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President Donald Trump took to social media Saturday to share a music video celebrating himself and the global 'love' he inspires – a video that one journalist called "deranged" and prompted onlookers to wonder aloud how such behavior from a sitting U.S. president had ever become “normalized.”

The song featured in the music video is simply titled “Trump,” and was written and performed by GOP congressional candidate Anthony Constantino, who scored Trump’s endorsement in April. The video, which appears to have been created using generative artificial intelligence, depicts Trump globe trotting, and the lyrics insist that people the world over “love” Trump.

A CNN panel discussion on the dilemma Democrats are facing with the candidacy of Graham Platner, who is running to oppose Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), turned into a shouting match that led to charges that Donald Trump is a racist.

On CNN’s “Table for Five,” host Abby Phillip noted there is a growing debate about “purity tests” within the Democratic Party as more revelations about Platner’s past drop prior to Tuesday’s primary.

Former U.S. Army Major and Intelligence Officer Harrison Mann issued a grave warning Saturday over a “ticking time bomb” he argued President Donald Trump was ignoring, one that if not addressed would undoubtedly lead to an “unmistakable recession” – or worse.

“At this point, it’s hard to ignore the evidence that Trump’s lack of urgency to sign a deal with Tehran is in part because he’s been very slow to understand the actual situation on the ground,” Mann wrote in an analysis published Saturday in Zeteo.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s GOP Senate nominee, had spent years as the state’s top law enforcement officer “waging war on Democratic and Latino-led groups” amid his amplification of false claims of widespread voter fraud, but in doing so, may have created a powerful obstacle in his bid for higher office, The New York Times reported Saturday.

“The stakes of the fight with groups determined to mobilize Texas’ fast-growing Hispanic electorate changed significantly last month when [Paxton] won the Republican Party’s nomination for Senate,” the Times’ report reads. “Now it is personal and could help determine his own political future – and which party controls the Senate.”

It sounds like a plot twist from HBO's "Veep": the invitation to a high-stakes board meeting that would decide the fate of one of America's most storied cultural institutions landed in a congresswoman's spam folder.

For Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), the 76-year-old lawmaker who has waged a monthslong legal war over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, it was no joke. As Atlantic staff writer Janay Kingsberry reported, the misfired notice — which Kingsberry described as "a real-life Veep episode in Washington politics" — became part of Beatty's amended federal complaint, in which she argued she'd been improperly shut out of a White House board meeting where trustees were expected to rubber-stamp President Donald Trump's plan to close the center for two years.

A Gold Star family was left “devastated and embittered” after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who at one point “appeared” interested in helping the family get to the bottom of the 2012 death of their family member, “ghosted” them, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

While in Afghanistan, Cmdr. Job Price, a Navy SEAL commander, was found dead in his quarters with a gunshot wound to the head. An investigator into Price’s death found “irregularities in the evidence,” the Post reported, but ultimately ruled out the possibility of foul play.

Donald Trump is confronting a bitter irony as he seeks to extricate himself from the Iran war he initiated: reaching a peace agreement may require exactly the kind of financial concessions to Tehran that he spent years attacking the Obama administration for making.

According to Wall Street Journal reporting, the central obstacle to resolving the conflict is Tehran's insistence on immediate access to frozen assets—a demand that has created a "politically hazardous" trap for the president.

The political trap is inescapable. Any Trump decision to release Iran's frozen assets would inevitably invite comparisons to the Obama administration's 2016 nuclear accord, which Trump repeatedly vilified as "the dumbest deal perhaps I've ever seen in the history of deal-making." During a 2016 presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump specifically attacked the $1.7 billion in cash the U.S. sent to Iran, quipping it was "enough to fill up this room."

As the Journal notes, this past spring Trump vowed to negotiate a "FAR BETTER" deal than Obama's—a promise that now appears increasingly hollow as negotiations drag on via mediators between Washington and Tehran.

Iran's demands are reportedly substantial and non-negotiable, seeking $12 billion upfront and an additional $24 billion over a 60-day negotiation period to be triggered by an initial agreement. Access to tens of billions in frozen U.S. sanctions funds is described as "a critical demand for any deal," offering immediate economic relief to Iran's deeply damaged economy.

President Donald Trump appointed Bill Pulte, a wealthy housing finance official and PulteGroup founder's grandson, as acting director of national intelligence without any prior security clearance or vetting process.

CNN reported that three sources confirmed Pulte had no evidence of even the lowest-level security clearance before being named to oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and NSA.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles put out a statement on X on Friday in reaction to reporting from the Daily Mail that she was expected to leave the Trump administration soon.

"After an accomplishment filled week by President Trump, I have the pleasure of reading a piece of Friday fiction, courtesy of the Daily Mail," wrote Wiles. "To be crystal clear, I am not going anywhere. I am honored and proud to serve President Trump, proud of our team and remain fully committed to advancing his agenda on behalf of the American people."