Spencer Pratt, former reality TV star turned Republican Los Angeles mayoral candidate, confirmed that he lost millions — and shared his reason why, TMZ reported on Tuesday.
Pratt was a guest on the "No Jumper" podcast on Monday when he defended his goals to be famous and how he lost $10 million in his 20s, at the height of his reality television career. The former star of "The Hills" and MAGA-friendly candidate has challenged incumbent Mayor Karen Bass for the top city job, arguing that Bass has misused taxpayer funding and describing what led him to lose part of his own fortune amid criticism over his spending, according to TMZ.
"I had great dinners, I treated a lot of friends," Pratt said.
"I was supporting people, I was funding rappers, MMA fighters, I had so many people I was taking care of with that money," he said. "You go ask them right now — [I was] buying my friends' suits so they could go be real estate agents. I was a very good person to be friends with, with that money. I'll run it back right now, this is what's going to stop me from being mayor, those decisions? I would have done all those decisions again."
He said if it doesn't work out on Election Day, he would go back to his old business — Pratt Daddy.
"And if I don't get elected, I'm going to go back to selling healing crystals and being with my family... I'll just be eating my tacos at Don Antonio's," he added.
Spencer Pratt defends blowing through $10 million years before his L.A. mayoral run.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz found himself on the other side of the tough questions Tuesday, fielding a pointed inquiry about President Donald Trump's unusually frequent medical exams during his turn at the White House briefing podium.
Daily Mail reporter Elina Shirazi didn't let Oz — filling in for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is on maternity leave — off the hook.
"This is the fourth checkup that the president has had," Shirazi said. "He's supposed to have one a year. He's had several CT heart scans. What are the doctors looking for?"
Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon by training, brushed off the concern. "I think it's just a routine regular exam," he said, pivoting to praise for the president's vitals. "His cholesterol, his blood pressure, all the numbers are certainly in excellent parameters."
"That amount of energy and that amount of mental acuity does not exist in a vacuum," Oz continued. "The president has unique abilities to just keep going at all hours of the day with remarkable strength."
Last summer, Trump was also diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition in which veins struggle to return blood to the heart, causing visible swelling in his legs. The White House insisted there were no serious complications.
After his May visit, Trump declared on social media that "Everything checked out PERFECTLY." His doctor recommended that he lose weight and exercise more.
President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday to triumphantly announce that the White House Correspondents' Dinner will get a do-over.
"In a sign of Strength and Fortitude, it was just announced that The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which violently ended rather abruptly on April 25th, will be rescheduled to July 24th," Trump wrote. "This announcement is a very good thing in that we cannot allow Lunatics to change our way of life, or even its scheduling."
"I was asked to be there, and speak, by Weijia Jiang, President of The White House Correspondents’ Association, and have accepted," Trump continued, adding, "I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out. In any event, it will be a 'HOT' ticket! Interestingly, the location will be The Waldorf Astoria, on Pennsylvania Avenue, a Building and Ballroom that I built."
The shooting that shut down the previous dinner earlier this year left much of the press badly shaken. The alleged gunman was found to have a manifesto listing Trump administration targets.
President Donald Trump has built his political brand on defying limits, but a series of high-profile reversals in recent days suggests that even he cannot indefinitely outrun the consequences of his most outlandish gambits.
The Trump administration signaled Monday that it plans to abandon its $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization fund" following an adverse court ruling — a significant retreat on an initiative that had already sparked a revolt among Republican congressional leaders, and he beat a retreat on renaming the Kennedy Center after himself, reported CNN's Aaron Blake.
"In both situations, it remains up in the air precisely how much Trump has capitulated," Blake wrote. "But he’s at least telegraphing retreat. Both ideas were wild to begin with — and now the president appears to be dealing with the consequences."
On the so-called slush fund, Senate Majority Leader John Thune had called on the administration to "shut it down themselves," while other GOP senators demanded the White House explicitly rule out reviving the fund in the future.
