Donald Trump made a stop on the Joe Rogan Experience on Friday during a swing through Texas.
The former president sat down with the podcast host for the much-anticipated, wide-ranging interview that lasted nearly three hours.
Topics ranged from his appearance on "The View" to nuclear weaponry. The interview comes as national polls continue to show a razor-thin race with less than two weeks to go until Election Day.
Watch the podcast interview stream below or at this link.
Beyoncé was expected to appear Friday in her hometown of Houston at a campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris with less than two weeks until Election Day in what polls show is a razor-thin race.
Beyonce previously performed at a presidential inaugural ball in 2009 for Barack Obama. Four years later, she sang the national anthem at Obama’s second inauguration.
A Republican strategist got forceful pushback on CNN on Friday night as he tried to downplay former President Donald Trump's remarks that he would deport special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the election subversion case against the MAGA leader.
Anchor Anderson Cooper told Republican Brad Todd it's "not normal for someone who wants to be president of the United States to talk about deporting a special counsel, a guy who is just assigned to this and doing his job."
When Todd started to say "he doesn't mean that about Jack Smith," both Cooper and Democratic panelist Ashley Allison — a former national coalitions director for the Biden-Harris campaign — protested:
"What do you mean he doesn't mean that?" interjected Cooper. "He just — he said it."
"What do you mean?" chimed in Allison. "Then why say it?!"
But Todd didn't budge.
"This is the way Donald Trump talks," he said. "He doesn't mean it about Jack Smith. It's for effect."
The panel pounced on Todd, though, with New York Times journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro interjecting, "I'm sorry. That doesn't fly anymore."
"It's unacceptable!" shouted Allison, as Garcia-Navarro continued, "You cannot keep on saying the things that Donald Trump says don't mean anything. We know that they do."
She insisted that his first term showed the things Trump says and tweets eventually become policy.
"You can talk about rhetoric but there are policies to back them up. This isn't just about words."
After Cooper noted MAGA supporters held up "Mass deportation" signs at the Republican National Convention, Todd noted that people know Trump's immigration plan — and he leads that issue by 16 points.
"She's the one that's out of step with where the public is here, not Donald Trump," he said.
Allison then shouted at Todd that Trump's stance isn't an immigration policy — "That's a dictator!"
"That's a fascist!" she added. "Deporting American citizens because they're doing their job and serving their country — that's not an immigration policy!"
Former President Donald Trump has been making a concerted effort to win over the "bro" vote, reaching out to gamers and others in the so-called "Manosphere."
MSNBC examined this outreach during a Friday, October 25 segment, interviewing a 19-year-old male voter in Georgia who he said he likes Trump because the former president talks like his friends — not like a slick politician.
Steele told MSNBC host José Díaz-Balart that Trump's "pro-bro approach" appeals to voters like the 19-year-old in Georgia because "he talks like I talk with my friends."
Steele explained, "This whole pro-bro approach resonates because that young man just summed up why it appeals the way it appeals…. So, there's the art. It's completed: He's just like me, and he talks like I talk with my friends. So, now, we have a better understanding of why Donald Trump's ceiling is a winning ceiling for him potentially at 47, 48 percent."
But the former RNC chairman went on to note that 2024's RNC has "very little ground-game infrastructure to get out their vote."
Steele told Díaz-Balart, "The press is doing the horserace analysis…. But at the end of the day, if you've got no ground game, you've got no game. It doesn't matter. And the RNC has no ground game."
The RNC, Steele added, "eviscerated" the "ground game" it had before when it installed new MAGA leadership that includes Donald Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump.
Steele told Díaz-Balart, "That's why Trump is relying on the ugly hyperbole and the nasty conversation: to rile up a base that they're otherwise not organizing to turn out….. I don't care if you're running for president or if you're running for sheriff: If you've got no ground game, you've got no game.
Despite many ultra-wealthy donors backing former President Donald Trump over taxes, regulations, or their own political beliefs, much of the rest of the business world is horrified by what a Trump presidency could look like, tech and entertainment billionaire Mark Cuban told MSNBC's Ari Melber on Friday.
Cuban, who despite a handful of disagreements with the progressive left has been an enthusiastic surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris on the campaign trail, said that it comes down to one key issue: Trump's plans to uproot and deport immigrant workers en masse.
"What do you see when you're campaigning and doing stuff for her?" asked Melber. "You think this is very tied, and it's just turnout?"
"Yeah, turnout," confirmed Cuban. "When I go to her rallies, the response, the energy is phenomenal. People just love her."
