President Donald Trump launched a scathing critique of the NFL's selection of Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny as the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show headliner, sparking renewed tensions between the artist and the former president.
In a Newsmax interview Monday, Trump expressed his bewilderment, declaring, "I don't know who he is, I don't know why they're doing it — it's, like, crazy!" He dismissed the selection as "absolutely ridiculous," suggesting the NFL was influenced by "some promoter they hired to pick up entertainment."
Bad Bunny, who performs primarily in Spanish, will make history as the first male Latin artist to headline the iconic halftime performance. He has been openly critical of Trump's immigration policies and has been a vocal opponent of the former president's political agenda
The announcement triggered significant backlash in the MAGA world. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned that ICE agents would be "all over" the Super Bowl — despite tickets to the event being priced way beyond the average undocumented immigrant — while conservative commentators branded Bad Bunny a "Trump-hater."
Undeterred by the criticism, Bad Bunny mockingly responded during a Saturday Night Live monologue last weekend, speaking in Spanish and telling his critics, "If you didn't understand what I just said, you have four months to learn."
The artist, who endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, has even excluded the U.S. from his upcoming world tour due to concerns about potential immigration authority interference.
This is not the first time the Super Bowl halftime show has been a platform for political statements. During the 2020 performance, Jennifer Lopez wrapped herself in a Puerto Rican flag and symbolically "freed children from glowing cages," which was widely interpreted as a protest against the first Trump administration's child separation policy.
A former Trump world insider is predicting during a podcast interview that Vice President JD Vance may not ascend to the MAGA throne at all, as some political observers have presumed.
Anthony Scaramucci, one of Trump's communications directors during his first administration, joined The Daily Beast's Joana Coles on a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" to discuss who will inherit the MAGA movement from Trump when he leaves politics.
Scaramucci, who worked for Trump for just 10 days and has since become a very vocal critic, said he thinks there will be a "fight" for the leadership role — one that could significantly hurt the movement.
"There'll be a leadership vacuum in the Republican Party, and there'll be a fight, and we'll see what happens," Scaramucci said, adding that he would like to "break the populist hold" on the GOP.
Scaramucci also said that Vance seems to be the front-runner to inherit MAGA from Trump.
" JD Vance looks very promising right now because he's in the lane," Scaramucci said. "He just had dinner with Trump at, you know, at the residence, the Naval Observatory, the vice president's residence. He looks very promising right now, but he will implode."
"He will go into the Trump wood chipper...because, like William Shakespeare wrote about, the old guy does not want the new guy to replace him," he continued.
MAGA appears to be turning on one of President Donald Trump's most loyal attorneys, which could spell trouble for the embattled official, according to a new report.
Will Sommer of The Bulwark reported on Monday that MAGA appears to be turning on Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was Trump's criminal defense attorney during his New York fraud trial. MAGA loyalists allege that Blanche is holding up a "Maxwell-like deal" for Tina Peters, a Trump ally who is serving a prison sentence for allowing a Trump-aligned conspiracy theorist to steal voter data from Colorado.
"Blanche has become the target of a right-wing media campaign pushing for his ouster," Sommer reported. "His accusers blame him for, among other things, holding up a Maxwell-like arrangement for Tina Peters, a conspiracy theorist and former county clerk in Colorado sentenced last fall to nine years in prison for letting another conspiracy theorist copy hard drives of voter data and post the stolen materials to his website."
"And in an administration that takes many of its cues from right-wing media, that might spell trouble for even entrenched Trump loyalists like Blanche," he continued.
Sommer reported that Blanche's position at the Department of Justice makes him vulnerable to attacks from the MAGA base because of Trump's refusal to release the Epstein files.
"No one’s position inside the MAGA movement is ever fully secure. And that holds particularly true for those who serve in Trump’s Justice Department, where each month a new top official seems to be in the crosshairs of activists yearning for prosecutions, accountability or just good old-fashioned liberal tears," Sommer wrote.
Tim Miller and Sam Stein of The Bulwark ripped the recent excuses one of President Donald Trump's top advisors offered in defense of the administration's efforts to deploy federal troops to cities nationwide.
