicted for any of his 34 felony fraud convictions after he was arrested FOUR TIMES IN THE SAME YEAR, which was 2023, and not 2021, for reasons we will never know.

My personal trauma was compounded even further when Trump was allowed to run for President again in 2024, which really shouldn’t have happened because he’s a convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser who still owes E. Jean Carroll $84 million. Even worse, we watched him steal another election from a far more accomplished woman because he and his Epstein Besties would otherwise end up in prison, where they all belong.

I’m not the only one countersuing, Your Honor. Allison Gill, whom you might know better as Mueller She Wrote, has her own lawsuit going against Trumpsimp Todd Blanche, who really needs to be the first one sent to prison once treason has consequences again.

In closing, Your Honor, I am asking for $5 million in emotional damages so that I never have to use Twitter as a means to find work, and so that I’ll never have to worry about feeding myself or my cats during this garbage fire of an unimaginable Constitutional Crisis.

And could you please FINALLY arrest Trump?

The Trump administration went on the defensive Friday night after getting exposed for scrubbing online Justice Department (DOJ) records of those convicted of violent crimes related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including one Texas man who was later convicted of online solicitation of a minor.

In June of 2024, the Biden administration’s DOJ published a press release about Andrew Taake, a 35-year-old man from Texas who that month was sentenced to more than 6 months in prison after violently attacking police officers during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot armed with “bear spray and a metal whip.” At the time, Taake had another criminal case pending for child solicitation, a detail mentioned in the DOJ’s press release.

Maryl Kornfield, a staff writer with The Washington Post, noticed on Friday that the DOJ’s press release on Taake was removed, and called out the Trump administration in a social media post on X for “quietly deleting info about the Capitol attack from the DOJ website,” a move that coincides with the Trump administration preparing to dole out nearly $1.8 billion to those who believed they were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration’s DOJ, including Capitol rioters.

The Trump administration’s DOJ defended its actions, responding to Kornfield’s social media post with a message that left onlookers stunned.

“Nothing ‘quiet’ about it,” reads a social media post from the DOJ’s official “Rapid Response” account on X.

“We are proud to reverse the DOJ’s weaponization under the Biden administration. We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.”

The DOJ’s admission left several critics shocked.

“Open admission here from the DOJ that they’re doing PR for people who weren’t just convicted of assaulting police officers but some of whom turned out to be pedophiles and Nazis,” wrote former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan Friday night in a social media post on X. “That’s who they’re defending.”

The progressive media outlet MeidasTouch bluntly asked the DOJ to clarify its statement about being “proud.”

“You are proud of being pedo protectors?” reads a post from the media outlet’s social media account on X. “They’re openly defending the deletion of DOJ records about a man accused in a child solicitation case who assaulted police on January 6. Truly the Epstein administration.”

And Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) taunted the Trump administration about the impending midterm elections, warning the DOJ that scrubbing online records would do little to erase the crimes of those convicted of storming the Capitol in 2021.

“How quaint, you think deleting stuff from a website makes it go away,” Lieu wrote Friday in a social media post on X. “The stain of Jan 6 is recorded and seared in American history. Nothing you do will erase it. And November is coming.”

In a deep dive on Donald Trump’s “bad week” that prompted a massive Republican Party revolt against the president who is used to having his way, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the outburst against the president’s proposed “slush fund” was a direct result of their existing discontent with his GOP primary meddling.

According to the Journal, the verbal abuse that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was greeted with, in what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called “One of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate,” was an outgrowth of previous frustration with Trump.

For more than a year, Republican senators had largely deferred to Trump's wishes — backing contentious cabinet nominees, giving the president free rein on tariffs and the Iran war, and accepting his judicial appointments without serious resistance.

This week, they revolted en masse, fed up with Trump's insistence on settling personal scores and pursuing pet projects at the expense of their legislative agenda.

