Donald Trump Jr. hinted that he has an eye on the presidency after his father left office.
At an event on Wednesday, Bloomberg's Joumanna Nasr Bercetche asked the president's son about a possible run for the presidency.
"After President Trump steps down, would you consider picking up the reins? Would you run for office?" she wondered.
"Here we go. Well, oh, oh boy. Well, it's an honor to be asked and an honor to see that some people are okay with it," Trump replied.
"You never know. You know, right now, this has been my focus. I think it's not just about government, it's also about, you know, the business sector doing that. I think when we saw, again, the woke ideology that has taken over corporate America for the last, you know, decade or so, you know, being on the forefront of combating that insanity, I think is fundamentally important. I think those two things have to go hand in hand."
"So the answer is, I don't know, maybe one day, you know, that calling is there," he added. "I'll always be very active in terms of being a vocal proponent of these things."
"I think my father has truly changed, you know, the Republican Party. I think it's the America First Party now, the MAGA Party, however you want to look at it."
Elon Musk announced that he's leaving politics because he's "done enough," but CNN's Harry Enten presented polling data that shows he's become "kryptonite" to the Republicans who took his cash and gave him vast influence.
The tech mogul slashed thousands of government jobs as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and appeared at White House events alongside president Donald Trump, but Enten told "CNN News Central" that he has become persona non grata in recent weeks.
"How unpopular is he?" Enten said. "How low can you go? Oh, my – okay, take a look here: Elon Musk's net favorability rating, look at this shift back in 2017, before he really started this politics thing. He was at plus-24 points. Look at where he is now: Whoa, he fell through the floor, minus-19 points. Among Democrats, the fall was even more dramatic. We're talking about going from plus-35 points on net favorability rating. That is quite a popular guy among Democrats, but get this – now down to minus-91 points. You can't really go lower than that. I guess you could go down to minus-100 points, but he became political kryptonite."
"He was greatly disliked by the American public and greatly, greatly, greatly disliked by Democrats," Enten added, "and obviously we saw that in Wisconsin when, of course, he spent all that money and then the liberal won that Supreme Court race."
Musk's foray into politics destroyed the reputation of his Tesla electric car brand, as well.
"We're going to compare General Motors and Tesla," Enten said. "General Motors, quite well-liked by the American people, plus-23 points on net favorability rating. But look at Tesla, minus-20 points. So this idea that Tesla could somehow separate itself from Elon Musk, the American people saw the exact same way, and, of course, Tesla is a business. They're in the business of selling cars. Awfully difficult to sell cars when you have a minus-20 point net favorability rating driven by Elon Musk's net favorability rating, right around the same mark, and it's not a big surprise that Tesla's sales had fallen in the past, at least in the first quarter, compared to where they were a year ago."
"It turns out that Elon Musk's political kryptonite was also becoming kryptonite for selling cars," Enten added.
An analyst cast doubt on president Donald Trump's pledge to build a massive and expensive national missile defense system before the end of his term.
The president on Tuesday announced the so-called "Golden Dome" defense system missiles, satellites and sensors similar to to Israel's "Iron Dome," and he tasked Space Force vice chief of operations Gen. Michael Guetlein with leading the ambitious project, but CNN's global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier expressed skepticism about its success.
"Look, the kid in me that grew up in the 'Star Wars' generation, with sci-fi as the backdrop," Dozier said. "I want this to work as an American who knows that China has a successful hypersonic missile system, that China and Russia are testing space-based weapons, and that Russia may have even armed some of its satellites. I can see the need for this, but weapons experts say it could cost as much as $500 billion, not $175 [billion], finishing it in three years. You're talking about creating new technologies, new systems to control them, integrating them into our existing command and control and weapons system, and covering this huge, vast area."
Israel's defense system cost about $100 million per battery to produce and has 10 batteries, but the U.S. is 400 times larger than Israel, which is about the size of New Jersey, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the total cost over 20 years as $161 billion to $831 billion.
"Great idea," Dozier said, "but executing it this cheaply and this fast? Probably not."
