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During an appearance on MSNBC's "The Weekend" on Saturday, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) didn't seem to have any interest or respect for Vice President J.D. Vance who made a brief stopover in Los Angeles on Friday to attempt to defend Donald Trump deploying the military to put down unrest that is almost nonexistent.

Speaking with reporters, Vance decided to call the California lawmaker "José Padilla" and stated he had hoped the lawmaker "would be here to ask a question."

"But, unfortunately, I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t the theater, and that’s all it is. It’s pure political theater. These guys show up. They want to be captured on camera doing something," the vice president complained in front of the cameras.

Given a chance to respond to the deliberate misnaming on MSNBC, since the two served in the Senate together, Padilla told the hosts, "He knows my name. Look, sadly it’s just an indicator of how petty and unserious this administration is. He’s the vice president of the United States. You’d think he’d take the situation in Los Angeles more seriously.”

"You know, you'd think maybe he'd take a moment to talk to some of the families who have been impacted, have been terrorized to feel what's really going on on the ground," he pointed out. "And you saw him shaking hands with Marines, but did he listen to the Marines? Because we have, you know, report after report of the Marines, so many of the Marines themselves that don't want to be there. That's not why they enlisted ."

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Conservative Scott Jennings was called out on CNN Saturday morning after he frantically attacked Sen. Alex Padilla and repeated debunked claims about the California Democrat who was tackled and handcuffed as he tried to question DHS head Kristi Noem.

Reacting to Vice President J.D. Vance briefly flying to California to hold a press conference where he accused Democrats of engaging in political "theater," Jennings ran with that talking point until called out by CNN's Van Jones and former President Joe Biden official Dan Koh.

During the CNN "Table for Five" segment, Jones could be seen in a split screen shaking his head as Jennings ranted, "I mean, it's sort of like porn for their base. There's a lot of capital right now in the Democratic party for getting arrested. In the case of Padilla, who if you handed me $10 million right now, if I could pick him out of a lineup, I don't think I could do it."

He added, "Charging into a press conference, lunging towards a stage. I mean, I'm sorry, but screaming that 'I'm a senator, I'm a senator. I don't know who you are. I still don't know who the guy is. And so that's not good enough. He's a U.S. senator. If he wanted a meeting with her, he could have had one and he did get one as soon as it was over with."

After Jennings claimed, "The theater kids have taken over and they are desperate to create theater," Koh straightened him out.

"It was in a government building, a federal government building," he told the Kentucky conservative. "He is one of two senators in California. I think Mitch McConnell would be recognized throughout Kentucky. Alex Padilla was in his home state in a federal building and the thing that concerned me the most was not necessarily that part, which was already concerning, but when ICE tweeted it, ICE clearly said that he did not identify himself and tweeted a video where he clearly did. What kind of confidence should we have in our government with any communication from the trump administration going forward? "

Jones piled on with, "I see it differently than you do, but I just want to just lay out a couple of things here. The reason that people, and not just the one who was arrested, are escorting immigrants, not illegals, immigrants, into these buildings and out is because the rule followers, not the gang members, the people who are here on legal status, who have legal status who are going to hearings, trying to follow the rules, are themselves getting snatched up and deported in a way that has never happened before."

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Donald Trump's latest venture in personally-branded products while occupying the White House likely has him "laughing all the way to the bank" one marketing expert is claiming just days after a high-profile announcement.

In a Guardian report on the Trump Organization announcing the availability of a gold phone to be serviced by Trump Mobile for an initial monthly fee of $47.45 a month, marketing expert Mark Borkowski remarked, "There was a lot of dialog when Trump returned to power that we would see in this term a particularly interesting residency in the White House about how much money would be made,” before adding, “and this is a typical Trump side-hustle playing off Maga patriotism.”

As the Guardian's Edward Helmore wrote, "celebrity" phones are nothing new and it should be no surprise the Trump family, which has slapped its name on everything from steaks to vodka to a failed university, should come as no surprise.

