Daniel Hampton

Patrick Dempsey has an answer for the people floating his name as an emergency U.S. Senate candidate in Maine: thanks, but no thanks.

The former "Grey's Anatomy" star, a Lewiston native who runs the cancer-focused Dempsey Center, surfaced this week as a possible wild-card contender as Maine Democrats scrambled over the fate of their nominee, Graham Platner. In an op-ed published Wednesday in the Portland Press Herald, Dempsey confirmed he had been asked more than once whether he would run and said he gave it real thought before deciding against it.

He wrote that he concluded he could do more through his nonprofit and the life he has already built, and used the piece to call for leaders who listen, tell the truth, and treat public office as a privilege rather than a career path.

"As I reflected on all of this, I kept coming back to one question: Do I truly want to serve in Congress? After a lot of thought, I realized the answer is no. Not because public service isn’t honorable — it absolutely is. But because I believe I can contribute more effectively through the life I’ve already built," wrote Dempsey.

The opening exists because Platner, who won June's Democratic primary, was accused of sexual assault in a Politico report this week. A former girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, alleged he forced her to have sex over her objections in 2021. Platner has denied the allegation as "categorically false" and called it a coordinated political smear.

The report set off a stampede of Democrats, from Chuck Schumer to Bernie Sanders, urging Platner to step aside so the party could field a stronger challenger to Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Under Maine law, Platner must withdraw by July 13 for Democrats to name a replacement by July 27.

MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace opened her show Wednesday by rattling off what President Donald Trump had just told the world — the Iran ceasefire is over, all trade with Spain is cut off, and, in her recounting, "Japan is now apparently an Islamic republic."

She was reacting to Trump's rounds of news conferences at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, where the president mixed up Iran and Japan, claiming "111 missiles" had been fired at a U.S. aircraft carrier by the "Islamic Republic of Japan." Moments earlier, seated beside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump had gestured to him and asked reporters if they had a question for "President Putin." He also called TikTok "tic tac," branded Iran's leaders "scum," and declared the ceasefire over.

Wallace was briefly left speechless as she played the clip, then unloaded with a withering verdict dripping in sarcasm.

" Marco Rubio is going to have to start standing next to him and translating. But unsurprisingly, Donald Trump's incomprehensible, unhinged, embarrassing, uninformed, me, me, me display there in his approach to geopolitics has had an effect. It appears to have finally exasperated and exhausted European leaders' patience," she said.

Her guests went further.

Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said such moments would once have been treated as international crises but now draw a shrug. Atlantic staff writer Tom Nichols, a professor emeritus at the Naval War College, offered the bleakest read.

"It's almost like we have a relative in the room, and there's something deeply wrong with him, and we've all agreed to not talk about it," Nichols said. "But there is something deeply wrong with him. His friends know it. His critics know it. His staff, I'm sure, knows it. The world knows it. World leaders know it. And most importantly, our enemies know it, which is why they don't take him seriously."

Nichols argued the real danger wasn't the viral gaffes, but that Trump made claims about an active war no one could parse. Wallace tied it to a broader shift, citing New York Times reporting that European leaders have decided to stop humoring the president and push back.

Sen. Mitch McConnell's hometown newspaper has a bone to pick with his wife, but not about the swirling rumors around his health.

In a Louisville Courier Journal column, opinion writer Joseph Gerth said he doesn't much care about the specifics of McConnell's condition, arguing the public doesn't need detailed health updates on one of 100 senators the way it would for a president. What he does want to know, however, is why Elaine Chao didn't come home.

"Are you kidding me?" Gerth wrote, after recounting that paramedics performed CPR on an unconscious person at McConnell's Washington home the morning he was hospitalized on June 14. Chao, he noted, was in China, where she met Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on June 17.

McConnell, 84, has not been seen publicly in more than three weeks, and his office has never confirmed why he was admitted, though dispatch audio referenced a cardiac arrest. Chao's travel has drawn pointed criticism across the spectrum, and in a Tuesday statement — her first since the hospitalization — a spokesperson said she was on "a long-planned trip" supporting "her family's philanthropic endeavors" and that "the Senator's health did not warrant an immediate return to the U.S."

Chao departed June 12, two days before he was hospitalized, and was in Shanghai when the emergency happened. Fact-checkers have knocked down a viral claim that she flew over after his cardiac arrest, while former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene floated a baseless claim that she is a Chinese spy.

Chao returned to the U.S. on July 7. McConnell's prognosis remains undisclosed.