Stein and Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, traded barbs on social media over the weekend over the administration's efforts to deploy troops. Miller called Stein "repugnant" for supporting "violent extremists" attempting to "nullify the 2024 election."
Miller and Stein discussed the altercation on the latest episode of "Bulwark Takes."
"The quality of these tweets from Stephen are getting more breathless in their hyperbolicness and they're just totally crazy," Stein said. "They're not even tweets anymore; they're diatribes."
"He's been tweeting a lot about like the country being under attack, and he's been given this portfolio to handle domestic terrorism, and basically the backstory is that he thinks we're in the middle of some sort of domestic terrorism incident and that it should just justify the state suppression of these terrorists," Stein added.
Recently, the Trump administration has sought to deploy troops to Chicago and Portland. The administration has claimed that there are violent protests against immigration operations.
A federal judge ruled last week that the administration could not send troops to Portland because they did not show that there was an emergency justifying the deployment.
Miller also had a hard time buying Miller's reasoning.
"If that's true, then f------come down as hard on those people as possible," Miller said. "What are you talking about? That does not justify harassing people who are peacefully protesting outside an ICE office, or like harassing people just because they look brown."
The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to send the U.S. military or federalize National Guard units to suppress insurrection, rebellion, or obstruction of federal law enforcement if local authorities can't or won't maintain order.
On Monday night, Newsmax host Greg Kelly asked the president whether he would formally invoke the act.
"Is that a kind of way to get around all this opposition?" asked Kelly.
"Well, it is a way to get around it. If we don't have to use it, I wouldn't use it," Trump replied.
"If you take a look at what's been going on in Portland, it's been going on for a long time. That's insurrection. I mean, that's pure insurrection," he said.
Trump, who previously described the city as "like living hell," then falsely claimed the city is "burning down."
State and local officials have responded to Trump's attacks on Portland, with Mayor Keith Wilson saying in a news release, "We are proud that Portland police have successfully protected freedom of expression while addressing occasional violence and property destruction that takes place during protests at the ICE facility in Portland."
"We anticipate that the site, and the half-block surrounding it, will continue to be a focus of protests. Portland will continue to rise to the moment as a proud sanctuary city, taking legal action to stand up for our community and our rights," he said.
"Although some threats from the Trump administration may be new or surprising, this one is not: we’ve been preparing to respond since Trump returned to office," Rayfield said. "We’re actively preparing for various scenarios, in coordination with key partners in Oregon, and our multistate AG coalition."
Trump himself faced accusations of inciting an insurrection in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. However, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team ultimately decided against charging Trump under the federal insurrection law.
NEWSMAX: The Insurrection Act. Is that going to be formally invoked?
TRUMP: If you take a look at what's been going on in Portland, it's been going on for a long time, that's insurrection pic.twitter.com/CZCCAlA6Pw — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 7, 2025
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) issued a grim warning about America's health care system during an interview with CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Monday.
"We have a brokenhealth care system; everybodyknows that," Sanders said. "And Trump is notwrong when he says the system isnot working very well, but he ismaking it far worse. Andhonestly, as the former chair ofthe health committee, I worryvery, very much that he couldliterally collapse the entiresystem."
Sanders' comments come at a time when Republicans and Democrats are negotiating over health care policy as part of the government shutdown. Republicans have proposed a continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of the year that maintains steep health care cuts implemented by Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill." Democrats are seeking to reverse those cuts.
"We don't have enoughdoctors right now," Sanders said. "Who in theworld is going to become adoctor in the midst of all ofthis? We pay the highest pricesin the world for prescriptiondrugs, for health care ingeneral. Our life expectancy islower than other majorcountries. So we have a systemdeeply in trouble. He is takingit to the verge of collapse."
ESPN college football commentator Paul Finebaum is eyeing a run for Senate in Alabama as a Republican — and it's causing tension between himself and his network, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
Feinbaum, who would be running for the seat being vacated by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, sat for an interview with Clay Travis on the right-wing sports website Outkick, where "not only did he express an interest in running for office, spurred in large part by the killing of Charlie Kirk, but Finebaum accused ESPN of preventing him from interviewing Donald Trump on his show in 2019."
