It started with a supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saying, "Does anyone else notice how RFK NEVER attacks other people; even when thrown a softball?"
Hotez responded, "Well no, for years he, his orgs attacked me/family in his books/public outreach, making up a false narrative."
"He portrayed me as public enemy for his personal/political gain, we endured years of death threats/stalkings, when all I did: make low cost vaccines for the world’s poor," Hotez added.
He continued:
"He’s a bad guy, and to his family’s credit they have apologized to me on several occasions, for which I’m grateful."
The expert then concluded, saying, "Despite it all, if he wants rapprochement, I’m open to it, but so far he continues to push his phony vaccine-autism links and allegiance to the corrupt wellness, supplements, influencer $multibillion industry."
Professor Dorit Reiss chimed in, "He sued multiple people for defamation to try and silence them, too. And he told FDA members they're industry puppets."
Donald Trump is freezing out future GOP presidential hopefuls as he goes full force in his efforts to be elected to an unconstitutional third term, MSNBC pundits said on Saturday.
Former Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo (FL) appeared on MSNBC over the weekend, and was asked about Trump's website selling "Trump 2028" merchandise.
The host, Trump's longtime acquaintance Rev. Al Sharpton, said that Trump's "trolling" is "freezing up the Republican field at a time when presidential hopefuls might begin laying the groundwork for a future campaign."
Curbelo encouraged viewers to take Trump at his word, saying, "This is definitely something that people and legal experts and lawyers should be watching because at some point, the same way a lot of organizations and people with standing have gone to the courts and challenged the administration, the president, on a number of issues, this might be the big one."
"I take him seriously," the analyst added. "I do think he would be interested in finding a way to run for a third term, so I wouldn't dismiss it."
A menswear fashion expert on Saturday gave a brutal review of Donald Trump's attire at the Pope's funeral.
In September, Derek Guy, a menswear expert who has contributed to the Washington Post and Esquire, publicly shamedTrump for shilling a $100,000 watch he described as an obvious scam.
Over the weekend, Guy turned his attention to Trump's funeral faux pas.
Guy posted a photo of Trump at the funeral on social media, writing, "These norms are pretty much gone in the US, but for the Pope's funeral, seems like you should adhere to protocol."
"A funeral calls for a black wool suit, white shirt, black tie, and black leather dress shoes," he added.
A popular account on X responded to Guy, saying, "Incorrect."
"Funerals do not come with dress protocol (and I've never seen a woman wear those things at one)," the user wrote Saturday.
Guy replied, "This is true. Here are some things you can wear to a funeral."
"If someone has died, consider attending the funeral in black tie (also known as a tuxedo in American vernacular). Black, as we know, is the color of mourning, so black tie shows respect for the deceased and their family. Do a little jump and dance at the funeral, so people can admire how your jacket collar hugs your neck. This demonstrates that you took the time to make sure your tuxedo is well-tailored for this somber occasion. Carry a martini around and toast during the eulogy," he wrote. "Another great choice is a velvet or tartan dinner jacket. This is a little more unique, but a funeral is a great time to show off a bit of personal style. The black on your trousers (sometimes bow tie) still conveys that you're mourning."
He then added, "For a summer funeral, consider wearing shorts. This is not only more comfortable, but also conveys the heavy fact that life is short. I like shorts with a knitted top, such as a sweater or hoodie. Go for a black hoodie—the most formal of hoodies."
Guy went on to sarcastically recommend a "mesh top" for summer funerals, as well as a jacket with fur on the inside for winter and fall funerals.
"There are no protocols to dressing for a funeral. It's simply the laying of the deceased—that's it. So feel free to wear whatever you want. Maybe wear a sleeping bag or this Budweiser sport coat. Or a Japanese ostrich pillow for when you want to take a little nap," the expert then concluded.
Conservative analyst Tom Nichols responded to the thread Saturday, saying, "These are lethal levels of shade here."
