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President Donald Trump has exhibited a worrisome months-long "pattern" of memory decline, as highlighted by one professional pathologist, consistently struggling to remember certain people, even ones from his own family.

Hilary Shae is a speech-language pathologist specializing in concussion recovery and treatment. She is also a prolific political creator, sharing numerous professional insights into the potential signs of Trump's cognitive and physical health decline, often theorizing that he is grappling with dementia and has possibly suffered one or more strokes in recent years.

In her latest video from Monday, Shae highlighted the ongoing pattern of Trump "not knowing who people are when he looks at them, or sees pictures of them," starting with a recent Truth Social post in which he shared a photo of a young blonde woman at the Camp David presidential country retreat in Maryland. Trump claimed that the woman was his "daughter," despite the fact that she was neither Ivanka Trump nor Tiffany Trump. Shae also noted that the quality of the photo appeared to suggest it was taken in the "Bill Clinton era," making it even more unlikely that any of Trump's children would be at Camp David.

"There was no connection to say, 'Hmm, I don't think that actually is one of my daughters,'" Shae said. "And again, this is just the most recent time."

Shae further highlighted other instances in which Trump showed similar lapses in memory. When presented with a photo of his abuse accuser, E. Jean Carroll, during a deposition hearing, he claimed under oath that it was his ex-wife and had to be corrected. Trump has also, at times, claimed that his father immigrated to the U.S. from Germany, despite the fact that it was his paternal grandparents who did that.

Shae also noted how, on many occasions, Trump has asked where certain administration officials are, when they were right behind him at the time.

"When you look at it one time, it can be a mistake, it can be an error," Shae added. "When you see it over and over and over again, it becomes a pattern, and this pattern is consistent with declining and progressing dementia, or some other brain disease or disorder."

She continued: "It is not a good sign that in the last couple of months, I have had to make multiple videos of Donald Trump not knowing who he was looking at in either a picture or in real life, and not being able to find that person if it was in real life. It's a problem. Can you imagine if this was your own father and you were in your house and he was looking at a picture, and he said, 'oh, that's my daughter,' and it was his granddaughter? You would be concerned as well."

CNN host Pamela Brown clashed with Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) on Monday during a debate over several political issues, from the Justice Department's botched release of files related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein to the president's alternative July 4th celebration.

The debate began when Comer was making excuses for the lack of accountability around Epstein, saying that there were so many states involved in an investigation and that they weren't coordinating with each other. The FBI generally manages multi-state investigations under the Department of Justice.

Brown pivoted to the America 250 events and Trump's more partisan "Freedom 250." In the latter, Brown noted that Trump is profiting personally by selling coins for thousands and even by allowing donors access for top dollar. The Freedom 250 isn't supposed to be a political organization, but there's also no oversight to explore whether there is any self-dealing.

Is this something you would be willing to investigate as the head of oversight, whether the president is profiting off of the presidency, the president and his family?” Brown asked Comer.

“Well, there’s a ... story almost on a weekly basis that would, you know, imply that there’s some ... profiteering taking place from members of the president’s family,” Comer confessed. “But, you know, they said, well, you need to investigate. Well, you reported it. We investigated Biden because —"

But Brown cut in again as Comer tried to change the subject and filibustered over the top of her.

“So, because it’s transparent — Okay, so hold on. Let me just make sure I understand,” Brown interrupted. “So, because they’re open about it, it’s okay? But if they’re not open about it, it’s not okay?"

Comer claimed he "tried" to pass an ethics bill, but he said that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) "killed it because he thought Kamala Harris was going to be president."

"Okay..." Brown cut in again as Comer rambled.

"I think that there needs to be — there’s nothing I’ve seen that President Trump or his family done illegal. If people don’t like it, I think that’s a political debate," Comer claimed. Brown was trying to get at the idea that there hasn't been any investigation into whether Trump or his family did anything illegal regarding the Freedom 250 events.

Comer said that "voters can decide at the polls" what they think.

"But the bottom line is you won’t investigate, correct? Just to make sure," Brown clarified.

"Well, everything that — you know, the deals that they’re in! You may not like them. I’ve not seen any law that says anything’s illegal. Now, do I like them? I think that that answer is pretty clear," Comer claimed.

Brown noted that Comer had raised previous concerns about influence peddling under the previous administration, but doesn't seem interested in giving the Trump administration equal treatment.

"So, you previously raised those concerns. I just wondered if you had the same concerns. We have to run, but I’ll give you the final word here," she said.

"Yeah, well, the concerns with Biden are because he said he wasn’t taking money from China and these other countries. When we subpoenaed the bank records, they were," Comer said. Former President Joe Biden never took money from China. The company that his son was working for had a contract with a Chinese company.

Comer explained his logic is that Trump's behavior is fine because he's not denying it.

"So, Biden said he wasn’t doing this stuff. Trump acknowledges that he is. Now, should some of this be illegal? I —" Comer said before Brown cut him off again to note that Trump hasn't revealed his tax returns.

"But the tax returns didn't show all this money from China or other places," Comer said. Trump hasn't revealed those tax returns. He said that the U.S. has never had a "businessman" as a president, so it's a unique situation. In fact, several presidents have owned private businesses, including the first president.

Georgia Republican Senate candidate Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) is parroting President Donald Trump's 2020 election conspiracy theories, even though it's a "losing message," as one data analyst said.

Trump's administration staged an FBI raid on the Fulton County elections offices, claiming that they needed all ballots cast to search for election fraud.

