President Donald Trump spoke at an artificial intelligence summit Wednesday, where he rambled about not liking the name "artificial intelligence."
After giving acknowledgments to notable people in the crowd, Trump bragged about his trade deal with Japan, under which Japan no longer pays tariffs on U.S. goods, while Americans will pay a 15% tax on all goods coming in from Japan.
"We're still in the earliest days of one of the most important technological revolutions in the history of the world," Trump told the crowd. "Around the globe, everyone is talking about artificial intelligence. I find that too artificial — get — I can't stand it. I don't even like the name. You know, I don't like anything this artificial. So could we straighten that out, please? We should change the name. I actually mean that. I don't like the name artificial anything because it's not artificial. It's genius. It's pure genius."
He went on to say that Silicon Valley should not be hamstrung by regulations from states.
Trump attempted to insert in his 2026 budget bill a mandate that no state could regulate AI for the next 10 years. It prompted many Republicans to become angry that they had supported the bill without knowing that it contained that provision.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said President Donald Trump’s own behavior may be the biggest indicator that the Jeffrey Epstein allegations could be true.
He noted that the unusual concept of a deputy attorney general meeting with a convicted criminal, Ghislaine Maxwell, after she had already been jailed. One thing he said he's watching for is whether other Justice Department prosecutors or investigators are fired or resign if Maxwell is given some kind of "deal" despite being a "convicted child predator."
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche "may be" looking to make "a deal that's not trying to get at the truth, but is really trying to get at a sort of cover-up," said Weissmann. "However, it is certainly highly unusual to see cooperation at this juncture and to have it sought by the deputy attorney general of the United States. That is not the person who usually goes and meets with a convicted defendant."
He noted that looking at the whole picture "in a cynical way," the information could be released today. "They don't need to go to a court" to release the Epstein files.
"The information that they have today, if it is damning of President Trump, then clearly they are avoiding that and trying to basically do lots of diversionary tactics, including the grand jury motion, which is, you know, something that they knew would be denied and now has been denied by one judge," said Weissmann. "I assume it's going to be denied by others. And so they're sort of saying, look over here, look over here. And they don't want that turned over. That's sort of the worst case scenario."
It's also "one of the greatest signs that there is a there there," Weissmann said, of "Donald Trump's reaction to all of this."
If Trump truly believed that there was nothing in the files, then he could release them, said Weissmann.
"Todd Blanche says the president has said to be as transparent as possible. Well, guess what? That means all of your investigative files could be turned over, other than grand jury information, and they're not doing it," he noted. "And you have to ask yourself, 'Why?'"
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told reporters Wednesday that he was concerned House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) may “try to pull a fast one” and rewrite House rules to stonewall a vote on releasing files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Massie introduced what’s known as a discharge petition last week, a procedural measure to force a vote on a particular bill, which in this case is a bill that would compel the Justice Department to release all files it holds on Epstein, the convicted sex offender alleged to have operated a blackmail operation targeting powerful figures.
“The House rules that were voted on the same week that we elected Mike Johnson say that this is a way to get true grassroots bills to the floor if they're being blocked by leadership,” Massie told reporters.
“I really hope that Mike Johnson doesn't try to pull a fast one when we get back in September and rewrite the rules to get around this preliminary procedure that he agreed to in the rules, the discharge petition.”
Johnson has accused Massie of playing “political games,” and said that the Kentucky Republican is “trying to bite Republicans.” Johnson has repeatedly spoken out against efforts to force a vote on releasing files on Epstein, even going as far as to adjourn the House early for the summer to stonewall Massie’s efforts.
The House going into its August recess early, Massie admitted, thwarted his discharge petition for now, but he pledged to bring it back the moment the House reconvened, and that the extended delay would only end up hurting Republicans in the long run.
“I don't think this issue is going to go away, I think it's going to fester over the August recess,” he said. “...We needed seven legislative days for my bill to ripen, we only got six before the August recess, so as soon as we come back, I'm going to collect signatures.”
While he hasn’t spoken directly on Massie’s discharge petition, President Donald Trump has slammed what he called “stupid” and “foolish” Republicans who “bought into” theories around Epstein. On Monday, he called Massie the “worst Republican congressman,” and said he was hopeful Massie would be unseated by a primary challenger.
Critics have latched onto Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to move past the Epstein matter, pointing to the growing pile of evidence that the two maintained a deeper friendship than previously known, as well as a new report that revealed Trump was informed by his own DOJ that he was among those listed in the Epstein files.
Massie needs 218 signatures for his discharge petition to be successful, and with nearly all House Democrats eager to weaponize the files on Epstein against Trump, and a handful of Republican House members supporting the measure, Massie said he’s confident the House will be forced to vote on the matter.