Despite the fact that Donald "Trump does not want to be seen giving up to pressure" this early in his second term, one Cabinet official is on the chopping block and another has been diminished in an unprecedented way, according to a former Trump adviser.
Trump's former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, appeared on CNN on Saturday to discuss the inner workings of Trump's second stint in the White House.
Bolton was asked by the host about Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who isn't leading the efforts to negotiate an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
When asked if that is "frustrating" for Rubio, Bolton said, "Yeah, I mean, frustrating is kind of a polite way to put it."
"It's unprecedented certainly in recent U.S. experience, compounded by the fact that Witkoff is also the lead negotiator in talks with Iran, which I personally think are a waste of oxygen, but which may signal that Trump is ready to make a deal with Iran, inexplicably," he then added. "But Witkoff, who has no experience with Iran, with nuclear weapons or with arms control and nonproliferation, how that's going to happen, particularly simultaneously, really must be music to the ears of our adversaries."
Bolton was also asked about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has been bogged down by allegations related to national security and department management itself.
"Trump does not want to be seen early in his administration, to give up the pressure from the media and from the Democrats, but I don't see this lasting a very long period," he then concluded. "I mean, I think Hegseth is close to being a dead man walking at this point politically."
Donald Trump on Saturday lashed out against the court system, complaining about what it won't "allow" the President to do.
Trump over the weekend took to Truth Social, his own social media site, to air his grievances about judges who have been blocking or pausing some of his most controversial political orders.
"We need Courageous JUSTICE in our Country," Trump said.
"If the Courts don’t allow what we have been allowed to do for 250 years, America can no longer be the same. Crooked Joe Biden will have destroyed our Country with his Open Border MADNESS, and allowing criminals of every type to enter with no Retribution. Murderers, Drug Dealers, Gang Members, and even the Mentally Insane will make their home in our Country, wreaking havoc like we have never seen before."
The President then added, "It is not possible to have trials for millions and millions of people. We know who the Criminals are, and we must get them out of the U.S.A. — and FAST!"
A key Donald Trump adviser is reportedly seeking a war that begins with China and extends all the way to members of the President's own cabinet.
Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro has been in the news in recent weeks because of his influence on Trump's tariff policies, which have led to massive market uncertainty. Navarro also had a public feud with billionaire Elon Musk.
But Musk isn't the only Trump associate Navarro might see as an "enemy," according to a deep-dive on Navarro by the Washington Post.
The report outlines Navarro's background as a Clinton Democrat, all the way through him becoming a "martyr for MAGA" when he was imprisoned for failing to cooperate with an investigation into Jan. 6.
"One year ago, Peter Navarro sat in a federal prison in Miami, sending messages that he was a martyr for MAGA. He had begged for help paying legal bills that he said would reach $750,000," the Saturday report states, noting that "Navarro’s journey to one of the most powerful positions in the White House has been one of spectacular flameouts and surprising comebacks."
Michael Kranish and Jeff Stein also write that "the story of how this onetime staunch Democrat has won so much influence has become a defining tale of the early days of the second Trump administration, raising concerns even among many Republicans about how the economist has gained such extraordinary power."
"An examination of Navarro’s memoirs, interviews and other documentation shows that it is a war he has sought for decades. The enemy is not only China, he has said, but also the Wall Street titans who benefited from Beijing’s policies and who, notably, are among the most powerful players in the Republican Party, including some now in Trump’s Cabinet," the report states. "If Navarro’s battles in the current Trump administration are anything like they were in the first term, they are filled with shouting matches, name-calling and endless effort to curry the president’s favor."
Donald Trump made a physically impossible claim about his tariff negotiations with China, and one reporter is sounding the alarm.
Politico's Washington-based China correspondent Phelim Kine appeared on MSNBC on Saturday, where he was asked about the President's claim that he has already sealed 200 tariff deals with various nations.
Not only is there no evidence to back that up, according to Kine, but it is also impossible because there are fewer than 200 countries in existence.