Former president Ronald Reagan proposed a similar system in the early 1980s derisively nicknamed after the blockbuster "Star Wars" movie franchise that never materialized but escalated the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union, and Dozier said Trump's "Golden Dome" would likely have a similar impact.
"There's absolutely an arms race, and there's a gray area in terms of what you can put it in the atmosphere," Dozier said. "There was a 1967 treaty for outer space that says you can't put weapons of mass destruction up there, like nuclear weapons, et cetera. But the problem is, once you weaponize space and you've got satellites that can target each other, that can create the kind of space debris that renders whole sections of space unusable."
"We've seen the Chinese test things where they use one satellite to hit and take out another satellite, but we're not certain that anyone has got a laser or something similar in space," she added. "So it is fraught with. complications, but also second- and third-order effects, like there are nuclear weapons treaties that are dependent on the countries watching ground-based stuff to see which side, you know, what the trust is built into, what they can see, and once you've got a layer of weapons in space that you think might just be satellites, but might be something else, all those treaties could go out the window."
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem was instantly fact-checked and then widely criticized for misstating the definition of the foundational constitutional right to habeas corpus, but a "Morning Joe" panelist isn't buying that she actually misunderstood the concept.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) asked her to define the constitutional right to due process after White House adviser Stephen Miller warned the administration was looking at suspending the right to challenge an arrest or imprisonment, and MSNBC's Katty Kay said there's no way that Noem was unprepared to explain the bedrock civil right, which she claimed was "a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country."
"I watched this [and] there's no way that Kristi Noem went into that hearing without being briefed by her staff, right?" said MSNBC's Katty Kay. "I mean, principals are prepped when they go into briefings like that. It seems to me unlikely that she didn't know what habeas corpus is, so you then have to think, was she acting for an audience of one and just trying to make her boss happy with her redefinition of it? If that's the cynic in me, and maybe I've been in Washington too long, but otherwise she just was dumb and didn't know something that is basic about American law that she clearly should know, particularly given the position she's in, and given all of the cases and the amount of times habeas corpus has come up in political and legal discussion in this town in the last couple of months, I think she was performing."
Whether or not Noem knows the Constitution allows anyone to challenge their detention or arrest, host Joe Scarborough said most Americans seem to be aware of their rights.
"There are a lot of surprises that that we've had over the past three months – I think you're being very gracious, by the way," Scarborough told Kay. "So anyway, there are a lot of things that have surprised Americans over the last three months and a lot of things that that people have gone, 'Oh my God, you know, where's the America that I grew up knowing?' I'll tell you one thing that I have been so heartened by is the fact that so many Americans have shown pollsters, politicians, everybody else, they understand what due process is. They understand what habeas corpus is, they get it as their right."
The GOP-majority House leadership's attempt to force through a budget bill that would gut support and protections for the poor, coming on the heels of billionaire Elon Musk boasting about government cuts, is handing the Democratic party a major gift.
That is the opinion on MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough who admitted he is stunned, as a former GOP House member himself, at how tone-deaf the party has become.
Discussing the battle between GOP hardliners who want to slash and burn and their colleagues who are concerned about next year's midterms, Scarborough claimed the optics are horrific for the party in power.
"I mean, this is, it's ghastly," he told his panel. "You have the richest billionaire in the world, a chainsaw-wielding South African immigrant coming to America wielding a chainsaw, doesn't understand our government, doesn't understand how it works, obviously from a lot of things he tweets he doesn't understand the constitution and the richest man in the world decides he's going to show fiscal prudence by taking food out of the mouths of the poorest starving children on the planet."
"I mean, it's just what's happening," he added. "I mean, the idea, the idea that they're going after USAID to cut the budget, 'The money's just not there, rounding error.' And they're desperate to figure out how to give tax cuts to the richest people, billionaires, multinational corporations like people who run tech monopolies."
"I mean, you couldn't make this up!" he exclaimed. "Like a Democrat who would say this, nobody would believe that this would happen. It is happening and Republicans are setting themselves up like dominoes to be knocked down."
