Trumpism
PART VII
QAnon Isn’t Dead. It Lives In the Heart of the Republican Party.
The bizarre, powerful conspiracy theory has been declared moribund many times over. But rather than dissipate, it went mainstream.
By
Six years ago, shortly before Jeffrey Epstein died in his cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, news broke that the FBI had issued a bulletin warning of the potential threat posed by QAnon. At the time, QAnon was not widely understood. It appeared to be a complex jumble of conspiracy theories around which communities formed on social media, communities whose members believed they could help bring about the demise of a shadowy, powerful cabal controlling the world and, among other things, trafficking children for sex. QAnon was anticipating a climactic final battle—“the storm,” a violent reckoning cribbed from far-right anti-government texts and ideology—in which the cabal would be exposed, the deep state would be toppled, and believers’ enemies would be executed.
“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the May 30, 2019 bulletin from the FBI’s Phoenix field office stated. It warned that as the 2020 election neared, QAnon could become more of a danger, intensifying in part due to “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures.” Just a couple of months later, Trump did in fact retweet a post from an account pushing QAnon conspiracy theories, such as those about Democrats trafficking children to harvest their pineal glands. The post that Trump shared, which merely alleged that Democrats “are the only ones” to interfere in American elections, may have seemed tame compared to other QAnon posts at the time, which tended toward grotesque dreams of vengeance.
Today, six years after the FBI’s warning was made public, six years after Epstein’s death, we get jokes about how, now that Trump’s ties to Epstein are once again under scrutiny, even his one-time supporters like the QAnon Shaman—Jacob Chansley, an Arizona man made internationally famous on January 6 for his horned fur hat and bare chest, who led “rioters in [an] incantation,” per the Justice Department—have abandoned him. Some are even celebrating an apparent crack-up in MAGA, once fueled by QAnon fantasies of exposing sex traffickers, over Trump’s failure to release the “Epstein files.” Didn’t MAGA claim to care about sex traffickers operating with impunity? Doesn’t Trump now look like yet another elite operating with impunity? Trump appears to be cutting back major U.S. anti-trafficking efforts, diverting investigators to immigration enforcement—doesn’t it look an awful lot like he never cared about sex trafficking?
Well, neither MAGA nor Trump ever cared all that much about “fighting trafficking.” It was mainly an opportunity for MAGA, just as it was for QAnon: a platform for fundraising and self-promotion. For Trump, trafficking offered a ready-made law enforcement apparatus to be turned on immigrants, an excuse to build his wall. The first Trump administration also handily demolished its relationship with the largest network of human trafficking groups in the United States. As for whether MAGA’s anger at Trump means that QAnon is at last over—the conspiracy theories no longer sustainable in the face of a sex-trafficking scandal involving its hero—I am not sure that it can be. Far from fading, it feels like QAnon is everywhere now.
August 1, 2025
Republicans, You Support Pardoning Sex-Traffickers?
Stuart Stevens doesn’t just warn us — he indicts himself and calls out the full collapse of Republican moral credibility, from Trump’s “I wish her well” to the GOP’s eerie silence on Epstein.
“Every Republican who hasn’t said, ‘no pardon for Maxwell’ is saying yes by default,” he argues. And the truth hits harder because it’s coming from someone who helped elect the very people staying quiet.
This isn’t about one man. It’s about a movement. A party that once branded itself as the guardian of American values now shields predators, shrinks from accountability, and hopes no one notices. But Stuart has a message for his old colleagues — and for the rest of us: “They did listen to me. And I was wrong.” That’s not an apology. It’s a call to action. Tune in, and show up — because the reckoning starts with us.
August 1, 2025
The Man Driving the Nationalist Revival on the Right
Vice President JD Vance gave a speech recently that deserved more attention than it got. Accepting an award at a right-wing think tank, he argued that there’s a fundamental brokenness in how we define who is an American. He explained that this is the root of many of our country’s problems: a national identity that has become too broad.
That was also a core idea of the 2018 book The Virtue of Nationalism, which caused a sensation on the right. Its author, the Israeli political theorist Yoram Hazony, went on to build a movement. For years, he has hosted NatCon — short for National Conservatism — conferences. Those events have featured speakers like Marco Rubio, who is now the secretary of state, and Senator Josh Hawley. And one of the most reliable speakers, year after year, has been Vance.
I wanted to talk to Hazony. What exactly is his argument, his worldview? And are the Trump administration’s policies putting it into practice?
COMMENT
THE POLITICS OF FEAR
As a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump made his
world view plain: there was “us” and there was “them.”
Once he was in the White House,
the fear factor would prevail.
By
August 3, 2025
The Rachel Maddow Show
August 4, 2025
U.S. profoundly changed by authoritarian leader
Rachel points out that the thing most Americans were dreading has come to pass, and the United States has changed profoundly in only six months of authoritarian rule.
“We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country.”
With freedoms likely to continue to be curtailed in deference to Donald Trump’s power, that means Americans have the most tools for democratic resistance right now.
August 5, 2025
Heated Showdown: Nebraska Town Hall
Erupts as GOP Rep. Faces Angry Voters
Tensions ran high at a town hall meeting in Nebraska as Republican Representative faced a furious crowd of constituents. The event, held in [Insert City], quickly turned into a raucous exchange over key issues including healthcare, border security, and the economy.
Attendees shouted over the lawmaker’s responses, demanding accountability on recent votes and policies. This heated confrontation underscores the growing political divide and voter frustration leading into the 2026 midterm elections.
Watch the full package for all the dramatic moments, reactions, and what this means for the GOP moving forward.
August 5, 2025
Anti-Trump protests explode across America
raging against the authoritarian regime and its policies.
A National Day of Action, saw peaceful protesters marching across the nation on Saturday to protest the Trump regime as part of “Rage Against the Regime” and organized by the group 50501.
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
August 5, 2025
War on numbers: Trump’s latest firing
crosses a new line
“Donald Trump does not want you to know the truth. He does not want you to listen to the data or independent experts. He wants you to believe that only he can be trusted to tell you the score,” says Ali Velshi on Trump firing the labor stats chief.
August 5, 2025
Texas Democrat says GOP redistricting
push is a ‘coup for President Trump’
The Texas House of Representatives is reconvening Tuesday after a group of Democratic lawmakers fled the state to places like Chicago and New York in an effort to block a quorum and effectively halt a GOP redistricting plan that could potentially deliver Republicans an additional five congressional seats in the midterm elections.
Since then, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called on state troopers to find and arrest any Texas Democrat involved in the walkout.
Texas Democratic State Representative Ann Johnson — who represents Houston and fled to Chicago — spoke with Scripps News on Tuesday and seemingly wasn’t too worried about the threats being made against her and her colleagues, saying it “shows how desperate Texas Republicans are to try to pull off this coup for President Trump.”
August 5, 2025
California Democrats move forward on redistricting
plan amid Texas Republican-led effort
California Democrats are pursuing a plan to redraw congressional maps amid the efforts in Texas to redistrict, which could hand the GOP five more House seats.
David Becker, the executive director at the Center for Election Innovation and Research, joins with more details.
August 5, 2025
CHARLIE ANGUS CALLS FOR
GLOBAL BOYCOTT OF USA
Charlie Angus was a guest speaker at the recent Pan-American Congress in Mexico, City. He told elected officials from across the Americas that the Canadian boycott has challenged the authoritarian gangster regime in Washington and should be exported to all nations. He delivered the remarks in a panel discussion on sustainability and the climate crisis.
We must protect democratic sustainability to ensure overall sustainability.
Aug. 5, 2025
The state of America’s judiciary
with Judge J. Michael Luttig
The retired conservative federal judge says a war against the judiciary in America has been waged by “a tyrannical wannabe king.”
By Paige Sutherland and Meghna Chakrabarti
Guest
J. Michael Luttig, served as a judge on the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals from 1991 to 2006. He was appointed by President George H. W. Bush. He is author of the Atlantic op-ed “The End of Rule of Law.”
May 14, 2025
THE END OF RULE OF
LAW IN AMERICA
The 47th president seems to wish he were king—and he
is willing to destroy what is precious about this country
to get what he wants.
By J. Michael Luttig
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES appears to have long ago forgotten that Americans fought the Revolutionary War not merely to secure their independence from the British monarchy but to establish a government of laws, not of men, so that they and future generations of Americans would never again be subject to the whims of a tyrannical king. As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense in 1776, “For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”
August 6, 2025
ICE Tackles Latino Citizen for Filming Raid,
Now Faces $1M Lawsuit
Job Garcia, a Mexican-American U.S. citizen and PhD student, was violently tackled and detained for over 24 hours after filming a brutal ICE raid outside a Home Depot in Los Angeles. Despite identifying himself as a citizen, Garcia was arrested without cause—his phone smashed, his rights ignored.
Now, he’s demanding $1 million in damages in a case that highlights how ICE’s unchecked power endangers not just immigrants, but anyone who dares to document their actions.