He replied, "I think in terms of the claims by the President that he has already sealed 200 trade deals, I think there are only 195 countries on this earth. So there's five extra," he said, adding, "and it's unclear how the administration could have sealed the deals with the entire planet in 13 days."
Regarding Trump's claim that he's been in touch with the leader of China, the reporter said, "My sources here say that just hasn't happened. The only call that we know that Xi Jinping and Donald Trump has had happened on January 17th."
"So we're in this staring contest between the two largest economies of the world, and this staring contest has profound implications for their own economies, but for the world economy, and the fact that neither side is willing to budge really could tip this country's economy, at least, into a real danger zone very soon."
Making a rare appearance on Saturday as a guest on MSNBC host Katie Phang's last show, Rachel Maddow graded out Donald Trump's first 100 days and the best she could say about the second-term president that he has "flailed."
Jumping right into it, Maddow, after saying she would miss Phang hosting her own show, began, "Let me just say, the 100 days, there has never been a president who has botched the first 100 days of his presidency more than Donald Trump has. You don't have to take that as a subjective view. It's the view shown in scientific polling of the American public. The public is deeply, deeply, deeply against what Trump is doing. He's -- the YouGov polling that came out this week, I think he is 19 points underwater!"
Pointing out that she believes Trump is "more ambitious" than during his first term before losing to President Joe Biden in 2020, she added, "I do think we're in the middle of an attempted authoritarian overthrow of American democracy. I mean, I think everybody who predicted that was right, but I don't think he's any better at it."
Maddow also noted expectations for Trump the second go-around were high but that he has stumbled as he's been mired himself in pushing his policies.
"He was going to be better at doing what he wanted to do, and that's what we should brace ourselves for. And I actually don't think that's the way it's worked out," she observed.
'"I think the other thing I was talking about sort of what the pundit class got wrong heading into Trump's second term," she elaborated. "I think what we –– there was, again, a kind of pundit, common wisdom or kind of observer common wisdom that the American people weren't going to resist, you know, weren't going to stand up, that there was there was no sign of the kind of mass resistance to what trump is doing. That's turning out not to be the case at all, it's just different this time."
Federal immigration authorities deported three U.S. citizen children on Friday—including one with cancer who was expelled without medication—in a move that critics and one judge appointed by President Donald Trump said was carried out without due process.
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement's (ICE) New Orleans field office deported the American children—ages 2, 4, and 7—along with their undocumented mothers, one of whom is pregnant. The ACLUsaid that both families were held incommunicado following their arrests, and that ICE agents refused or failed to respond to efforts by attorneys and relatives who were trying to contact them.
The ACLU said that one of the children has a rare form of metastatic cancer and was deported without medication or consultation with their treating physician, despite ICE being notified about the child's urgent condition. This follows last month's ICE deportation of a family including a 10-year-old American citizen with brain cancer.
According to court documents, the 2-year-old New Orleans native—identified as V.M.L.—was brought by her mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, to a routine immigration appointment in the Louisiana city on Tuesday when they were arrested.
A habeas petition filed on Thursday states that ICE New Orleans Field Office Director Mellissa Harper told V.M.L.'s desperate father on a phone call that he could try to pick the girl up but would likely be arrested, as he is undocumented. The petition argues that Harper was detaining V.M.L. "in order to induce her father to turn himself in to immigration authorities."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty—a Trump nominee—ordered a May 16 hearing in Monroe, Louisiana based on his "strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process."
"It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen," Doughty wrote, citing relevant case law. "The government contends that this is all OK because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her. But the court doesn't know that."
The ACLU argued that ICE's actions "represent a shocking—although increasingly common—abuse of power," adding that the agency "has inflicted harm and jeopardized the lives and health of vulnerable children and a pregnant woman. The cruelty and deliberate denial of legal and medical access are not only unlawful, but inhumane."