The fund, created as part of a settlement resolving Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, was intended to compensate allies who claimed they were victimized by the Biden-era Justice Department. Critics — including a federal judge — questioned whether the two sides of the settlement were colluding, and the fund drew outrage when the administration acknowledged it could benefit Jan. 6 defendants who assaulted police officers.
That announcement followed Trump's Friday retreat on the Kennedy Center, where he said he would transfer control back to Congress after a judge ruled that plastering his name on a building memorializing a dead president was illegal. Trump had previously purged the center's board to install loyalists before the renaming — a move that a court found violated federal law.
The two reversals fit a pattern. Earlier this year, Trump abandoned his push to seize Greenland amid bipartisan opposition, and his plan to fund a lavish White House ballroom with taxpayer money was stripped from a spending bill after Republican panic over the optics.
"In all of these cases, Trump was asking the courts and/or Republicans to sign off on what seemed to be impossible requests," Blake wrote. "He was asking them to stomach something drastic because he’s Trump, and they’re supposed to do what he wants."
"But when his wild gambits push the envelope too far — and increasingly seem to jeopardize the GOP’s chances in November — they reinforce that Trump isn’t the unrestrained leader of his political movement that he’d like to be," Blake added.
Trump, for his part, shows no sign of moderating his ambitions — his appointment Tuesday of a controversial housing official as acting director of national intelligence suggested the envelope-pushing is far from over.
Donald Trump’s attempt to insert Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHA) Director Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Tuesday could run into a legal roadblock according to MS NJOW’s Ken Dilanian, with Republican lawmakers also questioning whether he should hold the job.
According to a report from the New York Times, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), James Lankford (R-OK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are questioning his stunning lack of experience in intelligence matters.
As Dilanian pointed out, that lack of experience runs afoul of the law that created the intelligence gathering department after the 9/11 attacks.
Speaking with host Anna Cabrera, he explained, “This is really an incredible development. Bill Pulte is an investment guy, he's a real estate guy. He has not only no intelligence experience, [but] no foreign policy experience. And we should remember there is a provision in the law; this job was created after 9/11, remember, to knit together strands of intelligence and connect the dots and there's a provision in the authorizing legislation that requires that the person holding this job has significant, substantial intelligence experience.”
“When Tulsi Gabbard was nominated for this role, a lot of people believed that she didn't fit the bill, but at least she had been a military officer and a member of Congress,” he recalled.
“I don't even know if Bill Pulte has a security clearance right now. And this role, this job, this person gets access to some of the most sensitive intelligence that the U.S. government collects. The biggest secrets, just incredible things, sensitive compartmented programs, need-to-know things that only a handful of people in the government know — and now Bill Pulte will know them.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio erupted at a Senate hearing Tuesday after Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) accused him of attending a party with President Donald Trump in Miami instead of joining high-stakes Iran peace negotiations in Pakistan — an exchange that quickly devolved into one of the most combustible moments of his first congressional testimony since the Iran war began.
"This is why I was shocked to see that you were at a party with President Trump in Miami instead of accompanying Vice President Vance to Pakistan for negotiations," the Nevada Democrat told Rubio before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Rubio cut her off immediately.
"What party was I at?" he fired back. "I was at a party? That's an absurd statement. I was not at a party."
Rosen pressed on, arguing that Rubio had left unconfirmed civilians — Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff — to handle negotiations that Rubio himself was confirmed to lead.
"It's just unthinkable to me that you are missing high-stakes negotiations," she said. "It's sad."
That set Rubio off.
"You people are going to slander me," he snapped, before delivering a lengthy rebuttal insisting he was "co-located with the president" to relay real-time intelligence to the negotiating team in Islamabad. He said he spoke to Witkoff and Kushner at least six times that evening, twice on a secure line.
What Rosen called a "party" was, in fact, UFC 327 at Miami's Kaseya Center on April 11 — where Trump and Rubio sat ringside as the Pakistan talks collapsed after 21 hours without a deal. House Democrats called it "amateur hour."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio got in a heated exchange with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday.
