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On his way out of the U.S. to visit Scotland, Donald Trump told reporters that he had no relationship with convicted child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

As the Epstein files controversy consumes both the White House and the Department of Justice, the president is trying to leave it all behind as he heads to Scotland to with with the British prime minister and tour his own two golf resorts.

President Donald Trump is losing support among a key constituency that helped him win re-election, and CNN's Harry Enten showed that his popularity has plummeted to historic lows.

A new Gallup poll shows the president has fallen to his lowest level of support six months into his second term, driven largely by a drop in his approval rating among self-described independents, which Enten told "CNN News Central" signaled major problems.

The demands made by Donald Trump's administration that preceded the approval of the $8 billion merger between Paramount/CBS and Skydance Media provides a direct line to the scathing episode of "South Park" this week that stunned viewers and infuriated the White House.

That is the opinion of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough, who pointed out that "overreach" by Donald Trump and his inner circle when it comes to bullying the media has a cost.

The Comedy Central show — in which the size of the president's genitalia was mocked, he was shown in bed with Satan and Jesus returned to Earth to complain that he was being sued by the president — set off a wave of outrage on the right and delight from Trump's critics as clips swiftly went viral.

Host Scarborough made the point that both Republicans and Democrats are prone to overreach, believing they will always be in power, only for another election to bring political change.

After making his point by citing recent history, co-host Jonathan Lemire noted the swiftness with which the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were able to turn the Paramount deal into an attack on the president.

After sharing a clip, which led him to joke that it was one of the few they could show due to the content, which led to off-screen laughter, Lemire explained, "South Park relentlessly mocked President Trump on Wednesday night's episode and criticized the parent company of Comedy Central, its network, for that segment."

"This, Joe comes, of course, just days after the creators of the show reached a $1.5 billion streaming deal with Paramount," he added, which led Scarborough to note, "And that is the definition of blowback. I mean, with the media, it's again, it's just I mean, you can pay me now or you can pay me later."

"But just for the uninitiated, for people, they're saying how could they be so mean to Donald Trump, and they are," Scarborough joked. "They are vicious. If you haven't watched South Park they went after, they go after Jesus. They showed images of Mohammed after being told they were going to be killed if they did so. They, of course, have gone after liberals all the time. They go after conservatives all the time. They are equal opportunity offenders. They go after Scientology."

You can watch Joe Scarborough explaining "blow-back" before the South Park clip below:

The Department of Justice meetings with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell could end up backfiring on President Donald Trump, according to one of his former aides.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was one of the president's former criminal defense lawyers, is meeting this week with Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator as Trump tries to clear up questions about his longtime association with the disgraced financier, and former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin told "CNN News Central" those discussions were politically perilous.

Sen. Tim Scott's appearance with Donald Trump on Thursday when the president met with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell both baffled and amused the entire panel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" over its sheer oddness.

The day after Trump's visit went south as Powell fact-checked him in front of the press, co-host Joe Scarborough and regular panelist Sam Stein cracked up over why the South Carolina Republican was next to Trump.

After an amused Stein observed that Scott was not given a hard hat for his worksite visit, like all the other participants, he laughingly added, "The best part actually came at the end when they were taking questions after this whole thing was done."

"Hold on, hold on," Scarborough interrupted before pointing out that when Trump was embarrassed by Powell after reading off wrong numbers provided by his staff, Scott was quick to jump in and add, "Those are my numbers. Those are the numbers I have too, Mr. President."

As the two laughed, Scarborough snorted, "This is Hall of Fame by Tim Scott. 'No, those are my numbers too!'"

"Okay, but there's a better Tim Scott moment," Stein chimed in. I think I'm just going to throw it out there, it comes at the end. They go in the building that they're renovating and they're talking. Who knows what they're saying? Obviously Trump's trying to get Powell to quit, because Trump doesn't want to fire him, and they come back out and they have this press conference and, at one point, Tim Scott says something like, 'God, I wish we just didn't have to talk about the cost of renovations and we could just focus on interest rates,' as if Donald Trump hasn't been pushing this entire thing as a predicate for firing Powell."

"It felt like an episode of Veep, honestly," he added.

MSNBC host Ali Vitali jumped in with, "Maybe it was a late addition, he doesn't have the hard hat, I don't know. But I mean, that was the first question that I asked David Gura on [MSNBC show] 'Way Too Early,' when we were talking about this story, is what did Tim Scott do that he had to support the president but not get a hard hat in the process?"

You can watch below or at the link.

A conservative commentator argued on "CNN This Morning" that Democrats are just as divided over the Jeffrey Epstein as Republicans — and he was immediately shut down.

Democrats have been forcing Republicans to confront the issue over and over before they leave Washington, D.C., for an early summer recess called by House Speaker Mike Johnson, and the president has been unable to change the conversation from his past association with the convicted sex abuser.

The decision by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to be the faces of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation was laughed off on MSNBC on Friday morning as it was pointed out they have no credibility due to their ties to Donald Trump.

MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough couldn't stop laughing as he called it "amateur night."

The Trump administration has been ignoring one of the greatest humanitarian crises of our generation, according to a CNN panel.

Israel's war in Gaza has been raging since October 7, 2023, with almost no end in sight. CNN anchor Abby Phillip asked the panel whether the images and videos of children starving in Gaza should be an inflection point in the war, one that gets the U.S. to assert more leverage over Israel to let more humanitarian aid into the country.

At least one GOP senator is starting to feel out of place within the party.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Thursday that the Republican Party she grew up supporting has become a party completely controlled by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Her comments come at a time when the Republican Party appears to be fracturing over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case files.

Maria Farmer, one of the many women assaulted by deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein in her youth as part of his trafficking operation, spoke out about how all of the explosion of controversy around the case is re-traumatizing her in an interview with MSNBC's Jen Psaki on Thursday — and she called out those trying to rehabilitate Epstein's convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell for political purposes.

In recent days, as Trump's Justice Department interviews Maxwell in prison to try to deflect from the anger from their own base over the lack of transparency, some right-wing commentators have begun to push a narrative that Maxwell might have been railroaded, with Newsmax's Greg Kelly suggesting she might even be a victim herself.

Popular podcasters Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh, who openly supported President Donald Trump during last year’s presidential election, are now criticizing him for refusing to release the Epstein files.

In an episode of their podcast Flagrant released Thursday, Schulz and Singh leveled scathing remarks at Trump, citing frustration with his handling of the controversy surrounding convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes tore into MAGA influencers attempting to use the potential testimony of deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, to build a narrative that excuses President Donald Trump's involvement in the scandal.

Hayes noted commentator Greg Kelly from the right-wing channel Newsmax, who said of Maxwell, "She just might be a victim. She just might be. There was a rush to judgment."

President Donald Trump quietly released an executive order Thursday that advocates say will make homelessness worse.

The order, titled "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets," directs multiple federal agencies to discontinue funding services such as Housing First, Safe Consumption Sites, and other harm reduction practices. It also directs states to detain people with serious mental illnesses regardless of "forensic bed capacity at appropriate local, State, and Federal jails or hospitals."