Speaking to CNN on Monday, however, data analyst Harry Enten made it clear that if Collins wants to win, he should keep his mouth shut about 2020.

He's in good company when it comes to the Republican Party, but the rest of America is calling it bunk.

"I mean, they just believe this garbage," Enten said about the GOP. "Look at this: GOP that says that the 2020 election was stolen."

In 2021, 60 percent of Republicans said that the 2020 election was stolen, and in 2026, that number has risen to 63 percent.

Enten said that Collins is "starting to feel a whole lot like Herschel Walker 2.0." Walker lost his election in 2022. He explained that Collins' comments to CNN's Manu Raju make sense in the larger GOP narrative, but when it comes to reality, the rest of America isn't along for the ride.

"Most Republicans, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, believe that the 2020 election was, in fact, stolen," said Enten.

That's all well and good in a primary, but the general electorate doesn't embrace the sentiment.

"The Republican Party [is] all the way over on the right, and the rest of the American public is in the same camp, and the actual — this is the real world we're dealing with here," an animated Enten said.

In 2021, 59 percent of Americans didn't believe the election was stolen, and that number has jumped up to 64 percent who said that they don't think the election was stolen.

"So what you see is the American people believe in the results, rightfully believe in the results of the 2020 election, and then you have Republicans all the way in another camp. It is a losing message!" he concluded.

"That's why I say that Mike Collins is starting to sound like Herschel Walker 2.0," he concluded.

Republicans are fearful that President Donald Trump is actively working against them in the midterm elections in a no-win hostage crisis.

The Atlantic's Michael Scherer spoke to CNN's Audie Cornish on Monday about the president's ongoing efforts costing the GOP the midterm elections.

"The latest concerns are spilling into the open after President Trump refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill at the last minute last week. Why? Well, because he wants Congress to pass his controversial bill aimed at controlling elections," Cornish said, announcing the segment.

Republicans spent the past several days speaking out about the failure on "affordability," which the president continues to believe is a "Democrat hoax."

NOTUS reporter Igor Bobic said that "a whole lot of Republicans" agree with the so-called "YOLO Caucus," meaning (you only live once). Bobic said that outgoing Republicans are allowed to speak more freely, but that behind the scenes, other Republicans are afraid to go on the record. Still, they are all saying the same things.

"They see a President who's more focused on, you know, renovating a golf course as opposed to signing a housing bill, a huge bipartisan housing bill that passed Congress overwhelmingly, that still hasn't gotten signed," Bobic said.

Cornish thinks that it was to "rob Democrats" of the photo-op and a success story, but Axios reporter Alex Thompson said, "it's much more petulant than that."

"And that it was a completely emotional decision by Trump, because he is obsessed with the SAVE Act and he denied his party wins and Republicans are basically resigned at this point," Thompson said. "Donald Trump is just never going to be on message throughout the midterms. He's not going to be up front talking about specific policies to bring down prices. And what you're seeing, in some ways, is a second-term Trump that just has an exhausted legislative agenda. They have not really proposed any big things."

But it was Scherer who explained that behind closed doors, Trump's aides have had to work hard to explain to him why he should care about the midterm elections.

"He basically assumes he's going to lose the House, he doesn't think it matters much, so he's trying to figure out what he can do, what leverage he has here, and right now he's taking his own party hostage," Scherer said. "I mean that housing bill is a messaging bill that's supposed to help Republicans go home and say, look, I do care about affordability, I'm doing stuff for you."

Instead, Trump is "hurting his own party."

Thompson added that in the new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan talks about the Trump political team drafting memos as far back as December, talking about Trump's lack of focus on issues that matter to voters. This was before the Iran war.

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Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York ripped into Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Friday night for saying that Republican control of Congress is the only thing keeping President Donald Trump from being held to account for his numerous scandals and abuses of power during his second term in the White House.

Asked about comments made by the Speaker earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez told MS-NOW’s Jen Psaki that Johnson characterized future efforts to investigate or accountability for possible misdeeds or corruption by Trump, his family members, or members of his administration “as though it’s some partisan witch hunt,” she said. “But if you don’t want to be prosecuted for crimes, don’t do crimes.”

Ocasio-Cortez, often referred to by her initials AOC, had been asked about remarks Speaker Johnson made at the annual summit of the right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group with close ties to Trump and the Christian nationalist movement that supports him.

“If we lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats—y’all, impeachment isn’t even the real concern,” Johnson told the crowd. “They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted.”

The House speaker added, “I run the protection program. We’ll take care of you, OK?”

Johnson’s remarks unsurprisingly sparked a series of critical reactions, including AOC’s.

“Mike Johnson saying the quiet part out loud: protect the powerful. S---- everyone else,” said Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Pa.).

“The Speaker of the House just talked like a guy guarding a operation that can’t survive daylight,” said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). “Because that’s exactly what he’s doing.”

“You don’t need a ‘protection program’ for people who did nothing wrong,” Levin continued. “You need one when you’re afraid of what the books would show. Congress is supposed to be a check on power, not the muscle protecting it. Johnson is a total disgrace to the office. November can’t come fast enough.”

What Johnson is “talking about,” explained AOC in her interview with Psaki, is a Republican Party in Congress “running a protection racket” for Trump and his cronies, both in and out of government.

“And we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called one of the largest pedophile protection programs in American history,” she continued, referencing the scandal surrounding the disgraced convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

“And so when Mike Johnson tells a group of wealthy donors, I’m the only thing standing between you, and a consequence that should rattle at the conscience of every American,” she said. “What he wants to do is create—or rather, not even create, because it’s already been created—but protect a class of impunity in America that says, ‘You can commit whatever crime, and so long as you pay a check to us, we will protect you.’ And that is a model of extortion in American politics. And you know what? That’s their pitch.”

Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, responded to Johnson’s comments by detailing just a few examples of possible corruption by Trump that deserve much more scrutiny and congressional oversight.

“Trump has almost tripled his net worth during this term. His sons bought drone companies and immediately received military contracts right before Trump started another war. Trump threw a crypto contest to see who could buy the most of his meme coin, with the prize being exclusive access to him in his presidential capacity,” D-Arrigo noted.

“His son-in-law is getting billions in business deals from the countries and oligarchs wanting political favors. Large donors are spending millions to get pardons and investigations dropped. Trump is still actively covering up the Epstein files,” she added. “And these are just a handful of the things that were publicly reported on—imagine what we don’t know about yet.”

D’Arrigo called on voters to help “flip the House” away from the Republicans and investigate these examples of grift and corruption as well as others.

President Donald Trump's recent speech for America's 250th birthday celebration was riddled with "significant" signs of possible "neurological decline," according to one licensed pathologist, particularly his numerous slurred mispronunciations of certain words and phrases.

On Wednesday, Trump delivered a speech at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., as part of the "Great American State Fair" event that has been plagued with controversy in recent weeks. The online discourse after the event was dominated by videos that appeared to show crowds leaving midway through his speech, leading to more speculation about the event's lackluster crowd sizes, but according to one medical professional's observations, Trump's own words indicated that something could be seriously wrong with his cognitive health.

Hilary Shae is a licensed speech-language pathologist specializing in concussion recovery, and she has also emerged as a political content creator who offers professional insights into the signs that Trump may be suffering from notable physical and neurological decline. In her latest video from Saturday, she highlighted some of the things that Trump struggled to pronounce throughout the speech, including things like "250th anniversary," "magnificent," "ancient ruins," "Los Angeles" and "horizon."

In some cases, Trump's attempt to pronounce these words trailed off near the end, and in others, he mispronounced the word entirely, often not bothering to double back and try again. As Shae explained, these speech difficulties were "consistent" with certain conditions that can be caused by things like dementia or suffering a stroke, two things that she has previously suggested that Trump might be struggling with, based on his observable symptoms. These flubbed lines, she added, are often referred to as "phonemic paraphasias."

"Phonemic paraphasias are when the motor speech required to coordinate words and syllables together are not coordinated appropriately," she explained. "For example, if I wanted to say 'telephone,' but I accidentally said 'tephelone,' that would be a phonemic paraphasia, because my sounds got mixed up.

She continued: "And that is what's happening a lot of the time with Donald Trump's speech. The coordination for the syllables and order... the more syllables that you have, the higher level motor coordination is required to maintain appropriate speech-sound coordination."

Shae also suggested that this issue could be the result of dysarthria, a condition in which the weakening of muscles required for speech can cause patients to struggle speaking, causing them to sound slurred or slowed down. She argued that this is one of the more recent symptoms that Trump has shown, as is noticeable when he trails off at the ends of certain words, especially ones that are three or more syllables long.

"The fact that there are so many examples of these speech difficulties in one 30-minute speech means that Donald Trump is getting worse," Shae argued. "Whatever is going on, whether it's dementia, whether it's a stroke, whether it's a combination, whether it's congestive heart failure, whether it's whatever it might be, his neurological abilities are declining significantly."

A prominent biographer of President Donald Trump has exposed new details about the reaction within his administration to his unusually sycophantic young aide, claiming that some in his inner circle have been "appalled" by the situation.

Natalie Harp, 34, is an executive assistant to the president, having previously worked at the right-wing One America News Network prior to becoming his full-time aide during his years away from the White House. She has become known to those close to Trump or familiar with his close associates as a "human printer," carrying around a portable printer that allows her to share hard copies of positive news coverage or social media posts about him, no matter where he goes. This, many have observed, has given her an inordinate amount of sway over the information that Trump receives.

Her oddly close relationship to the president has been documented since the start of his second term, with reports emerging that her "obsession" with him had raised alarms in the Secret Service, but she returned to the news spotlight in recent weeks after new revelations about her, including her adoring letters to Trump, were exposed in a new book from reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

Michael Wolff is a longtime journalist and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's personal and political lives, and in the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he provided his own details about Harp, her conduct concerning the president and the alarm that it has caused within his administration.

"Everything that he reads is funneled through Natalie Harp because she’s the human printer," Wolff explained. "The stuff that she prints out is this laudatory stuff. Anything laudatory, she’s searching for at all times and then giving to the president. Other things that will cause him ire—actually, that would be her agenda. So things that cause her ire—that will also cause the president's ire—that goes to him.”

Haberman and Swan's book generated significant headlines about Harp's letters to Trump, specifically one in which she proclaims that, "You are all that matters to me." Speaking further about her role, Wolff revealed more of the things that Harp has written in these messages.

“In this pile of papers, she also frequently includes personal notes to him, and notes that, you know, [say] ‘You’re the alpha and the omega,’ ‘The be all and end all,’ ‘What would I be without you?’” Wolff added.

He continued later: “Natalie Harp’s story is a piece of work. Everybody was in a major kerfuffle over this, including the Secret Service warning the president of the United States, or warning aides to the president whose job it was then to bring to the president whether they did or not, that they saw her as a danger to herself and to him... Those notes, the Natalie Harp notes, were passed to me by other aides of the president who were equally as appalled by this. And that’s one of the things that exists, currently, in the Trump White House, this tension that this is a person who the president has allowed to become really his closest confidant.”