Two conservatives found themselves under fire from CNN anchor Abby Phillip, who pressed them on the GOP's plans for Medicaid, as President Donald Trump threatens members of his own party who threaten to blow up his "One, Big, Beautiful Bill."
Phillip opened her show late Tuesday, recounting Trump's threat to Republican hardliners: "Get in line, or else," she paraphrased, noting Trump's agenda is "on the brink tonight."
Trump’s budget seeks to make his 2017 tax cuts permanent, but critics say they're a thinly disguised attempt to benefit the wealthy.
"The plan puts more money into the border and the Pentagon, and less money into programs like food stamps," Phillip noted. "And even though Trump told Republicans on the Hill today, 'Don’t F around with Medicaid,' his plan will do just that by enforcing work requirements that would result in millions losing coverage."
Steve Moore, former Trump economic adviser, told Phillip that if lawmakers fail to pass Trump's budget, the average American will see a $3,000 tax increase next year.
"I don’t think anybody wants that," he warned, calling it the "biggest tax increase in history."
Moore also took issue with criticism of the GOP's plans for Medicaid.
"Look, I object a little bit to this language, for example, that work requirements are going to throw all these people off unemployment and Medicaid," he began.
But Phillip refused to concede that point.
"But isn’t that the point? In order to save money?" she interjected.
"We did this, Abby. Abby, we did this under Bill Clinton. He was the last, and it was extremely successful. 75% of the people got work, and they climbed the economic ladder," he said, steamrolling over Phillip, who continued to insist the point of the change is to get the GOP to "a certain number of savings."
"And in order to do that, they need fewer people to get benefits. Is that not the point?" she pressed.
Before Moore could answer, fellow conservative and Trump ally Scott Jennings jumped in to defend the party's agenda.
"Yes. But isn’t it the point that you want people to go to work? Isn't that the point?" he shot back.
Phillip turned to her colleague and continued pressing..
"Okay — no, no, no. Scott, hold on. I’ll ask you the exact same question I asked Steven. Isn’t the point that they want to save money?" Phillip asked. "So in order to save money, you’ve got to get people off the program. How is that not taking people off the program?"
Jennings agreed the move is designed to save money, but pushed back that the goal of Medicaid is "not to trap people."
"It’s not supposed to be a lifestyle. It’s supposed to be a temporary deal. So yes, we don’t want to trap people on Medicaid. We want to get them to go to the workplace. And, I mean, there are able-bodied people all over this country who do nothing," Jennings insisted.
Phillip refused to let the conservatives off the hook, demanding to know if Trump was merely fishing for a headline by saying, "Don't F with Medicaid."
"It’s going to mess with Medicaid for sure," she noted.
"Well, it is — but it messes with it in a good way because it forces people to go to work," Jennings replied, visibly frustrated. "Do you want a country where nobody works? Or do you want a country where people go to work?"
"So, yes?" Phillip pressed. "So he is trying to get a headline but not be honest about why."
MSNBC's Jen Psaki was floored watching Donald Trump allies face aggressive lines of questioning at the hands of Democrats, telling viewers Tuesday night that Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-MA) attack was so intense, Psaki herself felt like she'd failed the class from the professor.
Psaki opened her show, "The Briefing," on Tuesday night to take stock of how Trump's officials are faring in televised hearings, and particularly homed in on their alignment on pleading ignorance.
"One of them is a moment from a hearing involving Secretary of State Marco Rubio—that guy who became, what seems to be, the latest Trump official to deploy the strategy of what I can only call complete ignorance when asked about Trump’s controversies," she said.
She played a clip of Rubio being asked directly by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) about Trump's plans for a Qatari jet he reportedly asked for.
"It’s not your understanding that the plan ultimately will belong to the president or to the president’s library after...?" asked Murphy
"Well, I don’t—I'm not involved at that level of it. I’ve never heard that before."
"... President has offered access to him to the 200 top purchasers of his meme coin ... Do you have a list of those foreign individuals who will be meeting with the president?" asked Murphy.