This is what happens when government power becomes unaccountable.
August 7, 2025
On the frontline of Donald Trump’s
immigration crackdown | The Brief
Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has spread widespread fear, anger and wild scenes, but Americans are fighting back.
What if History Died by Sanctioned Ignorance?
We must mobilize now to defend our profession, not only with research and teaching but in the realm of politics and public persuasion.
By August 7, 2025
The primary aim of the political right, said the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, in early 2024, should be “institutionalizing Trumpism.” He and his organization meant this especially for the writing, teaching, and dissemination of American history.
On March 27, President Donald Trump, echoing the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, issued an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The White House now believes it should pronounce on the nature of history and the purpose and substance of the nation’s treasures at the Smithsonian Institution. The order is nothing less than a declaration of political war on the historians’ profession, our training and integrity, as well as on the freedom and curiosity of anyone who reads or visits museums. In other words, Trump’s team has declared war on free minds and free education in order to erase more than a half-century of scholarship and replace it with official triumphal narratives rooted in a brand of pickled patriotism designed to force the past to serve the present.
August 8, 2025
Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi & Texas Dems
Blast Trump in Fiery California Presser
California Governor Gavin Newsom, joined by Nancy Pelosi and Texas Democratic legislators, blasts Trump’s Texas redistricting plan at a fiery Sacramento press conference. They unveil a bold ballot measure to counter GOP gerrymandering and protect democracy before the 2026 midterms. Will it reshape Congress?
August 8, 2025
The Christian nationalist pastor with ties
to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
Self-described Christian nationalist pastor Douglas Wilson is part of an ascendent group of Christian religious leaders finding influence among MAGA conservatives. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is Wilson’s most prominent and public follower in the Trump administration.
CNN’s Pamela Brown reports from Moscow, Idaho where Wilson’s Christ Church is based.
Velshi
August 9, 2025
‘Our country is transforming before our eyes’:
The rise of the Revenge Presidency
Miles Taylor, former DHS chief of staff turned whistleblower in the first Trump administration, says even he’s surprised by the “breakneck pace” at which democracy is being dismantled in the name of revenge. Taylor says what worries him most is what Trump hasn’t done yet.
The founders warned about the dangers of revenge, and “here we are — we’re living it,” says Taylor. Regardless of the truth behind the Justice Department’s accusations against Trump’s foes, Taylor stresses that’s not the point of Trump’s revenge spree: “The process is the punishment.”
Feb. 6, 2020
THE DAY DEMOCRACY DIED – by Founders Sing
with Don McLean & Founding Fathers
Some of the Founders and Framers of the Constitution did more than turn over in their graves… they actually resurfaced to sing “The Day Democracy Died.” That, plus they “dig those rhythm and blues!
Featured are in order of appearance: George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.
Massive gratitude to Don McLean for the iconic masterpiece “American Pie.” Respect!
August 9, 2025
Trump’s Assault on Truth
August 10, 2025
The Texas Special Session Is A National Power Grab;
Meet The Democrats Who Can’t Return Home
Facing arrest warrants and Republican calls for their removal, Texas Legislative Democrats arrive in California to discuss attempts to gerrymander their state and what California can do to stop it.
Joining the conversation are Gina Hinojosa, Vince Perez, Rhetta A. Bowers, Ray Lopez, Ann Johnson, and Mary Ann Perez.
August 10, 2025
TRUMP INVITES WAR CRIMINAL PUTIN TO USA
Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to Alaska. He is an indicted war criminal charged with the kidnapping of 19,000 Ukrainian children. Donald Trump continues to kiss up to this gangster while undermining the people of Ukraine. Now he is welcoming the war criminal on American soil. Who will speak up for the stolen children?
August 12, 2025
How Pres. Trump Is Using Project 2025
to Reshape America
President Trump is deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., stating that his administration aims to crack down on crime and homelessness. Some are asking if this move is part of “Project 2025.” At almost 1000 pages long, it’s an ambitious, and controversial, right-wing blueprint for transforming executive power.
Just over 200 days into Trump’s second term, one online tracker says the agenda is nearly halfway through completion. Journalist David Graham joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss what this means for average Americans, and for American foreign policy.
August 12, 2025
The 5 Fascist Tactics Trump Used Yesterday
Yesterday, Donald Trump announced his takeover of law enforcement in Washington, DC, but beneath the bluster was something far more dangerous — a fascist playbook in action.
In this video, former evangelical pastor Pat Kahnke breaks down five specific fascist tactics Trump used in his press conference, drawing on Jason Stanley’s research in How Fascism Works. From Mythic Past rhetoric and “Law and Order” manipulation to unreality, propaganda, and the classic Sodom & Gomorrah urban decay framing, we’ll see exactly how authoritarian leaders consolidate power — and why white evangelicals remain Trump’s strongest allies.
If you’re a sincere Christian who cares about biblical justice, you need to hear this warning. Fascism is as fascism does, and Trump’s DC announcement should be a wake-up call for everyone who values democracy, truth, and compassion.
See Jason Stanley’s Ten Tactics of Fascism.
Aug. 13, 2025
Anne Applebaum Predicted Trump’s ‘Absolute Power’
in Second Term
Anne Applebaum, staff writer for The Atlantic, has covered dictators for decades. In an interview from before the 2024 election with Mediaite’s Press Club, she told host Aidan McLaughlin that Donald Trump’s language mirrored rhetoric from Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.
She described a disturbing trend in his authoritarian language — and how it foreshadowed his consolidation of “absolute power” in a second term as president.
August 13, 2025
Lock Him Up! Beto O’Rourke Is Risking
Arrest To Protect Texas’ Voters
Former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke talks about Ken Paxton’s calls for his arrest, anti-redistricting rallies, and how his Powered By People PAC is fighting Governor Abbott’s plan to give Donald Trump a third term.
Discussed in this episode: How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days (Timothy W. Ryback, The Atlantic)
Top U.S. & World Headlines — August 13, 2025
August 13, 2025
Kristi Noem CALLED OUT After Fake
ICE Agents Target Women Nationwide
Department of Homeland Security, led by Kristi Noem, gets called out in a stunning letter by congressional reps for practices that “leave women vulnerable to life-altering violence” and demand clear ICE agent identification after reports reveal women across the nation have started being targeted, kidnapped and assaulted by men impersonating ICE agents. John Iadarola and Sharon Reed break it down on The Damage Report.
Read more here:
Multiple Men Have Impersonated ICE Agents To Kidnap And Assault Women (Alanna Vagianos, HuffPost)
August 15, 2025
Trump dealt ultimate humiliation
on global stage | Another Day
The 11th Hour
August 15, 2025
‘This could have been an email’: Trump leaves
Alaska with no deal as Putin delights in photo op
Donald Trump left his much-hyped summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska without a ceasefire deal – and without giving any real detail about what, if anything, was actually accomplished. Meanwhile, Putin seems to have gotten the optics boost he was looking for.
Peter Baker, David Rohde, Nayyera Haq, and Kevin Baron join Stephanie Ruhle on The 11th Hour.
August 15, 2025
“I’m embarrassed for my country” | David Cay Johnston
slams Trump-Putin summit after no deal
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and Trump biographer gives his immediate reaction to the Trump-Putin summit saying that more detail will come out, but that it appears the US President has “sold out Ukraine.”
The Briefing
August 15, 2025
Trump saves Putin from international
isolation with embarrassing meet-up
Despite efforts to lower expectations for his big meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump still managed to underperform with nothing to show for the meeting, which was followed by a “press conference” with no details and no questions taken.
Jen Psaki is joined by her MSNBC colleague Nicolle Wallace, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, and former deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, to discuss what happened and what it all means.
August 17, 2025
Why is Donald Trump refusing to release the
Epstein files?
In death, Jeffrey Epstein has managed to do something no one else has been able to – drive a wedge between Donald Trump and his loyal base. Releasing the so-called “Epstein files” was one of the campaign promises that resonated most with Donald Trump’s supporters.
The files, 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence of the vile crimes of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, have long been thought to contain the names of others in his depraved network. Despite his friendship with Epstein, Trump has long positioned himself as the person capable of exposing the dark secrets contained in the files.
But last month, after teasing the release of the files, the President and his administration backflipped.
August 18, 2025
In Full: Trump & Zelensky meeting as it happened
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump have expressed hope that critical talks with European leaders at the White House could lead to trilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The 11th Hour
August 18, 2025
Trump shows his hand in hot mic
moment at White House summit
Donald Trump welcomed the leaders of Ukraine and several European allies to the White House on Monday after his summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week. Trump says he’s now coordinating a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy — but will Putin actually follow through?
Luke Broadwater, Susan Glasser, Amb. William Taylor, and Tom Nichols join Jacob Soboroff on The 11th Hour.
August 18, 2025
Trump’s War On The Poor
My conversation with Jesse Rabinowitz, who said “We should care about homeless people because they are people, and most folks are closer to living outside than they are to being a billionaire.”