Unaffordable home prices are not the kind of thing billionaire President Donald Trump has had to worry about his whole life, but his voters are having a hard time with it in his economy. Locally elected Republicans are feeling more heat over the economic situation than Trump in his gold-plated Oval Office, however, and this is pressing Columbia, SC. Mayor Daniel Rickenmann to plead Trump for mercy.

“I think it's terrible for the Republican Party, to be quite honest,” said Rickenmann, speaking to an MS NOW “Weekend” panel Saturday morning about the possibility of Trump vetoing a popular housing bill to force Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE Act. “… When you have Senator (Rick) Scott and Senator (Elizabeth) Warren working together, this is what this country is based on, so we're really excited. You know, look, in 10 days this bill will be law. And I don't think the President would be wise to even think about vetoing something like this. This is monumental. This is the beginning. First housing bill in 30-plus years.”

Trump is facing a likely disastrous midterm election threatening to remove his protective Republican buffer in the House and Senate — which is the only thing protecting him from numerous investigations into claims of fraud and various tampering. Knowing this, Trump is determined to pass the SAVE Act, an election bill that critics say will make it harder to vote.

But passing the SAVE Act means also means nuking the Senate filibuster and removing the Senate parliamentarian, which Senate GOP leaders are loathe to do. For this reason, Trump is holding all bills hostage until the Republican majority commits to passing the SAVE Act to the White House for a signature.

But Trump may have other reasons behind his indifference to the Housing Bill, said MS NOW Eugene Daniels, who played footage of Trump dismissing the need for lower housing prices.

“I made billions of dollars with housing. I know housing better than anybody. Maybe anywhere. It is all about the interest rate. Lower the interest rate. You can have all the housing you want. But you have to understand: I don't want to … hurt people that own houses too. These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses, they become rich. I don't want to hurt them either.”

“What's interesting is several weeks ago, a month ago, he talked about how this is important,” responded Rickenmann. “This is the number one issue across America in every city. … If you're a Democratic city, Republican city, whatever, there's three and a half million units needed across this country. … We had over 1,800 [building permits issued] in our city. We're pushing everything we can. But to say that it's just interest rates is not true. And to say this isn’t monumental as also very disappointing, in my point of view.”

“It is very important for us to protect the integrity of elections,” Rickenmann insisted. “But at the same time, we can't hold one bill for other. We've got to work on thousands of things together, and I don't like the impression that one bill is being held up for another. That's just not the way things need to work.”

Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson said he was worried that House and Senate Republicans had tied themselves so thoroughly to President Donald Trump that the president knows he can blow up their November midterms chances without

Wilson told MS NOW anchor Katy Tur that Trump is the kind of personality that deliberately hurts those who show fealty because he sees their kindliness as weakness, and weakness must be abused.

“I think this is a real moment where the Republicans, if they were politically smart about it, would try to get some daylight between themselves and Trump, but they are so locked in this abusive marriage with him,” said Wilson. “He is the Ike Turner of their lives. He's going to torture them and hurt them, and they can't seem to escape.”

Semafor Congressional Bureau Chief Burgess Everett described Trump’s refusal to pass a popular housing bill until his GOP cohorts pass the SAVE Act — despite the bill’s inevitable doom from Democrats and a few centrist Republicans. But with the November midterms approaching fast Republicans desperately need new laws to brag about.

“They need to get together to be able to say, ‘hey, voters, you can trust us with another two years in Congress,’: Everett said. But may be unlikely if Trump refuses to sign any bills until he gets his precious SAVE Act.

Wilson said Republicans have only themselves to blame for the monster hounding them out of their Republican majority in November.

“Donald Trump started the week in very bad shape. He went in Wednesday and blew up his already tattered relationship with the Senate, threatening to veto this bill. You could see the air going out of Republicans in the House who desperately needed anything, even a symbolic lightweight, ephemeral sort of thing to take to the voters and say ‘yeah, we looked at affordability. We're working on housing costs.’ But I think there's also a great chance that Donald Trump will get bored or restless or change his mind, or somebody will get in his ear over the weekend and he'll blow it all up again,” said Wilson.

“The idea that the House is going to be somehow saved by Donald Trump, from its own worship of Donald Trump — which is what's put them in this terrible political position. I think that is a big old category error. And I don't think they see the freight train coming at them.”

Tur pointed out that the American public is “speaking pretty clearly” about their own 'fealty' to Trump, with the president suffering a 30-point popularity drop in just over a year.

“No president in modern times, with numbers that low doesn't end up splashing some radiation onto the members of his own caucus, of his own House and Senate,” said Wilson, “so these guys are really running up against a very steep hill.”

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Jack Goldsmith, who previously served as the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush, is issuing a stark warning Republican senators not to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general.

Thus far, Blanche has been auditioning for the attorney general gig, CNN said, by issuing indictments of President Donald Trump's political foes, whether or not they'll even make it to trial. Blanche was a former personal lawyer to Trump in a failed criminal defense against 34 felony fraud charges in New York.

As Politico stated in April, Blanche is a "Trump loyalist who relishes every opportunity to pick a fight on the president’s behalf."

“The DOJ is not a personal law firm, yet Donald Trump has installed another one of his former personal defense lawyers to lead the DOJ,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) wrote on social media at the time. “His blind allegiance to Trump is not a qualification for the job. He is wholly unfit to lead the DOJ.”

The objections appear to also spread to conservatives like Goldsmith.