Rubio was testifying for the first time since the United States launched the Iran war and Booker raised questions about the Ebola crisis and the military operation. Booker told Rubio he was concerned the U.S. had rolled back its investment in eradicating diseases in Africa, and expressed doubt that the Iran war was over, despite the Trump administration's claims that it was.
"With the crisis of Ebola, we seethe challenges have been broughtabout as a result of oursurveillance, early detection,and the like.I'm concerned about what theadministration's strategy is," Booker said. "We are clearly seeing that whatgoes on on the continent of Africa directly affects ourpublic health as well."
But Rubio did not see eye to eye with Booker.
"I don't agree withthe assessment," Rubio said. "It's not about cutting back.The response is that how muchmoney you spent it's the resultsyou will get.Ebola, the outbreak was in awar-torn, isolated, rural areain the DRC.Since then, our response hasbeen very rapid."
Booker pushed back.
"You did not cutearly detection?" Booker asked.
"That's not thereason there was Ebola," Rubio said.
Booker cut him off as the conversation intensified.
"I'm not trying toget in an argument.I would like to have myquestions answered," Booker said. "We cut early detection when itcomes to infectious diseases onthe continent, factually. This is not an opinion.We cut early warning systems onthe continent."
Rubio continued to argue with Booker and interjected the senator, saying "It had nothing to dowith the Ebola outbreak."
"I don't need totell you, we are living in aplace where an infectiousdisease crisis anywhere is athreat everywhere," Booker said, adding that he worried further budget cuts would complicate future outbreaks. "The United States made majorreductions in these areasputting us more at risk.If you're talking about the Ebola crisis, other cuts we havemade, you see it factually.Even our own State Departmentpersonnel I've talked to aresaying we are less prepared fora global outbreak than we werebefore."
Rubio denied Booker's comments.
"I don't agree withthat assessment," Rubio said. "I don't know who told you thatat the State Department."
"You can't evenagree on the facts.It is not accurate that we cutearly detection?" Booker asked, pressing Rubio to respond.
"Those have beenrepurposed," Rubio said. "The different arrangements withthe countries are an example."
But Booker wasn't convinced.
"If you're tellingme that we are as or moreprepared before the Trumpadministration came in, I wouldlike to see the facts," Booker said.
"I think when thereforms are finalized we will bebetter prepared.We are responding faster notjust humanitarian crises butfaster than before," Rubio said.
Booker then moved on to discuss the Strait of Hormuz blockade.
"The conclusion I have is the Strait of Hormuz was openedbefore this unjustified war," Booker said. "We are now scrambling to find away to get it back open again."
Booker argued the U.S. was now in a "worse situation,an adversary and our enemy iscausing havoc in the region,funding proxies and terrorists,has discovered, thanks to youall, the power of shutting downthe Strait of Hormuz." He said Iran was now in a better position, while America was worse off.
"It made our adversary have astronger negotiating position," Booker said. "We are the strongest on earthand we are in a stalemate with Iran.We are begging to get back intoa deal that you trashed in thefirst place."
"There is no onebegging," Rubio maintained.
Rubio argued that the war was over — and Booker pushed back, saying that although Trump says it has ended, it hasn't.
"You keep saying howwe are winning the war," Booker said.
"The war is over now," Rubio said.
"The war is notover.The American people see how weare losing at the pump and withcosts.Yet this thing has not beenresolved," Booker said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio faced a blistering broadside Tuesday from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the FY27 State Department budget — a session that quickly turned into a referendum on the Trump administration's foreign policy record.
He also zeroed in on Trump's comments about gas prices.
"He called high gas prices 'peanuts' and said, 'I don't think about Americans' financial situation,'" Van Hollen said at the hearing. Trump made those remarks on May 19, as national inflation hit 3.8% — a three-year high.
Rubio pushed back but conceded little. When Van Hollen pressed him on whether the administration had found new evidence to justify reinstating Cuba's state sponsor of terrorism designation, Rubio replied: "Why would I need new evidence?"
"Because you're claiming they're a state sponsor of terrorism, suggesting they're ongoingly involved in that," Van Hollen fired back.
