The President of the United States is alleged to have "proven he's totally nuts" following what appears to be an "unhinged" threat directed at Russia. Donald Trump recently posted on Truth Social to deliver a blunt message regarding Russia, China and the continuing situation in Iran, sparking widespread alarm, with numerous observers voicing similar criticisms.
He asserted that Russia and China have "too much to lose" if they were to back Iran, and appeared to issue an ominous threat while addressing circulating rumors. The development has prompted substantial discussion.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote: "I see so many comments from the Radical Left Morons and Lunatics that China and Russia are helping the 'wonderful' Islamic Republic of Iran. If they are, it's at a very low level, but I don't believe they are at all.
"They have too much to lose, and we would know about it, and know about it very fast! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP."
Some comments on the article:
Derrell Harmon
42 minutes ago
This just shows how out of touch and incompetent he really is. It doesn’t take much to see that these dictators are working together to support Iran. Iran is supplying drones to Russia, Russia is giving targeting tech to Iran, China is providing technology, and North Korea is sending troops. They’re all thrilled at playing Trump against himself to run our weapons arsenal down to record lows, while he attacks our allies—so in the end, we might not even be a superpower anymore.
DONALD HARMON
6 hours ago
Embarrassing for the United States.
Very embarrassing for VP JR as it shows he does not have the leadership skills to enforce the 25th Amendment when it is obvious this is why Congress and the States passed the amendment. The Cabinet is also weak for not putting pressure on Vance to do his duty and start the ball rolling on removing this oval office occupant with dementia.
Daniel Callaghan
1 hour ago
Trump is flailing about in the strait jacket he made for himself: a war he cannot win and is actually losing in many ways, accusing a man fighting an invasion of being the enemy, and aiding a pariah nation in the destruction of the Palestinian people.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026. Turnout for Chump's Desperatin Tour continues to dwindle, Chump can't connect with voters, Priss Pot Hegseth has a huge host of problems, Jeffrey Epstein remains an issue, and much more.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday aired humiliating footage of pervasive empty seats at President Donald Trump’s rally in Youngstown, Ohio, one week after Trump insisted he has never had an empty seat and never will.
Collins, hosting “The Source,” showed video from CNN’s crew inside the Covelli Centre revealing bare stretches in the arena’s upper levels. She allowed that it was hard to know how much to read into the turnout, then turned to Trump’s own claims.
“But he is the one who’s saying there are these big overflow rooms,” Collins said.
Her guest, Democratic strategist Karen Finney, said Trump was trying to spin his events as if it were still the 2016 or 2024 campaign, and argued Democrats should want him on the road.
“I say keep him out there because he is mobilizing Democratic voters. He is doing more for our base, frankly,” Finney said.
Collins wasn't the only reporter who noticed. Washington Post White House correspondent Emily Davies posted on X in real time as Trump took the stage, writing: "There are entirely empty sections in the arena where Trump is currently hosting a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. Both parties see this area as key to winning the races for Senate and governor. These photos were taken as Trump walked on stage."
President Donald Trump’s midterm campaign rally blitz has him down in the dumps.
During the initial leg of his nationwide-tour of half-full high school gyms, the president has been in a “foul mood,” one person with knowledge of his behavior told The Washington Post Monday.
Trump is still speaking in rooms that are packed with supporters -- seeing as he’s purposefully touring in deep red areas -- but this time around, the venues are smaller, and the vibe is different. Trump’s speaking events don’t feel so much like pep rallies as they do stops on a farewell tour.
Trump is a lot less popular now than he was the last time he hit the campaign trail. The president has even become a liability to some Republican candidates. Ahead of his visit to Syracuse on Friday to support the New York Republican gubernatorial candidate, conservative radio host Bob Lonsberry urged him to cancel, according to the Post. “Stay away, Mr. President,” he wrote on social media. “The last thing Bruce Blakeman needs is a visit from you.”
He's had to move to smaller venues and even those don't fill up. The Desperation Tour comes with a built-in whiff of . . . desperation. Chump is lumbering around the country with low energy and much less interest on the part of the public in catching him. Tom Latchem (DAILY BEAST) notes Chump is in a battle with reality currently:
Donald Trump has flooded social media with posts celebrating his rally crowds after a series of embarrassing reports exposed their dwindling attendance.
The president, 80, kicked off his week by sharing at least seven posts and several videos on Truth Social that praised his ability to draw big numbers. The early morning Monday barrage included screenshots of posts by MAGA influencers declaring that his supporters were more enthusiastic than ever.
The posting spree came hours after Trump boasted that his campaign events were “legendary,” despite evidence of empty seats and a Daily Beast/PunchUp investigation last Tuesday that revealed how much his audience has shrunk since his first presidential campaign.
He's lying. He's like a certain pop singer who cancelled a tour because it was not selling tickets but publicly insisted she had decided to stay home with her newborn. No, she only decided that after she discovered she couldn't sell tickets. Brandon Weichert (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) writes:
November 3 is just around the corner, and President Donald J. Trump faces a historic defeat in thisyear’s Midterms.
Of course, he doesn’t see it that way.
As he keeps telling the world, the negative polling for Republicans is not “his” polling numbers.
Contrary to what the forty-seventh president believes, however, the negative poll numbers indicate how unpopular the president’s policies are.
One new Financial Times/Focaldata poll highlights how deeply unsatisfied with the GOP American voters are when it comes to their handling of the economy, inflation, and the war with Iran.
According to the poll, Republicans will lose significant seats in the US House of Representatives.
The president’s overall approval rating is currently a meager 34 percent, the lowest of his presidency (and lower than George W. Bush’s approval rating when the GOP lost the 2006 Midterms).
Early voting data from Ohio could be a stark warning for GOP candidate and incumbent Republican Senator Jon Husted.
Husted faces a challenge from former Senator Sherrod Brown in a special election to finish the term for which Vice President JD Vance was elected in 2022.