Gregg Nunziata, the executive director for the Society for the Rule of Law, flagged Goldsmith's comments on X Friday. "If the Senate confirms Blanche, it’s not just confirming someone as attorney general; it’s endorsing Trump weaponization. That’s what’s at stake in the Senate confirmation: whether the Senate will exercise what I believe are its responsibilities to ensure that law enforcement isn’t abused. This is one very important check on that," Nunziata wrote.

"Now, to be clear," he added, "Blanche is going to be acting as attorney general one way or the other. But the question is whether the Senate will endorse what's been going on."

Goldsmith and Bauer compared it to the nomination of Bill Pulte for the director of national intelligence post, which Trump withdrew and replaced with another appointee whom some also consider unqualified.

The conversation was part of a discussion with former White House Counsel under President Barack Obama, Bob Bauer for his Substack and comes before former Attorney General Bill Barr wrote his glowing endorsement of Blanche for the Wall Street Journal.

President Donald Trump and his appointees — including Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, FBI Director Kash Patel and federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro — often paint themselves as zealous defenders of national security. But according to former Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor, national security is suffering greatly under Trump's second presidency—and the United States is the most vulnerable it has been since the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In a late June interview with Zeteo's John Harwood, Taylor warned about "people who want to kill Americans" and added, "We are less prepared to stop them than at any point since 9-11."

The conservative Taylor served in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during Trump's first administration, but he later became quite critical of Trump publicly and is now very much in the Never Trump camp — rooting for Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024.

The U.S., according to Taylor, is "asleep at the wheel" from a national security standpoint.

Harwood asked Taylor where the greatest national security threats are coming from, to which he responded, "You'd normally, in the national security realm, you worry about holidays. Why? Because terrorists love holidays. They see it as a prime opportunity to capture the public horror. And so, whether it was the Fourth of July or Halloween or Christmas or New Year's, those were the periods when the Department Homeland Security and FBI — we were on heightened alert."

The former DHS official continued, "I mean, people hear that terminology all the time, but there's a reason why you were on heightened alert. That also means, if you work in those agencies, you are used to holidays being destroyed. I can remember Christmas Days and New Year's Days where I was sitting in the basement of a family member's house for four hours dealing with the response to one of these things."

Taylor noted that during the United States' 250th anniversary celebrations, law enforcement agencies "will rightfully be concerned." And when Harwood asked if they would be more concerned about foreign terrorists or domestic terrorists, he replied, "I think both."

Taylor told Harwood, "I think that there's an equal measure of potential threats from Iranian proxies…. Terrorist organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda still have the capability and intent to attack the United States. But also, domestically. There are a wide range of domestic extremist organizations that might want to use the 250th to make a statement. That includes organizations that are opposed to Donald Trump."

Political authors Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan say President Donald Trump’s likely fall from Congressional dominance could involve a constitutional crisis as the budding autocrat refuses to acknowledge a Congress that is no longer beholden to him.

Trump think himself the most powerful person to walk the Earth, thanks to a report hashed together not by a historian but by the caddy of retired South African professional golfer Gary Player, according to Haberman speaking to MS NOW anchor Katy Tur.

“If he believes he's all powerful and he's the most powerful person has ever walked the Earth and he always wins. There is that open question of whether he leaves office after all,” asked Tur. “He's gilding it, he's remaking Washington. That ball room is only supposed to be finished a couple months before he leaves office.”

“We talk about this a fair amount in this in a presidential cycle, in a lame duck term, which this is. You can see where an unpopular president's party is headed and it's not for good or good results on Election Day, in the midterms and then the control of the House flips, maybe control of the Senate flips, and then what follows is a lot of subpoenas and oversight, hearings and so forth. If I'm sure if the House flips if the Senate flips one or the other or both. There obviously will be attempts by democrats. To do all of that.”

“But what we haven't seen before is what happens if a sitting administration across the board does not respond to those subpoenas, does not supply witnesses,” asked Haberman. “Now we have had instances where that has happened. You know in specific cases before under Obama, under Trump, on and so forth. What happens is if it's everything. Congress's ability is to actually engage in any accountability, if that's true, is pretty hamstrung. They don't have a jail in Congress, they will have to refer contempt of Congress, subpoenas, referrals to the DOJ, which will be led by a Trump appointee.”

“And not just a Trump appointee,” said Swan. “Trump's own former personal lawyer.”

And Swan added that if Republicans are in any kind of position of control in either the Senate or the House they will doubtless work in Trump’s favor over the health of U.S. democracy, likely out of self-preservation.

“You are seeing the Senate operate in a slightly different way than the House. But that's largely because Donald Trump has so aggressively alienated a few Senators,” said Swan. He added, however, not to expect the GOP to find its backbone, even in retirement.

“You know when it turns out, when you run them into retirement and defeat them and run opponents against them, they don't tend to retain their loyalty. But it's also instructive pretty much all these people who went against him are out of the job after the election,” said Swan. “So, this idea that, like Donald Trump, is losing all his power, I don't know. I kind of question that a little bit. He's still in the Republican Party, he's still the colossus and he still ends people's careers. So, we shouldn't get like too delusional about that.”

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Ted Cruz is probably running for president. It's a headline that is so unsurprising that even CNN found it amusing.

Reporting on Thursday, hosts made it clear that "many of the signs are there" that he's likely to run in 2028, setting up the intra-party battle between Vice President JD Vance and Cruz.

Cruz, who ran in 2016, has spent the subsequent years promoting himself on his own podcast was the butt of the joke for Vance when he was speaking to Megyn Kelly.

