Lesley Abravanel, Alternet

Steve Bannon, MAGA podcaster and former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, slammed Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a photo-op while Rubio visited Israel in September, according to The Daily Beast.

Rubio's visit to Jerusalem came "on the heels of Israel’s shock airstrikes against Qatar, which lit a fire under the Trump administration’s efforts to end the brutal war in Gaza," reports The Daily Beast. It included a stop at the famous Wailing Wall, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "welcomed him with open arms."

Bannon's relationship with Israel is complex and has shifted over time, reflecting internal divisions within the American right.

While his media platform has historically been pro-Israel, Bannon himself has made critical and controversial statements, especially recently, suggesting a turn towards a more "America First" nationalist perspective.

Needless to say, the photo of Rubio at the Wailing Wall did not go over well with Bannon, who, on Monday's episode of his podcast, "scolded Rubio for failing to send 'a message' that the U.S. would not tolerate any more surprises," The Daily Beast wrote.

“When Netanyahu fired on Qatar… he had enough, he sent Marco over... to give it to him with both barrels, [to say] ‘This is not acceptable, you’re not going to do this,’” Bannon said.

"And what did Rubio do? Posed at the Wailing Wall with a yarmulke,” Bannon scoffed. “If you want a greater Israel project, we’re not gonna stop you. We’re just not gonna support it,” he added.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) is traveling the country to ramp up Democratic messaging ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — and she stopped in deep red Florida, reported The Miami Herald.

Whitmer spent Sunday and Monday in South Florida fundraising for the Florida Democratic Party alongside Miami mayoral candidate Eileen Higgins.

The Michigan governor, who flipped the governor's mansion by spending time in Republican area, says it's a strategy that's leading her into unfamiliar territory.

“There are areas in my state that are very red on a political map that many Democrats wouldn’t bother showing up at. I do,” Whitmer said in an interview Monday with the Herald.

As of October 2025, Michigan has a divided government and is not a fully Republican-controlled state. The state government is split, with Democrats holding the governorship and control of the State Senate, while Republicans control the State House of Representatives.

Having shifted from its former status as a critical swing state, Florida is now a reliably red state where Republicans now dominate statewide and presidential elections and hold significant majorities in the state legislature.

Whitmer has proven she knows how to navigate through seas of red.

“Not writing off a community because it looks red on a political map, but actually getting in there, engaging with people to make sure we stay focused on the things that matter," has been the key to Whitmer's political success, she said.

“If I can undo it fast, it can be done again quickly, so we can’t let up for a second. That’s why I’m here to do more listening than talking," she said.

Whitmer, who has caused controversy by maintaining a more cordial relationship with President Donald Trump than most governors of blue states, has taken a prominent messaging role as Democrats try to find their voice in Donald Trump’s second term, focusing on making economic issues a centerpoint in the midterms — including in Florida.

“Right here in Miami-Dade, you’ve got the largest number of people that are going to be impacted [by healthcare cuts] in the country in this area. We know that the ability to find affordable housing is not just a need in Michigan, it’s a need right here with some of the highest housing costs in the country” Whitmer said. “These are fundamentals that keep people from being able to get ahead.”

Florida Democrats, the Herald reports, have been largely written off by national funding arms in recent election cycles, a replicating curse after years of struggles to win statewide races. When the Herald asked Whitmer whether her visit a year out from the midterms is any indication national Democratic investment could return to the largely-hung-out-to-dry Florida Democrats, she was vague.

“I can’t speak on behalf of the DNC, I don’t have a role there, but I will say this: our success in Michigan is absolutely interlinked with showing up everywhere, talking to everybody,” she said.

Whitmer was also in Florida to promote her new memoir, a move the Herald calls a "very pre-presidential" one even if Whitmer says that's not her priority — yet.

“I have no plans to run for president in 2028,” she told the Herald. “I am actually here because what we’re trying to do is make sure that as we go into midterms next year that we’re running on an agenda that really reflects what people need," before adding, "I’m hopeful that there are some Democratic governors who are in serious contention."

“I don’t know that I’ve got to be the main character in the next chapter, but I certainly want to have a hand in helping write it," she said.

Although President Ronald Reagan once called California's Orange County the place where "good Republicans go to die," the "hippie beachside surfer haven" of Huntington Beach, SFGATE's Anabel Sosa writes, "has drawn national attention for leaning dramatically further to the right."