The "tipping point" came Tuesday when Trump endorsed scandal-tarred Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the state's Republican Senate primary runoff — a move that stunned many of Cornyn's colleagues, the Journal is reporting.

GOP senators viewed the endorsement as reckless and personal. Cornyn is a longtime, well-respected Senate fixture who served in leadership, ran for majority leader, and has been a prolific fundraiser — collecting more than $400 million in donations for Senate colleagues, candidates, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee since 2002.

"I'm just sad," said an emotional Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) after Trump announced the endorsement. She fretted that it would cost Republicans "a fortune" to try to hold Cornyn's seat.

Republicans hold a 53-47 seat majority in the Senate. The report notes that GOP senators have warned that Paxton — who was impeached by his own party, later acquitted, and is in the middle of a divorce initiated by his wife on "biblical grounds" — could force the party to spend tens of millions defending a traditionally red seat.

Those resources could be invested elsewhere on the Senate map in truly competitive states such as Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, and Alaska.

The Paxton endorsement followed Trump's ouster of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician and committee chairman who failed to reach the Senate GOP runoff after Trump backed Rep. Julia Letlow. Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in the 2021 Senate impeachment trial.

Some Republican aides viewed Trump's last-minute Paxton endorsement as a sign of his broader frustration with the Senate and his determination to punish perceived disloyalty — regardless of the electoral consequences for the party.

I think Mike Johnson is one of the most loathsome human beings on the planet, and I have license to say anything I want about him. That’s because, as a gay man, Johnson has attacked me in more ways than I can count.

But this isn’t about my dislike of Johnson. Putting personal feelings aside, I can state that Johnson will go down as the worst Speaker of the House in American history for the damage he’s done to this country. Guaranteed.

And, given the way the tide is turning in Congress, Johnson may be history soon enough.

From the moment Johnson grabbed the gavel, he made a choice, and that choice was Donald Trump, every single time, without hesitation, dignity or the Christian spine he endlessly claims to possess.

What Johnson delivered was far from leadership. It was a masterclass in submission. His boot-licking devotion to Donald Trump became institutionalized, so complete and abject it strains belief that this man once took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States.

And now it’s coming back to bite him. Hard.

The war powers vote the House had to cancel before the Memorial Day break. The White House ballroom $1 billion boondoggle stalling out like a dilapidated Chevy on the House floor. And perhaps most grotesquely, Trump’s DOJ slush fund - $1.776 billion earmarked to compensate people Trump’s administration deemed wronged under Biden, including January 6 insurrectionists - is beginning to stink even to Republicans.

That’s because people like Michael Lindell of MyPillow infamy, Rudy Giuliani, and others who spent years lying through courtrooms and losing defamation judgments are ostensibly eligible for taxpayer dollars.

All while the rest of America struggles to fill up their tanks.

Mike Johnson is now the point man trying to force the war powers, ballroom and slush fund legislation through the House against a growing tide. Ever Trump’s loyal toady, he fled town in a hurry to avoid the embarrassing defeat of the war bill for starters.

If you recall, Johnson has disappeared before. He deliberately kept the chamber out of session to avoid seating newly elected Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva in order to block her from becoming the crucial 218th signature on the Epstein discharge petition.

So to bottom-line this, Johnson wants Trump to retain authority to wipe out a civilization without oversight while shielding him from scrutiny over Epstein.

This is what the self-proclaimed man of God chooses to champion.

Johnson is now trapped in a conundrum of his own making. As more Republicans begin pushing back, he must either address his caucus’s concerns or once again kowtow to Trump.

Either way, Johnson loses. Some pointed to the fact that Johnson skipped a White House meeting this week as a sign of defiance on his part. Maybe, but I doubt it because Trump removed Johnson’s spine two years ago. Was it a signal to placate the growing resentment in his caucus? Perhaps, but he always finds a way back to Donald.