Travis initially reported that ESPN had sidelined Finebaum from the network altogether, but an ESPN communications staffer promptly posted to X that this claim was "TOTALLY FALSE."
Nonetheless, said the report, "several people familiar with Finebaum’s situation offered competing views of what’s happening at the network. ESPN, one person said, has rotating schedules and could be looking for new talent to replace Finebaum in the event he actually leaves to get into politics. He’s expected back on 'Get Up' on Tuesday, that person said. Others found it beyond coincidence that the week after Finebaum had gone scorched earth on ESPN, he was suddenly less visible, especially during the heart of college football season."
Travis, who sold Outkick to Fox Corporation four years ago, has a vested interest in accusing ESPN of liberal bias, the report noted.
Meanwhile, said the report, "Politico’s Jonathan Martin reported that Finebaum’s political aspirations are serious and that he will visit Washington in October to meet with Republicans. Finebaum also has a contract that runs into 2027, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. That would suggest telling Travis about his plans and that he voted for Trump were not a contract negotiation ploy. (That theory, which circulated around ESPN, posited that Finebaum could be more valuable to the network and harder to cut ties with as a celebrated cause in conservative circles.)"
President Donald Trump's second-in-command at the Justice Department, Todd Blanche, is facing a rising wave of anger from pro-Trump influencers, who believe he is to blame for the scuttling of a plot to spring a martyred election conspiracy theorist from prison, Will Sommer reported for The Bulwark on Monday evening.
Blanche, who got his start as a personal defense lawyer for Trump before being named Deputy Attorney General, hasn't often been on the radar of MAGA, as they have vented against Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel for the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case files controversy.
But the gripe of the MAGA faithful against Blanche doesn't have to do with Epstein, but with Tina Peters, a former Mesa County, Colorado, elections clerk who went to jail for trying to compromise voting equipment in her crusade to prove Trump's election fraud conspiracy theories. According to right-wing insiders, there was a plot to get Peters out of state jail in Colorado, but Blanche put a stop to it.
"The most significant allegation against him comes from Peter Ticktin, a former Trump military-academy chum turned MAGA lawyer who’s now at the center of the get-Blanche campaign," wrote Sommer. "In Ticktin’s telling, the Justice Department was poised last month to essentially rescue his client Peters from Colorado state prison, where she has started serving her nine-year sentence."
"According to Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne — an election denier and Peters friend whom Ticktin is attempting (so far unsuccessfully) to represent in an unrelated trial — the plan was for the Justice Department to claim that Peters is a 'witness' in an unspecified upcoming case. That, in turn, would create a need for her to be in federal custody. Then Peters would have been transferred to a nicer, camp-style prison," said the report. "It all could have worked out, allegedly, had Blanche not intervened!"
Speaking to LindellTV, the project of election conspiracy theorist and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Byrne said “Todd Blanche put the kibosh on that," adding that Blanche is a "menace" who is “blocking everything [Trump] says he wants done.” A number of other far-right influencers, like InfoWars' Alex Jones piled on, claiming he also thwarted a review of the civil lawsuits against Jones for inciting harassment of the parents of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
As the discontent boils over, some in Trumpworld are now coming to Blanche's defense, with Pam Bondi chief of staff Chad Mizelle posting to X, "Todd Blanche is crushing the deep state. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know Todd, doesn’t know how DOJ works, doesn’t know law, or, most likely, all three."
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, celebrated a court ruling on Monday that could pave the way for the Ten Commandments to be shown in public schools.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is known as the most conservative district in the country, ruled on Monday that it would reconsider a lower court's order prohibiting the Ten Commandments from being displayed. The previous opinion was issued in June by a unanimous three-judge panel that found a new state law requiring elementary and secondary public schools in Louisiana to display the commandments was "plainly unconstitutional."
The ruling on Monday vacates the previous order.
Landry responded to the news in a post on Truth Social.
"Good news out of the Fifth Circuit tonight," Landry wrote. "Looking forward to seeing this case to victory!"