"Well, I think committed, non-interventionist, America First Ted Cruz could be a representative for that wing of the party," Vance said.

It isn't shocking after Cruz was caught trashing Vance and President Donald Trump in a secret recording reported in January.

Cruz was infamously referred to by the late Sen. Bob Dole (R-Ks.) as someone "nobody likes." Ironically, Dole also remarked that he thought Donald Trump could likely get legislation passed because he's a "dealmaker."

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) famously wrote in his book, "I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was forced to apologize publicly after he quipped in 2017, "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you."

Even former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who didn't even serve in the U.S. Senate with Cruz, said, "I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."

Democracy Docket went so far as to refer to Cruz as the "most hated man in Washington."

CNN reporter Steve Contorno explained on Thursday that Cruz's calendar is peppered with trips to states that have early primaries and caucuses. He's there to help fellow Republicans up for elections in 2026, but they're in states like Iowa and South Carolina.

Bob Vander Plaats, an Iowa Republican and co-chair of Cruz's 2016 campaign, said, "I'd be shocked if he doesn't run" in 2028.

Contorno said he's been watching these candidates because the open question is what Trump will do when it comes to handing over what he considers to be his movement to someone else. In the past, Trump's "deference" has been Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Cruz is already setting himself apart from Vance by opposing the Iran War, while Vance has been carrying Trump's water over the war.

Contorno went so far as to call it an "unofficial kickoff to 2028" after Vance published a new book while Cruz was so publicly outspoken against the administration on Iran.

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Political consultant and author Stuart Stevens has no sympathy for Republicans who were forced to contend with President Donald Trump, who didn't care much about them during their elections.

In the new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the authors addressed Trump's having "some satisfaction" seeing Republicans on the ballot lose when he also wasn't running for reelection.

"The next month, when Republicans performed badly in the off-year elections, Trump would say he was 'honored' that people were saying that they couldn't win without him on the ballot," says the new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.

MS NOW host Katy Tur asked Stevens about it, but he couldn't possibly care less about the plight of the GOP.

"Look, I have zero sympathy for these Republicans," he said frankly. "You know, they staged the cannibal's banquet, and in a surprise, they were on the menu. What do you expect from Donald Trump? This is the same erratic, self-centered guy who doesn't care anything about governing."

This week, Republicans are facing off against the president, killing one of their only pieces of legislation to address the affordability crisis.

"I think that we sort of grade on the curve here if we start saying, well, they haven't done everything that Donald Trump wanted to. They are supposed to be a coequal branch of government," Stevents said.

He noted that there's a tendency of the political establishment and pundit class to "both-sides" a Congress that fails to pass legislation. Fewer than 40 bills passed the House and Senate in 2025. It set a modern record for the lowest legislative output in the first year of a new presidency, according to data gathered by C-SPAN and Purdue University.

The legislative session for 2026 is still going, but thus far, it isn't looking great. Most legislation focuses on naming post offices, approving nominees from the president and authorizing veterans hospitals. There have been 186 roll call votes, meaning the members indicated whether they were present in the chamber.

Stevens remarked, "Democrats actually are trying to govern. Republicans, for the most part, are just doing what Donald Trump says, and Donald Trump could not care less about the midterms; he could not care less about them; he could not care less about anything but what is immediately in front of him that his name is going to be on," something or something that "involves getting him richer."

He said it was like that in 2016 and it will be true this time around as well.

"They all kind of try to pretend this is otherwise and ultimately it just doesn't work, because Donald Trump isn't that person that they keep trying to think he might," Stevens closed.

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Justice Samuel Alito was triggered by his colleague Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday at the U.S. Supreme Court as the two were reading the rulings on the final dozen, or so, decisions for the term. According to one CNN reporter, Alito was "stone-faced" and made excuses for himself after her comments.

Speaking about the incident, CNN's Dana Bash teased the comments by calling it "really explicit" in their ideological divide.

"It really was an and it boiled over in this one encounter between Justice Alito and Justice Sotomayor," agreed Joan Biskupic, CNN's chief Supreme Court analyst.

After Alito finished reading the decision that involved migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, which dealt with the language over whether someone had "arrived" or "not arrived" in the United States, Sotomayor stepped in.

Biskupic explained that the debate over that case involves U.S. Border Patrol agents who will block people from "arriving" in the U.S. by preventing them from stepping over the border.

After Alito finished explaining why it was a "perfectly legitimate for the administration to do — to block these asylum seekers," the analyst said that Sotomayor stepped in to say, "I have a dissent here."

Justice Alito paused, Biskupic said, "So, he must have known that something was coming from her."

She addressed the "moral imperative of allowing asylum seekers who are fleeing serious persecution from coming to America, allowing them to come to America."

“The consequences of today’s decision are predictable,” she read. “More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not."

She then began citing specific incidents of the U.S. turning back people who were later persecuted and killed. She recalled the infamous incident involving the voyage of the M.S. St. Louis, in 1939, in which 937 passengers, almost all of whom were Jewish refugees, attempted to flee to the United States from Nazi Germany. It first went to Cuba and then to the U.S. The Americans turned them back.

"She finishes," continued Biskupic. "She takes, you know, about three times as long as Sam Alito had taken to deliver the actual opinion. And the first thing he says before he starts to recount the temporary protected status opinion that 'If I had known what the dissent was going to say I would have explained my ruling more.' And he just sits there kind of stone-faced, and everyone's like wow, and you know he definitely suggested he was blindsided."