Just a few years ago, Sosa says, Huntington Beach had a Democratic-led city council. Today, the city's 200,000 residents are represented by a conservative majority city council — an all-Republican group that calls itself the "MAGA-nificent Seven."

That group has been on the front lines of MAGA's culture wars, from bans on children's books and pride flags to opposing vaccines and mask mandates and "dissolving a watchdog committee formed in the aftermath of white supremacist hate crimes in the 1990s."

These actions, Sosa says, have "shoved the seaside paradise into uncharted territory."

The city, she writes, "has a Republican stronghold of just over 56,000 registered Republican voters, compared to a little more than 41,000 Democrats."

Republican Mayor Pat Burns, one of those so-called seven, explained the city's leaning, saying “It’s a middle class town, basically. We just want to live our lives with as little government control as possible.”

Former Democratic city council member Dan Kalmick told SFGATE that "the fights were always over housing," but Mayor Burns, Sosa explains, "has stood firm against California’s state housing law, which mandates that every city keeps up with state requirements for adding housing."

As a result, Huntington Beach "has been out of compliance since the law’s passage in 2021, and is currently 13,368 housing units short," she writes.

Burns, who was sworn into office in 2024 said, that California is “trying to force us to do something that we don’t need," making the city build “low-income” housing to make Huntington Beach "more urban," because, he says, "Urban places turn blue.”

A September court decision determined Huntington Beach has 120 days to comply with its housing requirements. Burns said that “poor” people can live by the beach, but “it shouldn’t be subsidized.”

State Sen. Tony Strickland (R-CA) has supported said that Huntington Beach residents "care about three things: public safety, their love of America and to remain suburban."

Kalmick says the reason conservatives have had success is due to “voter apathy” and “a lot of lies.” The divide has only deepened as elected officials struggle to work together, Sosa explains.

City councilwoman city councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark told SFGATE she was a Democrat until she “realized” that Latinos are inherently conservative.

She said were her priorities were “family first, believe in God, embrace culture,” adding that Democrats want to “exclude parents, break up families, sow division, bash our men.”

The city has been no stranger to white supremacy either, with a 1993 LA Times headline asking if Huntington Beach was “the skinhead capital of the country." And, Sosa writes, "as the 21st century began, the city increasingly became a hub for violent incidents against minority groups."

Kalmack says the city has become "center ground" for protests, but they may not be enough.

Pat Goodman, a co-organizer at ProtectHB, a non-profit organization that led the opposition to the city's library book ban, said her biggest fear is “there will be a very short list of candidates” running for city council next year. “That means we can look at another four years of similar elected officials.”

Kalmack agrees, saying the city has a long way to go before it returns to its Democratic roots.

“I don’t think Huntington Beach is winnable until the next 10 years,” he said.

CNN anchor Boris Sanchez reports that federal law enforcement is starting to "feel the heat" as a Chicago judge condemns the Trump administration's tactics, saying that there are still reports of tear gas being deployed without warning.

U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis, a Barack Obama appointee, ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement field director Russell Hott to appear in court Monday. But he returned to Washington, D.C. that same day on what the Department of Homeland Security calls a "planned return."

Former federal prosecutor and POLITICO senior writer Ankush Kardori says that Hott's failure to appear in Chicago is not typical.

"Usually, when a judge requests a specific government official show up, they expect that official to show up, and that person shows up. So, no, it's unusual," he says.

Instead, two federal officials are taking Hott's place and testifying instead, answering questions from the judge about the use of tear gas, who ordered the tear gas and who was directing them to do so. Kardori doesn't think they will offer much.

"This has been a big issue, actually, with some of the government's representations in court. They will put people up who know little to nothing about the relevant issues. So I expect her to put some pressure on that level of analysis," he says.

When Sanchez asked Kardori how a judge knows whether their orders are being followed or not, he said, "She's doing what she should be doing. She's seen a report, some indication that it's not being followed, right? For instance, tear gas being used in a residential neighborhood. Her order required that that only occur if there's some sort of actual threat, imminent threat to the officers."

The judge, who on Thursday ordered "all agents who are operating in Operation Midway Blitz ... to wear body-worn cameras," sparked controversy among ICE agents who don't want to work with FBI agents wearing body cameras.