A new poll finds Justice Amy Coney Barrett has become the least-liked member of the Supreme Court, and a Vox analysis on Wednesday argued the reason should unsettle anyone watching whom President Donald Trump picks next.

Barrett, Trump's third appointee, now carries the worst net favorability of any of the nine justices, according to an Economist/YouGov survey, sitting barely above water even within her own party. Overall approval of the court is 36 percent, with 80 percent of Democrats disapproving.

Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser traces the erosion of Republican support to two late-June rulings in which Barrett broke with Trump. She wrote the 5-4 majority opinion in the Mississippi mail-ballot case rejecting the RNC's bid to toss late-arriving ballots, and joined the majority upholding birthright citizenship against Trump's effort to end it.

The right was sent into a frenzy, with firebrand Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) calling for Barrett to be "removed from the Bench." Right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh branded her a "DEI hire," and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly called her a "turncoat."

CNN reported last year that Trump himself had privately complained that she is "weak."

Millhiser argued Barrett is hardly a moderate — she joined the decision overturning Roe — but that her occasional breaks involve questions the White House never screened for when it vetted her in 2020. The ominous part, he wrote, is what comes next.

"That’s one reason to keep an eye on the MAGA backlash against Barrett. Future Republican White Houses are more likely to vet any judicial nominee very closely to make sure that they will vote to abolish birthright citizenship, regardless of what the Constitution says," he warned.

Anchor Katy Tur and an MS NOW panel spent Wednesday poking holes in President Donald Trump's explanation for his abrupt Qatari jet switcheroo.

After flying the Qatari-gifted jet to the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump announced he'd take the old Air Force One home instead.

Trump had hyped the roughly $400 million jet Qatar gave the U.S. for weeks, only to post on Truth Social that the plane would peel off to a base in England so American troops could tour it. Pressed on why he wasn't flying it home, he didn't answer. Trump sidestepped questions on whether the change stemmed from security fears tied to Iran, instead talking up how dangerous the presidency is and repeating that he tops Iran's kill list.

The MS NOW panel was skeptical of the explanation.

A baffled Tur exclaimed, "What?" after rolling a clip of Trump's fumbling explanation. "He's sending his much ballyhooed jet, the one that the American taxpayer spent at least another $400 million on to retrofit, maybe more, on a solo trip so troops in the U.K. can get a look? Does anyone buy that? Or is there something more to what that Post reporter was asking just then? Something about the security of that plane?"

Former CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta said a maintenance problem made little sense for a brand-new plane.

"This is a cover story of some kind," he said, arguing the move was meant to protect the president's security so close to Iran.

New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker agreed the answer wasn't persuasive, noting the rapidly retrofitted jet may lack the missile and electromagnetic-pulse protections a standard Air Force One carries.

MS NOW spent Wednesday picking apart a freewheeling news conference by President Donald Trump, as anchor Alicia Menendez pressed her guests on what to make of his closing remarks at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.

Menendez struggled to parse through Trump's remarks, telling panelists, "I'm going to try to work us through the weave and the side quests that we just heard from that president."

The anchor noted to NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard that Trump praised Turkish President Recep Erdogan for running a great company, before quickly correcting himself.

"What did you take away from that press conference?" she asked.

Hillyard didn't hold back.

"I think we can objectively say that the incoherence in messaging and incoherence in strategy from the president of the United States continues to imperil not only the region but the United States and the global economy," he said.

He pointed to the whiplash on Iran's enriched uranium, with Trump insisting one moment that the stockpile sits buried too deep to reach, then suggesting the U.S. would take it eventually anyway. By then Trump had already declared the ceasefire over, disparaged Iran's leaders, floated seizing the oil hub of Kharg Island, and threatened fresh strikes within hours.

National security analyst David Rohde flagged a different contradiction. Trump opened by marveling at the affection in the room among NATO leaders, a day after he lashed out at European allies, which Rohde cast as evidence that foreign governments have learned to steer the president with flattery.

Rohde also questioned the war's logic. If the uranium is entombed and unreachable, he asked, "then why did he launch this war?" He called it Trump's familiar "bob and weave," even as Rohde noted that a dozen Americans have died and the Strait of Hormuz stays closed to shipping.

Trump also repeated his claim that he tops Iran's assassination list, and left reporters guessing why he was routing his Qatari-gifted jet to England rather than flying it home.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was pressed Wednesday on whether staying silent beside President Donald Trump costs him his self-respect, at the closing news conference of the alliance's summit in Ankara, Turkey.

A reporter noted that Rutte sits next to Trump as the president muses about taking Greenland, lashes out at allies like Spain and threatens trade wars — positions the questioner said the "old Mark Rutte" would not have endorsed.