Likewise, he continued, "When I do my own business roundtables and I go through all of the issues that are going to impact business, the thing that is hot right now is deportation. And particularly for businesses. Because we talk a lot about immigration and they're both kind of on the same page, Trump and Harris, for immigration. You know, if you're a criminal, you're going out. But what are you going to do about deportation? Donald Trump wants mass deportations. They're talking about stops on the roads to check your papers, knocking on doors and checking papers. That crushes business."
By contrast, he said, "Kamala Harris has a set process" for fixing immigration and securing the border — one that businesses can much more easily get behind.
A far-right congressman’s suggestion that electors in North Carolina could be assigned to Donald Trump even before votes are counted is part of a nationwide “MAGA blueprint,” according to one political analyst, who called the lawmaker out on CNN Friday as “hypocritical.”
The moment came on CNN’s "The Situation Room” after host Wolf Blitzer played a clip of Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) who floated the idea that the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature could take the unheard-of step of assigning electors in light of challenges revolving around Hurricane Helene.
“You statistically can go and say, ‘Hey, you got disenfranchised in 25 counties you know what that vote probably would’ve been,’” Harris, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, says in the partial clip. “…we can’t disenfranchise that vote.”
Gevin Reynolds, columnist for The Root and a former associate director of speechwriting for Vice President Kamala Harris, characterized the congressman’s talk about disenfranchised voters as “quite rich.”
“I think it's rich for Congressman Harris to talk about disenfranchisement and the vote when it was the Republicans on the Supreme Court who gave us the 2013 decision of Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. So, I think it's quite hypocritical and quite rich for Congressman Harris to talk about this,” Reynolds told Blitzer.
He added that the idea “is just one piece of a nationwide MAGA blueprint when you talk about what MAGA Republicans are trying to do to disenfranchise, especially Black voters, out there and suppress the vote.”
Blitzer noted that the congressman issued a statement walking back his comments, which he added were taken out of context.
“As I’ve repeatedly said, every legal vote should be counted,” Harris said in the statement.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former TrumpWhite House staffer, called Harris' comments "deeply reckless," but appreciated the congressman appeared to walk back the statement.
A political expert warned on CNN on Friday that America could become an "oligarchy" with "crony capitalism" — and said what's at stake in the election is, "Do we want an American [Vladimir] Putin?"
Jonathan Alter, author of "American Reckoning," joined Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" on Friday to discuss a new poll showing nearly half of Americans think former President Donald Trump is a "fascist" — with the race essentially tied in the polls.
Alter called the report "tough" and said it's why the "stakes are so high."
"Do we want to become an oligarchy full of crony capitalism? 'Do we want an American Putin?' is really what's on offer in this election," he said.
Trump is manipulated by the Russian president, and Alter warned that explosive new reporting that Elon Musk has also been having regular talks with Putin is "seriously disturbing."
He said he's "glad" fascism is being debated — and it should've been debated "quite a while ago."
"Maybe some people don't understand what fascism is," he said. "But all they have to do is read a little history about a guy named Adolf Hitler and they might get a better sense of what we have in store if we elect this entirely unfit man as president of the United States."
Alter noted that fascists and dictators have a "thirst for power" and try to accumulate as much power as possible. He also pointed out that Trump plans to use his power to go after political enemies.
"That is a violation of what we stand for in this country," he said. "Part of this election is about who we are as a people. What do we represent? Do we represent the ideals of the founders, of democracy and freedom? Or do we want to go the strongman route?"
Alter warned dictators will telegraph what they plan to do — "Mein Kampf is the most truthful thing that Adolf Hitler ever wrote," he said. Trump is doing the same.
"I'm hoping — I'm praying, actually, that people wake up and smell the coffee and understand the stakes. Concentrate less on the horse race in the media and concentrate on what's at stake for our country."
"The Vice President's words more closely resemble those of President Trump's second would-be assassin than her own earlier appeal to civility," they wrote. “Vice President Harris may want the American people to entrust her with the sacred duty of executive authority. But first, she must abandon the base and irresponsible rhetoric that endangers both American lives and institutions. We have both been briefed on the ongoing and persistent threats to former President Donald Trump by adversaries to the United States, and we call on the Vice President to take these threats seriously, stop escalating the threat environment, and help ensure President Trump has the necessary resources to be protected from those threats.”
There's no evidence the people who planned violence against Trump were Harris supporters.
Tapper swiftly smacked down the two Republicans' demands.