Teresa Reyes-Flores of the Southeast Dignity not Detention Coalition said in a statement Friday: "ICE's actions show a blatant violation of due process and basic human rights. The families were disappeared, cut off from their lawyers and loved ones, and rushed to be deported, stripping their parents of the chance to protect their U.S. citizen children."
Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy legal director Homero López Jr. said that "these deplorable actions demonstrate ICE's increasing willingness to violate all protections for immigrants as well as those of their children."
"These types of disappearances are reminiscent of the darkest eras in our country's history and put everyone, regardless of immigration status, at risk," he added.
The Trump administration—whose first-term immigration policies and practices included separating children from their parents and imprisonment in concentration camps—is once again under fire for its anti-immigrant agenda.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently blocked the deportation of undocumented Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and has also ordered the administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran man wrongfully deported to a notorious prison in his native country. On Wednesday, a Trump-appointed judge ordered the administration to take action to return another Salvadoran deported to the same prison.
In a scathing ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge David Briones ordered ICE to free a Venezuelan couple dubiously held in El Paso under the Alien Enemies Act, finding that the government "has not demonstrated they have any lawful basis to continue detaining" the pair. Briones also warned ICE to not deport anyone else it is holding as an alleged "alien enemy" in West Texas.
"A government agency that sequesters and deports vulnerable mothers with their U.S. citizen children without due process must be defunded, not rewarded with an additional $45 billion to continue at taxpayers' expense," Mich P. González, a founding partner of Sanctuary of the South—which provides legal aid to immigrants—said Friday.
"These families were lawfully complying with ICE's orders and for this they suffered cruel and traumatic separation," González added. "If this is what the Trump administration is orchestrating just three months in, we should all be terrified of what the next four years will bring."
On Saturday morning, MSNBC host Katie Phang invited Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell on to discuss his new report on the turmoil at the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and quickly singled out a startling revelation of an accusation of cocaine use.
With Hegseth under the gun for what has been dubbed "Signalgate," new revelations that he included his wife, brother and lawyer in a separate Signal chat where he discussed war plan, and use of an unsecured internet commercial "dirty line" from his Pentagon office, Lowell reported that fighting among dismissed Hegseth aides has also gotten messy.
According to his report, the DOD has been "marked for weeks by ugly internal politics" with his now-ousted chief of staff Joe Kasper pointing the finger at the departed Dan Caldwell, deputy chief Darin Selnick and chief to the deputy defense secretary Colin Carroll, with them reciprocating.
According to MSNBC host Phang, what she fund intriguing was a passage where Lowell wrote, "The tensions among the former aides have continued since their collective ouster. Carroll has considered filing a defamation suit against Kasper and started making calls on the Monday after he was fired, asking people whether Kasper had ever been seen doing cocaine in a previous job. Kasper has complained that some of the calls went to his wife and previous clients, asking rhetorically to associates how he would have been able to hold a security clearance and pass regular drug tests."
"Your piece that just came out this morning is fantastic, but there was something that stuck with me was pretty hardcore," Phang prompted her guest. "I mean, Hugo, this is the Department of Defense, this is national security, this is the welfare of not only our armed forces and the people that are sacrificing to be able to defend us, but it's our safety. And this is the type of insanity that's going on under Pete Hegseth's's tenure."
"It was Colin Carroll, the chief of staff of the deputy secretary, who in the wake of his firing, you know, he was basically bundled out of the Pentagon along with two other aides who were seen as antagonistic or at odds with the chief of staff at the Pentagon, Joe Kasper and what we have seen in the days since is this kind of continuation of that interpersonal conflict," Lowell responded.
"And so the Monday, after Colin Carrol was was fired –– he was fired on the Friday –– he was busy calling up people around Kasper's life, including his wife and his in-laws and, and kind of former clients trying to chase down a tip that Kasper may have, been using cocaine in a previous job. and he claimed it was because he was trying to do research for his defamation suit," he elaborated.