"I don’t—I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t even know there was a dinner on Thursday night," Rubio replied, holding back a chuckle.
"Isn't that a relevant question for the Secretary of State?" Murphy shot back.
"Foreign interests are going to be speaking to the president... I mean, it’s kind of naive to believe that they aren’t going to be in that room talking about national security matters," he added.
"Well, I don’t think that’s the case at all, because I would be aware if it was the case. So you’re asking about a dinner I don’t know anything about. I can’t answer you because I don’t know anything about this dinner. This is the first I’ve heard of it," Rubio maintained.
Psaki was unconvinced, however, and noted Rubio wasn't the only Trump ally facing a heated grilling who pleaded ignorance.
"I guess that’s the strategy now — about Trump’s most outlandish and potentially illegal plans — because today, former Congressman Billy Long, Trump’s nominee to run the IRS, was also in the hot seat. And surprise, surprise—he doesn’t know anything about Trump’s plans either."
She played a clip of Warren turning up the heat on Long.
"Is it illegal for the president to instruct the IRS to remove nonprofit status from a taxpayer?" asked Warren.
"I’m not going to have the answer that you need and I apologize, but like I said..." he replied.
"Why are you not having the answer? You’ve had three weeks to consult with lawyers. I’m asking what I think is a pretty simple question. Can the President of the United States legally tell the IRS to change someone’s nonprofit status?" she shot back.
"I’m not able to answer," Long replied, before Warren cut in.
"You can’t read these words and tell what those words say?" she demanded to know.
Warren's intense line of questioning took Psaki aback.
"Whew! I mean, leave it to a former professor to really make him seem as unprepared for class as humanly possible. I felt like maybe I had failed the class watching that," Psaki said, admiring the senator's admonishment.
CNN's Jake Tapper was confronted by fellow network anchor Erin Burnett during a joint interview with Axios' Alex Thompson on their new book detailing explosive allegations about Joe Biden's administration's attempt to conceal his cognitive decline — and specifically, the uproar it has caused.
"So it's an incredibly reported book you have, and I don't know if you expected this. Maybe you did a little bit, but maybe not to the extreme that it has occurred," said Burnett. "You have come under withering criticism ... so President Biden's granddaughter, Naomi, she kind of — I think this summarizes a bit. She says the book 'relies on unnamed anonymous sources pushing a self-serving, false narrative that absolves them of any responsibility for our current national nightmare ... there are real stories to be told. One day they will be, I suspect history will reward the truth.'"
"You know, there are some saying you're doing this to make money, others saying history respects the truth," said Burnett. "I hope so, but I want to give you a chance because you're both Washington insiders in the sense you live there, you know it. And there are people who say, come on, Jake Tapper, you had to have known. What do you say to them?"
"I say that I knew what we all knew, which was I saw him deteriorating in front of the cameras, like in the stuff that was public. But I didn't know anything more than that," said Tapper. "I knew that he was okay in the interview I did in 2020, and old, but still with it in the interview I did in 2022."
However, he continued, "I didn't know about all these horrible moments. The reason why the debate was so shocking is because that was a president who is nonfunctioning, not a president who had a gaffe, not a president who tripped on the stairs, a president who is nonfunctioning and was basically nonfunctioning for 90 minutes, to different degrees. So I think that is why it's so shocking. And I think the reason why there's such interest in this book is because people want to know what really happened."
"As for Naomi, we know, and we report in the book that the Biden family is very close and they stick together. And I don't — I don't begrudge her standing up for her dad and her grandfather," Tapper added. "But I will say we stand by our book, and we do hope that history does reward the truth."
Tapper is not only catching fury from Biden's supporters and family, but also from Trump supporters who insist he was in on some sort of cover-up and had this information embargoed for years. The backlash has been so white-hot that Amazon was forced to restrict reviews of the book to verified purchasers to prevent a flood of personal attacks.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got heated during a Senate grilling Tuesday, shouting at lawmakers at one point, "What have you done about the epidemic of chronic disease?"