With the campaign season in its final weeks, a new CNN analysis shows that after the first few days of early voting, affiliated Democrats make up larger shares of pre-election voters than in the 2024 presidential election. Even in Republican parts of the state.
Historically, the party in the White House loses seats in the midterms when the president is unpopular. All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are up for election in November, along with key gubernatorial races.
It's 21 days until election day. Early voting goes on in many states but the last day to vote is election day November 3rd. There's not a great deal of time left for Chump's Desperation Tour to land any impact. And besides, it's had little impact so far. Brandon Weichert (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) notes:
According to an October 12 NBC News report, President Donald Trump is scrambling to sustain the Republican Party’s ailing poll numbers going into the 2026 Midterm Elections.
Despite his public claims to the contrary, Trump clearly fears the outcome of the impending Midterms.
If the GOP loses the Midterms, it will seriously impede the Trump administration’s future policies.
In fact, if the Democrats win sizable majorities in the House of Representatives and a Senate majority, the Trump team could soon face significant legal jeopardy.
As Trump works the campaign stops harder, he might be surprised by how small the crowds are. Whereas he once commanded legions of loyal voters at the height of his power, crowd sizes are shrinking.
Things have gotten so bad for Republicans heading into the midterms that some of their strategists don’t want anyone to see the polling, according to a top election analyst.
Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report, said on MS NOW this weekend that a single conversation from last week captured the mood.
“The overall environment is just so bleak right now,” Taylor said. “I talked with one strategist last week and they said, you know, no one even wants to show anyone polls because they’re so bad right now.”
The host asked whether Republicans were really on their back foot. Taylor pointed to where the party is spending its money.
“Just to tell you how bad it is, the fact that Republicans are spending in Kansas and South Carolina right now,” she said. “It’s little fires everywhere that are turning into potentially big fires.”
He continued to lose his audience. Videos circulating on social media show one supporter sitting directly behind him, checking his watch. Trump’s speech then took a left turn as he started discussing cars, “lines of different states, and you'll see one has Cadillacs, because they like Cadillacs better than they like Mercedes, but one has an Escalade, and one has a 50-year-old Chevy.”
Attendees seemed bored and confused by the president’s word salad, prompting social media comments about the state of his fanbase.
A viral edit of Trump’s speech zooms in on audience members' disinterested faces as Simon and Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence plays.
To the tiny crowds that turn out for the Desperation Tour, Chump talks about things that matter . . . to him. He lies about affordability and the economy. And he whines. He whines a whole lot. And while Americans are struggling to put food on the table and to afford gas for their cars, Chump's forever whining. Lee Moran (HUFFINGTON POST) explains:
The president floated the possibility of rechristening either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean during a campaign rally in Tennessee on Saturday.
“We’ve got the Gulf, we’ve got a beautiful lake, and now someone said, ‘You need a river,’” he claimed. “So, we need a river, we need an ocean. So, I was thinking of either the Atlantic or the Pacific.”
“We call it Trump Ocean or Ocean of the Americas, something like that,” Trump added.
The president has already used executive orders to attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” although the orders can’t force other countries to follow his lead.
He has also talked about renaming the state of New Mexico as “New America.”
No one in the country is losing sleep because neither the Pacific nor the Atlantic Ocean is called "Trump Ocean." No one.
Donald Trump has done a lot of repulsive things as president and taken this country down moral sinkholes most of us never thought we’d encounter. But if he approves the livestreaming of the execution of Nidal Hasan -- and Hegseth’s announcement last week was just a recommendation; Trump said over the weekend that he will decide -- it will easily be the most depraved thing he’s done.
Hasan’s crimes are sickening. He killed 13 people, including a pregnant woman, and injured 32 more when he opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009. I’m an opponent of the death penalty, mainly because there’s just way too much evidence that our justice system wrongly convicts people. Since 1972, 203 people sentenced to death in this country have been later exonerated. I’ll admit, though, that in cases of premeditated mass murder like this one, where the crime was unspeakable and the guilt is clear, I don’t lose much sleep when I learn that the perp will be put to death.
But televising it is barbaric. Turning the killing of a human being, any human being, into a spectator sport is about as sick as it gets. The United States of the mid-1930s was not exactly a progressive Eden, to say nothing of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. A Black man was lynched in the state just two years before Bethea was put to death. But even in that place and at that time, people in positions of power knew that killing a person for public amusement was one moral bridge too far and moved to outlaw it.
It’s not too far for Hegseth. The man who has overseen a disastrous war that has cost you and me $45 billion and 81 aircraft worth more than $3 billion thinks it’s a grand idea. He laid it out last week to some right-wing “news” outfit called Real America’s Voice. A “no-brainer,” he said. “It hadn’t been since World War II since we’ve done that. Well, I kinda like the mentality we had in World War II. Which was win.”
Where does one even begin? As if turning murder into a piece of theater is on par with the global fight to stop fascism. As if taking a human life on TV is a “win” comparable to the defeat of Hitler. What kind of monster talks like this?
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) slammed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his “failed” leadership after Hegseth said the public will be able to watch the execution of the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan.
Tillis criticized Hegseth Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after moderator Kristen Welker asked him what he thinks the impact of televising the execution will be.
“It’s another example of where U.S. lives, American lives will be put at risk,” Tillis replied. “Terrorist organizations will use this as a recruiting tool. It will radicalize other people. And this is not who we are.”
Tillis argued that while the Fort Hood shooter “should be put to death,” there is “a way to deal with this that’s proper, and there’s a way to deal with this that’s more improper than I have ever observed in my life.”
Further discussing the livestream plan that has faced bipartisan pushback, the North Carolina senator reiterated his stance: “It’s another example of what Pete Hegseth and all of his bravado needs to get the hell out of the Department of Defense because he is a failed leader.”