The Department of Justice, Kardori explained, is "opposing this."

The use of body cameras is a complicated area of the law, Kardori said.

"And there are exceptions. It's not necessarily mandated across all federal officers. But I do think in this particular context, she is right to be sort of pushing the line on this," he added. "I think I think it's become apparent, quite honestly, that the anonymity of the agents they're masking has become a real problem."

Singer Kenny Loggins has demanded the immediate removal of his greatest hit "Danger Zone" from President Donald Trump's AI video depicting him dropping fecal matter on "No Kings" protesters, according to Variety.

Following the massive protests on Saturday, which saw an estimated 7 to 10 million protesters, the president shared a video depicting him in a fighter jet dropping what appeared to be feces on protesters to the tune of one of Loggins' greatest hits.

“This is an unauthorized use of my performance of ‘Danger Zone.’ Nobody asked me for my permission, which I would have denied, and I request that my recording on this video is removed immediately,” Loggins said in a statement shared with Variety on Monday.

The singer's “Danger Zone” was used in the 1986 Tom Cruise film “Top Gun,” which is what Trump’s vulgar AI video seems to be paying homage to, Variety says.

“I can’t imagine why anybody would want their music used or associated with something created with the sole purpose of dividing us. Too many people are trying to tear us apart, and we need to find new ways to come together,” Loggins said.

“We’re all Americans, and we’re all patriotic. There is no ‘us and them’ — that’s not who we are, nor is it what we should be. It’s all of us. We’re in this together, and it is my hope that we can embrace music as a way of celebrating and uniting each and every one of us.”

MAGA podcaster Steve Bannon – who was President Donald Trump's chief White House strategist in his first term — told right-wing streaming channel Real America's Voice that the Project 2025 didn't happen overnight, but was "years in the making," and that President Donald Trump is "Chief Executive Officer" of the country and can do what he wants.

Bannon credits Project 2025 architect and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, along with Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, America First Policy Institute founder and current U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, Tea Party movement leader and former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

"All these groups working together with really Miller and Russ and the Viceroy Mike Davis, saying 'We're gonna drive the narrative here on Article 2 powers of the president,'" Bannon said, referring to Article II of the U.S. Constitution that establishes the executive branch and outlines the powers and duties of the president.

Davis founded the Article III Project (A3P) in 2019, a conservative non-profit advocating for the appointment of right-leaning federal judges.

Bannon, who spoke alongside former senior Trump official Rep. Brian Harrison (R-TX), says that Trump is the "Chief Executive Officer of the country — that means he can fire who he wants — and the Appropriations Bill is a ceiling, not a floor. He can hold money back and pound money as Commander in Chief."

In a recent Wall Street Journal piece on Trump feeling emboldened, Bannon "likened Congress to the Duma, the Russian assembly that is largely ceremonial.”

In the interview on Friday, Bannon goes on to say that Trump can pretty much do what he wants, though "that's the big challenge we've had," he says.

"He can repel invasions, he can go after our enemies, and most importantly, I think it's been so different, he is the chief magistrate and chief law-enforcement officer of the United States government, so the Justice Department and the FBI are not hermetically sealed away from the executive branch," Bannon says.

He also said they've only just begun to expand Trump's powers. "Everything we’re doing... It’s not gonna stop," Bannon said.

President Donald Trump seemed confused at the Israeli parliament on Monday, where he was slated to give a speech celebrating the release of the 20 surviving hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, reports The Daily Beast.

According to the Beast, "the awkward slip came during the 79-year-old’s marquee address to the Knesset, after Hamas freed the last 20 surviving hostages and Israel started to release some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners."

Trump, the oldest sitting president in United States history, has faced scrutiny over his health, even though the White House released a gushing statement Friday claiming he was in exceptional shape following his second visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in six months.

The president, says The Daily Beast, has been "apparently confused during public moments," and this latest trip to Israel was no exception.

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opening speech, Trump stood up to speak, but was suddenly stopped by Amir Ohana, the speaker of the Knesset, reports The Daily Beast.

Ohana, they write, "gently put his hand on Trump’s left arm, to remind him that the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, was up next, leaving Trump looking slightly befuddled as he could be heard exclaiming, 'Oh.'"

Ohana then told Trump, "You're the last speaker."

Last month, psychologists John Gartner and Harry Segal said on a podcast that Trump's "recurring confusion, word slips, and meandering speech patterns are consistent with what they described as early cognitive decline."