Kennedy was in front of Congress to testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee about President Donald Trump’s proposed 2026 budget for his department. The hearing focused on the administration’s plan to slash HHS's discretionary funding by 26%, which would significantly affect the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other public health programs.
During that hearing, Kennedy unleashed a "heated outburst" after Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) criticized the severe staffing and funding cuts, according to The Daily Beast.
"Secretary Kennedy, whose decision was it to withhold child care and development block grant funding?" she asked at one point.
As Kennedy tried to cast blame on the Biden administration, Murray was having none of it.
"President Biden submitted his budget —" he began, but Murray cut him off.
"I'm not asking about —" she began.
But Kennedy steamrolled Murray.
"You know what? You made an accusation of me and I'm going to answer it," he shot back.
"Ok. I appreciate that — " she replied, as he continued talking. "You can go down that road, I have just two minutes left. I asked you a specific question."
Kennedy then went off on Murray.
"I also want to point out — I want to point out something, Senator. You've presided here I think for 32 years. You presidened over the destruction of the health of the American people. Our people are now the sickest in the world because you have not done your job!"
"Mr. Secretary, seriously?" Murray retorted. "That is an amazing —"
The two continued talking over each other as the clash escalated, and Murray repeatedly tried to gain control over the questioning.
"What have you done about the epidemic of chronic disease?!" Kennedy shouted.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. engaged in a heated exchange with Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington. The spat marked a carryover from Kennedy’s Senate testimony last week. https://t.co/mxxHgkNtDmpic.twitter.com/wmMeJ647v5 — The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) May 20, 2025
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is simply not telling the truth about the Trump administration's commitment to supporting lead poisoning efforts, Dr. Sanjay Gupta told CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday.
"During the Senate hearing today, [Kennedy] was pressed on whether the lead program, looking into lead contamination and the like at the [Centers for Disease Control], was being funded or not," said Tapper," playing the clip of Kennedy's response.
"We're continuing to fund the program," he said in the clip. "And in Milwaukee, we have a team in Milwaukee, and we're giving laboratory support to, to the, to the analytics in Milwaukee, and we're working with the health department in Milwaukee."
"Sanjay, you were recently in Milwaukee," said Tapper. "Does that track with what officials there told you?"
"Simple answer is no, not at all," said Gupta. "I mean, April 3rd, first of all, the original request from Milwaukee's health department was denied. I was there a couple of weeks ago, spent a week there, talked to the health commissioner specifically about this. This is what he said."
"I think the long-term investigation into the potential chronic exposures of students at the district is a part that we were really looking for the CDC to help us with, and unfortunately, HHS had laid off that entire team for childhood lead exposure," said Milwaukee health commissioner Dr. Michael Totoraitis. "These are the, the best and brightest minds in these areas around lead poisoning. And now they're gone."
Gupta added that after today, weeks after that exchange, "we reached out to Milwaukee again, and here's what they said: 'The City of Milwaukee Health Department is not receiving any federal epidemiological or analytical support related to the lead hazard crisis. The request has been denied by the CDC.' So I'm not sure what he's referring to, Jake. They're not getting help still."
Billionaire Elon Musk pushed back on accusations that he was a Nazi sympathizer because of a hand gesture he made during one of President Donald Trump's rallies.
In a Tuesday interview with CNBC, Musk accused the mainstream media of propaganda.
"What would an example of that be?" CNBC's David Faber wondered.
"That I'm a Nazi, for example," Musk replied. "And how many legacy media publications, talk shows, whatever, try to claim that I was a Nazi because of some random hand gesture at a rally where all I said was that my heart goes out to you and I was talking about space travel."
"And yet, the legacy of media promoted that as though that was a deliberate Nazi gesture, when in fact, every politician, any public speaker who's spoken for any length of the time has made the exact same gesture," he added. "And I've never harmed, I've never harmed a single person."
The MSNBC panel on "Deadline: White House" shared a chuckle while mocking Elon Musk after the tech billionaire revealed in an interview Tuesday he plans to spend a lot less on politics going forward.
The audience at the forum responded with laughter.