In a speech that covered a lot of ground, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced recently that he was creating a panel called “Project Meridian,” to look at the future of warfare. It will be led by three individuals: Elon Musk of SpaceX, Palmer Luckey of Anduril, and former Georgia House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The appointment of Musk and Luckey to head the panel should sound alarm bells on Capitol Hill. Both men lead companies that have received billions of dollarsin Pentagon contracts. And if our future strategy relies heavily on automated warfare, uncrewed vehicles and other AI-driven systems, they stand to make tens or hundreds of billions more in the decades to come.
In a rational approach to security, strategy drives budgets, and budgets purchase weapons that fit that strategy. In addition, military personnel, their civilian counterparts, and the growing ranks of government contractors need to be trained to use those systems effectively.
But this textbook version of national defense strategy rarely plays out so neatly. There are disagreements on strategy within the executive branch, including on when it is worth launching wars like the current conflict with Iran. Congress is also generally divided on key issues of war and peace.
In addition, decisions on weapons purchases too often hinge on where the systems are built, not whether they are aligned with a coherent strategy. Congress often adds more units of a given system to the budget than the Pentagon has requested, or prevents the department from retiring systems it sees as obsolete.
And then there's this . . .
Hegseth lied. Repeatedly. He lied about the fallen and he lied about the injured.
Turning to the late Jeffrey Epstein who died in jail. The close friend and roll dog of Chump was a pedophile and sex trafficker. His assistant Ghislaine Maxwell was moved by Trump from a low security prison to a minimum security prison that's considered to be Club Fed and where she gets all these perks that she's not entitled to but then due to her convictions, she's not even supposed to be in a minimum security prison. But she's Chump's friend and he put her there -- some say to keep her from talking about what she knows. Poppy Wood (THE TELEGRAPH OF LONDON) reports:
Democrats have begun naming associates of Jeffrey Epstein whose identities were redacted in official files.
Leon Botstein, a former president of Bard College in New York, resigned from his remaining academic posts on Wednesday after Jamie Raskin, a Democrat and senior member of the House judiciary committee, wrote a letter to the university linking him to several emails in the tranche of documents relating to the Epstein investigation.
It included an email from May 2014 that was attributed to Mr Botstein, in which the author asked Epstein whether a young woman was “for me, or are you keeping her for yourself”.
In the publicly available version of the file, Mr Botstein is not named. However, Democrats are privy to the unredacted version and Mr Raskin’s letter said the email address used was “President@Bard.edu”, at a time when Mr Botstein was president of the college.
The congressman alleged that the woman, referred to as Jane Doe in the letter, was being “groomed” at the time by Epstein, the paedophile billionaire who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Botstein led Bard College from 1975 and was known as a deft fundraiser who helped earn the small institution global renown. Bard is home to the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), one of the most prominent graduate programs in curatorial practice in the United States, as well as its affiliated CCS Hessel Museum of Art. Over his five-decade tenure, Botstein helped make the college's curatorial program a must-watch.
But his reputation was dealt a grievous blow by the Epstein files, which showed that Botstein corresponded closely with the late financier for years, including after Epstein's conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution. In one widely reported 2013 exchange, Botstein signed off with "Miss you," and elsewhere wrote of treasuring his "new friendship" with Epstein, even wishing him well after news broke of his sex-trafficking scheme.
Bard College commissioned an independent review of Botstein's relationship with Epstein in April. Conducted by the law firm WilmerHale, the review determined that Botstein had not committed any crimes but found that his ties to Epstein cast doubt on his leadership. "In his public statements and his statements to the Bard community, President Botstein minimized and was not fully accurate in describing his relationship with Epstein," the review concluded.
The review also noted that Botstein had visited Epstein's now-notorious island, invited Epstein to visit Bard, and accepted payments from him. According to the review, Botstein "forcefully" argued that raising money for Bard was "paramount": "His view was, ‘I would take money from Satan if it permitted me to do God's work.'"
Botstein remained closely involved with Bard after his resignation, serving as artistic co-director of the Bard Music Festival and leader of The Orchestra Now, the college's graduate-level music program. He also continued to conduct the American Symphony Orchestra. His lingering presence, however, was divisive on campus.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Amid increasing concerns over utility costs and other data center problems, the report finds that the “data center industry is bulldozing local communities… leaving ordinary citizens stuck with the bills.”
Warren releases 27-page report with findings of investigation of AI data center operators
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) released a new report, Power and Profits: How the AI Data Center Boom Costs Households and Communities, containing the findings of their nearly yearlong investigation into how AI data centers raise costs for communities.
The report found that Big Tech data center companies are not doing enough to pay their “‘fair share,’ and … continue to aggressively seek financial subsidies from residential ratepayers and state and local governments. This leaves ratepayers, taxpayers, and local communities shouldering many of the costs while Big Tech reaps the benefits.”
On December 15, 2025, the lawmakers sent letters to Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Digital Realty, and Equinix, requesting detailed information on their plans to mitigate their data centers’ impact on local communities following reports of data centers driving up residential utility costs.
The Senators’ staff supplemented this investigation with additional information obtained from interviews and discussions with representatives of these companies over the past year. The investigation reveals that some of the wealthiest companies in the world are not doing enough to pay the full costs of their data center development and in fact continue to aggressively seek financial subsidies from residential ratepayers and state and local governments. Specific topline findings of this investigation include:
1. The data center companies are not paying their “fair share.” While the data center companies publicly claim they support paying the energy costs required to serve their facilities, all data center developers made clear that their commitments to paying their “full energy costs” and “full cost of service” refer to the costs of infrastructure exclusively benefitting them and do not cover the full spectrum of costs that data centers impose on residential ratepayers.