Helmore added, "The blurred lines between business and politics, impacting how candidates are portrayed, policies are shaped and voters engage with the political process – commonly referred to as the commercialization of politics – may not be Trump’s to own exclusively, but he’s taken it to a new level."

Borkowski agreed.

“It’s a new hyper-reality that exists in America,” he explained. “It’s about turning political fandom into money, and he’s laughing all the way to the bank. He’s doing exactly what was expected. Nobody in Trump’s heartland sees this as damaging – it’s what they expect a deal-maker to do. The absurdity of everything Trump does is the point.”

Branding expert Zak Revskyi contributed, "The Trumps’ continued business expansion often serves to reinforce Trump’s political persona rather than distract from it. For Maga supporters, his business ventures are interpreted as proof of his self-made success and outsider status – both key pillars of his political brand."

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Since Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) took effective control of the Social Security Administration, the agency that services the needs of the Americans who have paid into it throughout their lives has become such a mess that officials have started hiding unflattering metrics.

According to a report from the Washington Post, the purging of employees at Social Security along with a change in how the agency does business by DOGE has resulted in "website crashes, overloaded servers and long lines at field offices" due to cost-cutting.

The Saturday report by the Post's Meryl Kornfield and Hannah Natanson notes that the agency has now "... stopped publicly reporting its processing times for benefits, the 1-800 number’s current call wait time and numerous other performance metrics, which customers and advocates have used to track the agency’s struggling customer service programs."

According to those advocates for the 74 million Americans who rely on Social Security, hiding the metrics is a betrayal of the public's trust.

Ex-Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who served as a Social Security commissioner, pointed out, "It’s a shame that now they are trashing the trust that the public should have in numbers that are timely and accurate and real."

RELATED: Social Security is caught in a 'death spiral' due to DOGE's 'complete chaos': report

Alex Lawson, executive director of the Social Security Works, was more pointed in his criticism.

“If they think this lack of transparency will fool the American people, they’re in for a surprise,” he predicted. “People notice when they can’t get an appointment because their local field office has lost half its staff. When checks and decisions are delayed. When they get the runaround from an AI chatbot on the phone, instead of getting to talk to a real person.”

According to the Post, "The new website now shows only the percentage of calls and number of calls handled through automation, the average speed to answer and the total number of customers served. That data is only available for the fiscal year through the last month that data is available. And while the previous dashboard allowed users to click on data points and see trends over time, the new page does not show historical data."

"Pages with information about the processing times for retirement, survivor, disability and Medicare benefits are now gone," the Post is reporting before adding that information on disability benefits have been excised from the new page.

You can read more here.

During a discussion about Donald Trump's plummeting poll numbers across the board as his policies are being implemented after only 150 days in office, MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart was taken aback by how the president responded about the economy during an NBC interview.

Speaking with MSNBC contributor April Ryan and journalist Dave Weigel on "The Weekend" about the president being underwater with voters over the economy, Capehart shared a clip of the president being interviewed by Kristin Welker on "Meet the Press."

Asked by Welker, "You’ve been arguing all week that this is President Biden’s economy. Is this now your economy, sir?" Trump replied, " Well, I think certain aspects of it are. Costs are. I was able to get down the costs. But even that, it takes a while to get them down, but we got them down good. We lost 5 to 6 billion dollars a day with Biden. Five to 6 billion. And I’ve got that down to a great number right now in a very — in a record time."

That led a puzzled Capehart to state, "What?" and then laugh.

"Alright, this president is tone-deaf when it comes to saving," Ryan contributed. "He doesn't cut coupons and he's cutting out Medicare and Medicaid. They're going to be a lot of rural hospitals they're going to lose, lose out, we're going to lose a lot of rural hospitals that rural communities need."

"But here's the bottom line," she continued. "When you are paying for all of these military and National Guards over in California and calling Alex Padilla, Senator Alex Padilla, 'Jose,' and then when you're also paying for what else? A big military parade on your birthday that you fell asleep on and you're talking about saving costs, there's some kind of contradiction. It doesn't marry, it doesn't marry at all."

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