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” ~ FDR Second Inaugural, 1937.
August 18, 2025
ICE Tasers Peaceful Man After
Agents Are Denied A Parking Spot
Shocking footage shows ICE agents tasering a peaceful man after being denied a parking spot. This disturbing incident highlights the ongoing abuse of power and reckless behavior by ICE officers. David Shuster breaks it down on Rebel HQ.
Catching criminals is not the point. The goal is to terrorize everybody and show the Trump addministration’s Gestapo like powers. This is what America has become.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
August 19, 2025
Army Veteran’s ICE Nightmare Goes Public
Army combat veteran George Retes says he was wrongfully detained in an ICE raid while working as a security guard. Despite identifying himself as a U.S. citizen, he says agents smashed his car window, sprayed him with chemicals, and held him in jail for days without charges, calls, or medical care. Now, he’s speaking out — and preparing to sue.
“ICE agents don’t care. And if you aren’t one of them, you are their enemy. Never mind, of course, that some of the Americans now being arrested are people like George Retes, veterans who fought the enemy and bled physically and mentally in combat places like Fallujah and Kandahar.”
Gavin Newsom Is Talking Like Trump —
And It’s Infuriating The Right
The reaction to the California governor’s pitch-perfect parody of Trump is shining a light on the absurd behavior of the president of the United States.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s social media account mimicking Donald Trump’s all-caps online posts is getting under the skin of prominent conservatives on the right.
The reaction to Newsom’s pitch-perfect parody of Trump — including his wild rants, name-calling, and use of AI-generated images — is shining a light on the absurd behavior of the president of the United States, who has largely gotten a pass from his party for doing the same thing.
REPORTS
August 19, 2025
Putin ‘expertly’ playing Trump ‘like a kid’
President Trump is pushing for direct talks between Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. However, there has been no word directly from Russia that Putin has said yes.
Foreign Policy Editor-in-chief Ravi Agrawal and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder join Katy Tur to break it all down.
Trump calls Netanyahu a ‘war hero’ — ‘I guess I am, too’
By Alex Gangitano / August 20, 2025
President Trump said he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are war heroes, touting the U.S. strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities in June.
The president praised Netanyahu in a Tuesday interview on “The Mark Levin Show,” then referenced the strikes that he has said obliterated Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and set back the country’s nuclear program for years.
“Bibi is a good man. He’s in there fighting. He’s fighting. You know, they’re trying to put him in jail on top of everything else. How about that?” Trump told Levin. “He’s a war hero, because we work together. He’s a war hero. I guess I am, too.”
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November, accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
The president, who never fought in a war, added, “The pilots came. I rewarded them. I brought them all to the Oval Office. The people having to do with that whole operation, which was so perfect, which was a total of, you know, just an obliteration.”
The B-2 pilots who carried out the strike visited the White House for the Fourth of July holiday. The pilots carried out the unprecedented attack on Iran, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, dropping 30,000-pound bombs on underground nuclear enrichment facilities from “bunker busters” that took off undetected from a base in Missouri.
Following the attack, Trump hit back at an initial Pentagon assessment that damage to the three nuclear facilities only set the Iranians’ nuclear program back a few months.
August 20, 2025
Trump Announces Criminal Charges Against
Top Democrats
August 20, 2025
ACLU Sues over Legal Black Hole at
“Alligator Alcatraz” ICE Jail
We speak with ACLU lawyer Eunice Cho about a new federal lawsuit brought on behalf of immigrants held at the detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
The detainees allege being routinely subjected to human rights abuses, denied due process and access to legal counsel, while families have complained of being unable to find their loved ones “disappeared” into the facility.
“These are basic constitutional rights that are afforded to anybody that is held in government custody. And what was happening at Alligator Alcatraz is simply unprecedented and not normal,” says Cho, senior counsel at the ACLU National Prison Project.
Aug. 20, 2025
How Trump’s Mental Un-Fitness is
Normalized by the Media
Over and over, the media and US politicians fail to convey just how dangerous and deranged Donald Trump really is. To break it down, Mehdi Hasan is joined for a fascinating conversation by one of Trump’s loudest critics in DC: esteemed lawyer, former Republican, and The Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway.
The two discuss some of Trump’s craziest comments and weird actions — like his recent walk on the White House roof — which would have dominated the news cycle had Joe Biden done the same.
“There is just a rotten core in there,” Conway says of Trump. “He’s truly evil, and from a psychological standpoint, he’s a narcissistic sociopath… People do manipulate him, but you can’t control him. And in the end, the bad instincts always win out and they get worse.”
August 20, 2025
The Greatest Con Artist in the History of the World?
Strategy Session with David Cay Johnston
David Cay Johnston didn’t mince words about Trump’s latest meeting with Putin, calling it “an embarrassment for the whole country.” Watching Trump clap “like a seal” while U.S. troops rolled out a red carpet for the Russian leader, Johnston says it showed just how easily Trump can be manipulated — proof, as Rick Wilson put it, that the player has been played.
There’s been even more chaos around Trump in recent weeks, with Stuart Stevens describing him as entering a “manic stage” and Johnston pointing to the Epstein files as the threat Trump fears most. Wilson argues that flooding D.C. with National Guard troops is less about security and more about spectacle, designed to give MAGA the image it craves. Stevens adds that Mississippi’s governor is deploying troops to Washington while ignoring violent crime in his own backyard.
Johnston traces the pattern back to Trump’s father, who staged publicity stunts decades ago to grab headlines. That early lesson in showmanship, made Donald “the greatest con artist in the history of the world.” Stevens put it more bluntly, saying we now have a president who has handed control of the military to “crooks, stooges, evil people” and even a “weekend drunk from FOX.”
But they save the sharpest challenge for Democrats. Johnston says voters are still waiting to hear: “What have you done for me? What are you going to do for me?” Instead of clear answers on wages, health care, and small business support, Democrats bury people in policy while Trump sells lies that voters are buying. Until they learn how to sell a vision that speaks directly to people’s lives, Johnston warns, the con will keep working.
August 20, 2025
“Dictatorship”: D.C. Residents Demand End
of Federal Takeover
Six Republican-led states have now pledged National Guard troops to the Trump administration’s takeover of Washington, D.C., where it has assumed control of policing under the claim of tackling crime.
Along with the D.C. National Guard that Trump already controlled, this brings the total number of troops in the streets of the capital to more than 2,000. The federal takeover comes even as violent crime in the capital is at a 30-year low — numbers the Trump administration now disputes, with the Justice Department launching an investigation into whether those crime statistics were manipulated by city officials.
“What we’re seeing is lawlessness, but it’s all coming from the White House,” says community activist Keya Chatterjee, the executive director of the group Free DC.
August 21, 2025
Heather Cox Richardson
Yesterday, Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives approved a new map redrawing congressional districts to switch five seats from Democratic control to Republican. Now the Texas Senate will take it up. President Donald Trump demanded the new map because with popular support for his administration plummeting, he is worried about facing voters in the 2026 midterm elections. Texas Republicans are quite open that they launched a rare mid-decade redistricting simply to maximize their partisan gain. Although people of color are driving Texas’s population growth, the new maps put the vast majority of electoral power in the hands of white Texans.
Last night, just before midnight, Trump cheered on the Texas Republicans and called for Florida, Indiana, and other states to do the same thing. He also called for Republicans in the state legislatures to “STOP MAIL-IN VOTING” and “go to PAPER BALLOTS before it is too late.” “If we do these TWO things,” he wrote, “we will pick up 100 more seats, and the CROOKED game of politics is over. God Bless America!!!”
The president of the United States is openly admitting that his party cannot win a free and fair election.
Instead of appealing to voters with popular policies, he is calling for rigging our elections so that his party cannot lose. This appears to have been the plan all along. In July 2024, Trump told an audience of evangelical Christians that if they voted for him in November, “in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
Republicans have put their thumb on the scales of the nation’s election machinery for years, suppressing Democratic voting and gerrymandering the states to make it harder to elect Democrats than to elect Republicans. Now Trump has come right out and admitted that leaders understand they cannot win without jiggering the system to create what political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way call “competitive authoritarianism,” in which elections are held because leaders want the legitimacy of an election, but the competition is so unfair the outcome is pretty much preordained.
Today the California legislature passed two measures to send to voters the question of whether to redistrict the state temporarily to offset the new Texas map. The urgent measures received the required two-thirds majority to pass, and Governor Gavin Newsom signed them into law this evening. He also declared that the state will hold a special election on November 4 for voters to weigh in on whether to adopt the new maps temporarily to neutralize the Texas Republicans’ power grab.
Republicans are now openly rigging the system—itself a profound attack on our democracy—for a leader whose mental acuity is slipping and whose association with convicted sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein has weakened his support even among his base.
On the right-wing Todd Starnes Show today, Trump upped the number of wars he claims to have solved to ten, three more than the seven he has been claiming. “We ended seven wars,” he said. “Probably more than that. You know, I will, they wrote an article that they gave me three additional ones that I ended without even knowing it, but you know I saw things were going bad and it looked like it was going to go bad and it could’ve been, it could’ve been ten.”