Massie also warned that if Republicans continue to stonewall efforts to release Epstein files, the GOP would pay a heavy price in the upcoming midterm elections.
“The MAGA base, they voted for a Republican majority and Donald Trump to be president to reach the untouchables, because there have always been this class of people that seem to be above and beyond the law, and so the Epstein files are about reaching those people,” he said.
"Here's the problem for us here in the House: if those voters who got energized and put Trump in the White House and us in the majority become apathetic because we don't follow up on this one simple, small promise, then they're not going to show up in the midterms. We're going to lose the majority, and the Democrats will be in charge.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told CNN on Wednesday that she plans to vote with the Democrats to subpoena all of the files on sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
CNN's Manu Raju reported from Capitol Hill, "Republicans are poised to defy President Trump and join with Democrats to subpoena all of the Epstein files."
Raju called it a "hugely significant move."
"In a key subcommittee that is now considering this measure, Democrats have tried to force a vote to consider to call for a subpoena for all of the Epstein files, as pushed by Congresswoman Summer Lee (D-PA). They need one Republican to vote for it. Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina just told me moments ago she plans to vote for this measure."
On tape, Mace said she will "for sure" support the motion after she's assured that the names of Epstein's victims will be redacted.
"I think it's very important. I will be supporting it, but it's very important that we protect victims," Mace said. "I think that is should be first and foremost, as someone who's fought for the protection to protect women and kids."
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell accused President Donald Trump's Internal Revenue Service of conducting the "biggest attack" on him so far.
During a Wednesday appearance on his Lindell TV network, the pillow executive celebrated an appeals court ruling that reversed a decision requiring him to pay $5 million in connection with his "Cyber Symposium" election machine contest.
"I mean, I almost started crying in the other room when the lawyer called and said, I go, whoa," Lindell recalled. "And it's not because of $5 million. This is because of what, you know, this is the breakthrough! This is — we broke through the cover-up, the lies that have been taken and the suppression."
The CEO, however, said that he did not have all good news.
"The IRS, you know, I've been under attack by the IRS for three years," he explained. "I just got word that they are taking off all my deductions for Lindell TV and Frank's Speech."
"They're not allowing — they're calling it, it was political and Mike Lindell, it was entertaining and political for Mike Lindell," he added. "You don't call that an attack? That's about the biggest attack I could think of. So now we got to go back and fight that out with these guys. It's unbelievable!"
A former Republican Party spokesperson and Bulwark host thinks that President Donald Trump is sunk when it comes to trying to deny his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaking to MSNBC's Katy Tur, Tim Miller, who left the GOP, said that denying his involvement will no longer work for Trump.
Tur noted Trump and his allies have fed conspiracy theories about a sex ring with Democrats drinking the blood of children. They started a fire, she described, and now are trying to keep it contained.
"He had a little bit of a scapegoat in the first term, right? When he wanted to change the subject," Miller recalled Trump would claim, "Oh, the deep state is blocking me. And I have these old establishment Republicans that we need to get rid of."
Now, however, he's installed people like Kash Patel, Dan Bongino and Pam Bondi, all of whom have promoted the release of the Epstein files.
"So, I don't know, it seems like they have some personnel issues, but like, so he doesn't have an excuse this time, right? Like, you know, there's nobody that he can point a finger at and say it's their fault. He put these people in and said, 'This time I'm coming back to get revenge,'" Miller continued.
Meanwhile, the president's former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, is now working with Epstein's girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker linked to the sex ring.
"This whole thing is like, look over there, squirrel!" Miller continued. "Like that works if you're at Mar-a-Lago and Joe Biden's in charge, you can blame him. Or if you're like, the deep state is in charge. You can't do that now. And to me, the biggest news about this story, just one sentence on it real quick, is when Hakeem Jeffries first talked about this about a week out."
Jeffries said that the country is now confused as to whether the Trump administration was lying about Epstein before or they're lying now.
"Either it's a cover-up or they didn't really have the goods and they're pretending to. This pretty much makes clear that this is a cover-up," he said of the Journal report. "Which is a very different story and much harder to contain, because now, if the Democrats ever get back in power, all these people are going to be subpoenaed. It's not a five-week story for Mike Johnson. It's a two-year story in 2027. Now they're all going to have to discuss this meeting. And so, I mean, I just think that that makes a big difference over where the story was a couple days ago."
CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale tore into Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, after she gave a press briefing in which she doubled down on her claim former President Barack Obama committed "treason" and improperly manipulated intelligence agencies during the Russiainvestigation.
The claim is based on documents the Trump administration surfaced earlier this month — but those documents don't actually support what Gabbard or Trump are saying, Dale explained.
"Can you help us by fact-checking some of the things that the DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, said just then?" asked anchor Jim Sciutto.