The companies broadly opposed “but-for” cost allocation standards requiring them to pay the full cost of any upgrades triggered by their facilities — upgrades that would not have been needed but for the existence of the data center—instead arguing that these costs should be shared by all ratepayers. Moreover, while the companies point to new state regulations as sufficient to prevent costs from being shifted onto consumers, they regularly lobby state legislatures for more favorable terms, including through playing states off of each other by threatening to move elsewhere.
“[T]he companies commit to paying for infrastructure that solely benefits them, but dispute how much they should pay for shared infrastructure that is paid for by all ratepayers but was only built to accommodate the data center,” wrote the senators.
2. Data centers avoid scrutiny by seeking NDAs that limit community input on AI data center locations and impacts. All four Big Tech companies routinely request nondisclosure agreements from utility companies, landowners, other commercial partners, and in some cases even government officials. Several of the Big Tech companies explicitly acknowledged that the goal of requesting NDAs with public officials is to limit public scrutiny by preventing the local community from learning about the project.
For example, Meta stated that “[m]aintaining confidentiality during project development increases efficiency and speed by enabling all stakeholders to remain focused on the needs of a proposed project,” implicitly excluding local residents from the group of relevant stakeholders.
3. The data center companies continue to aggressively seek tax breaks that cost states billions in lost revenue while providing little evidence of economic benefits. While the developers surveyed often downplayed or avoided acknowledging the billions of dollars in tax incentives they receive from state and local communities throughout the Congressional inquiry, in practice, they actively seek out lucrative tax incentive packages. They acknowledged that they will continue to request and accept sales tax exemptions on chips and other equipment, the most valuable form of tax break for data centers. Despite accepting billions of dollars in financial subsidies from state governments, none of the seven companies surveyed were able or willing to offer comprehensive quantitative evidence on full-time job creation at their facilities.
This investigation made clear that the industry receives enormous handouts while making questionable claims about paying its fair share of electricity costs, using NDAs to keep communities in the dark, accepting billions in tax incentive packages from state and local communities, and failing to provide clear evidence of permanent jobs or economic development benefits where data centers are built.
“In sum, this investigation finds the data center industry is bulldozing local communities and using their economic resources to play states and local communities against one another, creating a race to the bottom in which state and local policymakers feel they have no choice but to accede to the data centers’ demands — and leaving ordinary citizens stuck with the bills,” concluded the senators.
President Donald Trump's mental and cognitive faculties have been "rapidly declining" already, and as one author and long-time Trump enemy told The Daily Beast, he is about to get much worse very soon, once the GOP takes its predicted beating in the midterms.
Kurt Andersen is a writer best known for co-founding the satirical Spy magazine, a publication that took aim at numerous celebrities, but none more so than Trump, going so far as to start repeatedly calling him a "short-fingered vulgarian" in 1988. On Sunday, Andersen appeared as a guest for the latest edition of The Daily Beast Podcast, telling host Joanna Coles that "the president is going to become increasingly angry and erratic as his mental health declines," and that a severe loss for Republicans in the midterms will be sure to accelerate that decline.
"He’s obviously beyond whatever cognitive decline he had and has, and more manifest craziness, I think the kind of elderly kind of, as they call it in dementia, sundownerism, where people who are with dementia... late in the day, like, just get angry,” Andersen said. "In his case and in old people’s case, like a kind of the sun, the sunset itself is a daily foreshadowing of 'you’re gonna die soon.'"
Andersen added: "He will be more angry, you know, more himself, and God knows what forms that will take in terms of anger and depression."
Dementia does not improve. It only gets worse. And that's why the 25th Amendment needs to be implemented. Chump is out of his mind. 100% out of his mind. And that's right now today. In another month? He's going to be even worse. He cannot be trusted with the nuclear codes. But he truly can't be trusted with anything. He's demented and he is dragging the US down. He needs to retire. Not a year from now but immediately.
Monday, October 12, 2026. 22 days before voting ends in the midterms and Musk rushes to pour money into the advertising cycle to try to buy the elections, Chump and Blanche attack the media yet again, Markwayne Mullin gets a pass from CBS but CNN pushes back on his propaganda, ICE chases a man in a parking lot and rams their car into him leaving him with a broken leg, and much more.
The midterms loom. Early voting has started in some states. The final day to vote is November 3rd which will be in all the states. That's 22 days away.
Elon Musk has quietly funneled more than $276 million into Republican groups and his super PAC since the start of July, building a huge turnout operation to help the party battle headwinds in the midterm elections.
The staggering amount of money makes Mr. Musk, the richest person in the world, by far the largest known donor in the midterms. Representatives for Mr. Musk supplied the previously unreported figures on his political giving to The New York Times before a federal filing deadline on Thursday.
In an effort to save Republicans’ Senate majority, gave a total of $158 million this summer to the Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC backing the party’s candidates for the chamber, according to his team. In sum, that is one of the largest political donations in American history, and more than the group’s Democratic rival raised from all of its donors that quarter.
Mr. Musk has also built a major Republican turnout operation through a super PAC he founded in 2024, America PAC. He donated over $76 million this summer to the group, which in turn spent that much on building a sprawling canvassing program to try to turn out hard-to-reach Republican voters. The group is active in seven Senate battlegrounds and nearly three dozen House races.
Again, he is not a US citizen. He is a citizen of South Africa and Canada by birth and then, when he flees South Africa because apartheid is falling, he begins the process to add US citizenship to that. He doesn't relinquish his other two citizenships, he just adds a third one.
And this foreigner tries to buy US elections.
Meanwhile, Chump continues his war on the press via his stooge Attorney General Toad Blanche. The latest effort was discussed on SUNDAY EDITION (NPR) yesterday:
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The Justice Department has launched an investigation into the five major American television networks that share duties covering President Trump every day. The president and the press are already in a pitched battle. CNN, MS NOW and Politico have been suing the White House after it permanently barred their reporters. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik is tracking this and joins us now. Good morning.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Good morning, Ayesha.
RASCOE: Things must be getting pretty heated if you have the Justice Department going after TV networks, right?