For all that the president calls himself the peace president and seems so desperate to win a Nobel Peace Prize that he brought it up with Norway’s finance minister in a cold call about tariffs in July, he is increasingly turning to the use of the military.
August 22, 2025
FBI raids home of John Bolton,
former Trump adviser turned critic
According to officials, it’s all part of an investigation into whether Mr Bolton illegally possessed or shared classified information.
Mr Trump insisted he “knew nothing” about the raid, but described Mr Bolton as a “lowlife”.
During his election campaign, Trump warned his critics: “I will be your retribution!”
So is he keeping his campaign promise?
WASHINGTON WEEK with The Atlantic
full episode, August 22, 2025
Despite the red carpet, B-2 flyovers, the burst of diplomatic activity, and President Trump’s large promises, there’s actually been no progress in ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg, Laura Barrón-López of MSNBC, Jonathan Karl of ABC News, Michael Scherer of The Atlantic and Matt Viser of The Washington Post discuss this and more.
August 22, 2025
EXCLUSIVE: Fired State Dept. Official Speaks Out,
Suggested Condolences for Killed Gaza Journalists
Shahed Ghoreishi was fired from his position as a press officer for Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the U.S. State Department earlier this week.
While no official explanation was given, Ghoreishi was involved in multiple departmental disputes over how to characterize U.S. positions on Israel’s forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the killings of Palestinian journalists.
In a TV broadcast exclusive, Ghoreishi speaks to Democracy Now! about his firing and what it may tell us about the Trump administration’s future policy in Israel and Palestine.
August 22, 2025
Army Vet REVEALS Trump’s ENDGAME with Troops
Army veteran turned Nazi hunter Kris Goldsmith joins Ken Harbaugh to expose Donald Trump’s latest call to Republican governors to deploy their National Guards to Washington, D.C. This isn’t about public safety—it’s about provoking conflict in a blue city, testing troop loyalty, and setting the stage for something far more dangerous.
August 25, 2025
Leaders unite against Trump’s National Guard
threat to Chicago
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and other local officials united Monday against President Donald Trump’s threats to send National Guard troops to the city. Watch their full press conference here.
August 25, 2025
Bernie Sanders Holds Rally In Chicago After
Trump Threatens To Send National Guard Troops
On Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) held a “Fight Oligarchy” rally in Chicago, Illinois
August 25, 2025
Trump Calls for ‘Crooked’ ABC and NBC to be ‘Terminated’ in Epic Late-Night Rant
“They should lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans,” the president raged on Sunday.
Reporter
President Donald Trump spent his Sunday night ranting at “FAKE NEWS” ABC and NBC, calling the networks “crooked” and an “actual threat” to democracy—then threatening to pull their FCC licenses.
A triggered Trump unleashed a string of furious Truth Social posts, which insulted ABC host Jonathan Karl’s hair while talking up his own popularity.
“Why is it that ABC and NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the absolute worst and most biased networks anywhere in the World, aren’t paying Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES,” Trump ranted.
“They should lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives,” Trump continued, “but at a minimum, they should pay up BIG for having the privilege of using the most valuable airwaves anywhere at anytime!!! Crooked ‘journalism’ should not be rewarded, it should be terminated!!!”
The outburst followed Trump talking himself up, stating, “Despite a very high popularity and, according to many, among the greatest 8 months in Presidential History, ABC & NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the worst and most biased networks in history, give me 97% BAD STORIES.”
The president continued, “IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC. I would be totally in favor of that because they are so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy!!! MAGA.”
Trump has seemed emboldened to take on the TV networks he has a personal problem with this year, after defunding PBS and NPR, calling them biased and “corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”
August 25, 2025
How Trump Learned to Lie and Twist Truth
Jonathan Mahler, author of The Gods of New York, joins Joanna Coles to explore Donald Trump’s tabloid-fueled rise in the 1980s.
From his feud with the Koch brothers over Wollman Rink to the Marla Maples scandal in Aspen and his explosive Central Park Five ad, Mahler reveals how Trump mastered gossip and scandal to build a myth that would carry him into politics.
They trace how Trump’s obsession with media attention turned Page Six into his personal stage. And they uncover how the tabloid era’s culture wars laid the foundation for Trump’s future in the White House.
August 26, 2025
“Unlike anything we’ve ever seen before” | David Frum on President Trump’s “revenge drama”
John Bolton gets raided by the FBI. Who ordered it and why? Newsnight speaks to ex-George W Bush speechwriter and staff writer for The Atlantic, David Frum. Interview by Nick Watt.
The Natural Endpoint of Trump’s Falsehoods
Someday, the president may need the American people
to believe something he says—and they won’t.
By David A. Graham / August 26, 2025
If you’re looking for reasons to be skeptical about the FBI’s raid on John Bolton’s home last week, you don’t have to look very hard.
Bolton has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump more or less since the day he left his role as national security adviser in the president’s first administration, and Trump has been calling for his jailing for years, as my colleague David Frum wrote. The raid was conducted by the FBI, which is led by Kash Patel, an unqualified pick who lobbied for the job by promising retribution against Trump’s enemies—including Bolton. The FBI seems to have tipped off the friendly New York Post to the raid. And although Bolton has not been charged with any crimes, he is reportedly being investigated for the mishandling of classified documents, which is particularly rich coming from the Trump administration. (Bolton has not commented directly on the raid, save for an oblique mention in a column published today.)
So many reasons for skepticism exist, in fact, that even if Bolton has committed serious crimes, a substantial chunk of the population might never believe it. A durable minority of Americans appear willing to follow Trump, no matter what he says or does, but the rest are voters who could swing either way or who are hard-set against him. In the immediate aftermath of the raid, even long-standing hatred of Bolton didn’t prevent many left-of-center observers from flocking to his defense. Although Trump’s attempts to undermine objective truth for his own political ends have received much attention, this incident points to how his chronic dishonesty could come back to haunt him. Someday, the president may need the American people to believe something he says—and they won’t.
In an Atlantic cover story last summer, my colleague Anne Applebaum chronicled how modern-day authoritarians in countries such as China and Russia erode truth, not by convincing people to believe lies but by just wearing them down with so many:
This tactic—the so-called fire hose of falsehoods—ultimately produces not outrage but nihilism. Given so many explanations, how can you know what actually happened? What if you just can’t know? If you don’t know what happened, you’re not likely to join a great movement for democracy, or to listen when anyone speaks about positive political change. Instead, you are not going to participate in any politics at all.
This will sound familiar to Americans as well. Yesterday, Trump claimed that Maryland Governor Wes Moore—a Democrat who campaigned vociferously against Trump in 2024—told him, “Sir, you’re the greatest president of my lifetime.” This is such a laughable claim that Trump couldn’t have expected people to believe it, yet Moore felt compelled to deny it, and the press felt compelled to fact-check it. That digging is admirable, but it won’t deter Trump from sowing doubt.
Once you see the pattern that Applebaum described, its effectiveness for a political movement seeking power is clear enough, but it also has drawbacks for a government that (for now) depends on democratic legitimacy. One of the first victims might be the FBI itself. As the former special agent Asha Rangappa wrote in The New York Times, “An F.B.I. that is not perceived as legitimate will have a more difficult time gathering information and intelligence for its cases, which are often provided voluntarily by individuals who believe in its mission.”
Last night, Trump announced that he was firing Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, after Bill Pulte, the housing heir whom Trump appointed to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency, levied accusations of mortgage fraud against Cook. Here, again, there are reasons for doubt: Trump has fired many top Black or female leaders in government; he’s waging a campaign of political pressure against the Fed. Cook is challenging the firing in court and has not been charged with a crime, although, ironically, Trump has been found liable for extensive, long-running fraud in real estate. The Supreme Court suggested in May that a president can’t remove a Fed governor except for cause, so Trump is claiming cause. But why should anyone believe him?
Breaking News
from Washington and beyond
President Donald Trump sounded like a tyrannical toddler Tuesday as he declared that he has “the right to do anything” he wants.
Trump is feuding with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker over Trump’s plot to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, and in a Cabinet meeting he took a turn into downright despotic territory.
“I would have much more respect for Pritzker if he’d call me up and say, ‘I have a problem, can you help me fix it?’ I would be so happy to do it,” Trump ranted. “I don’t love—not that I don’t have… I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country is in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it. No problem going in and solving, you know, his difficulties. But it would be nice if they’d call and they’d say, ‘Would you do it?’”
It’s no surprise that the president, who has systematically undermined the country’s checks and balances, feels this way. He even (jokingly) declared himself king. Trump’s tactic of undermining statistics and lying about crime rates as a means to justify law enforcement crackdowns in Democrat-led cities is the latest in a long line of autocratic acts to punish his opposition and seize more power.