"Now, we should say, you know, Joe Kasper, the chief of staff who has since left that role in the wake of all of this as well, he has strenuously denied using any cocaine," the Guardian reporter cautioned "And when reached by phone yesterday, told us that, you know, it's so 'egregiously. stupid' that I'm, you know, getting mired into this stuff and how could I have held a security clearance for so long if I was actually doing drugs? But the wider point is correct."
The finger-pointing and sniping at each other that has consumed Donald Trump's inner circle as the harsh reality of running the country overwhelms them, led New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to put them under the microscope on Saturday.
As Dowd wrote of Trump, "How do most Americans see his first 100 days in office? 'Chaotic' and 'scary' — not the paternal reassurance he might have hoped to engender with his cartoonishly macho style, his manosphere heroics and his swaggering U.F.C. and wrestling posse."
Pointing to evidence of "gossiping, catfighting, backbiting and clawing each other’s eyes out," in the administration," Dowd wrote "... it is grimly entertaining to see this most 'masculine' of administrations reflecting stereotypes about female behavior that long kept women out of power," before quipping, "Trump’s macho crew, it turns out, is a vicious little sewing circle."
Singling out Trump's pick to be defense secretary, she asked, "If you don’t want an unstable creature at the top, particularly at that bastion of masculinity, the Pentagon, why would you hire Pete Hegseth?"
Referring to him as a "lightweight former Fox weekend anchor," she piled on with, "... the man in charge of a department with a budget of approximately $850 billion seems flighty and shaky, unable to find loyal consiglieres and unable to stick to the Pentagon’s classified message system, which is among the best in the world for a reason."
Getting in a final dig, she proposed, "Trump, who often casts by looks, may have liked Hegseth’s slick style and pretty face. But even the Emperor of Chaos must realize this Princess of Chaos has to go"
After a second consecutive night of deadly Russian air attacks – against the capital Kyiv on April 23 and the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad on April 24 – a ceasefire in Ukraine seems as unrealistic as ever.
With Russian commitment to a deal clearly lacking, the situation is not helped by US president Donald Trump. He can’t quite seem to decide who he will ultimately blame if his efforts to agree a ceasefire fall apart.
Before the strikes on Kyiv, Trumpblamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for holding up a deal by refusing to recognise Crimea as Russian. The following day, he chidedVladimir Putin for the attacks, calling them “not necessary, and very bad timing” and imploring Putin to stop.
The main stumbling bloc on the path to a ceasefire is what a final peace agreement might look like and what concessions Kyiv – and its European allies – will accept. Ukraine’s and Europe’s position on this is unequivocal: no recognition of the illegal Russian annexation.
This position is also backed by opinion polls in Ukraine, which indicate only limited support for some, temporary concessions to Russia. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, also suggested that temporarily giving up territory “can be a solution”.
The deal that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff apparently negotiated over three rounds of talks in Russia was roundly rejected by Ukraine and Britain, France and Germany, who lead the “coalition of the willing” of countries pledging support for Ukraine.
This prompted Witkoff and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to pull out of follow-up talks in London on April 24. These ended with a fairly vacuous statement about a commitment to continuing “close coordination and … further talks soon”.
And even this now appears as quite a stretch. Coinciding with Witkoff’s fourth trip to see Putin on April 25, European and Ukrainian counterproposals were released that reject most of the terms offered by Trump or at least defer their negotiation until after a ceasefire is in place.
Why is it failing?
The impasse is unsurprising. Washington’s proposal included a US commitment to recognize Crimea as Russian, a promise that Ukraine would not join Nato and accept Moscow’s control of the territories in eastern Ukraine that it currently illegally occupies. It also included lifting all sanctions against Russia.
In other words, Ukraine would give up large parts of territory and receive no security guarantees, while Russia is rewarded with reintegration into the global economy.
It is the territorial concessions asked of Kyiv which are especially problematic. Quite apart from the fact that they are in fundamental breach of basic principles of international law – the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states – they are unlikely to provide solid foundations for a durable peace.