FOLKENFLIK: I think that's right. I mean, I think that this is all in the context of that court case where you saw - as you mentioned - CNN, MS NOW and Politico going after the president. The judge temporarily forced the White House to return those passes. He says he'll decide more permanently by the end of business Tuesday. But in the process of that, the White House says, taking new action. So it barred CNN from what's called a shared video pool. These are five networks - as you mentioned - CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News. And they share both the logistics and burden financially of compiling video of Trump in public appearances, but in tight space, places like Air Force One or the Oval Office. CNN was barred by that.
The president had made clear he didn't want CNN, Politico or MS NOW in at all because he just didn't like their coverage. He thought it was too relentlessly negative. When he was forced to take them back, they started banning them from appearing in those small spaces as part of that video pool. And the others essentially said, we're not going to fill the gap on those days that CNN is scheduled to do it but has been shut out. The Justice Department said the Antitrust Division is investigating for what they're calling collusion. They say a group boycott can be a anti-competitive act.
They shared a statement with us last night saying, quote, "members of the television press pool have proudly boycotted covering White House events. Group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act." And that's the core of antitrust law, hence the investigation.
RASCOE: How did we find out about this investigation?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, the New York Times first published about this yesterday. And I spoke with four people who have direct knowledge about this. They're not authorized to speak publicly, so we're not going to use their names.
RASCOE: Let's talk about the CNN lawsuit. What are the networks arguing?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, they're saying nothing in terms of this. But, you know, what they are arguing is that the White House is violating their First Amendment free speech proposition. That is, the president doesn't have to invite those reporters in in the first place, but once he does, he can't have them barred because he doesn't like the coverage they do. They're also arguing they have due process concerns. That's the Fifth Amendment. It establishes a right that, you know, you need to be notified that the federal government will take action against you before it does, and you have a process to appeal that.
The judge seems inclined to accept the arguments that Justice - excuse me, the White House hasn't done that. Justice Department - since the court cases started - has invoked the question of national security, but that was after the fact. What we're seeing about this latest act is silence from the networks, the five networks I named so far. You've got to imagine that that will be incorporated by CNN in its filings. It's got to take place, basically, first thing Tuesday before Judge Timothy Kelly actually makes a ruling in that case.
But you saw a number of journalism advocacy groups weighing in. One of them, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called it a brazen attempt to intimidate the press, presumably from the kinds of coverage it's been doing.
RASCOE: Well, you know, presidents always complain about the press. That's not just Trump. But this does seem different. Is it?
FOLKENFLIK: I think it's really audacious as a move to look at this and to see them doing this. Particularly, you know, the Reporters Committee called it brazen. But it is brazen to do it at the height of a court battle about these and associated issues. It also occurs during another major court battle, ABC and its parent company. You know, ABC, one of the networks that the president and the White House has taken action against. ABC and its parent company, Disney, are suing the president's chief broadcast regulator who basically said he was going to have a review of all eight of their local TV licenses at the same time - essentially, a threat to their bottom line - effectively unprecedented.
Leslie Briones, who is the Harris County Commissioner for Precinct 4, released a statement on Saturday saying, "I am horrified to learn that an ICE vehicle struck a man on Clay Road this morning in Precinct 4. While we wait to learn more, my prayers are with his family. Under the Trump administration, ICE has brought chaos and destruction to communities across our country. ICE must cooperate fully with the Harris County Sheriff's Office and release all video evidence of this incident. We demand full transparency, accountability, and respect for the rule of law."
Cesar Espinosa with FIEL Houston released a statement on Saturday afternoon saying, "We have more questions than answers. The biggest question we have is why does this keep happening? We demand answers and transparency from all agencies involved. the community needs to know the identities of the agents and if there are charges that are filed for the wrongdoing committed."
Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin released on statement late Saturday afternoon saying, "This morning, there was another incident involving ICE actions in Harris County. Time is of the essence in getting the facts, and the public deserves clear, accurate answers. ICE must cooperate fully with the local investigation. My office supports Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and District Attorney Sean Teare in their ongoing independent investigation, and the Harris County Attorney's Office stands ready to assist and support these critical efforts. We will continue to monitor developments closely as the facts become clear."
Alejandra Salinas, Council Member Houston-At Large for Position 4, released a statement on Facebook Saturdaysaying, "ICE agents hit a Houstonian with a vehicle while pursuing him during an enforcement operation this morning, leaving him hospitalized with serious injuries. This is yet another example of ICE operating without accountability and harming our community. All video evidence should be released, and ICE must cooperate fully with a transparent investigation by local law enforcement so those responsible are held accountable."
Surveillance video obtained by ABC13 shows the moment an unmarked SUV carrying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ran over a man during a pursuit at a shopping center in west Harris County.
The video shows a white pickup truck stopping along Clay Road, facing oncoming traffic. Two men get out of the truck. One runs toward Highway 6, while the other, identified by ICE as Miguel Parra-Hernandez, runs through a shopping center parking lot.
Moments later, a dark, unmarked SUV turns into the parking lot and runs over Parra-Hernandez.
A witness who spoke with ABC13 on the condition of anonymity said he saw the incident unfold.
"He said, 'Ah! Ah! Ah! You broke my leg! You broke my leg!'" the witness recalled.
So now they're running down suspects -- please note, a suspect, they had no idea who this man was -- with their cars and inflicting physical damage.
ICE is out of control. They are terrorizing people across the country. They are poorly trained and often unqualified. Which makes them not unlike their current leader Markwayne Mullin.
Margaret Brennan wasted time on CBS' FACE THE NATION when she spoke yesterday to Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. Was she asleep? Did she not do any prep for the interview? It was a waste of time. We'll note two examples.
First, she raised the issue of the man shot last week in New York in a residential neighborhood where ICE shot the man driving the car despite the fact that they were in a residential neighborhood.