The president shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for an invite to Chicago. During a press conference Monday, Pritzker warned that Trump should keep his distance. “You are neither wanted here, nor needed here,” he said. “Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties, and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy.”
The Briefing
August 28, 2025
The CDC is being ‘transformed into a weapon’:
Top doctor exits CDC with a warning
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned in protest from his position as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, talks with Jen Psaki about the valuable work being done by the people at the CDC, and how the Trump administration, through HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is corrupting the CDC with unscientific attitudes and agendas.
August 29, 2025
Trump Leans Into Being a Dictator
as RFK Jr. Makes INSANE Vaccine Moves
Donald Trump and RFK Jr. team up to fire the CDC director after she voices concerns over Kennedy’s dangerous policies—including his announcement that the FDA will limit access to this year’s COVID vaccines and his promise to release a report on the “causes” of autism.
Dan and Jon sort through the dismantling of America’s gold-standard research apparatus and check in on the craziest comments from Trump’s three-hour cabinet meeting. Then they discuss the latest polling on Trump’s D.C. deployment, what happened at the DNC’s summer meeting, and Charlie Kirk’s unsolicited advice for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
August 29, 2025
Trump’s America: Desperation, Division, and the
Politics of Anger
This conversation was recorded in beautiful Norway with @reitanretail for the Hos Ole Robert podcast.
Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio. He is the host of the podcast Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci. A graduate of Tufts University and Harvard Law School, he lives in Manhasset, Long Island.
September 1, 2025
Everything Trump Has Banned Since Stepping
Back Into Office
Transgender people in the military? Banned. DEI? Rolled back. January 6 rioters? Pardoned. Here’s a look back at Trump’s second term so far.
September 2, 2025
Robert Reich on Abuse of Power in
U.S. Politics: “Trump Is Bully of Bullies”
With the U.S. having undergone a multitude of dramatic shifts since President Trump’s return to the White House, prominent hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio warned this week that the country is sliding into a 1930s-style autocracy.
Former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says this is the result of a series of economic and political choices made by the U.S. over the past 50 years — all detailed in Reich’s recent memoir, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America. The author joins Walter Isaacson to explain.
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
September 3, 2025
Trump’s ‘Audacious’ Plan To Sway NYC Election
“I think it’s outrageous,” Zohran Mamdani says on new reporting that Trump is considering offering a job to Eric Adams to clear the NYC mayoral field for Andrew Cuomo. “This is an afront to our city’s democracy.”
September 5, 2025
RFK Jr.’s “Lies” About Vaccines:
Vaccine Expert Dr. Paul Offit Responds
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a 20-year history of being an anti-vaccine propagandist, science denialist and conspiracy theorist,” says Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and a physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Offit was removed from the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee last week without explanation and says Kennedy’s undermining of public health is “causing children to die unnecessarily.”
REPORTS
Sept. 6, 2025
‘Unhinged!’: Fmr. Rep. baffled as activist Laura Loomer
prevents Dem Senator’s visit to spy agency
Democratic Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said his unannounced visit to one of the nation’s spy facilities was abruptly canceled after far-right activist Laura Loomer complained publicly about it.
Former Rep. Denver Riggleman joins Alex Witt to share his thoughts on this and the House GOP approving a new committee to re-investigate the events of January 6th.
September 6, 2025
Epstein Made Me Dress Like a Sexy Nurse for Trump: Model
Australian model Cleo Glyde sits down with the Beast’s Joanna Coles to share her extraordinary, unsettling memories of New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At just 22, she was living the height of the fashion world, signed to Ford Models, immersed in the club scene, and swept into the orbit of Jeffrey Epstein.
She recalls meeting him through a fellow model, their early friendship, his Great Gatsby–like allure, and how he used wealth and connections to project power.
Cleo also opens up about her introduction to Donald Trump through Epstein, visiting Trump Tower, and witnessing the bizarre mix of glamor, neediness, and showmanship inside his gilded world. She reflects on the dangerous charm Epstein wielded, her shocking encounter with him on a private plane, and how hindsight reveals the darker truth behind the high-society facade.
Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum
September 7, 2025
Dangerous. Unstable. Authoritarian.
Experts Sound the Alarm on Trump
Donald Trump’s mental fitness, cult influence, and threats to democracy EXPOSED.
In this episode of Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum, Dr. Steven Hassan sits down with world-renowned forensic psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee, editor of the New York Times bestseller The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.
Together, they break down how authoritarian leaders use mind control and propaganda to destabilize society, and why Trump’s behavior raises urgent concerns about fitness for duty, the 25th Amendment, and national security.
Dr. Lee explains the misuse of the Goldwater Rule to silence mental health experts, the concept of shared psychosis, and how dangerous rhetoric can act like a contagious disease. Dr. Hassan shares insights from his decades of work on cults, undue influence, and authoritarian control. This powerful discussion reveals the public health dangers of censorship, social media radicalization, and collective mental health decline in the digital age.
Topics Covered:
- Why every nuclear officer undergoes mental fitness exams but NOT the Commander-in-Chief
- The Goldwater Rule, APA censorship, and silencing of mental health experts
- Trump’s cult-like influence, dangerous assessments, and shared psychosis
- The 25th Amendment and efforts to protect democracy from authoritarian takeover
- How propaganda, disinformation, and social media manipulation endanger collective mental health
- The role of community and education in resisting authoritarian control
The Weeknight
September 9, 2025
‘Most preposterous lie imaginable’: Analyst slams
GOP denial of Trump’s signature on Epstein card
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a copy of the birthday note Donald Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein. Republican lawmakers insist it is not Trump’s signature on the lewd note, even as comparisons show striking similarities.
MSNBC political analysts Tim O’Brien and Tim Miller join The Weeknight to respond to the GOP denials and Trump’s continued push to dismiss the scandal.
The BEAT
Sept. 10, 2025
Trump’s Epstein ‘mess’: Bob Woodward on 47’s
‘appalling’ sexist old boys club, bankers
Pulitzer Prize–winner Bob Woodward joins Ari Melber for an extended interview, discussing President Trump’s Epstein scandal, the independence of the Supreme Court in the MAGA era, Trump’s ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and the influence of billionaires on the news media.
September 10, 2025
“It’s Time To Engage in Some Radical Thinking” says Trump Whistleblower
On September 5, 2018, an anonymous Op Ed appeared in the New York Times entitled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” Obviously that caused a stir, followed by the publication of a book by the same author called A Warning. Someone was yelling from the inside: Get away from this man as fast as you can. You get the drift.
Ultimately the Anonymous author revealed himself to be Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the US. Department of Homeland Security. Having worked in the Bush administration as well, Taylor knew how things were supposed to work in the White House – and how they were not supposed to work. He followed up A Warning with another bestseller, Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump, in which he described what would happen in a worst case scenario during a second Trump term. Most of them have already occurred.
In today’s interview, Taylor told me it’s now “time to engage in some radical thinking.” He said we need a massive movement of non-violent resistance unlike anything America has ever seen.
I’ve admired Taylor’s writing, his courage, and his continued call to the American people to wake up before it’s too late. If Paul Revere were alive today, he’d be called Miles Taylor.
Rockville Centre Democratic Club
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
The following is an anonymous op-ed essay, published this afternoon in the New York Times. The writer is a senior official in the Trump administration.
I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the
Trump Administration
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.
It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.
The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
I would know. I am one of them.
To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.
The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.
Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.
In addition to his mass‐marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti‐trade and anti‐democratic.
Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near‐ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.
But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.
From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.
Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails; he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half‐baked, ill‐informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.
“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip‐flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.
The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.
It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.
The result is a two‐track presidency.
Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong‐un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like‐minded nations.
Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.
On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.
This isn’t the work of the so‐called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.
Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.
The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.
Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.
We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.
There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.
Sept. 10, 2025
ICE Swarmed, Tires Slashed, As NY Protesters Push Back!
A dramatic standoff in upstate New York between immigration agents, roofers and protesters ended with officials leaving the scene with slashed tires. David Shuster breaks it down on Rebel HQ.
REPORTS
Sept. 10, 2025
Lawsuit claims Kash Patel said his job
depended on firing agents in Trump cases
A new federal lawsuit alleges FBI Director Kash Patel knowingly broke the law when firing top officials at the bureau. The complaint, which was filed by fired executives, also claims Patel said his job depended on removing agents who worked on cases involving President Trump.
MSNBC correspondents Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig join Chris Jansing with the latest details.
Sept. 10, 2025
MAGA Demands Civil War After Charlie Kirk Death
MAGA influencers and Fox News hosts are now declaring war on Democrats after the tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk.
September 11, 2025
Why is Charlie Kirk now being hailed a “martyr”?
American flags are flying at half mast today to honour the memory of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and MAGA influencer shot dead at a university event in Utah.
It is hard to state how influential Kirk was in attracting younger voters towards the Republicans. Donald Trump has said he was influential to his 2024 election campaign.
In a White House video, Trump said the “radical left” were “directly responsible” for the “terrorism” now present in America, by comparing “wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers”. He pledged that it would be put to a stop.