"You sit next to Donald Trump in moments where he talks about conquering Greenland, talks about lashing out at allies like Spain, starting trade wars, things that it doesn't seem like the old Mark Rutte would approve of. Does this have any effect on your self-respect when you sit next to him and say nothing?" the reporter asked, pointedly.

Rutte did not answer the question directly. "What I always do is acknowledge when praise is due," he replied. "And I think we should praise Donald Trump for the fact that NATO is so much stronger."

The exchange capped a summit Trump repeatedly upended. Seated beside Rutte earlier, Trump called Spain "a terrible partner in NATO" and demanded the U.S. "cut off all trade" with the country. He again insisted Washington should control Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory, and declared the fragile ceasefire with Iran "over."

Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, has built a reputation for flattering Trump to keep Washington anchored to the alliance. At last year's summit he likened the president to a "daddy," and last month he unveiled a gold-lettered "Trump Trillion" chart in the Oval Office crediting Trump for higher European defense spending, an approach that earned him the label "Trump whisperer."

After the meeting, Rutte brushed past the friction, telling reporters the alliance felt "more together than ever" and that there was "complete commitment of the United States to NATO." Denmark and Greenland have said their sovereignty is "not negotiable."

A 37-story tower under construction near Grand Central Terminal was at risk of collapse Tuesday morning, triggering a frantic emergency response and mass evacuations during the Midtown rush.

Firefighters said they got a call just before 8 a.m. about bricks falling from 235 East 42nd Street, the former global headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, now being converted into apartments in what officials have called the largest office-to-apartment conversion in city history.

Construction workers on the 21st floor spotted two structural support columns beginning to buckle and self-evacuated, according to the NYPD. Inspectors found the columns had buckled and that floors between the 21st and 26th were sagging, the Fire Department said. Some reports described several floors as having caved in.

There were no injuries, and all workers were accounted for. Out of caution, officials cleared the building and a widening ring of neighboring properties, including the Hampton Inn Manhattan Grand Central, and shut East 42nd Street between Second and Third avenues, snarling traffic and detouring buses in one of the city's busiest corridors.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged people nearby to follow first responders' instructions, noting that beyond the evacuated buildings, "a school with about 400 children has also been evacuated."

The FDNY deployed 21 units and 79 personnel, and Department of Buildings structural engineers were on the scene. The agency said a steel beam had been compromised on the 21st floor. The site holds an active construction permit, and the NYPD and Buildings Department said their investigations were ongoing.

The redevelopment, which began in 2024, is slated to bring roughly 1,600 apartments, including more than 400 affordable units, to the block.

Video circulating online showing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan clutching President Donald Trump's arm to guide him during their Tuesday meeting in Ankara is drawing mockery and reviving questions about who is steering whom.

The clip, flagged by independent journalist Aaron Rupar, showed Erdogan clutching "a wandering Trump's arm to guide him around" as the two leaders moved across the tarmac at the NATO summit hosted by Turkey.

The footage landed with particular sting given what Trump had just said about his host. Sitting beside Erdogan, Trump lavished praise on the Turkish leader as a paragon of strength, telling reporters that "sometimes you get along with the toughest people like him, and sometimes you don't get along with the weakest, most pathetic people."

"You just don't get along," Trump added. "Maybe you don't respect them."

The Turkish strongman Trump had just saluted as one of the toughest people alive was, moments later, physically maneuvering him across the tarmac, leading onlookers to mock the image.

"Trump’s dementia is out of control," X user Mykhaïlo Golub wrote to his 56,000 followers.

"Today in 'if this was Biden,'" wrote fellow X user shayne571.

The optics fed directly into a debate that has shadowed Trump's second term. In April, 36 physicians from Harvard, Tufts, Columbia and George Washington University filed a statement into the Congressional Record warning of the 80-year-old president's "rapidly worsening, reality-untethered, increasingly dangerous decline" and calling him "mentally unfit" to serve.

An April Economist/YouGov poll found 48 percent of Americans believe Trump is suffering modest or significant cognitive decline.

Trump's warm words for Erdogan fit a long-running pattern of admiration for authoritarian leaders. Erdogan has ruled Turkey since 2003, first as prime minister and, since 2014, as president. The Associated Press reported that opposition parties and human rights groups accuse him of undermining democracy and curbing freedom of expression, citing prosecutions of journalists, activists and opposition politicians.

Trump is the first sitting U.S. president to visit Turkey since Barack Obama in 2015.