"Yeah," said Dale, a frequent debunker of Trump's false claims. "So obviously I haven't seen all the materials that she and that position has seen, but she has been attacking this intelligence assessment from early 2017, put out by the intelligence community and suggesting that it contradicted previous findings that the intelligence community had previously concluded that Russia could not alter vote counts and so on."
However, he continued, the 2017 assessment Gabbard is attacking and claiming Obama manipulated "did not find that there was any alteration of vote counts, that Russia had changed the outcome. Rather, it found that Russia had made this kind of effort through hacking Democratic organizations, through social media influence dissemination, organization. And I think it's very important to note that the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee reviewed these findings about Russia's actions and found that not only were they well-supported, but also that there had not been political interference by the Obama administration with the intelligence community in developing these conclusions."
"So this suggestion that there is some treasonous activity by former President Obama, basically, in simply asking the intelligence community or directing the intelligence community to come up with an assessment of Russia's well-documented activities is simply not borne out by the evidence that DNI Gabbard and President Trump have presented so far in the last week," Dale concluded.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that President Donald Trump would push for his government to cancel all contracts with Elon Musk's xAI company.
During a Wednesday White House briefing, Leavitt was asked if Trump supported "federal agencies contracting with Elon Musk's AI company."
"I don't think so, no," the press secretary replied.
"Okay, so he would want the DOJ to then cancel the contract with Elon?" the reporter pressed.
"I'll talk to him about it, yes," Leavitt said.
Earlier this month, xAI won a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense just days after Musk's Grok chatbot praised Adolf Hitler.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard avoided mention of President Donald Trump's Jeffrey Epstein scandal while suggesting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had "psycho-emotional problems" and used "heavy tranquilizers."
During a White House briefing on Wednesday, Gabbard shared a declassified report from House Republicans about whether or not Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
"This report shows Putin held back from leaking compromising material on Hillary Clinton prior to the election, instead planning to release it after the election to weaken what Moscow viewed as an inevitable Clinton presidency," Gabbard said. "In the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that President Obama ordered, John Brennan, who was CIA Director at the time, and the Intelligence Community, intentionally suppressed intelligence that showed Putin was saving the most damaging material that he had in his possession about Hillary Clinton until after her potential and likely victory."
"There were high-level DNC emails that detailed evidence of Hillary's, quote, 'psycho-emotional problems, uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness,' and that then-Secretary Clinton was allegedly on a daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers," she continued.
"Then-CIA Director Brennan and the intelligence community mischaracterized intelligence and relied on dubious substandard sources to create a contrived false narrative that Putin developed a quote-unquote clear preference for Trump."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) scrambled to deny reports that he was adjourning the U.S. House of Representatives to prevent a vote on releasing files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
"Yesterday, some of you may have seen a false headline in the New York Times, and the headline was terribly misleading," Johnson said on Wednesday. "It said, 'House Republicans are adjourning until September to avoid a vote on releasing Epstein materials.' I just want you to know, and everybody here knows, that's an outright lie."
"No one is adjourning early," he insisted. "We have an August district work period that is very important to the function of Congress that has been recognized for all of memory of this institution... No one in Congress is blocking Epstein documents."
"What we are doing here, Republicans are preventing Democrats from making a mockery of the Rules Committee process because we refuse to engage in their political charade. That is what is happening and nothing more. The way Democrats have tried to weaponize this issue is absolutely shameless."
Johnson went on to question the value of testimony from Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, after Republicans moved to subpoena her.
"Is she a credible witness?" he remarked. "I mean, this is a person who's been sentenced to many, many years in prison for terrible, unspeakable, conspiratorial acts and acts against innocent young people. Can we trust what she's going to say?"
Reporters, however, pressed Johnson about why he had no "sense of urgency" about releasing the Epstein files.
"Why not just hold the vote today?" one reporter asked.
"There's no point in having a vote today because the administration is already doing everything within their power to release them," the speaker claimed. "The president himself has said all credible evidence should be put out to the American people... There's no point in passing a resolution to urge the administration to do something that they are already doing."
The co-hosts of "The View" had a good laugh at President Donald Trump on Wednesday after he either slurred his words — or made up a new one altogether.
At issue is Trump's new conspiracy that President Barack Obama invented the evidence that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. It's nearly 10 years later and, Sunny Hostin remarked, Obama still "lives rent free in his head."
"This was treason," Trump said on Tuesday from the Oval Office. "This was every word you could think of. They tried to steal the election. Irrefutable proof that Obama was sedatious, that Obama led — was trying to lead a coup."
The women at the table cracked up laughing while Whoopi Goldberg sat confused.
"Did — what did he say?" she questioned.
"I think he wants to be sedated," the president's former communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin said with a laugh.
"He wants to be sedated?" Goldberg repeated.