Other MAGA commentators have gone further, claiming that the US is at war and that American conservatives cannot co-exist with liberals. What does Kirk’s death mean for American politics now? And why are some British politicians claiming that Kirk spoke “common sense”, when his views were so out of kilter with public opinion?
Politics | September 11, 2025
Pardoned Insurrectionists Are Using
Charlie Kirk’s Death to Call for Civil War
“Charlie Kirk’s assassination pulled me out of retirement.
More work must be done.”
BY KIERA BUTLER and JULIANNE MCSHANE
In the aftermath of Wednesday’s assassination of right-wing youth leader Charlie Kirk, in the midst of more sober calls for mourning and moderation, many far-right influencers quickly began to call for revenge against the left—whom they blamed for Kirk’s death. They did so even though the shooter still has not been identified, nor their motivations revealed.
But it’s not just random individuals circulating such violent fantasies—leaders of prominent extremist groups and pardoned insurrectionists have issued calls to their networks to seek revenge. In an email to Mother Jones, Devin Burghart, executive director of the extremism research group Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, expressed his concern that reactions to Kirk’s death could “energize the far-right to intensify political violence, from street clashes and armed paramilitarism to calls for racist terror.”
Consider the message from Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers militia group, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in leading the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, before being pardoned by President Donald Trump in January—along with nearly 1,600 others. On Wednesday, he said on Alex Jones’ Infowars podcast that he would be restarting his organization in the wake of Kirk’s killing. “I’m going to be rebuilding Oath Keepers,” Rhodes said, “and we will be doing protection again.” The group never formally disbanded but had receded from the spotlight after their leader’s conviction.
“One thing we will be doing is public protection of patriots again, like we used to—it’s incredibly necessary,” Rhodes added. “I’m sure the Proud Boys will agree—if we have to, we’ll go and ride the train again, just like the Guardian Angels did.” He was referring to the New York City vigilante group Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa started in 1979.
Sept. 11, 2025
We Must Stop This Civil War Before It’s Unstoppable
On this episode of Lever Time, a message from David Sirota about recent violence and what we must do to stop it.
Sept. 11, 2025
Supreme Court Just Legalized Racial Profiling
The Supreme Court just reversed an injunction preventing ICE from detaining people because they look hispanic.
Sept. 11, 2025
New Details Blow the Lid Off Trump’s Boat Strike Story
Donald Trump said the U.S. military carried out a strike last week in “self-defense” against an “imminent threat,” targeting a vessel allegedly carrying drugs. But new details suggest that claim may not hold up. David Shuster breaks it down on Rebel HQ.
September 11, 2025
“A Moment of Great Peril”: Jeff Sharlet on
Killing of Charlie Kirk
The conservative activist Charlie Kirk, founder of right-wing student organization Turning Point USA, was assassinated Wednesday as he spoke before a crowd at Utah Valley University on the first stop of a fall campus tour. Kirk was 31 years old and founded Turning Point when he was just 18.
A major cheerleader for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, he was killed by a single shot fired from a roof as he was responding to a question from an audience member about mass shootings. No suspect has been identified.
Kirk transformed politics in the U.S., says journalist Jeff Sharlet, by organizing conservative youth around cultural issues including opposition to immigration and civil rights for LGBTQ people, people of color and women.
Sharlet, who has written extensively about right-wing and white nationalist movements in the United States, says Kirk’s “big issue was singular: It was whiteness.” He discusses Kirk’s legacy and the implications of this latest high-profile instance of political violence.
Magazine
MAGA Pastor Accuses Charlie Kirk of
Inspiring ‘Hitler Youth’
Writer – Feb. 2, 2024
Pastor Darrell Scott, a radio host and supporter of former President Donald Trump, said Friday that conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk is attempting to inspire a new generation of the “Hitler youth.”
Scott, pastor at the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland, Ohio, appeared on The Tudor Dixon Podcast, hosted by Dixon, a former Michigan gubernatorial candidate, where they discussed Kirk and another conservative commentator, Candace Owens.
“In those years right after high school but before you enter all the way into full adulthood, those are some critical years in a person’s life,” Scott said. “Those years can make or break the rest of your life…and Charlie is trying to grab them right then and there and form these opinions in their mind of white oppression, white victimhood, Black man bad, white man better. He’s really trying to infect this [Republican] party with that ideology to turn this party into what this party’s detractors say this is.
“I even said he’s trying to raise up a new generation of Hitler youth…I know I was kind of extreme in my statements, but I’m drawing the comparison to him because this guy thinks he’s slick. He thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room and he’s not.”
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 15, Scott posted a video on X, formerly Twitter saying, “Happy MLK Day to Charlie Kirk. Here’s a video for him.”
In response to comments in the post, Scott called Kirk a “white supremacist” and a “racist.”
According to MeidasTouch, which calls itself a pro-democracy site and is led by former Georgia prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, Scott wrote in another post to X that Kirk is “targeting young people who are impressionable to become White Supremacists.”
“The modern day ‘Hitler Youth,'” Scott’s post added.
During his appearance on Dixon’s podcast on Friday, Scott further expressed his views on Kirk, saying that he “insinuates that every Black person that you see in a prominent position, that there has to be an air of suspicion about them, that they didn’t really earn this position.”
Scott and Dixon also spoke about Kirk’s recent comments regarding airline pilots.
“If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like ‘boy, I hope he is qualified,'” Kirk said.
Scott called Kirk’s comment “one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard in my life,” and added that many of his remarks are “all about clicks.”
Newsweek reached out to Turning Point USA via email for comment from Kirk.
Sept. 11, 2025
Death of a Troll
Charlie Kirk, 1993–2025
Sept. 11, 2025
Elon And MAGA Go Nuclear
MAGA members, including Trump and Elon Musk, are now going scorched earth after Charlie Kirk was killed.
September 11, 2025
MSNBC Host Fired For Exposing
Truth of Shooting
Keith Edwards discusses the firing of Matthew Dowd from MSNBC after Dowd’s on‑air remarks about Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric possibly contributing to a climate of hate. He also highlights the hypocrisy of many on the right who criticize criticism of conservative speech—claiming it’s “blaming speech for violence”—yet often invoke similar causal arguments when the target is someone on the left.
Sept. 12, 2025
Charlie Kirk Assassination Was an Attack on All Americans
Newsweek’s Carlo Versano reflects on the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and dives into his impact on American politics, from college campuses to the White House.
September 12, 2025
Charlie Kirk’s assassination raises questions
about escalating political violence
America’s list of victims of political violence is distressingly long and features figures from both the right and left. The panel discusses this week’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, its fallout and the role of social media in a culture of escalating violence.
Sept. 12, 2025
You’ve Been Lied to About Charlie Kirk
Charlie Kirk is dead. Shot on a college campus, his death is already being spun into a martyrdom narrative by the right. But before America rushes to sanctify him, we need to remember who Charlie Kirk really was, what he stood for, and the enormous harm he caused.
This video is not a celebration of violence. It’s a hard look at the hypocrisy of mourning one man while ignoring the countless victims of school shootings, gun violence, and systemic injustice that he downplayed, mocked, or enabled. From pushing racist conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine propaganda to attacking LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, immigrants, and democracy itself, Kirk built his career on spreading division and misinformation.
Meanwhile, the same leaders who ignored hundreds of school shootings now lower the flag for Kirk, elevating him to the level of a hero.
This is a deep dive into why Charlie Kirk’s legacy is not one of freedom or courage, but of damage, fear, and lost potential, and why his death, tragic as it may be, should not be whitewashed into a myth of martyrdom.
September 12, 2025
Mehdi Hasan: Trump Is Weaponizing Murder
of Charlie Kirk to Go After the Left
President Trump announced on Friday that a suspect was in custody for the killing of far-right activist Charlie Kirk. Although the motive has not yet been established, Trump has escalated his attacks on the political left, saying, “We just have to beat the hell out of them.”
Democracy Now! speaks with Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo, who says that the right is using Kirk’s killing to smear the left. “There’s a real rewriting of history going on. It’s what far-right regimes do after tragedies like this: They try and weaponize them to go after their enemies,” says Hasan. “None of us should celebrate political violence, because it’s a threat to all of us,” he adds.
September 12, 2025
“This Is War”: How Political Leaders are
Weaponizing a Tragedy
Before facts were known, prominent figures declared “This is war” and blamed “the left.” Allan compiles the quotes, lays out the historical cautionary tale (Reichstag Fire), and cites NIJ data showing far-right violence outpaces other domestic extremism. A sharp look at how inflammatory rhetoric fuels cycles of violence.
Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum
September 14, 2025
From Ku Klux Klan to QAnon: How Cults Fuel Racist Politics
Ex-Cult member and mental health expert Dr. Steven Hassan sits down with researcher John Andrew Collins to expose the hidden history of William Branham, the “Message” cult, the Ku Klux Klan, Christian Identity, New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), QAnon, and modern-day religious extremism. Learn how cult mind control, loaded language, and undue influence radicalize followers into dangerous movements.