Despite calls in 2024 for Senate Democrats to finally end the filibuster, it never happened. And now MAGA Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) is floating the idea to do just that despite Republican cries of outrage when Democrats were considering it, reports MSNBC.

The Ohio senator suggested in an interview on Fox News that Republicans should get rid of the 60-vote threshold to end the shutdown, saying, “Let’s make this a Republican-only vote.”

Moreno, MSNBC says, complained that the filibuster was allowing Democrats to “hold us hostage” indefinitely.

“My point of view would be this: We have almost all Republicans on board,” Moreno told host Laura Ingraham. “Maybe it’s time to think about the filibuster. You say look, the Democrats would have done it. Let’s just vote with Republicans. We got 52 Republicans. Let’s go. And let’s open the government. It may get to that.”

Moreno also made false claims on Ingraham's show about Democrats' demands for reopening the government, claiming they include “re-funding USAID” and “abortions on demand."

Instead, according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Democrats want any funding bill to include the extension of a set of Affordable Care Act subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year.

As MSNBC opinion columnist Hayes Brown explains, "the GOP has benefited far more from the legislative filibuster than Democrats, as its agenda is less dependent on new legislation to enact."

"And when Republicans are in the minority," Hayes notes, "they’re more than happy to use the 60-vote threshold as leverage to water down Democratic legislation in the name of bipartisanship."

But, as Politico noted Thursday, “nuking the legislative filibuster sparks unease and outright opposition with a number of GOP senators, who worry that it will come back to bite them when they are in the minority.”

Republicans, however, "are trying to have it both ways: refusing to treat Democrats’ votes as worth courting while still preserving the right to blockade future Democratic bills," Hayes says.

As for ending the filibuster, Hayes says, "The onus now falls on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to defend the institution, even as it hamstrings his party’s agenda."

"It would probably be too much to hope that Moreno keeps this same energy should he find himself serving in the minority during his time in Washington," Hayes adds.

On Friday afternoon, Office of Management and Budget director and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought announced "substantial" mass layoffs of federal employees.

Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty in a Virginia courtroom on Wednesday after being indicted by a federal grand jury on two charges: making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. And with a trial set for Jan. 5, 2026, former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig detailed the "remarkable developments" in an interview with CNN.

"It is 89 days from today and this is the opposite of the normal dynamic," Honig said. "Usually defense lawyers want more time. They want more time to prepare. They're not available. Sometimes they want to drag it out for strategic purposes as we saw with Donald Trump and his prosecutions, for example."

Honig said the speed with which this trial is set to occur is shocking.

"I'm astonished at how quickly this is really going to go there," Honig said. "Typical case takes 7 or 8 months. And here we're talking about just under three."

Honig described the prediction that the trial will last two to three days as a "very interesting development."

"First of all, prosecutors — generally federal prosecutors — have a bad habit of over trying their cases, of spending way too long, of putting in too much extraneous detail," he explained.

Honig offered two explanations for the assumed speed of Comey's case, deemed meritless by many legal experts.

"One, prosecutors understand they need to be focused here. But two, the case itself is quite narrow. It really gets back to whether Jim Comey lied when he testified to the Senate that he had not authorized an FBI leak," Honig said.

In June 2017, after being fired by then-President Donald Trump, Comey testified that he had asked a friend, a law professor named Daniel Richman, to leak the contents of his private memos to a reporter from The New York Times.

"We know that the leaks allegedly were about Hillary Clinton's possession of an email server. But two to three days is a very short trial. And I think the parties will be well served to stick to that and not drag it out," Honig said.

Honig noted the government could have delayed the trial, but didn't.

"There's a chance the government could have gone in there today, and prosecutors said, We need three weeks to try our case.' The fact that it's two to three days shows that this is extremely narrow. It's based on one piece of testimony about one fact," Honig said.

The judge, he added, is also expecting everyone on both sides to be prepared for a quick trial.

"The judge was signaling this is not what we would call 'a hold date' or a temporary date. January 5th. This is a hard date. And he was anticipating today some of the speed bumps and saying, 'We're not doing that,'" Honig said.

"Everyone is going to be on point here," he continued. "Prosecutors are going to turn over the documents. You have to you're going to do it promptly. We're not going to get sidetracked."