"So, with two Republican leaders expressing concern about Kamala Harris calling Donald Trump a fascist, let's show a clip of Harris doing exactly what McConnell and Johnson take issue with."
In the clip, Trump, giving an address in Arizona, said, "She's a Marxist, Communist, fascist, socialist."
"I'm sorry, control room, that was actually Donald Trump calling Kamala Harris a fascist," Tapper deadpanned.
Democratic lawmakers have broadly pushed back on the GOP's demand that Harris tone down her statements about Trump, with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) noting recently that they are demanding no unpleasant language be spoken about a man who incited a violent riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Among those is Kevin Carroll, a former senior counselor to John Kelly, who spoke to MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on Friday. He relayed the moment when Trump railed against the military at Arlington National Cemetery, recalling running into Kelly after the fact.
"I remember that day very well, Nicolle. Memorial Day of 2017," Carroll recalled. "I had gone to Section 60 to decorate the graves of some fallen men, who I knew. And I saw the limousine leaving and John Kelly over the grave of his son," 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, of the U.S. Marine Corps.
While serving, Kelly became the highest-ranking military official to lose a child in combat. It was his only child, who had gone to Afghanistan in 2010.
"I went over with my own son, who was 5 at the time, and he was visibly upset, which is not usually the way he presents himself," Carroll said of Kelly. "And I asked what was wrong, and he shook his head no, and said he didn't want to talk about it. My son was perceptive enough to see if he was upset and asked if he would like to say a prayer."
He recalled his son taking Kelly's hand and saying some Hail Marys over the grave.
"After we got out of the administration I was talking to Gen. Kelly and trading stories about crazy stuff we had both seen. He mentioned that Trump had said over his son's grave, 'What was in it for him? What was in it for these men that they gave their lives for our country?'" Carroll continued.
"I said, 'Hey, sir, was that the time I saw you at Arlington and you were upset?'" he recalled asking. Kelly told him "That's exactly when it was."
Carroll called it "shocking and disgusting language" to come out of a commander-in-chief.
Speaking to MSNBC on Friday, Elizabeth Neumann, former assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention at the Department of Homeland Security, tried to convey to Americans that their top issues won't matter if America loses its freedom.
"He is leading this country, a certain segment of this country, to a very, very dark place," Neumann said. "And that's why it's important for myself and for people like Gen. John Kelly and others to try to issue this warning. You need to take what he says seriously."
She specifically referred to a letter signed by 13 other former Trump administration officials that backed up his criticism of the former president.
Neumann thinks Trump often gets away with his more authoritarian comments by saying them "in a joking way." So, "that allows people to give him a pass."
"Don't," she begged.
"In closed doors, his worst instincts would frighten the average American," she cautioned. "He has no humanity, no decency, no respect for just the fact that a human being, made in the image of God, deserves at least a modicum of respect. And, instead is just willing to toss people aside to achieve his aims. He's very dangerous, indeed."
Host Katy Tur asked about the top issues that Americans say they care about, including grocery costs and their children's education.
"I'm a mom. I worry about my grocery budget, too," Neumann said. "I totally get that. I think maybe we're not helping the American people understand that the reason that we have the luxury to worry about our kids and our grocery bills is because we have freedom."
Former President Donald Trump on Friday expressed his appreciation for the physical beauty of young girls who had been knifed to death, slammed President Joe Biden for refusing to discuss in 2020 the death of a woman killed in 2024, and suggested Vice President Kamala Harris had approached two children with a machete.
Trump delivered an anti-immigrant speech Friday in Texas that frequently veered away from detailing gruesome deaths at the hands of immigrants to throw questionable insults at political rivals.
"They killed two young students walking to school, two beautiful young women, young girls and they got them walking to school and they knifed them up and cut them up," Trump said.
"You know who got rid of them? [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. Their friends from ICE. They work so well. And Kamala wants. ICE is. You know what ICE is? Tough people that love our country. They have to be tough."
The Republican presidential nominee frequently struggled to return to the subject at hand, as was witnessed when he tried to pivot away from attacking Harris' running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) back to describing more violent deaths.
"How about the guy she's got? I'm not sure, might be worse than her, well, she lived by the adage, 'Always get yourself a bad V.P'" Trump said. "She's got one, very happy with that choice but didn't know as bad as they did. He's a disaster."
Then Trump said, "But Kamala approached two 13-year-old children with, think of this—"
Earlier in the speech — between describing an autistic woman's rape and strangling death and this attack on two teenagers — Trump took a moment to explain to the crowd why he referred to the Democratic presidential nominee by her first name.