Advocates slammed the court's decision to reconsider the case.
"The panel’s unanimous ruling last June was well reasoned and correctly followed binding Supreme Court precedent. We believe there is no reason to revisit it," Americans United for Separation of Church and State said in a statement.
A group of House Democrats is demanding that the departments of Homeland Security and Education provide answers for the deportation of K-12 students by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
According to an investigation published last week by The Guardian, since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, “nearly 2,350 kids under the age of 18, including 36 infants, have been booked into immigration detention centers around the country.”
In a letter sent Friday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and 10 other New York lawmakers wrote that “ICE’s targeting of not only adults without criminal convictions, but also children and families, negates the administration’s stated policy of going after the ‘worst of the worst’ for deportation proceedings.”
They added that many of the individuals targeted “do not even have open orders of removal in their family’s immigration proceedings.”
The lawmakers highlighted five K-12 students in New York City who have been arrested by ICE over the past year.
These include Dylan Lopez Contreras, a Bronx high school student who was arrested in May while showing up for a legal asylum court hearing. Chalkbeatreported that Lopez Contreras had arrived in the US last year after making a perilous journey from Venezuela and was allowed to remain in the country while he awaited his court date.
At that court appearance, he was detained without the ability to consult a lawyer and was then shuttled in and out of several detention facilities in at least five different states. According to the lawmakers, he is currently being held in Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, where the ACLU says “those in detention have endured insufficient medical and mental healthcare, grossly inadequate access to non-English language services, and rampant discrimination.”
ICE is using your tax dollars to target children.
A child in my district was deported days before the start of the school year.
We are demanding answers on why K-12 students are being arrested and whether @usedgov is fulfilling their obligations to students in custody. pic.twitter.com/0o7EGgJLV9 — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) October 6, 2025
The lawmakers also highlighted the arrest of a 6-year-old named Dayra, who was arrested in August alongside her mother, Martha, and deported back to Ecuador. Martha’s 19-year-old daughter was also taken into ICE custody, but not deported with her family. Meanwhile, her 16-year-old public high school student was left in the care of her 21-year-old brother.
Other students mentioned by the lawmakers include Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, a 20-year-old legal asylum-seeker from Guinea, and Derlis Chusen, a 19-year-old high school student from Ecuador, who was arrested outside a court hearing and taken to an immigration facility in Texas, where he was released on what the lawmakers called an “exorbitant” $20,000 bond.
As the lawmakers noted, “Not only did these students have no criminal convictions, they made every attempt to comply with their immigration hearings and ICE check-ins. Despite that, they were held in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, and were transported far away from their families, lawyers, and school communities.”
Joselyn Chipantiza-Sisalema, a 20-year-old student from Ecuador, told The City that while she was held for 10 days at the notorious detention center at 26 Federal Plaza: “We had to beg the people working there that they gave us something to eat, they didn’t even give us water. Sometimes a few cookies they’d throw in there. A human being doesn’t deserve to be treated that way… it was a horrible thing I wouldn’t wish on anyone. They had us in there like animals.”
These are just a few of the dozens of students in New York City who have been deported under the Trump administration. According to numbers from the Deportation Data Project reported on by The City, ICE’s New York City field office, which also covers Long Island and some areas north of the city, arrested 48 children in June and July alone, with 32 of them deported as of August 19.
“Poor conditions and inadequate care in immigration detention not only cause immediate harm to a child’s health, they can have long-term physical and mental consequences, impacting their studies and their adult life,” the lawmakers wrote. “There is no doubt that these experiences are deeply traumatic for the children and young people detained, but also for their classmates and educators, regardless of immigration status. Exposing K-12 students to the trauma of immigration enforcement is certain to have social and economic consequences for their entire communities.”
The Supreme Courtruled in 1982 that states cannot constitutionally deny children access to a free K-12 public education based on their immigration status, including if they are undocumented.
The lawmakers demanded that DHS provide a list of all the students it has arrested since January 20, 2025, and information about how students in immigration detention are receiving education.