And while part of Trump's strategy was to drag out and delay his trials, Comey is the antithesis, Honig said.

"We talk about the speedy trial, right. That is a constitutional right that belongs to the defendant," he explained. "Comey wants a speedy trial. Maybe that tells you something about his level of confidence."

While testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning, Attorney General Pam Bondi dodged and deflected on many subjects. But it was her refusal to answer specific questions on President Donald Trump and his relationship with the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein that was most shocking.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) questioned Bondi about her Epstein evasiveness, saying, "You said you would look into this. There were hundreds of suspicious activity reports. Some people would deduce from the fact that they are called suspicious activity reports that there might be suspicious activity."

Whitehouse pressed Bondi, saying, "There's been public reporting that Jeffrey Epstein showed people photos of President Trump with half-naked young women. Do you know if the FBI found those photographs in their search of Jeffrey Epstein's safe or premises or otherwise? Have you seen any such thing?"

A visibly uncomfortable Bondi replied, "You sit here and make salacious remarks once again trying to slander President Trump," she said, offering her own theory on Whitehouse allegedly "taking money from one of Epstein's closest confidantes."

"I believe. I could be wrong," she said of Whitehouse's connection to Epstein associates. "Yet you're grilling me on President Trump and some photograph with Epstein."

Not backing down, Whitehouse retorted, "The question is: Did the FBI find those photographs that have been discussed publicly by a witness who claimed Jeffrey Epstein showed them to him? You don't know anything about that?"

Bondi just looked down, swallowed, and said nothing.

Following the exchange, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked former federal prosecutor Alyse Adamson, "Were you surprised? The questions that Whitehouse was asking about the Jeffrey Epstein case? And if there are pictures of Trump with half-naked women involved with Epstein?"

Adamson agreed it was a shocking revelation, saying, "That was the first time I had ever heard that. Of course, we need more facts. If that is true, I think that would be a bombshell revelation. It would also explain why the Department of Justice has been hesitant to release the files."

"And I think Senator Whitehouse is asking exactly the right questions. And, you know, demanding the transparency that the DOJ and Pam Bondi promised to the American people. So I was shocked. And I think that could be very significant," she added.

New England has always been a Democratic stronghold, writes The Boston Globe, and when it comes to the Republican party, "New England is where MAGA goes to die."

"Trump’s ability to take over state Republican parties, recruit candidates, help them win primaries, and build a lasting legacy has been limited," the Globe says.

New England is reliably Democratic — all U.S. House members from the six-state region are Democrats, eleven of the 12 U.S. senators are Democrats, and five of the six governors endorsed Kamala Harris for president last year.

New Hampshire, the only state in the region with a Republican governor (Kelly Ayotte), is facing pressure from the White House to redistrict, the Globe says.

"They want Ayotte to agree to redistrict the state’s two US House seats — currently both held by Democrats — just as they’ve asked other Republican governors to do. In theory, the state legislature could take up the matter during special sessions this fall. But Ayotte has flatly refused," says the Globe.

And while the White House tried to threaten Ayotte with a primary challenger, no one volunteered until senior adviser in the Department of Homeland Security Corey Lewandowski threw his name into the ring via text to a reporter.

"But in reality, Lewandowski was making a bigger admission: once again, he and the broader MAGA movement haven’t convinced anyone else to put their name forward," the Globe says.

While Ayotte did not endorse Trump in the 2024 election, her predecessor, Chris Sununu (R-NH), endorsed Nikki Haley. Other prominent New Hampshire politicians did not endorse Trump either.

"Similarly, Trump has left little lasting imprint in Maine," the Globe says. "Every MAGA-backed candidate in that district has lost, despite Trump’s success there. Maine Republicans today are more organized around Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who never voted for Trump in the general elections of 2016, 2020, or 2024."

In Vermont, the Globe notes, "Governor Phil Scott, a Republican who has also never voted for Trump, remains the model."

Massachusetts "briefly fell under MAGA’s sway," the Globe says, as "one of the three Republicans running for governor next year hail from the MAGA wing."

In Rhode Island, where they "tested MAGA loyalties twice," MAGA also failed twice, the Globe says. "Republicans in the Ocean State struggle to recruit candidates at all, a problem many blame on Trump."

New England, in which "a national political realignment" has made it "steadily more Democratic," has clearly and successfully resisted MAGA, the Globe says.