Some House Republicans are waking up, embarrassingly late, to the reality that they surrendered Congress as a co-equal branch of government on January 20, 2025, and the country has been paying for it ever since.

And they did it with Johnson leading the way.

This change of heart, if you can call it that since the GOP has no heart, is driven less by principle than by panic. These members are looking at purple, swing and even red-district polling and freaking out. Trump’s poll numbers are sinking fast.

So are theirs, through guilt by association. That’s what happens to members of Congress who rubber-stamp Trump’s abhorrent legislation.

The midterms are coming, the biennial march toward self-preservation.

What does this mean for the wimpy Johnson? It means the votes he bent over backwards to deliver for Trump are now at risk of collapse. And when these measures fail on the House floor, because they will, Trump will need someone to blame.

And Johnson, having turned himself into a political Depends for Trump’s excesses while surrendering every shred of independence, has no leverage, and no base of his own. He is the perfect scapegoat, compliant enough to enable everything, weak enough to take the fall for it.

Trump will tear him apart just like he did the East Wing of the White House.

Johnson’s phony Christian faith won’t save him from the demonic Trump.

Johnson championed legislation that hurt vulnerable people, stripped protections from the poor and rewarded the powerful. He never once found the courage to say publicly and without equivocation that these things were wrong.

When our children and grandchildren read about this period in history, they’ll notice two recurring names. They will learn how America slid toward autocracy, how its global credibility eroded, how its institutions were destroyed by one man’s ego and the servility of those supposed to check him.

When that history is written, Mike Johnson’s name will be glued to Trump’s.

He will be remembered as a small man, small in so many ways, who had every opportunity to stand up and chose instead to kneel at Trump’s swollen legs.

Kissing up to Donald Trump has never ended well. The list of those tossed overboard is too long to recount here. Mike Johnson’s name will soon join the ranks of the meek and mindless.

The only remaining question is whether Johnson leaves on his own terms in January 2027 or gets shown the door sooner, by Trump losing patience, House Republicans finally reaching their limit, or voters in November 2026 who have had enough.

Either way, Mike Johnson will be relegated to the trash bin of history, where hollow sermons and moral cowardice decompose together.

Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang received the maximum 10-day contempt sentence under Tennessee law Thursday after being removed from a bond hearing for Dalton Eatherly, a white livestreamer known as "Chud the Builder" charged with attempted murder, according to NBC News.

Judge H. Reid Poland III ordered Lang removed after he attempted to speak despite being told he had no speaking role.

Eatherly faces charges for shooting a Black disabled veteran outside the Montgomery County Courthouse, CNN reports, and has a history of posting videos using racial slurs against Black people, yet has become a far-right figure, raising over $100,000 for his legal defense in one day.

Lang, a far-right provocateur running for Florida's U.S. Senate seat, was pardoned by President Donald Trump in January 2025 despite serving nearly four years awaiting trial for assaulting police officers with a baseball bat during the Capitol attack. Since his release, he has led anti-Islam rallies and performed Nazi salutes.

Watch the video below.

President Donald Trump has put up multiple excuses for not being able to attend his eldest son Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding in the Bahamas — and the explanation he settled on was that it is "not good timing" with all his responsibilities and with Memorial Day coming up.

But according to an analysis by The Daily Beast, Trump has taken time to golf extensively during similarly busy and high-stakes moments of his presidency.

"That claim did not align with the president’s initial public schedule for the weekend, which said he planned to travel to his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. However, Axios reported later on Friday that Trump will now stay in Washington after scrambling to fix the schedule," said the report. "Staying in Washington is inconsistent with how Trump has spent many of his weekends this spring, during which he has frequently jetted out of town despite the war."

This downtime, the report continued, "includes the weekends beginning March 7, March 13, March 21, March 28, April 24, and May 2. He was in China for a state visit in mid-May, but he headed for his Virginia golf club upon returning to Washington. He even skipped a 'Rededicate 250' faith event on the National Mall that same weekend for a day at the golf club—though he appeared at the event virtually."