In this episode of Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum, John Collins shares his journey as a third-generation Branham insider who broke free and now documents the deep ties between Branhamism, Pentecostalism, Dominionism, and extremist networks that shaped today’s far-right politics.
Together, Dr. Hassan and Collins uncover how authoritarian leaders weaponize religion, demonize opponents with militant rhetoric, and spread conspiracy theories that can lead to violence—from the Ku Klux Klan to the International House of Prayer.
Topics covered:
- William Branham’s influence and the roots of the NAR
- The shocking links between Branham and the Ku Klux Klan
- The spread of Christian Fascism and ethnosupremacy
- How cults use loaded language and militant metaphors to incite violence
- The radicalization of Vance Belter and real-world consequences of undue influence
- Dominionism and how it lies at the center of the spider’s web of QAnon and other extremist groups
- The path to recovery: critical thinking, deprogramming, and reclaiming creativity
Sept. 14, 2025
MAGA Cries After Newsom Flips Trump’s Script
Gov. Gavin Newsom has mastered Trump’s own trolling tactics — and MAGA world is losing it. From memes to mockery, Newsom is turning Trump’s playbook against him, and Richard Ojeda breaks down why the right-wing can’t handle being laughed at.
September 15, 2025
Trump’s Words Come Back to Haunt Him
Michael reacts to the fallout surrounding the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the arrest of Tyler Robinson, including Trump’s words coming back to haunt him and GOP sycophants telling people not to go to college.
September 15, 2025
Trump Massive Crackdown Announced
on Charlie Kirk Podcast
JD Vance and Stephen Miller took over the podcast of the late Charlie Kirk to preview Trump’s massive crackdown on the left in response to Kirk’s assassination.
The Best People with Nicolle Wallace
September 15, 2025
The Epstein survivor who ‘changed’ Nicolle speaks out
At 22 years old, Jess Michaels was thriving. She was finding success as a dancer and model in New York City. Then, in 1991, she met Jeffrey Epstein.
Jess Michaels was sexually assaulted by Epstein and it destroyed her stability, her career and her health. After doing the work to begin healing from this trauma, she has found renewed purpose as an advocate alongside other survivors of Epstein’s abuse.
The day after excerpts from Epstein’s 50th birthday book were made public, Jess and her lawyer, Jennifer Freeman, joined Nicolle Wallace to call out the decades of institutional cowardice, and with a warning for elected leaders: Jess and her fellow survivors are not going away, and they are not going to stop until they get accountability, truth and justice.
The LAST WORD
September 15, 2025
Donald Trump doesn’t want us to talk
about Jeffrey Epstein’s emails. So we will.
Lawrence O’Donnell details how “Donald Trump really doesn’t want you to know what’s in the emails in the Epstein files,” including the evidence of perjury by Ghislaine Maxwell in new emails obtained by Bloomberg.
September 16, 2025
Charlie Kirk Shooter Leaks Prove MAGA Wrong
www.kenklippenstein.com/p/exclusive-leaked-messages-from-charlie
September 17, 2025
Charlie Kirk in his own words. We Report. You Decide.
WCNC LIVE IMPACT NEWS
September 16, 2025
Opening Statements Underway – Washington, D.C.
Senate Hearing: FBI Director Patel To Testify
September 16, 2025
All Hell Breaks Loose Between Cory Booker & Kash Patel
Causing Chuck Grassley To Break It Up
At today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NY) clashed with FBI Director Kash Patel.
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September 16, 2025
Adam Schiff And Kash Patel Erupt In Unreal
Screaming Match At Wild Senate Hearing
At today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) clashed with FBI Director Kash Patel.
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
September 16, 2025
‘So absurd’: MAGA crackdown on free speech
“The Trump administration is announcing their intention—loud and clear—that they want to use every tool of the state at their disposal to suppress domestic political dissent,” says Chris Hayes, joined by Michael Fanone and Rep. Greg Caser.
Trump makes midnight announcement
of ‘stunningly pathological’ $15B lawsuit
By Tom Boggioni / September 16, 2025
Just before midnight on Monday, Donald Trump jumped onto his Truth Social account and announced a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, a handful of reporters and book publisher Penguin Random House that both stunned and amused legal experts.
Trump led off with “Today, I have the Great Honor of bringing a $15 Billion Dollar Defamation and Libel Lawsuit against The New York Times, one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country, becoming a virtual ‘mouthpiece’ for the Radical Left Democrat Party.”
“I view it as the single largest illegal Campaign contribution, EVER. Their Endorsement of Kamala Harris was actually put dead center on the front page of The New York Times, something heretofore UNHEARD OF! The ‘Times’ has engaged in a decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole,” he added.
Politico’s Kyle Cheney pointed, “JUST IN: Trump launches a $15 billion lawsuit against the New York Times — naming reporters Peter Baker, Michael Schmidt, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner — because he doesn’t like what they have written/reported about him.”
As for reactions, on Bluesky, attorney Ken White was taken aback by the over-the-top assertions by Trump’s three lawyers who made the filing in Florida, and wrote, “This is a stunningly pathological lawsuit even by Trumpian standards. It reads as if he was holding a gun to the head of the child of the lawyer drafting it.”
Conservative attorney George Conway joked, “Is it possible for a legal pleading to be psychotic? I think we have an answer.”
NPR reporter Bobby Alllyn reported that the Times had preemptively responded, writing, “NYT attorney David McCraw told Trump lawyers before they sued that their legal claims amounted to ‘a litany of personal complaints’ about the NYT premised on ‘the deeply troubling notion that anyone who dares to report unfavorable facts about a presidential candidate is engaged in ‘sabotage’.”
California State Senator Scott Weiner (D) chipped in, “He’s not even pretending to have an actual defamation claim. He’s just mad they didn’t endorse him, to the tune of $15 billion.”
You can see Trump’s post here.
ALSO READ: ‘We’re fighting to make it’: Small biz owners reveal anguish as Trump ‘changed the game’
September 17, 2025
‘Trump is a threat to democracy’ | Anti-Trump protesters
condemn the president’s second state visit to the UK
“I cannot understand why we are hosting this bloke, who’s such a foul creature. The worst thing is the money that’s being spent on him.”
September 18, 2025
Trump Returns from U.K. Visit and the White House
Cracks Down on Free Speech: A Closer Look
September 18, 2025
Maria Ressa – Fighting Back Against
Trump’s Authoritarian Algorithm With Truth
“It’s both deja vu and PTSD.” Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist and author of the book How To Stand Up To A Dictator: The Fight For Our Future, sits down with Jon Stewart for a conversation about Trump’s authoritarian attacks on free speech in the wake of Disney taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air in fealty to the president and his hand-picked FCC Chair.
Ressa, who in 2020 was jailed in the Philippines for her journalism criticizing the country’s former president Rodrigo Duterte, warns about the similarities between the dictatorship she lived under and the Trump administration. They also discuss how tech companies use authoritarian governments as case studies to inform their algorithms and manipulate democratic elections, and the importance in this political moment for Americans to take peaceful action before their rights are completely stripped away.
September 18, 2025
How Donald Trump created America’s obsession
with conspiracy theories
Americans have seemingly been consumed by conspiracy theories, particularly in the case of Jeffrey Epstein and the so-called “files” Donald Trump has yet to release.
Washington journalist Will Sommer talks about how tensions in Washington and with the MAGA base reached this point, labelling Trump as “the conspiracy theorist in chief in the United States”.
September 18, 2025
Trump Has Divided the World Into
Friends and Enemies | Explainer
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
September 18, 2025
We Are All Jimmy Kimmel | The Easy Way Or The Hard Way
Trump Urges NBC To Cancel Fallon And Meyers
ABC yanked “Jimmy Kimmel Live” off the air following a threat from FCC chair Brendan Carr, and President Trump celebrated his administration’s success in blackmailing media companies in order to silence his critics.
Top U.S. & World Headlines — September 18, 2025
September 19, 2025
Will the assassination of Charlie Kirk lead to a
crackdown on leftist speech? | If You’re Listening
In the days since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the internet has been awash with conflicting information about the assassin’s ideological motivations. Until recently, most people understood that political violence in America tends not to be organized, but one idea has galvanized many of those on the right: “they are trying to get us”.
Just minutes after the shooting, US President Donald Trump and his allies called for revenge on what they call “left-wing extremists”. There is no evidence of an organized left wing militia trying to take down the Trump Administration, but is a crackdown on anti-Trump groups now inevitable?
September 19, 2025
First They Came For The Comedians…
The attack on Jimmy Kimmel is yet another page in the dictator’s playbook. When will more of my Republican colleagues recognize that traveling down this road does not end well for any of us?
September 19, 2025
New Rule: End the Blame Game
It’s a fool’s errand to try and connect nuts who commit political murder to the “other side.” Because in America, life isn’t black and white – it’s 50 Shades of Cray.