Biskupic added, "I have a feeling that she might have said, maybe right before they were going on the bench, you know, 'Hey Sam, I've got something to say. But then he goes, with anger dripping from his voice to then detail what happened, what they were ruling in the temporary protected status case is."

Justice Elena Kagan had her own dissent in that second case, but chose not to read it, Biskupic said, "probably because there had been enough fireworks for the morning."

Former CNN reporter Jim Acosta has long been a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump. Now, the White House has renewed its attacks after the reporter dared to fact-check the claims about the Reflecting Pool.

Acosta appeared to trigger the White House on Wednesday with his live report from the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Like many journalists, researchers, Washington D.C. locals and tourists, Acosta went to the pool to see for himself if Trump's claim of vandalism was accurate.

There was no 250-350 foot gash sliced into the lining of the Reflecting Pool.

“Went looking for the 300-foot ‘slit’ or ‘slits’ in the reflecting pool Trump keeps lying about,” Acosta wrote on X. “Didn’t find any of that. But did find plenty of signs [that] the paint on the bottom of the pool has simply disintegrated.”

Trump has spent the week claiming that the pool had been vandalized, alleging that Democrats were to blame.

Speaking to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday, the president, embroiled in a war in Iran, wanted to focus instead on the "thugs," he said, who had hurt his pool.

“They just told me a little while ago,” Trump claimed. “Six have been arrested, and like six or seven are under investigation. They had pictures and everything else. They went to the bottom, and it’s not a paint job, it’s very expensive, it’s not rubber — but it’s like rubber — and they went down with probably a box cutter or a very sharp razor of some kind or knife, and they cut, and then they started ripping it up.”

“You know, one of the guys, he’s a member or a big player to ActBlue,” Trump added, referencing the Democratic Party fundraising platform. “He’s a big Hillary supporter, he’s a big supporter of Sleepy Joe Biden.”

Trump had previously said that the lining was Impenetrable.

It's not clear what Trump is talking about. The National Park Police have released a video of one woman sifting through the waters on the edge for a piece of the pool to take with her. Over the weekend, tourists were grabbing pieces as souvenirs, CNN reported.

Acosta, who had once been banned by the White House, walked over 4,000 steps around the perimeter of the pool searching for the massive gash and wasn't able to find it either.

“You can’t see a slit. There are no slits that he’s been talking about. It’s all a lie," he concludes.

That's when the White House snapped.

Using the official @RapidResponse47 account on X, the White House responded, “Jim, you are truly one of the dumbest individuals to have ever existed. Please seek professional help."

A White House spokesperson commented on the allegation: "It is shameful that elected Democrats would lie to the American public about the deranged vandalism that has taken place at the Reflecting Pool. President Trump generously spearheaded the restoration of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and it is now reflecting beautifully despite the vandals’ attempt to destroy it."

Trump has long attacked Acosta, who frequently asked him questions that so angered the president that he reacted defensively.

Former GOP U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Penn.) lamented before a CNN panel at how eagerly President Donald Trump appears to be trying to ruin Republicans’ chances in November, even when he’s allegedly campaigning on their behalf.

Dent was responding to a recent comment about Trump from U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, (R-La.) comparing Trump to a child.

Trump allegedly called Cassidy a ‘lunatic,’ in a recent war of words, which prompted Cassidy to tell reporters: “Can I imagine that the President called me things that would be said on a school playground? I can imagine [that]”

But Dent said Republicans like Cassidy appear to be late in showing their feelings as the midterm elections begin to close in on them, with the public growing ever more frustrated at Trump’s economic policies and his unilateral attack on Iran, which inflated U.S. fuel and food prices in time for November.

“If I wanted to lose a midterm election, I would do the things the President is doing,” said Dent. “I would steal defeat from the jaws of victory on this Housing Bill. I would obsess over a ballroom. I would obsess on a pond — the reflecting pool — and an arch. I would say ‘I don't care about Americans’ financial condition. I mean it's as if he's trying to deliberately undermine his own party's electoral prospects.”

“He was just in my hometown of Allentown yesterday … up at the Mack truck plant. And he doesn't even mention the Republican gubernatorial candidate who's sitting right there,” marveled Dent. “The State Treasurer doesn't even call on the Republican congressman until the end to say something and say it fast. I mean it's — it’s just incredible that he doesn't care about their electoral prospects.”

Trump’s not good at legislation anyway, said panelist Paul Rieckhoff, host of the “Independent Americans” podcast. This, he said, is also doing nothing for a Republican Party that desperately needs to take a win home to their voters if they are to have a chance in November.

But Trump has instead stalled all legislation in an effort to bully Congress to pass the SAVE Act with its onerous vote restrictions. He’s even stalled a popular bill to help with overpriced U.S. housing.

“[Passing legislation] requires negotiation, it requires compromise, it requires getting along with people from the other side. And [Trump] doesn't like doing that. He's a snow plow, he likes to go full force, all gas and no breaks without stopping for anyone,” Rieckhoff told CNN anchor Erin Burnett. “I think it's really [typical] that he's focusing on the SAVE act, because he's focusing on the elections. He's always focusing on the elections because he has to protect his power and he knows that free and fair elections this fall will mean accountability for him. It could mean impeachment; it could mean prison. He knows that that is America's circuit breaker. That's why he continues to prioritize it.”

“He doesn't care about housing,” said Rieckhoff. “He said that before, even though most of America does. … He cares about power, and the most important thing in protecting his power is the SAVE Act.”