"Okay, you know, the thing about him is that he's so jealous of Obama, because Obama is everything that he is not," said Joy Behar. "Trim, smart, handsome."
"Happily married," Hostin jumped in.
"You see, he will never be cool," Hostin later added of Trump.
Griffin pivoted to note that all of the accusations are a distraction from Trump's ongoing Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Republicans are now talking about having Ghislaine Maxwell testify before Congress.
"I would say if Ghislaine Maxwell would testify, I wouldn't believe a word that a convicted sex trafficker said because her only incentive and motivation would be to lighten her own sentence because she's currently doing about — sentenced to 20 years."
She recalled that she was working for Vice President Mike Pence when he went to Russia and told President Vladimir Putin to his face that the U.S. was aware of what he did in the election and he better not do it again.
Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) scolded acting FEMA director David Richardson for being "nowhere near Texas" in the days after a flood killed scores of people.
During a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on Wednesday, Stanton noted that Richardson had a duty under the law "to act proactively and not to wait for a request from Governor Abbott to pre-position resources."
"Your staff was pointing the finger at Governor Abbott and say the lack of urban search and rescue proactivity was based upon a late request from the governor's office," the lawmaker explained.
Stanton went on to press Richardson about where he was when the flood hit Texas.
"On July 4th, I was on vacation," the FEMA chief admitted. "I spent the entire vacation in my vehicle speaking on my phone to either the state of Texas or DHS coordinating for the events in Texas."
"Were you on the first plane back to Washington then from your vacation?" Stanton asked.
"I was in my truck," Richardson said, "with my two boys and myself. I was in my truck, I remained in my truck the whole time."
"Secretary Noem was very present. You were not," Stanton remarked. "Mr. Richardson, you were nowhere near Texas at the critical moments in the search and rescue, and you did not even show your face for more than a week after the flood. You are the administrator of this critical agency. You're the leader, but you did not lead as you are required to by federal law."
"But worse, you seem uninterested to learn what went wrong and how to respond better," he continued. "Do the victims and survivors in Texas deserve an apology?"
"What happened in Texas was an absolute tragedy," Richardson responded. "It's hard to fathom. I went to Texas. I flew over. It was an absolute tragedy. My heart goes out to the people in Texas."
"That was intended as a yes or no question, and I'll appropriately take that as a no," Stanton concluded.
President Donald Trump's approval has collapsed to near-historic lows, according to a new analysis, and Americans disapprove of his handling of every major issue.
The president has been trying to change the subject from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal that has ballooned this month after his Department of Justice announced the disgraced financier had killed himself while awaiting trial and had not kept a client list. CNN's Harry Enten found the issue was a major drag on Trump's popularity.
"Six months in, the rules of political gravity absolutely apply to Donald Trump, and the USS Donald Trump has taken on a lot of water," Enten said. "What are we talking about? Trump's net approval rating.
"Look, he started off back in January [at] plus-six points. On the net approval rating, minus-three in March, minus-seven [in] May, and now he's at a term-two low at minus-11 points. His net approval rating has dropped nearly 20 points in the aggregate since the beginning of his presidency. The American people do not like what they're seeing, and Donald Trump's administration is in a ton of trouble at this point in the minds of the American voters."
"They disapprove of him on all of the issues, he's underwater on all the major issues of the day," Enten added. "Trump's net approval rating on all the major issues, minus-five points on immigration – his best issue, he's underwater. How about the economy? That was what he was elected for – minus-14 points. How about foreign policy – minus-14 points. How about trade, in those tariff wars, minus-15 points, and, of course, the Epstein case, the lowest of the bunch, minus-37 points, 37 points below water. My goodness gracious, on every single issue, Donald Trump is below water on all the major ones. They're all dragging him down, no matter it seems what Donald Trump does, the American people do not like it."
Second-term Trump is giving first-term Trump a run for his money in terms of unpopularity, Enten added.
"I do have one piece of good news for Donald Trump and that there is one other presidency that has a lower net approval rating at this point than this one," Enten said. "The bad news is that it was Donald Trump's other presidency. His first presidency net approval rating, six months in, the worst was in 2017. Donald Trump was 16 points underwater. The second worst, however, is this Donald Trump presidency, 11 points underwater. The average president at this point since 1953 has a plus 27 net approval rating."
"It seems to me that Donald Trump is about 40 points lower than the average president at this particular point," Enten added. "He has the second-worst net approval rating at this point. He is underwater on all the major issues of the day. The bottom line is, six months into this administration, I think that most Americans would apply the word or words disaster, terrible, awful, horrible – I think that is the way that the American people would see it at this particular point. He is so far below underwater compared to the average president, the only one he beats out is him in term number one. I don't think that's exactly the metric he wants to be applying to himself."