COMMENT
SEEING ENEMIES
EVERYWHERE
The government’s working definition of “hate speech”
now seems to include anything that offends Donald Trump
personally—including late-night comedy.
September 20, 2025
Following the tragic death of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the line between eulogy and blame wore swiftly and predictably thin. By Monday afternoon, five days after Kirk’s murder, it was threadbare. If the encouragement of political dissent is a part of Kirk’s legacy, as his supporters have insisted, the actual practice of it isn’t tolerated much at the moment. His podcast continued, on schedule, with a series of guest hosts. One was Vice-President J. D. Vance, who declared that national unity wasn’t possible while people were “celebrating” Kirk’s death. The available evidence suggests that Kirk’s alleged killer, a twenty-two-year-old man from Utah without any clear political affiliation, acted alone. But Vance already had a unified theory of the case, and he brought on Stephen Miller, the White House’s most fervent ideologue, to help him lay it out. The killing, in their telling, was the direct result of a coördinated and well-financed network of leftist organizations that “foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.” Vance and Miller spoke as if this were a truism. It is now apparently up to members of the Trump Administration to decide who, in criticizing Kirk’s lifework, might somehow be condoning his death.
September 20, 2025
Charlie Kirk, Kash Patel and Trump’s war
on freedom of speech | The Listening Post
It’s been just more than a week since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and in death, as in life, the far-right podcaster is proving divisive. While his supporters mourn, many critics have seized the moment to call out his polarizing legacy – a legacy now being weaponized by far-right leaders from DC to Tel Aviv.
Contributors:
Jeffrey Sharlet – Professor, Dartmouth College
Jude Russo – Managing editor, The American Conservative
Kyle Spencer – CEO, The Pro-Democracy Information Lab
Meredith Clark – UNC Hussman School of Journalism & Media
On our radar:
This week, the UN formally declared what Palestinians have long been saying: That Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. In English, Israeli officials are indignant at the charge. But in Hebrew, they continue to provide more evidence of their genocidal intent. Ryan Kohls reports.
Russia, Ukraine and The Trump Effect
Donald Trump’s second term has injected unpredictability into the Russia-Ukraine war: Unsettling Kyiv, emboldening Moscow and forcing media on both sides to recalibrate. The Listening Post hears from an exiled Russian journalist and a Ukrainian media scholar on how the conflict is being framed – and what both sides fear will come next.
Featuring:
Dariya Orlova – Associate professor, Mohyla School of Journalism
Mikhail Fishman – Journalist, TV Rain
September 22, 2025
Jameel Jaffer: Trump Expands “Authoritarian” Free Speech
Crackdown and Calls Negative Media “Illegal”
We look at how the assassination of Charlie Kirk has emerged as a tool for the Trump administration to crack down on dissent and free speech, as tens of thousands gathered Sunday in Arizona for a memorial for the conservative activist, including his wife Erika Kirk.
While she called for forgiveness, President Trump and other top speakers, including Vice President JD Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, reiterated calls for revenge on political opponents.
“It is not just rhetoric,” says Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “The president really is using every lever at his disposal to silence, suppress and even imprison his political enemies.”
Trump has also suggested that it should be illegal for journalists to cover his presidency in a negative light.
Sept. 22, 2025
Why The US & Venezuela Are On The Brink of War
Sept. 22, 2025
Maria Ressa’s Powerful Speech:
“Information Armageddon” Could Destroy Democracy
The United Nations marks its 80th anniversary with a high-level meeting at UN Headquarters. Heads of State, Government leaders, and UN officials reflect on eight decades of achievements, challenges, and the path ahead for global cooperation.
ALL IN with Chris Hayes
September 23, 2025
‘Disturbing’: Trump’s BIZARRE speech to UN
and Tylenol tirade spark mental concerns
“Even by the already impossibly degraded standards, the last 48 hours of Donald Trump’s pronouncements have been disturbing and dangerous,” says Chris.
Sen. Mark Kelly joins to discuss that and more.
Sept. 23, 2025
John Fugelsang – “Separation of Church and Hate”
“Jesus’s movement was about humility, it was about service to others, it was about uplifting the marginalized, not about total right-wing domination.”
John Fugelsang, host of “Tell Me Everything” on SiriusXM Progress and author of the New York Times Bestseller Separation of Church and Hate, talks to Jordan Klepper about how MAGA and the far-right have wrongly co-opted Christianity as a cloak for authoritarianism and bigotry – the opposite of Jesus’s call for individuals and states to “take care of the poor, take care of the sick, welcome the stranger, and be kind to those in prison.”
Fugelsang traces back a long history of non-violent Christian activism, from the Crusades through the Civil Rights Movement, and urges all those on the left to engage with Christianity, even if only to combat the narrow version of the Bible that Trump and MAGA are trying to impose.
#DailyShow #JohnFugelsang #Christianity #MAGA
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
September 24, 2025
Gov. Gavin Newsom: We Put A Mirror Up
To The Absurdity Of Donald Trump
California Governor Gavin Newsom comments on his use of social media to beat the president at his own game, and argues that Democrats as a whole need to go on the offensive now before it’s too late. Stick around for two more segments with Gov. Newsom.
– 2 – California Will Now Require ICE Agents To Show Their Faces
– 3 – I Fear We Will Not Have An Election In 2028 Unless We Wake Up
Project 2026: Trump’s Plan to
Rig the Next Election
From nationalizing voter suppression to flooding the streets with federal agents, the president and his allies are using all the tricks in the authoritarian playbook to tilt the midterms in their favor.
On an April episode of the popular Politics War Room podcast, the veteran journalist Al Hunt posed an increasingly common question from listeners to Democratic strategist James Carville. “Is Trump looking to spark enough protest to justify declaring martial law in 2026, thus suspending the election?” Hunt asked.
“You’re so correct to be concerned about this,” Carville responded. “It’s getting worse by the day. It is not going to stop getting worse. And I would be—we ought to be—on high, high alert.”
September 24, 2025
Trump Is Building The Blue Scare
This is McCarthyism 2.0.
Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Trump administration has been speed-running an attack on the “radical left.” And the tactics it has been using are darkly reminiscent of the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s.
So what can that period teach us about the current moment and what the Trump administration might do next? How far could this go?
Corey Robin is a political theorist at Brooklyn College. He’s an expert on McCarthyism and he wrote The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmud Burke to Donald Trump, one of the most insightful books you can read on the Trumpist right. In this conversation, he walks through what happened in the first and second Red Scares and what made him start worrying about the Trump administration.
Trump’s U.N. Speech Laid Bare How Numb
We’ve All Gotten to His Firehose of False Claims
By Philip Elliott / September 24, 2025
In the last leg of the 2012 presidential campaign, the political world seemed to be subsumed by Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s caught-on-tape observation that roughly 47% of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes. The private remark reinforced a sense, even among conservatives, that the wealthy businessman was an out-of-touch elitist who was ready to write-off about half the country as indifferent to his economic agenda. In short, it confirmed the worst caricature of the former Massachusetts Governor and future Senator from Utah.
But here’s the rub: Romney was factually accurate about the statistic, even if his extrapolation that those millions of Americans view themselves as victims deserving of government hand-outs was dubious.
Fast forward to this week when President Donald Trump addressed world leaders at the United Nations on Tuesday and straight-up got provable facts wrong. He said “inflation has been defeated.” Nope. He said “grocery prices are down.” Nuh-uh. He said “our [electricity] bills are coming way down.” Absolutely not.
Objectively, none of this is true. Inflation has been worsening, hitting 2.9% last month compared to a year earlier. Grocery prices are up 2.7% in the same window. And electricity has jumped 6.2%
September 24, 2025
Trump’s Worst Nightmare | Rick Wilson
Rick Wilson — co-founder of The Lincoln Project and one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics — joins us to explain how the MAGA movement captured the GOP, what really gets under Trump’s skin, and why the Epstein files could roil the 2026 midterms. We also dig into messaging, culture vs. policy, and concrete ways voters can defend democracy.
Sept. 24, 2025
‘Petty vindictiveness’: Trump DOJ races to
indict Comey DAYS before statue expires
“This looks on its face like a wildly blatant abuse of the justice system, certainly far exceeding anything we’ve seen since Watergate at least,” says Chris Hayes on MSNBC’s Report, that longtime Trump foe and former FBI director James Comey is expected to be indicted in the coming days.
Quora
Sustained resistance to the Traitorous Mister Trump,
his clones, and his MAGATS.
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A space to protect democracy and inspire action.
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Fighting for our Democratic Republic against MAGA!
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This is a safe place to bitch about Donald Trump!
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This space explores US is currently in crisis mode;
2 wars, Congress in chaos.
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Save democracy & Planet Earth by defeating
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They say ignorance is bliss but I find yours rather disturbing.
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Rest in Pieces, GOP. No holds barred here; our gloves are off.
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The Secrets, Scandals, and Strategies of American Politics
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