“It is impossible to reconcile ICE’s narrative of making communities safer by going after ‘the worst of the worst’ when the majority of those currently in ICE detention, almost 70%, have no criminal convictions, according to data published by the agency,” the lawmakers said. “Students like Dylan and Dayra represent the very best of this country. Their cases remind us of the irreparable harm that this administration’s reckless mass deportation policies cause our students and communities.”
The Trump White House chided a former daytime television star on Monday after she applied for foreign citizenship, according to reports.
Rosie O'Donnell, who has beefed with Trump for several years, recently applied to become a citizen of Ireland. She left the United States earlier this year after Trump was elected for his second term.
“It is self-imposed (political exile),” O'Donnell told The Daily Telegraph.“I am applying and about to be approved for my Irish citizenship as my grandparents were from there and that’s all you need. It will be good to have my Irish citizenship, especially since Trump keeps threatening to take away mine.”
Trump recently threatened to revoke O'Donnell's U.S. citizenship. Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that "She is not a Great American and is, in my opinion, incapable of being so!"
A White House spokesperson celebrated O'Donnell's announcement in a statement to Fox News.
"What great news for America!" White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital.
The deal, which comes as Weiss is set to be named editor-in-chief of CBS News under the Paramount umbrella, comes amid Weiss's long history of attempts to promote conservative representation in educated spaces, including her involvement in establishing a private liberal-arts school called the University of Austin that is still in the process of seeking accreditation.
Her new success isn't going over well with many Trump supporters, though, who think her venture isn't worth nearly as much as she got for it.
For one thing, noted Sommer, "Right-wing pundit Clint Russell of the 'Liberty Lockdown' YouTube channel griped on X that his own videos regularly outpace Weiss’s in terms of viewership, and he doesn’t even have a support staff. Russell groaned that the purchase was 'legal bribery.'"
Far-right Trump confidante and multiple-time failed congressional candidate Laura Loomer took it a step further, posting on X last month, "I have 1.8 million followers on X and have more impact in a single week with my reporting than Bari Weiss has all year with her work. And, I do it with no major funding. Totally insane how people are willing to light their money on fire ... This 'deal' should be examined with a microscope."
She went on to call Weiss the "Jewish Elizabeth Holmes" — referencing the infamous Theranos CEO who went to prison for defrauding investors with fake medical diagnostic technology.
Also disgruntled about the deal was right-wing podcaster Tim Pool, who posted, "They have 155k paying members for their site; They get 3.7m views per month; 15M annual revenue estimate; So maybe $50m-75m evaluation is reasonable. I don't understand $150M at all."
Paramount has meanwhile faced criticism from the mainstream news industry for the unusual amount of power they are granting Weiss, making her report directly to Trump-sympathetic Paramount CEO David Ellison, rather than the director of CBS News.
President Donald Trump's stunning remark, leaving the door open to pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, led to a desperate plea to reverse course from right-wing ally Laura Loomer and MAGA fans.
During a news conference on Monday, CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins asked Trump whether he was considering pardoning Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking. Trump suggested he was unaware of critical facts in Maxwell's case, and told Collins he would have to "look at" her case to determine if a pardon was necessary.
Trump told reporters he would need to consult with the Department of Justice before making any decision, explicitly stating, "I haven't heard the name in so long," Trump said. "I would have to take a look at it."
CNN's Jake Tapper appeared stunned by the remark, telling viewers, "That's sure bizarre!"
It also appeared to worry Loomer, a right-wing influencer known for her white nationalist views and far-right conspiracy theories.
"I strongly advise AGAINST anyone lobbying the Trump admin and the DOJ to Pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Do not do it. I repeat. Do not do it. There will be no coming back from that. I repeat again. For the love of God. Do Not Do It," she wrote on X.
Loomer tagged Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Attorney General Pam Bondi in her post.
Many of her followers agreed.
Common Sense Crusader wrote on X, "This would be the absolute worst thing that could happen for the current administration and republicans in general. I agree, there will be no coming back from it. The fact that he didn’t answer with a sharp 'NO' is bad enough."
Citizen X added, "Agreed. Just leave that alone. There is just no legitimate, sensible reason to explain to the American people why she’d be pardoned. No good would come from doing that."
