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The Wall Street Journal confirmed Thursday evening that former President Bill Clinton also contributed a letter to deceased financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's book of birthday well-wishes in 2003, where he was included alongside President Donald Trump in a group listed as his friends.

"It’s reassuring isn’t it, to have lasted as long, across all the years of learning and knowing, adventures and [illegible word], and also to have your childlike curiosity, the drive to make a difference and the solace of friends," said Clinton's handwritten note to Epstein.

CNN legal analyst Paula Reid was taken aback Thursday evening at the announcement made by the Justice Department following a day of questioning convicted Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell — a move that experts have already regarded as suspicious.

"I know you have some breaking news here as we're learning more about what happened, possibly in this meeting between Ghislaine Maxwell and attorneys from the DOJ," said anchor Erin Burnett. "What are you learning?"

The panel on CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper" threw shade at the approved merger between Skydance Media and Paramount on Thursday.

The merger, which was announced last year, was approved by MAGA-aligned commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission. In a news release, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said he welcomed "Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network," which includes agreeing to get rid of any Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and create more politically diverse programming.

The Justice Department's attempt to extract new testimony from convicted Jeffrey Epstein conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell is a parade of red flags, warned former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen on MSNBC's "The Lead" Thursday — and in fact, it only adds another dimension to why the whole affair is blowing up even among President Donald Trump's base.

"Norm, do you see this as kind of ethically murky for a few reasons?" said anchor Antonia Hylton. "I mean ... [Deputy Attorney General] Todd Blanche, having served in a personal capacity for the president. And then I was reminded today that Blanche actually, at one point, went on David Markus' — that's Maxwell's attorney's — podcast. They know each other in a sort of social or at least casual way. So do you see something ethically murky here?"

Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, declared that the administration will no longer “tolerate” what he called a culture that makes it “easy to be sick in America.” Framing childhood illness as a failure of parenting and physical activity rather than medical need, Oz linked obesity to national security and warned that industries would be forced to caooperate—or face government retaliation.

Oz—often called a conspiracy theorist who has been widely criticized for promoting “quack” products—appeared to endorse an authoritarian vision of public health, suggesting that under Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Americans would no longer be allowed to remain “sick” without consequences, and threatened industry with demands to either cooperate or face retribution.

The Republican budget law that passed earlier this month—which hands out lavish tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans—will result in increased taxes on the poorest 40% of the country's poorest as early as 2026.

Many low-income Americans will already see net losses to their income due to the law's drastic cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. However, most of those cuts will not begin to hit for multiple years.

An advisor to former President Joe Biden warned President Donald Trump on Thursday that his administration could soon lose the Artificial Intelligence race to one of the country's rivals.

Ben Buchanan was the White House special advisor on AI for Biden. During Biden's term, the administration placed restrictions on AI chip sales to China to maintain a competitive advantage over the country. Trump unveiled his AI Action Plan yesterday during a summit with tech CEOs and company representatives, a plan that allows China to purchase AI chips from American companies like Nvidia.

MAGA-aligned commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission approved the $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance Media on Thursday, according to a press release.

The deal includes the CBS broadcast television network, Paramount Pictures, and the Nickelodeon channel. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who wrote in Project 2025 about how to revamp the agency he leads, said the deal also requires Skydance to adopt new policies that can "root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media."

MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace welcomed Hollywood insider and Deadline executive editor on to laugh about the Comedy Central show "South Park" making fun of President Donald Trump, along with their parent network, Paramount.

Dominic Patten explained that behind the scenes, "South Park" was set to make its season premiere on July 9, but was embroiled in a legal battle with Paramount/CBS over the merger with Skydance Media, which totaled approximately $8 billion.

The new revelation from the Wall Street Journal that President Donald Trump was informed by Attorney General Pam Bondi in May that his name was in the files on the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case lines up suspiciously with an "abrupt shift" in the way the administration started messaging about the issue, Aaron Blake wrote for CNN on Thursday.

"That doesn’t mean there’s been a cover-up of any actual Epstein-related misconduct by Trump; there remains no real evidence of that. But the administration clearly started downplaying the Epstein information – in a rather abrupt shift – around the same time Trump was told his name appeared in the files," reported Blake. Furthermore, sources with inside knowledge "told CNN the files appeared to include several unsubstantiated claims about Trump and others that the Justice Department found not to be credible."

Republicans in Congress may have voted to defund publicly funded media outlets in the United States, but American citizens are trying to fill the gap.

The New York Times reports that donations to public media have surged ever since the GOP voted to eliminate $550 million in annual funding for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).

CNN host Kassie Hunt was caught off guard on Thursday after a Democratic lawmaker and GOP strategist got into a heated argument on her show.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) and GOP strategist Brad Todd joined Hunt on "The Arena with Kassie Hunt" to discuss the news of the day, which included Trump visiting the Federal Reserve headquarters to check out the renovation project. The conversation quickly escalated after Landsman claimed Republicans shut down the House of Representatives to avoid a bipartisan vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.