"In New York this past summer, an illegal alien released into our custody came into our country by Kamala," Trump began. "I never use the word Harris because nobody knows who I am talking about — when I say Harris, they say, 'Who is Harris?"
Harris, to viewers who missed Trump's attempt to walk back his gaffe with the words "the people she let in," apparently was the person responsible for a violent crime, as described in detail by the former president.
"These people she let in, with machetes, knives, guns, in broad daylight, forced them into the woods, tied them up together, their wrists, everything, raped a young girl, park," Trump said.
"Filmed the entire thing, put it on camera, put it out for everybody to see, badly injured this person, and somebody with her too, really badly."
Trump then pivoted to the death of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley in February of this year and the subsequent arrest of Jose Antonio Ibarra, a man who officials say entered the country illegally.
"In Georgia this year, and you know this, everybody knows this, except Biden, he didn't know how to pronounce her name after pressure 'cause he didn't talk about it either elections," Trump said. "He refused to talk about it, then he was actually forced to because it got so crazy."
Despite the fact that Biden's first presidential election was in 2020 — four years before Riley's death — Trump slammed his former opponent for not doing what he did in 2024.
"In Georgia this year, an illegal alien criminal with ties to Tren de Aragua, kidnapped, assaulted and murdered a brilliant young nursing student, Laken Riley, remember? Laken Riley," Trump said.
"Who was a beautiful — I got to meet the parents a couple of times they're incredible but they're, like, devastated. You know, you can't really say, 'Well everything will be' — it's not going to be okay, it's not good, it's just, there is nothing you can say. Really. A lot of times they say, like to Alexis, 'What can I say?' The only thing we can do is do something about it so it doesn't happen again."
Sister Stephanie Schmidt of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania spoke out to CNN's Boris Sanchez on Friday after a local Republican operative falsely accused her order of nuns of voter fraud, claiming the monastery used as a registration address was an empty building — despite it being the permanent home of 55 sisters.
"I had a friend text me this post, I'm not a follower of X or Twitter or any of that stuff, but she texted me and when I read it, I was first in disbelief and shocked, and then when I read it again, I was outraged, because they were accusing this community of voter fraud and that is so wrong," said Schmidt.
"We have a responsibility, I thought, to speak up clearly and quickly, and to defend ourselves in defending the truth. this is misinformation."
"We appreciate that effort very much," said Sanchez.
"We're standing up for the truth and we're speaking out for integrity," said Schmidt. "This election, this campaign, the social media has just been filled with so many lies and so much misinformation that we've got to stop it and we've got to encourage other people, wake up, don't believe everything you read. It's not true."
She added that if the GOP operative who made the claim, Cliff Maloney, "had done his homework and his research, even a phone call here, he would have realized that this was not the case. Many people live here."
Sanchez noted that Maloney was asked to comment by CNN and declined.
"If you could send a message to him, what would you say?" the anchor asked Schmidt.
"He would be welcome to come and meet with us and see that we are real living people," said Schmidt. "And we would ask him to publicly correct that information, which was a lie, that he would be public in taking that back and defending the truth.
"This community's reputation should not be maligned by someone who doesn't even know us. It's just wrong." She added, "We are a nonpartisan group. We do not vote for a particular individual. There are 55 registered voters here, yes, but each sister votes her conscience. I have no idea who votes what way, unless they tell me."
All of this comes as on the other side of the state, local prosecutors have unveiled what they call a plot to illegally rack up fake voter registrations in heavily Republican Lancaster County.
"She refused to own up to, and last night she said she works for strong borders," Trump said. "The night before, the town hall, with Cooper, was unbelievable. Allison Cooper got so angry."
Trump was repeating a slur he hurled at Cooper hours earlier in a Truth Social rant about Catholics, poll numbers, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a "radical left" fundraiser and the CNN journalist.
"She was almost incoherent, and even host Allison Cooper, who couldn’t get her to make any sense, became agitated," Trump wrote.
These words spurred outrage on social media.
"Donald Trump calls the most famous LGBTQ+ American newscaster Anderson Cooper 'Allison Cooper' in an effort to mock Kamala Harris' successful town hall," argued the political group American Bridge 21st Century.
"Trump is so disgusting," wrote former NBC executive Mike Sington. "He posts a rant riddled with outrageous lies, but that’s not enough. He has to throw in a homophobic trope targeting Anderson Cooper."
