MSN

MS NOW's Jen Psaki kicked off "The Briefing" on Thursday with pointed mockery at first lady Melania Trump's first public appearance in a month — and the reason why it had to be organized.

"There are a lot of times in the Trump era that we have to remind ourselves ... that what's happening is not in any way normal," said Psaki. And one of those many things, she said, is "for the first lady of the United States to have to come out and remind us all that she exists."

While President Donald Trump gilds horse statues and swaps out brick paver steps at the White House, dumpsters overflow and wildfires threaten remote parks across America, insiders told The Atlantic that the rot is only beginning.

The National Park Service now runs a three-tier funding scheme, according to documents and five current and former officials cited by The Atlantic's Michael Scherer. There's the untouchable "White House priorities" list, a "high priority" list, and a "low priority" pile where 1,573 projects languish. Many of those projects would have sailed through under past administrations, officials told the outlet.

Lifelong conservative and former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan had a glum assessment of her party — and America at large — when it comes to President Donald Trump's corruption.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, she said that the ways Trump has used his own office to perfect the "art of the self-deal" should be obvious and horrifying to everyone.

The MAGA alternative to Amazon was supposed to make conservatives rich, but instead, it's become a smoldering pile of financial wreckage.

PublicSquare, the MAGA-branded marketplace that launched with Donald Trump Jr. chanting "USA, USA" on the New York Stock Exchange floor in 2023, has all but collapsed, and the president's eldest son cashed fat checks the entire way down, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Right-wing commentator Tomi Lahren has a dire message for the Republican Party: You're about to make an equal and opposite mistake to the Democratic Party.

Specifically, she wrote on X, while Democrats have spent years losing ground with young men without a solid plan to win them over, Republicans are already losing big with young women and seeing a bigger and bigger gap over time.

Legendary journalist Dan Rather threw President Donald Trump's words back in his face in a new Substack essay.

On Tuesday, the U.S. national debt surpassed $40 trillion, a level that has alarmed economists. Rather argued in a new article for his Substack, "Steady," that Trump once promised to eliminate the national debt during his first term. However, that appears to be just another unfulfilled promise.

A GOP senator was hammered by critics on Thursday after he complained about the size of the national debt.

This week, the national debt surpassed the $40 trillion mark, which stunned some political analysts. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) shared a post on X of a chart from Fox News comparing the debt level from the George W. Bush administration through both Trump administrations. His commentary sparked sharp criticism from several analysts.

President Donald Trump's "anti-fraud" project led by Vice President J.D. Vance is nothing more than a "ruse" for a pretext to lock up his political foes, former Trump administration staffer Miles Taylor warned.

Taylor, who previously served in the Department of Homeland Security and is the author of the "anonymous" resistance op-ed, laid out the scheme on his "Defiance" Substack on Thursday.