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'Kiss of death': Ex-Trump lawyer says Hegseth 'lit the fuse' on his own demise

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is about to be hit by Donald Trump's fury, according to the president's ex-lawyer.

Former Trump attorney and "fixer" Michael Cohen on Thursday weighed in on Substack, publishing a piece called, "Hegseth Failed Trump: Now Comes the Punishment," in which he argues that, "Trump doesn’t just fire people; he obliterates them."

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'How's he being prepped?' CNN panel blames Trump's team for 'offensive' comments

President Donald Trump praised an African leader's strong grasp of English – the official language of his country – and panelists on "CNN This Morning" agreed that was a blunder he should never have made.

The president commented on the "beautiful" English spoken by his Liberian counterpart Joseph Boakai, who informed him that he'd been educated in Liberia – a country that had been founded as a haven for freed slaves from the U.S. – and Trump faced widespread criticism for his comment during a meeting with African leaders.

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'Disaster': Trump's plan would reportedly 'undercut' his own 'creepy' goals

Donald Trump and JD Vance have pushed the notion of having as many kids as possible, but their own plan would make that more difficult for citizens, according to a conservative writer.

Former Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote an essay called, "MAGA’s Ugly Budget at Odds with Its Creepy Pronatalism," in which she argues that the administration is undercutting its own "creepy" reproduction goals.

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'Breathtaking': Trump reportedly 'setting traps' for his Cabinet members

Riffing off of comments made by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, the BBC's Katty Kay stated that it appears Donald Trump is setting "traps" for his Cabinet members, allowing him to pin blame on them when his policies crash and burn.

During a discussion on Pete Hegseth deciding unilaterally to stall shipments of weapons to Ukraine, which Trump claimed he knew nothing about –– and which has infuriated members of Congress –– the "Morning Joe" co-host pointed to Trump's comments and noted, "It's very interesting when people listen to what Donald Trump said there. They said, well, that doesn't make any sense, he's just sort of talking in circles."

"It actually, if you sit and actually listen to it, it is, I don't, I wouldn't say that he's setting a trap for Hegseth, but he's making two things very clear," he continued. "Number one, a decision this big does not happen in his administration without him knowing about it. And number two, he didn't know about this decision being made in his administration."

"Now people can assume what they want to assume with that," he elaborated. "But that leads to me to a very clear conclusion, which is he's not happy with Pete Hegseth, and he's sending a message inside the administration that, once again, Pete Hegseth has stepped outside the lines of the administration. He did it during transition, where he lied to the transition team. He did it during Signalgate. He's doing it again here, where he made this massive decision, this policy decision, and didn't notify the commander in chief. I mean, it really is breathtaking, isn't it?"

A laughing Kay replied, "I'm loving the decoding of what Donald Trump was saying because I was listening to it and, you're far smarter at this than I am, because I was listening to it thinking, that doesn't make any sense at all."

"But yeah, I get what you're saying is that he's laying the trap," she added. " I didn't order this and I would have to have ordered it. It was a bit like when he said to the reporter, 'I don't know who ordered this, you tell me,' which was also a bit of a strange response, but it's not the first time that Pete Hegseth has done this."

"So there have been these repeated occasions for his supporters of the defense secretary saying, look, he's massively boosted intake and recruitment and that keeps him on the president's good side, the president likes that," she offered. "But I'm going to listen to the president in a new way now and listen for the traps that he's setting for his Cabinet members."

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'Shocking': Voting expert singles out 'scary number' for next election

Nearly half of election officials expressed concerns that politically motivated investigations could undermine election security, according to a new survey.

The Brennan Center for Justice found 46 percent of local election officials said they were at least somewhat concerned about politically motivated investigations of their work or the work of others, and 18 percent of them said they were "very concerned" about that possibility, reported Politico.

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'No passing the buck': MSNBC panel levels Texas officials over flood deaths

Reacting to Texas officials, ranging from local officials from Kerr County to Gov. Greg Abbott, ducking blame for the sequence of events that led to at least 120 dead and over 150 missing from a July 4th flash flood, the panel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" claimed there needs to be a reckoning.

With Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring telling reporters he wants to look forward and not backward, and Abbott ranting that looking to find out who is to blame is for "losers," co-host Joe Scarborough claimed there is plenty of blame to spread around throughout the state and it is time for officials to step up and admit errors in judgment.