Much like the idea of Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, to divide Ukraine like post-1945 Berlin, it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what, and who, drives this war.
Both proposals accept the permanent loss to Ukraine of territory that Russia currently controls. Where they differ is that Kellogg wants to introduce a European-led reassurance force west of the river Dnipro, while leaving the defence of remaining Ukrainian-controlled territory to Kyiv’s armed forces.
If accepted by Russia – unlikely as this is given Russia’s repeated and unequivocal rejection of European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine – it would provide at best a minimal security guarantee for a part of Ukrainian territory.
What it would almost inevitably mean, however, is a repeat of the permanent ceasefire violations along the disengagement zone in eastern Ukraine where Russian and Ukrainian forces would continue to face each other.
This is what happened after the ill-fated Minsk accords of 2014 and 2015, which were meant to settle the conflict after Russia’s invasion of Donbas in 2014. A further Russian invasion could be just around the corner once the Kremlin felt that it had sufficiently recovered from the current war.
The lack of a credible deterrent is one key difference between the situation in Ukraine as envisaged by Washington and other historical and contemporary parallels, including Korea and Cyprus.
Korea was partitioned in 1945 and has been protected by a large US military presence since the Korean war in 1953. After the Turkish invasion of 1974, Cyprus was divided between Greek and Turkish Cypriots along a partition line secured by an armed UN peacekeeping mission.
Trump has ruled out any US troop commitment as part of securing a ceasefire in Ukraine. And the idea of a UN force in Ukraine, briefly floated during the presidency of Petro Poroshenko between 2014 and 2019, never got any traction, and is not likely to be accepted by Putin now.
The assumed parallels with the situation in Germany after the second world war are even more tenuous. Not only did Nazi Germany unconditionally surrender in May 1945 but its division into allied zones of occupation was formally and unanimously agreed by the victorious allies in Potsdam in August 1945.
Muddling up Potsdam and Munich?
By the time two separate German states of East and West Germany were established in 1949, the western allies had fallen out with Stalin but remained firmly united in Nato and western Europe. So the west German state was firmly protected under the US nuclear umbrella.
The agreements made in Potsdam didn’t have the same implication of permanence as the US suggestion to formally recognise Crimea as Russian territory. The suggestion was always that the allied forces would pull out of Germany at some stage, and restore the country’s sovereignty.
Most importantly, the allies did not reward the aggressor in the war or create the conditions for merely a brief interruption for an aggressor’s revisionist agenda.
After all, what has driven Putin’s war against Ukraine is his conviction that “the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”.
The Trump administration deludes itself that it is applying the lessons of Potsdam by recognizing Russia’s territorial conquests in Ukraine and handing them over. Instead it is falling into the trap of the 1938 Munich Agreement. Negotiators in Munich tried, but failed, to avoid the second world war by appeasing and not deterring an insatiable aggressor – a historical lesson that doesn’t need repeating.
During a segment on MSNBC on Saturday morning about what the Democratic party needs to do to get back on track with voters, a former GOP House member suggested Donald Trump is giving them a helping hand.
Speaking with the hosts of "The Weekend," ex-Rep Joe Walsh (R-IL) took the side of newly-elected DNC Vice Chair David Hogg who wants to oust some longtime House Democrats with younger candidates in safe districts to shake-up the party.
"That's all inside baseball," Walsh, a harsh Donald Trump critic admitted before adding, "Look, I'm not a Democrat. The Democratic party brand is in the toilet; they need to be shaken up, they need to fight I want to see the Democratic party fight."
"I want to see new blood," he continued. "Some of this old blood needs to go retire. This is good for the Democratic party. I think what David Hogg is proposing is going to change the change the subject, as it should."
As the segment began to close, he offered a warning to Republicans.
"Look, just one quick final thought," he stated. "Because of the madness and the chaos and the disaster that is Trump, Democrats are going to be competitive in districts and states this year, next year that we can't even imagine right now."
"So doggone it, field candidates, get active, spend money everywhere," he suggested.