Host Nicolle Wallace cited a Monday report from Politico asking why Musk has disappeared from the spotlight to illustrate how he has fallen out of favor in the Republican Party.
"In Trump’s rapidly evolving second presidency, Musk’s monopoly on political discourse, news coverage and social media seems to have broken — driven in part by how Trump and Republicans have all but stopped talking about him," the report said.
"Ouch!" commented Wallace.
However, New York Times correspondent Theodore Schleifer said that he's not certain he believes Musk's claim that he wants to back off of politics.
"I mean, one thing we reported in our story this afternoon is that Musk is aware of the fact that he, kind of, is more politically toxic than he was. And that he's told people, or at least has signaled in private conversations after what happened in Wisconsin, that he knows he has to be a more behind the scenes player," said Schleifer, referring to the off-year election for a state Supreme Court seat where he invested millions but his chosen candidate still lost the race.
"So, that's why, forgive me, I'm a little skeptical, or maybe just a smidge skeptical that that he is totally out of politics," Schleifer added.
But it was Charlie Sykes of the anti-Trump news site The Bulwark who described Musk as "the world's richest man spending $290 million and all he got was a red hat."
Sykes went on to say, "There's no question about it. He face-planted in Wisconsin."
While Musk has been "a complete failure" in trying to cut federal spending, Sykes said that Musk managed to use his clout in government to eliminate regulations he deemed hostile and score federal contracts for his businesses.
Wallace asked Sykes what he thought of Musk's lasting brand damage.
"By the way, have you seen one of those Cybertrucks driving around lately? I mean, those are the ugliest trucks in the world," said Sykes.
He used the Cybertruck as an example of the "hubris of these rich guys who think that because they were smart in one thing that they can do something different. Now we should have gotten — we actually did — we got a foreshadowing of what he was going to do in the federal government when he came into Twitter and s---ified, you know, the social media platform. He didn't know what he didn't know. I mean, he actually thought that he was Iron Man, and that was the image that he was going to be. Iron Man. He turned out to be Zoolander. And so I think that whole myth of Elon Musk has been hurt."
Medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner pushed back on CNN's Pamela Brown as she voiced skepticism that former President Joe Biden only learned about his prostate cancer diagnosis recently, as he likely had it for years, or that the medical guidelines did not indicate more rigorous testing earlier.
"He was president of the United States," said Brown. "And I understand that Dr. Conley was following the guidelines, but I mean, do you follow — do you just stick to the book on the guidelines when you're dealing with someone who's running the country, who was then running for re-election?"
"You practice the best," said Reiner. "Look, as a physician, for anybody, and particularly as a physician for a public figure, your first requirement, your first responsibility, is to do what's right for the patient and to treat them like a patient. Don't do testing simply because somebody else expects you to do testing. Don't, you know, provide a therapy because you think it might look good for the public. Do what you think is right for the patient. And again, PSA testing is not routinely used in older men because it doesn't — it doesn't change the outcome for them."
"So you know, I hear what people think," he added. "But he wasn't tested because it wasn't indicated. And he wasn't tested apparently because, you know, until recently, the patient didn't have symptoms that would warrant testing. So I get it. But this is where we are. I mean, not everything is a conspiracy."
"No, and I understand your point there for certain," said Brown. "But now this information is coming out and there's a big question of when this started, right? We know it's an aggressive form that it spread to his bone. And so you just wait until someone who's like the president of the United States shows symptoms until you test them in a situation like this?"
"In older men, yeah ... this is the specific recommendation for this particular disease," said Reiner. "But one other point I do want to make ... I think this is really illustrative of what can happen when we elect very old people to office. When you're 80 years old, stuff happens. And it doesn't matter how you look one day, but 80-year-olds get heart attacks, and they get strokes, and they get prostate cancer. And it happens more frequently the older we get."
This, he added, is the reason "I've always felt super strongly about, when we're vetting candidates running for office, we should expect, as the voting public, the people who are putting these people in office, we should expect complete transparency. We should expect that the medications listed on these disclosures are the complete list, right? Not the partial list."