All told, according to the report, Trump has taken golf trips 14 times just since the Iran war started.

A recent Page Six report indicated Trump Jr. and his fiancée, model Bettina Anderson, are in a "hurry to get hitched."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared to run away Friday when reporters asked about President Donald Trump's $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund."

DeSantis broke into a sprint up stairs to exit onto the street.

The fund in question was created as a settlement for Trump's $10 billion IRS lawsuit, despite the constitutional irregularity of Trump suing an agency he controls.

Since its announcement, Jan. 6 rioters have expressed interest in applying for compensation, prompting criticism from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Some GOP senators have proposed reconciliation bill provisions to limit fund eligibility.

DeSantis's escape was captured on video and widely mocked on social media.

Former Florida Agriculture Secretary Nikki Fried wrote on X, "He LITERALLY can't run faster away."

Florida Politics editor Peter Schorsch joked about DeSantis struggling on the stairs on X.

Economist Anders Åslund wrote on X, "To be a Trump loyalist is to be a coward & refuse to tell the truth or stick to the rule of law."

Watch the video below.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is getting love from an election denier, and the internet can't help but roll its eyes at the merry display.

"If you needed proof that Tina Peters lacks remorse, read the post below," wrote Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who's running for governor. "Commuting her sentence was a historic mistake."

The aforementioned posts were by Tina Peters, the election-denying former clerk whose criminal conviction was shortened by Polis last week. She denounced the Colorado Democratic Party's censure of Polis and thanked him "for being willing to stand up in the middle of this persecution and do what he believed was right."

"Heckuva job, Governor!" joked the political network Meidas Touch.

"I predict @jaredpolis is going to really really regret this if he doesn't already," posted progressive pundit Molly Jong-Fast.

Peters also suggested that the censure is more evidence of an effort to cover up rigged elections.

"It should be obvious to Democrats and Republicans alike that they have something to hide," she wrote. "It is so obvious that they are willing to continue destroying people's lives to cover it up."

This inspired more online ire.

"The Governor was wrong to commute her sentence," Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) wrote. "Tina Peters continues to spread lies & misinformation. She's shown absolutely no remorse."

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), another gubernatorial candidate, added, "lawlessness breeds lawlessness and Trump, Vance, and Tina Peters are still spreading election-rigging lies."

A series of explosions tore through a barge at a Staten Island shipyard Friday afternoon, killing one person and injuring 34 firefighters and emergency medical workers in a chaotic emergency that Mayor Zohran Mamdani called "complex" and "fast-developing."

The initial blast struck the barge at 3:25 p.m. in Arlington, an industrial neighborhood along Staten Island's northern coast, triggering a massive FDNY response, The New York Times reported. Crews arrived to thick smoke and were told two workers were unaccounted for inside the vessel. Less than an hour later, the barge erupted again, this time with firefighters positioned in, on top of, and beside it as they searched for the missing workers and battled the flames. The 4:19 p.m. blast wounded dozens.

A fire marshal was rushed to Staten Island University Hospital in critical condition, intubated with a head fracture and brain injury. Another firefighter was also seriously hurt by what doctors described as a strong energy wave from the explosion.

The civilian who died has not been publicly identified. Authorities confirmed the victim was not a firefighter.

“As the fire grew, first responders did what they always do,” Mamdani said at the news conference. “They ran towards danger so others could escape to safety.”

The fire continued burning into Friday night as investigators waited for the flames to die down before launching a probe. The cause remains unknown.

The end of The Late Show and the ouster of host Stephen Colbert could backfire on CBS, an insider warned.

According to reporting by Status, a CBS network insider expects "various hard-to-measure costs baked into the 'Late Show's' absence, including its impact on other CBS programming."

The last episode of The Late Show aired on Thursday. CBS blamed financial reasons for the show's end, but Colbert was also a notable critic of Trump, who had financial leverage over the network's parent company.