President Donald Trump has revived one of the oldest attacks in the Republican playbook, branding Democrats as communists, and one columnist argued Tuesday the Cold War-era tactic may backfire.

"It was only a matter of time before Donald Trump went full Joe McCarthy," Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton wrote.

In his July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore, Trump warned that communism had resurged as a menace in the country and told the crowd, "You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot," insisting the two cannot coexist. He named no one, but the rhetoric followed a run of primary wins by democratic socialists, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and insurgents in Colorado.

Trump has leaned on the label for weeks, ranting against so-called communists after Mamdani-backed candidates swept New York primaries and calling the movement the biggest threat to the country since its founding. One historian dismissed the Rushmore address as "Joe McCarthy red scare idiocy."

Parton traced the tactic to Trump's late mentor Roy Cohn, who sat beside McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings and later handed Trump the same attack-and-deny playbook. She argued the charge has lost its sting, writing that the candidates' agenda is ordinary progressivism, not communism, and that the accusation sounds as dated as the era it came from.

The real fault line among voters, the columnist wrote, is U.S. policy toward Israel. She noted Trump is deeply unpopular with Democrats and independents alike and that his Iran war has unsettled his own coalition.

"I suspect that Trump may have overplayed his hand," she wrote, concluding: "Yelling 'commie' isn’t going to help that. In fact, it’s very likely to make it worse."

Tiffany Haddish turned President Donald Trump's own hype against him Monday night, unloading a pair of gut-punch one-liners about her bat mitzvah and her DUI trial that had a Jimmy Kimmel Live! audience roaring.

Guest-hosting the ABC show, Haddish teed up the bit by reminding viewers that Trump had personally guaranteed his Great American State Fair would be "packed to the brim." The program then cut to news clips of reporters praising heavy attendance while the camera panned across visibly sparse crowds on the National Mall, according to Mediaite.

The montage included a Fox News segment that framed the same sparse scenes as festivities "in full swing" with "thousands of people" on hand, per The Daily Beast. One anchor tried to salvage the spin in real time, telling viewers that "sometimes the pictures really don't tell the full story."

Haddish wasn't buying it.

"I'mma be honest with y'all. There was more people at my bat mitzvah," she joked, before following it with the kicker: "I am going to be real honest with you – there was more people at my DUI trial."

Haddish is due to stand trial next month in Fayette County, Georgia, on charges stemming from a January 2022 arrest in Peachtree City, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The 16-day fair, run by Trump's Freedom 250 organization, has been plagued by more than empty booths. Power outages on opening day disrupted the 110-foot Ferris wheel and melted the ice cream, Forbes reported, and multiple musical acts — including Martina McBride and Poison frontman Bret Michaels — pulled out over the event's partisan tilt.

Trump has bristled at every suggestion the party fizzled. On June 29, he posted on Truth Social, "Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it?"

He later claimed the fair drew 45,000 attendees on a single night, an assertion he offered without evidence.

Haddish also skewered Trump's delayed Fourth of July address, which was pushed back after severe storms forced an evacuation of the Mall. "Trump was forced to delay his Fourth of July speech due to the hot and stormy weather," she said. "In fact, some MAGA fans had to seek shelter in the African-American history museum."

As the applause built, she added: "You're welcome, again."

More than 1,200 former Justice Department employees have signed a letter urging senators to reject Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general, a roster of names so long it fills 59 pages.

The letter, dated Monday and addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and ranking member Dick Durbin (D-IL), was distributed by the DOJ alumni group Justice Connection. The signers, who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, wrote that their oath was to the Constitution, not to whoever occupies the White House.

Trump nominated Blanche, his former personal defense attorney, after firing Attorney General Pam Bondi in April and elevating him from deputy to acting attorney general.

The alumni focused on what they called Blanche's degradation of the department's career workforce. Under his leadership, they wrote, roughly 16,000 employees have left, including FBI agents and more than a quarter of the department's attorneys. They alleged Blanche fired hundreds of employees "for improper, unlawful reasons," diverted agents from terrorism and drug investigations, and drove away skilled applicants.

The signers also pointed to what they described as vindictive prosecutions of the president's foes, the mishandling of the Epstein files, and repeated defiance of judges' orders. Those claims have trailed Blanche's confirmation fight as several Senate Republicans signal resistance.

"The culture of fear Blanche has instilled within DOJ's workforce must end," the letter reads.

The number of signatures floored veteran reporter Scott MacFarlane, who wrote on X: "There are so many signatures… this letter consume[s] 59 pages."

Grassley has called Blanche "well-qualified" and praised his dedication to law and order, and Blanche has said his priority is keeping the country safe.