Yes, the man's five-year-old child was in the car and, no, ICE shouldn't have shot for that reason. But it is also true that the elected to shoot a gun repeatedly in a residential neighborhood. That put everyone in that neighborhood at risk. The man being targeted was not shooting at anyone. ICE went beyond what they should have. In doing so, they put hundreds of civilians at risk.
She wanted to cite only the five year old and she let Mullin turn it around and say the father put the child at risk. She didn't counter that. She didn't call out the shooting in a residential neighborhood. She just let him go along rewriting history.
And she ignores what happened yesterday morning outside of Houston when ICE used their vehicle to run over Miguel Parra-Hernandez who was on foot in a parking lot.
If that had been a police officer, there would be a very loud outcry and investigation.
Miguel has a broken leg because ICE deliberately hit him with their car. That's not how you apprehend people. You also don't just start shooting at a suspect in a residential neighborhood who is not shooting at you or anyone else. In both cases, excessive force was utilized and maybe instead of allowing Mullin to attack the parenting of the man shot, she could have made that point.
But she refused to speak of both cases zooming in only on the New York case. This refusal to focus on Texas goes a long way towards explaining many's frustration and hatred of the mainstream media which has a tendency to act as though if it didn't happen in New York or California, it didn't happen.
A man was run over in a parking lot by ICE intentionally. They broke his leg with their car. He was unarmed. And they went after him with their car. He was on foot and they used their car as a weapon. They're lucky he's not dead.
And Brennan's ignoring this the day after when she's talking to Mullen? There's no excuse for it.
She also failed when it came to discussing Chump and Priss Pot Hegseth's barbaric decision to livestream an execution.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm not asking about him. I'm asking about the livestreaming and the risk that could be created by it.
SECRETARY MARKWAYNE MULLIN: Listen, once again, no one has to watch it if they don't choose to.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why livestream it?
SECRETARY MARKWAYNE MULLIN: I – I follow President Trump. He's a the commander – he's the commander in – in chief of the – of the country, and he does a phenomenal job.
We corrected the 'emotional' Diane Sawyer years ago for this. It was worse because she said it. She said Bully Boy Bush was the country's commander-in-chief. Nixon's little tidbit we didn't expect much from. But Markwayne wrongly -- no surprise there -- identified Chump as the country's commander-in-chief.
Chump's not.
He's president of the United States.
But he's only commander-in-chief of the military. And until the day comes that the US is a military junta, no president will ever be commander-in-chief of this country. They are presidents of this country. The role of commander-in-chief is over the military, not the country.
And if we're going to talk about live streaming and potential damage? I think we need to talk about children. Children shouldn't see a live streaming of someone being publicly executed without permission from a parent or legal guardian. So if the appalling event is streamed, how does Chump intend to keep children from seeing it live? Will there be some wall that will exist?
The GOP freaks put up porn walls in some states. So I assume that a wall like that can be put up to prevent children from watching this execution on their own.
MARSH: Officials across the Pentagon and the Army were caught off guard by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's announcement that the firing squad execution of the Fort Hood mass shooter would be shown in public. That's according to three sources familiar with the matter.
Hegseth made the announcement in an interview on Wednesday, and it was the first time many in the Army and Pentagon had even heard about the idea. While the Pentagon confirms plans for a livestream, President Donald Trump says he has not yet made a final decision on the matter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There are two thoughts. Don't show it and show it. Because, you know, by showing it, maybe other people won't be doing what he did. So I'll make a decision ultimately. I know what the military would like to do, but we'll make a decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARSH: Well, joining me now is a reporter for the Associated Press, Jeffrey Collins. He actually witnessed the firing squad execution of Brad Sigmon back in March of 2025.
Jeffrey, good morning. Thanks for joining us. I mean, as someone who has witnessed lethal injection, the electric chair, and even firing squad executions, how does the reality of witnessing a firing squad differ from some of those other execution methods?
JEFFREY COLLINS, REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: The biggest difference between a lethal injection and the firing squad is just the firing squad is just much quicker and much more violent. A lethal injection, you know, it happens slowly. You know, the person kind of slowly ceases breathing.
The inmate, you know, whereas with the firing squad, it happens very quickly. You know, they put the hood over the inmate's head. Forty- five seconds later, without any warning, one, two, three, or anything like that, a shot's fired -- three shots, actually, in South Carolina. There were three volunteers. And, you know, it's just over that quickly. But it's also, like I said, a very violent kind of thing. MARSH: And I know you have witnessed that in 2025. I just wonder, after seeing that in person, how that has impacted you and just even the replaying of that, having witnessed that.
COLLINS: Well, it's, you know, part -- a big part, this is my job to be able to witness executions and tell the public what I see. You know, in the United States, executions aren't held in public. So oftentimes myself and two other media members are the only people that tell people what this looks like.
So, you know, the -- it's important to me to be able to see these, to be able to say, this is what it looks like. I've seen three firing squad executions, so I can compare one to the other. You know, if something seems wrong, I'm quickly able to discern that. And so, you know, I try to remember that it's that consistency and being able to tell people what I saw that's important.
MARSH: In a traditional witness room, your view is pretty controlled. You're through -- looking through a window and the shooters themselves, they are actually hidden behind a partition. But if there was a live stream of this sort of execution, what are some of the key details that a camera might miss or even highlight that the public might not even anticipate?
COLLINS: Well, again, you know, part of the situation with the firing squad is I can only look one place at a time as a human being. So, you know, there's questions about, you know, how is this just going to be like a camera set up just that just streams? Is it going to be, you know, multi-camera set up? Is it going to be somebody cutting between shots? I mean, there's, you know, when you're just witnessing it, it's done in a very, in a private kind of setting. It's done very sterile, you know, everything's set up. The inmates are already in place before the firing squad begins? You know, they're already strapped in when the curtain opens and the witnesses can begin to see.