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An MS NOW panel had to warily admit that President Donald Trump has sandblasted his Republican Party so hard against the wall that even Fox News can’t seem to repair the damage.

Polls suggest Trump’s popularity is at a career low, and he’s dragging his Republican Party into the pit with him. But there’s more than just polling, said John Heilemann with Puck News. The enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans is also apparent in recent elections.

“[D]emocrats are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about voting for non-Republican candidates this November and we have seen this not once, not twice, not in an outlier way, but in a consistent way,” Heilemann told MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace. “Democrats are showing up and they're showing up in large numbers by the standards of off-year elections and the standards of special elections, and they're not just exceeding [Trump’s margins from 2024] but blowing them out of the water.”

“That's not a poll. That is not a focus group. Those are points on the board right where you're saying ‘here's a team that's winning.’” Heilemann insisted, adding that “we're seeing a deflated Republican electorate that’s not excited about its options [and] … doesn't believe that Donald Trump or the … Republican party around Donald Trump has done right by them.”

Wallace said she could even see the enthusiasm gap creeping into the markedly more somber atmosphere of the non-stop Trump cheerleading squad at Fox News.

“One of my indicators is Jessica Tarlov from [Fox’s] ‘The Five.’ In the early months of Trump's second term, she was always exquisitely prepared, but I almost was nervous for her. But now she like runs the table,” Wallace told the panel. “… I don't know if they're capable of embarrassment, but the whole power structure of the table has changed. She's just one [liberal] person, but I think she called Jesse Waters a guy who shills for an idiot and everyone was just stone silent afterward.”

“I mean it's not just vibes,” Wallace asserted. “If you trust your eyes, if you trust your ears. Donald Trump is a political loser right now. That is undeniable.”

Angelo Carusone, with Media Matters for America, quickly agreed to the network’s muted shift in tone.

“Fox News has been the firmest out there trying to carry water for the story that Trump is telling, and they just can't do it anymore,” said Carusone. “When you start to even expose it a little bit like the Tarlov example it's impossible. And they're his firmest allies.”

“They are the strongest [support structure] Trump has, Fox and the Fox audience — and even they are having a lot of difficulty carrying water for Trump right now.”

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President Donald Trump has so many revenge campaigns and such a huge list of grievances that the White House staff is struggling to keep them straight.

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, a new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, details a number of exchanges with aides. Haberman explained on CNN Wednesday morning that there is no longer a line between the Justice Department and Trump.

"But we make clear in the reporting how true that is he wanted the top DOJ officials to understand — as they were trying to obtain an indictment against Letitia James — and there was this question of whether a mortgage fraud charge could actually be brought. Todd Blanche, who was then the deputy attorney general, was not convinced this was going to work," Haberman explained.

"[Blanche] was operating, in our reporting, from the perspective of if you're going to bring a case, you need to be able to actually prove the case," she said.

"Like a lawyer" host John Berman cut in.

Haberman read an excerpt illustrating Trump's frustrations with James and the lack of progress in going after her.

"He told one adviser that Blanche needed to grasp: He didn't really care whether she was ultimately convicted," the book explains. "The president's true goal was to drag into court the New York Attorney General who had won a nearly half billion dollar civil fraud judgment against him."

Trump told the advisor, "I want to make her life miserable."

When they asked Trump whether he said it, Trump said he didn't think so, but agreed, "I would have said it."

He attacked her as a "dirty cop" and "very corrupt person."

"So, we got a real look at how this is working," said Haberman. The reporter also detailed a case in which top aides Stephen Miller and Boris Epstein were talking about one of Trump's targets from 2020 that they couldn't remember.

"They're talking about 'who was that guy involved in the in the elections,' in the machines and the security of the elections in 2020?" Haberman said, noting they couldn't even remember and had to look up who the person was. It was Chris Krebs.

"And then soon there is this presidential memorandum about investigating Krebs," Haberman explained.

Veteran television producer, writer and comedian Larry David, well-known for his work on the hit sitcom "Seinfeld" in the late 1980s and 1990s, has been a blistering critic of U.S. President Donald Trump. And now, he is speaking out against an event that Trump used to celebrate his 80th birthday on July 14: the widely publicized Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event at the White House.

Variety asked David, now 78, to weigh in on the UFC gathering at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and he didn't mince words.

David told Variety, "It was a travesty. What else can you say about it? It was embarrassing."

The former "Seinfeld" producer made it clear that he considered Trump's UFC event highly unpresidential.

"I was embarrassed to be an American," David bluntly told Variety during the interview.

David has a long resumé in U.S. television.

After working briefly on "Saturday Night Live" during the 1980s, the producer and writer went on to create the popular "Seinfeld" (starring Jerry Seinfeld) in 1989. And the show lasted almost a decade before concluding in 1998. David went on to star in another popular series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," on HBO from 1999-2024.

David is a longtime supporter of liberal causes and the Democratic Party, vehemently criticizing Trump during the United States 2024 presidential election and continuing to criticize Trump after his return to the White House on January 20, 2025.

David was hardly alone in criticizing Trump's UFC event on July 14. Quite a few Democrats attacked it as unpresidential, and many Never Trump conservatives saw it as a metaphor for Trump's MAGA politics — which they view as style over substance and bad for the conservative movement.D avid has also been feuding with "Real Time" host Bill Maher, who is also a frequent critic of Trump.

After Maher had dinner with Trump inside the White House, David criticized the "Real Time" host for meeting with him. Maher countered, however, that he wasn't endorsing Trump's ideas — only trying to have some type of dialogue with a political figure he has major disagreements with.