"There's really no passing of the buck because I'll tell you how things happened when I represented six counties in Northwest Florida," he told his co-hosts. "If there was a problem that people had in, you know, a hurricane coming, then, you know, and somebody saw a problem, somebody would talk to a county commissioner. The county commissioner would talk to me, would get funding for whatever needed to be taken care of, and it would be taken care of."

"I find it hard to believe two things right here," he added. "One, again, complaints about an antiquated warning system went unheeded for decade –– that's number one. Number two, that the local authorities, that the county authorities, that the state authorities allowed a children's camp to be built in a flood zone just a few years ago in a highly dangerous flood zone."

"So that's again, one more thing where the state of Texas failed miserably," he accused.

"Oddly, the other day, Governor Abbott of Texas, very defensive and bristling at reporters, saying this is the talk of losers to ask these kind of questions in a moment like this, while we're still looking for children now," co-host Willie Geist offered. "It's the talk of accountability and making sure this never happens again, and asking questions about how this was possible, how we got here, and preventing again this from ever, ever happening again to a group of little girls fighting for their lives in the middle of the night during a flood."

You can watch below or at the link here.

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'Trust is being lost': MAGA feeling 'gaslit' by Trump's attorney general

The furor over the Jeffrey Epstein case doesn't appear likely to blow over with the MAGA base anytime soon.

Donald Trump's conspiracy-minded base was blindsided this week by the Justice Department memo stating the notorious sex trafficker had killed himself in 2019 and had not kept a "client list," and the president himself bristled Tuesday when a reporter asked attorney general Pam Bondi about the findings, reported Axios.

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Pete Hegseth facing new revolt from senators after Ukraine weapons screw-up

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing yet another growing revolt from senators on both sides of the aisle that is being exacerbated by his apparent unilateral decision to delay a shipment scheduled weapons to Ukraine.

During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Politico's Paul McCleary expanded upon his Wednesday report where he noted growing distrust by European allies of Donald Trump's defense chief by noting that same distrust is growing among Republican lawmakers.

After sharing a clip of Trump saying he had no idea about the weapons shipment snafu, "Way Too Early" host Ali Vitali asked McCleary what is the state of Hegseth's standing with Congress.

With Vitali noting that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) stated on Wednesday that Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, is "out of his depth," she pressed her guest, " Is that the kind of buyer's remorse that you're hearing from Republicans?"

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'Trump's kryptonite': Ex-insider says president threatening MAGA over big secret

MAGA is "eating itself," the Donald Trump is leveling "dark" threats against allied reporters to protect his big secret, according to a former "trusted operative" of the president.

Lev Parnas, a former associate of Trump who worked with the White House team on behind-the-scenes matters, has recently been speaking out about Trump's actions on Substack. He posted a new article attempting to shed light on these reported threats.

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CNN host blasts conservatives defending DOJ 'investigation in search of a crime'

The panel on CNN's "NewsNight with Abby Phillip" erupted after GOP strategists claimed that the Department of Justice's investigation into two former intelligence officials was to root out political weaponization.

GOP strategists Shermichael Singleton and Scott Jennings both argued that the reasons why President Donald Trump's DOJ announced investigations into former CIA Director John Brennan and former F.B.I. Director James Comey were unclear. Even so, Shermichael and Jennings agreed that the men needed to be investigated because they are symbols of former President Joe Biden's weaponization of the Justice Department against Trump.

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Stephen Miller's Fox News tirade abruptly fades to black as camera battery dies

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller appeared on Fox News' "Hannity" for a sprawling interview on Wednesday, with the two trading barbs over topics ranging from the positive impacts of President Donald Trump's mega budget bill and the administration's deportation efforts.

But Miller's tirade was abruptly cut short after his camera battery died while he was on air.

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Judge denies Trump admin's attempt to dismiss Abrego Garcia suit

A federal judge in Maryland on Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s attempts to dismiss a lawsuit by wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was returned to the United States last month.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis submitted a brief paperless order that did not elaborate on her reasoning for denying two government requests to dismiss the civil case, other than saying she discussed it during a Monday hearing.

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'Empty promise of law': Texas Dem says she was denied access to ICE facility

A Democratic Representative from Texas claims she was denied access to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in El Paso.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) posted on her official X account that she was denied entry to the facility after giving ICE more than 24-hours notice of her visit. A recent memo released by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says lawmakers need to provide at least 72 hours' notice before an official visit can be conducted.

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