So, you know, when -- and again, like I said, you look at so many different places because when the shots are fired, you're looking at the inmate, but you're also trying to look towards where the shooters are at, where you can't see, but you're trying to see what you might be able to see. Trying to look at witness reactions and things like that as a witness. I'm trying to see so many different things and what time it happens. I'm trying to keep that clock in my head too.
RENE MARSH, CNN ANCHOR: The defense officials, they have expressed deep concern over the psychological toll on service members who are actually ordered to carry out the execution. Based on your observation and even your reporting, how heavy of a burden is it for the personnel inside the chamber?
COLLINS: The -- what -- South Carolina, they -- everyone involved in an execution from helping out the media to making sure witnesses get where they need to go or volunteers. And the prison system makes a big deal out of that because they feel like being volunteers, they already kind of, they accept their role and they understand their role. And so, it lessens that psychological burden. But as you talk about witnesses themselves, especially, you know, I'll talk to defense attorneys or even families of victims. And, you know, it has an impact on everybody. I mean, I don't think that you can ever watch someone die in front of you and not have some kind of psychological impact. That's -- you know, we're human beings. So, you know, watching someone lose their life is always going to affect us in some way.
MARSH: Yes. Well, Jeffrey Collins, thanks so much for joining us and sharing your insight.
COLLINS: Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for having me.
JAKE TAPPER: On immigration, a shooting by federal officers in the Bronx reignited tensions over Trump's deportation crackdown and the tactics used, this after agents carrying out an enforcement operation fired multiple shots into a car, wounding the driver while his 5-year-old child was in the back seat.
And joining me now is the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin.
Secretary Mullin, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it.
Let's start by showing our viewers this NYPD video of the shooting. You can see Oscar Belgal in a parking spot. A plainclothes officer approaches the driver's side window with his gun drawn. Another plainclothes officer approaches by the driver's side headlight.
Belgal then appears to try to reverse and try to drive away. One of the officers is banging on his window with a gun. So, I understand that Oscar Belgal in the country illegally, and he has a criminal record, including grand larceny.
I guess the question I have is, do you see how, for anyone, a bunch of men not clearly identified as with the government, as with ICE, banging on windows with a gun might cause anyone to flee? And I wonder, would it not be safer for the officers if they were clearly identified as with ICE?
MULLIN: Well, Jake, what you're not understanding is the full gravity of the situation, that Oscar
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ICE has been caught lying repeatedly in courts across this country. In addition, many lied about Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti and, even after the truth was known, these officials refused to correct the public record and apologize for calling the two terrorists. As a result, we're not interested when any ICE official wants to share details that can't be backed up or verified.
TAPPER: Yes, so I'm just asking about the tactics. I'm not defending the character of any of these gentlemen, because, obviously, one of the reasons this has gotten so much attention is that Oscar Belgal's 5-year-old son was in the backseat of the car.
Now, you have said that the agents were not aware that there was this child in the backseat of the car. But I wonder also about, in terms of tactics, shouldn't agents be checking for things like that before they fire into the vehicle?
Thankfully, the kids fine, but if this was a targeted operation, they were surveilling Mr. Belgal, are you 100 percent sure that the tactics being used don't need to change in any way here?
MULLIN: Well, let's be clear about this too. Do you know who knew the 5-year-old was in the car? TAPPER: Sure, Oscar Belgal, yes.
Markwayne started into another fantasy and was winging it -- as evidenced by "If I'm a father -- if I'm a father -- which I am a father" -- and we're not putting his nonsense in here. Again, ICE has lied too much and too often. They've given up the right to be believed. They surrendered that right when they lied repeatedly to the public and repeatedly in court.
TAPPER: So let me just ask you another thing. We have seen a bunch of these incidents where agents go after someone who is behind the wheel of a car. And sometimes it ends with the target winding up dead, including two incidents like this since you have become secretary, a Venezuelan man in Texas, a Dominican man in Maine in July.
Tactically, should DHS institute practices where officers are suggested -- it's suggested that they wait for someone to get out of the car before going after them so that the car cannot be weaponized?
MULLIN: Well, the problem that you continue to have is individuals like this are going to flee. Markwayne spews a lot of nonsense about murder that is intended to outrage but has nothing to do with the shooting that ICE carried out in a residential neighborhood.
TAPPER: So you said ICE agents were wearing body cameras during the encounter.
MULLIN: Yes.
[09:10:00]
TAPPER: The NYPD have already released its bodycam footage.
MULLIN: Yes.
TAPPER: Will the -- is the ICE agents' bodycam footage going to be released to the public as well? And, if so, when?
MULLIN: I'm sure it will be. Right now, FBI and HSI are doing the investigation. So, as it develops and we get all the information out correctly, we'll release information at due time.
One thing that we have learned for sure is that we never want to get ahead of the investigation. That's even with me and the speech or the conversations that I have about it. I want to be very clear that the investigation will go through, and when we find it and we are -- complete the investigation, we'll be very, very transparent with the public.
"I can't comment on an ongoing investigation."
Remember that phrase? It seems to have been forgotten since Chump got sworn back in as president in January of 2025.
And when their initial statements are wrong, Homeland Security doesn't correct them. In fact, they have fits in court when evidence is ordered to be made public by judges. They insist that knowing they moved a car and took it out of state to be buffed out is something that the public can't know!!!! They lie and then when caught, they try to pressure the judges into not making public what has taken place.
No one at Homeland Security deserves the benefit of the doubt. If news outlets are going to include their statements, they need to note the many times Homeland Security officials have lied to the press.