The two also sparred over media reports that the U.S. is working with Israel to strip Jordan of its custodianship over the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex. Rubio said he'd never heard the claim discussed. "Is it a credible website?" he asked. Van Hollen said he was glad to provide it.
It was not the first time the two had clashed. Last year, Van Hollen told Rubio to his face that he regretted voting to confirm him. Rubio's response: "Your regret for voting for me confirms I'm doing a good job."
President Donald Trump has stayed out of the public eye for the second day after negotiations with Iran were suspended, according to reports on Tuesday.
Trump was reportedly furious during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel's escalating military campaign in Lebanon, a condition that Iran cited as a reason to halt talks over a ceasefire with the United States. And after the derailed negotiations on Monday, Trump has stayed "out of sight," David Gardner, The Daily Beast's D.C. Bureau Chief, wrote in a post for The Swamp, The Daily Beast's Substack.
"The episode is called ‘Don’t Mention the War,’ and The Swamp suspects that is the very sentiment at the White House today after the president’s comically contradictory comments about his Iran War on Monday," Gardner wrote.
"One moment he was promising a solution and insisting all would be well, then he was saying he didn’t really care, and the Iranians made all his remarks moot by pulling out of the peace talks, anyway, which confirmed the one thing we did understand about the impasse—it’s a bloody mess," Gardner wrote.
There could be a reason Trump hasn't had a public engagement the last two days, Gardner explained.
"No wonder Donald Trump is keeping his head down for the second day running at the White House today … presumably so nobody can ask him about the war," Gardner wrote.
As developments with Iran have stalled, Trump has shifted his attention to his administration.
"In the meantime, Trump has clearly been trying to amuse himself by mixing and matching the most ridiculous jobs. On Tuesday, he made his attack dog housing guy, Bill Pulte, the acting Director of National Intelligence," Gardner added.
As the former Oklahoma senator attempts to clean up the mess left by the fired Kristi Noem, he has proposed interfering with air traffic to sanctuary cities, an idea that critics on both sides of the aisle are calling a non-starter.
Writing for MS NOW, Jason Houser, who was chief of staff from 2021 to 2023 after previously serving as a counterterrorism official for Customs & Border Protection (CBP), also piled on while accusing Mullin of "chasing headlines."
"Recent threats by DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to halt or limit federal processing operations at airports in so-called 'sanctuary cities' should concern all Americans regardless of their views on immigration," Houser wrote. "Airports are not political bargaining chips. They are among the country's most vital security and economic assets, connecting businesses to global markets and supporting national security."
Houser warned that disrupting airport operations would have far-reaching consequences beyond immigration policy, potentially wreaking havoc on supply chains and international commerce while undermining port security at a time when criminal organizations actively exploit transportation networks.
The critique cuts to the heart of what Houser characterizes as the difference between actual governance and political theater. "Effective enforcement produces measurable results. Political signaling produces headlines," he wrote.
In his opinion piece, Houser also posed the hypothetical: Would conservatives accept a future Democratic president slowing federal airport operations in Republican-led states to pressure governors over climate, abortion, or gun policies?
"Of course not," he answered, before turning the argument back on Mullin's proposal. "Threatening airport operations creates a headline. It generates conflict. It places local officials on the defensive. But it does not increase immigration court capacity. It does not modernize asylum processing. It does not strengthen legal pathways."
Instead, Houser argued, the DHS should focus on genuine solutions to long-standing immigration challenges that have frustrated administrations of both parties for decades, writing, "The federal government should enforce the law, secure the border, facilitate lawful trade, protect our communities and migrants, facilitate safe and secure travel and protect the integrity of our transportation network. Those are difficult enough tasks on their own. We should not make them harder by turning airports into the latest front in America’s immigration wars."
The Trump administration is pressing ahead with a legal agreement that permanently shields President Donald Trump, his family members, and his businesses from any IRS probes predating the deal — even as the controversial $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" that emerged from the same settlement has been effectively killed off, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Under the deal, the IRS is "forever barred" from pursuing any claims related to Trump's tax filings that predated the settlement, according to Bloomberg. A person familiar with the matter told the outlet that the decision to shelve the fund does not affect the audit immunity provision.