President Donald Trump has tied his own fortunes to the U.S. men's soccer team and "will surely go down" with them, i Paper political editor James Ball argued in an op-ed Tuesday, hours after Belgium knocked the United States out of the World Cup it is co-hosting.

The US lost 4-1 to Belgium in Seattle on Monday night, a defeat that eliminated the team and left all three host nations, the US, Canada and Mexico, out of the tournament. Belgium's official account trolled the result online with a photo of celebrating players captioned "Overturn this."

That taunt pointed to the controversy shadowing the match. Trump had phoned FIFA president Gianni Infantino days earlier to seek a review of the red-card suspension handed to US striker Folarin Balogun. FIFA then lifted the automatic one-game ban in a reversal that European soccer body UEFA said "crossed a red line," clearing Balogun to play. The US lost anyway.

Ball argued that Trump torched the goodwill the U.S. had built as tournament host and united fans worldwide in rooting against the American side, echoing how he has strained ties with European allies from Italy's Giorgia Meloni to Denmark and drawn anger abroad over the economic fallout of the Iran war. And, Ball wrote, Trump gained nothing for it.

Trump defended the call to reporters at the White House. "I asked for a review because I didn't think it was a foul," he said, insisting he never told FIFA what to do.

Ball said the usually outspoken Trump has suddenly gone quiet after the team's ouster.

"Donald Trump has never had any time for losers. However hard he works to ignore it, though, he cannot escape this one. He tied himself to the fate of the US team, and he will surely go down with them," Ball concluded.

Megyn Kelly used a Monday appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored to unload on Taylor Swift over her star-studded Madison Square Garden wedding, declaring the pop superstar hollow at her core and dismissing her guest list as inflated.

Swift, 36, married Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce on July 3 at Madison Square Garden in a ceremony that drew hundreds of guests, with Adam Sandler officiating and reported performances from Paul McCartney and Stevie Nicks.

Kelly, 55, was unmoved by the fanfare.

"I really think she's empty inside," Kelly told Morgan.

"I think most people who seek fame at a very early age, like in their teens, are chasing after some sort of fullness that wasn't provided by their family of origin for whatever reason, and it never comes," Kelly continued. "It's a lifelong pursuit, because fame and money, adoration from strangers, does not fill that void, only you, God, and your immediate loved ones can."

Swift broke through at 16 with her self-titled debut album. Her parents, brother Austin, and much of the Kelce family were on hand for the ceremony.

Kelly then pivoted to the sheer size of the guest list, which reportedly ran near 1,000 people.

"Who has a thousand-person wedding?" she asked, before questioning how close the couple could really be to guests like Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg. "Really? Those two are super close to Steven Spielberg? Bulls--t. I don't believe that for one second."

Spielberg had personally inducted Swift into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on June 11, praising her as a "singular" artist and phenomenon.

Kelly also refused to accept that Kelce's role opposite Sandler in 2025's Happy Gilmore 2 justified handing the comedian officiant duties.

Morgan offered only mild pushback, likening the roster to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding. Kelly compared Swift's nuptials unfavorably to her own 300-person wedding, saying she had an "intimate connection" with every guest.

It is not the first time Kelly has trained her sights on Swift. She previously erupted on her podcast after Swift endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024, warning: "You can kiss your sales to the Republican audience goodbye, Taylor." Swift's 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl went on to shatter the all-time first-week sales record.

House Republican defense hawks are "deeply skeptical" of the Trump administration's opening terms for a peace deal with Iran, saying Tehran can't be trusted and objecting to a possible $300 billion reconstruction fund for the country, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday.

Republicans left the first all-hands administration briefing on the memorandum of understanding with Iran last week questioning whether Tehran is negotiating in good faith. Several complained the White House has kept Congress in the dark, calling its engagement cursory and vague.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told the outlet: "Iran's got to be begging us for peace, not the other way around. The fact that the president seems so eager to have a peace deal, the Iranians are abusing them on it, bottom line."

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) said Iran has no reason to be honest with Washington, while Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the regime has proven it never operates in truthfulness. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) said any administration in an international conflict has to over-communicate with the public.

The MOU has split congressional Republicans, some of whom have pushed Trump back toward military action.

The Wall Street Journal reported Trump weighed all-out war before opting to stick with talks. Both chambers have already rebuked the war through a war powers resolution, and Trump lashed out at the Republican senators who backed it.

Some hawks say they'll give the administration room but vow to scrutinize nuclear material disposal, Iran's future governance and protections for allies like Israel.

"The devil's in the details," Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA) told Punchbowl.