And here's where the media keeps failing us. Homeland Security officials have been caught in one lie after another. It's so bad that judges can't really take their claims seriously at this point. But the media too often repeats claims regarding ICE without noting the long pattern of lies from them this year.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
ICYMI: At HELP Hearing, Murray Grills Trump Nominees on AI Denying Seniors’ Health Care
ICYMI: On Senate Floor, Murray Urges Colleagues to End Trump Administration’s AI Program that is Delaying and Denying Seniors’ Health Care
Vancouver, WA — Today, U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Ron Wyden (D-OR), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance, held a roundtable discussion with providers to discuss how the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) model, a new pilot program implemented by the Trump administration that’s using artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct prior authorization in Traditional Medicare, has been overruling doctors and denying or delaying critical health care for seniors. The WISeR pilot model began on January 1, 2026, and is set to last for six years in six selected states, including Washington state.
Joining Senators Murray and Wyden for the discussion at the Area Agency on Aging & Disabilities of Southwest Washington today were: Dr. Keren Rosenblum, MD, MBA, President, The Vancouver Clinic; Dr. Leon McCook, family medicine physician, PeaceHealth; and Dr. Ettore Palazzo, MD, FACP, CEO, EvergreenHealth.
“Despite a lot of empty promises from Republicans to not cut Medicare—Trump’s new WISeR model is essentially a cut to Medicare. What else do you call it when seniors are getting cut off from the health care they need, for no good reason? Under this dystopian system—Washington state seniors are seeking doctor-recommended care to treat debilitating pain, only to be told by Trump’s AI system that Medicare won’t pay for it, or that they must wait weeks on end to get their treatment,” said Senator Murray. “The truth is—the WISeR model has been a complete mess. This cannot continue—and it absolutely cannot expand. That’s why I’m here to continue talking with folks on the ground—patients, doctors and more—and gathering evidence and stories we can use to make the case back in Congress. We are going to keep pushing hard to stop private companies from raiding Medicare, and cheating seniors with AI. Republicans may be sitting on their hands but a Democratic majority will be aggressive in pushing back and working to end this experiment, and save Medicare.”
“Dr. Frankenstein isn’t the only one conducting dangerous experiments this Halloween season. The mad scientists given free rein in the Trump administration are quite willing to risk seniors’ access to lifesaving health care with their latest scheme grafting AI on to authorization decisions for traditional Medicare,” said Senator Wyden. “As the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee overseeing Medicare, I’m proud to stand with Senator Murray in the battle against Trump empowering unaccountable AI companies to delay and deny certain types of care in traditional Medicare.”
“Physicians support innovation and efforts to reduce waste and improve value in health care. But those goals should not come at the expense of timely access to medically necessary care,” said Dr. Keren Rosenblum, MD, MBA, President, The Vancouver Clinic. “WISeR moves Traditional Medicare toward the same prior authorization system physicians already know creates administrative burdens, delays appropriate care, and creates uncertainty for patients. At a time when physicians are already facing significant administrative burdens and workforce challenges, we should be looking for ways to make health care simpler—not adding new layers of complexity. Innovation should strengthen the patient-physician relationship, not create new obstacles between patients and the care their physicians believe they need.”
“After almost a full year of WISeR, it is clear how its implementation has negatively impacted our patients and staff, but we are still unsure if the program is achieving its intended purpose. As a community-owned public hospital district, EvergreenHealth supports efforts to reduce fraud, waste and the inappropriate utilization of Medicare benefits. However, we must pursue those goals in a way that does not delay care nor create unnecessary hardship for the patients we serve,” saidDr. Ettore Palazzo, MD, FACP, CEO, EvergreenHealth. “In the months following WISeR’s January implementation, we saw patients live with prolonged pain due to delayed authorizations for their treatment. Confusion and inconsistent processes have created additional workloads for our providers, making it difficult for them to support their patients effectively. Let’s continue to improve quality, value and program integrity in Medicare, but let’s focus on patient-centered implementation, timely decision-making and reducing unnecessary burdens on our care teams.”
Under the WISeR model, patients on Traditional Medicare across six states—Arizona, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Ohio, Texas, and Washington—are subject to prior authorization requirements for several types of procedures or treatments, meaning that a claim needs to run through an opaque A.I.-driven system that may deny it with limited explanation. This forces starting the whole approval process over again and setting the patient back weeks in the process. Several of the procedures subject to prior authorization under the WISeR model are treatments for patients experiencing debilitating pain, who are now having to wait to receive necessary care. Before this model, patients would have been able to receive care within the same week, or even day, in most cases. Prior authorization requirements are used routinely by Medicare Advantage plans and private insurers, but rarely in Traditional Medicare—which is often one of the reasons seniors choose it for their coverage. While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has described the model as voluntary, it is effectively mandatory for providers and their patients with Traditional Medicare in the selected states.
Each participating state is operating the pilot through a different for-profit company that contracts with CMS to use AI technology to process prior authorizations and conduct reviews for the specific services subject to WISeR. These participants are compensated based on a share of “averted expenditures.” In other words, they are financially incentivized to deny prior authorization requests, as they profit from denied services.
Senators Murray and Wyden have been pushing back on this harmful pilot program from the start, and for the past year and a half, Murray has been meeting with providers and patients across the state to hear about the implementation and harms of this program. In September of last year, Senators Murray, Wyden and other Senate Democrats sent a letter to CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Director Abe Sutton, urging CMS to halt implementation of the model until a full analysis is conducted of the program’s impact on patient access—which, they argued, should include input from beneficiaries and their families, consumer and patient advocates, health care providers and suppliers. In December last year, Senators Murray and Wyden introduced the Seniors Deserve SMARTER (Streamlined Medical Approvals for Timely, Efficient Recovery) Care Act, legislation that would prohibit CMS from implementing the WISeR model that began on January 1, 2026.
This July, Murray and Wyden forced a vote on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to overturn the WISeR program—Republicans chose to side with the Trump administration and blocked the CRA. In September, Senator Murray grilled Chris Klomp, the nominee to be Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), on the WISeR model and how the private companies conducting the prior authorization assessments are profiting from the denials.