The fund — created last month as part of a settlement of Trump's lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns — drew immediate bipartisan fire. Critics labeled it a taxpayer-funded "slush fund" that could enrich Jan. 6 defendants who received presidential pardons.
Two police officers who defended the Capitol during the riot sued to block the fund, calling it a vehicle "to finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name." U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema temporarily halted the fund on May 29, barring the administration from transferring money or considering claims.
By Monday, an administration source told Axios bluntly: "It's dead for now."
Senate Democrats piled on, with Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) introducing legislation dubbed the Drain the Slush Fund Act. Schiff called it "one of the most brazenly corrupt schemes we've ever seen from a U.S. president."
The Justice Department said it "disagrees strongly" with the court's ruling but would comply. The White House referred questions to Trump's personal legal team, which did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment.
President Donald Trump has spent multiple nights this week “posting angry screeds” on social media, and while not uncommon for the commander-in-chief, its increased frequency set off alarm bells for one former Trump administration official and security expert.
“I want to talk about a SINGLE WEEK. This past week,” wrote former Homeland Security senior official Miles Taylor in an analysis published on his Substack Tuesday. “If y’all didn’t sense it, something shifted these past few days, and you can measure it by the headlines.”
On Sunday, Trump attacked several of his political adversaries on social media in a late-night posting spree. He launched similar attacks on social media again the next night. And the reason, Taylor argued, was the president’s unprecedented wave of setbacks he encountered over the previous seven days, setbacks that have sent the president “spiraling.”
“Six different fronts in the anti-corruption fight in one week,” Taylor wrote.
“A slush fund paused… a president’s name ordered off a national landmark… a lifeline thrown to purged FBI agents… a thousand voices on the record against a Trump gag order… a federal agent in handcuffs for Trump’s unconstitutional crackdown… and a detention camp on the brink of closure.”
Trump has taken a series of unprecedented “losses” in recent days, and from his “own friends and allies.” With the primary election season largely finished – and the threat of facing a Trump-backed challenger mostly gone – GOP lawmakers are “suddenly finding it advantageous to oppose” the president, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday.
“This is why Trump is staying up late [at] night and having social-media meltdowns. He sees what’s happening, and he can’t believe that an all-powerful, would-be king is being thwarted like this,” Taylor wrote.
“It’s possible that many of Trump’s henchmen don’t see it yet, as they’re incentivized to give the boss ‘good news.’ So they’ll pretend the tide is still with them. But on this Tuesday morning, I can confidently say: ‘It isn’t.’ And if they keep looking the other way, sooner or later they’re going to be washed out to sea.”
Second lady Usha Vance was speaking out this week about how Supreme Court justices deserve "respect" as President Donald Trump has continued lashing out at the high court.
In an interview with ABC on Monday night, Vance told anchor Linsey Davis her thoughts about the Supreme Court justices amid the onslaught of Trump assaults, "sparking concerns about a potential constitutional crisis," The Daily Beast reported.
Vance, who is married to Vice President JD Vance, previously clerked for Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, according to The Beast.
"I have a lot of respect for the justices," Vance said. "I think that they have a hard and challenging job being in the public eye, just like a lot of other people in Congress, in the media, in the executive branch. So I do want people to treat them with respect."
"I think that there has been a lot of personalization of feelings towards judges and the courts across the country that probably didn’t exist, you know, 150 years ago when they were less in the public eye," Vance said.
And although she did not say his name, she appeared to allude to Trump's berating of the justices.
"So I’m hopeful that people will continue to treat them with a sense of humanity and, you know, without the kind of anger that’s led to some attacks on judges," Vance said.
Roberts has signaled his concerns about Trump's personal attacks on justices, including the president's frustration with the high court after it struck down his tariff policy in February. At the time, Trump called the justices "disloyal," "unpatriotic," and "fools," The Beast reported.
Trump has specifically targeted Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett with his outrage. He appointed both conservative justices and has expressed frustration that they have gone against his wishes in major court decisions, according to The Beast.