"The show did create a platform for talent associated with series like 'Tracker' as well as former 'CBS Evening News' anchor John Dickerson, whose kinship with Colbert became such he emceed the late night show's Wednesday episode," according to Status.

President Donald Trump is dragging the Republican Party down at a moment when it could cost them everything, the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in an analysis published on Friday evening.

"Republicans don’t want to say this publicly, but privately they do," wrote the board, an increasingly frequent critic of the president's policies despite sharing many of his political beliefs. "President Trump’s personal political obsessions are hurting his Presidency, harming the chances for further policy gains the rest of this year, and putting control of the House and Senate in jeopardy."

GOP lawmakers' inability to pass Trump's Homeland Security funding bill, while also turning up the heat against his "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to pay out $1.776 billion to his political allies, is beginning to make the cracks show, the board wrote. Trump's other fixation on getting White House ballroom funding passed has similarly ground the DHS budget bill process to a halt, and the ongoing war powers votes Democrats are forcing against his action in Iran are starting to divide the party as well.

But the real catalyst, the board wrote, is Trump working to unseat two Republican incumbent senators.

"First he helped defeat Lousiana's (sic) Bill Cassidy in a primary, and this week he endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn," wrote the board. "Mr. Trump’s motives in both cases were largely personal — he wanted revenge against Mr. Cassidy for thinking his behavior on Jan. 6, 2001 (sic), was an impeachable offense, and Mr. Cornyn didn’t endorse him for President with enough alacrity to suit his loyalty test."

Through all of this, the board wrote, Trump "seems incapable of rising above, even as voters care much more about the economy and prices and his job approval falls to new lows."

"Mr. Trump’s Presidency will be all but over — except for impeachment 3.0 — if the GOP loses control of Congress in November," the board concluded. "If he wants to accomplish more legislatively, he has only a few months to do it. Does he want his remaining legacy to be a ballroom, an Arc de Trump, and payoffs for his friends from a fund that Republicans would denounce if a Democratic President tried it?"

A legal expert relished how Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche got a high-profile case thrown out because of his own words.

Glenn Kirschner spoke on Friday about the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case that was thrown out earlier in the day by U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw because it was deemed a "vindictive" prosecution.

"The judge made a special point talking about how Todd Blanche, this is going to be my characterization, said the vindictive part out loud," Kirschner said. "The phrase, 'hoisted on your own petard,' is what comes to mind."

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran immigrant deported by the Trump administration despite a court order blocking his removal. He successfully challenged his deportation in court multiple times. Kirschner found it "delicious" that Blanche made that easier.

"Todd Blanche seems to open his mouth only to change feet these days. He's always putting a foot in his mouth," Kirschner said. "Todd Blanche running his mouth is part of the downfall of the Trump administration's attempt to unlawfully and unconstitutionally go after Trump's perceived enemies."

Kirschner brought up a line from the judge's ruling, saying, "The evidence before this court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power."

For Kirschner, "that will be sort of Todd Blanche's tagline: an abuse of prosecutorial power."

Virginia Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi published an op-ed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Friday criticizing Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) for xenophobic and anti-Muslim remarks targeting Virginia state Sen. Saddam Salim, an immigrant from Bangladesh who authored gun violence prevention legislation.

Clyde's social media post called for denaturalizing and deporting Salim, claiming immigrants with beliefs incompatible with the Constitution endanger the country.

Hashmi argued citizenship is not conditional on partisan politics and noted Clyde never made similar attacks on the other state senator who co-authored the gun legislation, suggesting his targeting was motivated by bias. She emphasized Clyde's rhetoric perpetuates violence, targets immigrant communities, and contradicts democratic values -- particularly following a recent mosque shooting in San Diego.

Hashmi urged Georgia voters to oppose Clyde in the upcoming midterm elections, defending immigrants' right to hold differing policy positions.

Watch the video below.