However, it's not just Democrats there rejecting MAGA.

"But there’s also been a realignment inside the GOP, away from Reagan conservatism and toward Trump’s MAGA style. New England Republicans, however, continue to resist it," the Globe reports.

On The New Republic podcast "The Daily Blast," Salon's Amanda Marcotte said Monday that President Donald Trump's base is starting to crack as "price of egg voters" who bought into his lies are realizing that they've been duped.

Podcast host Greg Sargent asked Marcotte what she thought about the White House seemingly reveling in "pain for lots of people."

"The core problem is that what thrills MAGA turns off the middle," Sargent said. 'It’s just a fundamental conflict — and I think they know it."

Marcotte agreed, breaking down the types of Trump voters into two distinct categories.

"There are the hardcore Trump loyalists — and yes, that’s most Trump voters — but he doesn’t get over the hill without that other 10 percent: the price of eggs voters. They’ll tell pollsters or in focus groups that they don’t like Trump. They’ll say he’s gross, he’s racist, he’s a pig — but they’ve bought into this lie that he’s a competent businessman," she said.

Those "price of egg voters," she said, look to Trump's first term with "rose-colored glasses. They have this vague nostalgia for what they thought was the Trump economy in his first term, which was really just pre-COVID America."

While he still has the support of his loyal base, Marcotte said, Trump is hemorrhaging his other voters.

"What’s happening now is that those voters — the ones he really does need on board if he wants to get anything done — are turning against him pretty quickly. You can see it when you break down the polling: young voters, a lot of whom were actual kids when Trump was president the first time, and Latino voters who bought into the notion that his racism was a joke," She said.

Those Latino voters, mostly men, are being turned off by ICE agents "going after anybody who speaks Spanish or is perceived to be Latino," Marcotte said. "And that's turning people off."

"And then, of course, the big 800-pound gorilla in the room, which is everything Trump is doing is about increasing costs on ordinary working people who are already legitimately feeling the squeeze," she said.

Although Trump, Marcotte said, showed his true colors during his first term, "Trump Two, like all sequels, is the same story, just bigger, louder, and with more explosions."

The president's attack on health care in this government shutdown is also turning off voters, Marcotte said.

"I think the reason health care is such a predominant issue is because, unfortunately, you can get a lot of people to accede to authoritarianism if they don’t think they’re personally going to be affected," she said.

But overall, people are not liking what they are seeing.

"Make no mistake: People do not like ICE. People do not like the immigration raids. If you go out to any community and people are talking about it, it’s upsetting people. And obviously, the Jimmy Kimmel situation — I do think it brought home to a lot of people that Trump is a fascist. He does want to censor free speech."

Sargent said that these perceptions leave an opening for the Democrats.

"At the end of the day, what you’ve really got here is Democrats finally sensing Trump’s weakness in a new kind of way," he said.

Cuba's foreign minister accused Secretary of State Marco Rubio of being corrupt and said the Cuban American "knows nothing about Cuba," The Hill reports.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said Rubio, whose parents are Cuban immigrants, said he has made it his mission to carry out a "maximum pressure" campaign against the island nation.

"There is a very personal and corrupt agenda that he is carrying out, which seems to be sacrificing the national interests of the U.S. in order to advance this very extremist approach," Rodríguez Parrilla told the AP.

Since taking office, the Trump administration redesignated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, days after former President Joe Biden lifted that designation before the end of his term. Trump has also placed new restrictions on Cuban tourists and revoked legal protected status that shielded approximately 300,000 Cubans in the U.S. from deportation.

Despite all that, Cuba's top foreign diplomat since 2009 says he doesn't blame Trump, but, rather, Rubio.

"Trump 'portrays himself as an advocate of peace,' Rodríguez Parrilla said, but Rubio “promotes the use of force or the threat to use force as an everyday, customary tool.”

The foreign ambassador then cut into Rubio's Cuban American heritage, saying, “The current secretary of state was not born in Cuba, has never been to Cuba, and knows nothing about Cuba."

Right-wing podcast host Megyn Kelly got into a screaming match with a male college student at a Turning Point USA event at Virginia Tech University over whether or not President Donald Trump is fanning the flames of violence in the wake of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk's murder, The Daily Beast reports.

What set Kelly off was when the student asked her how she can support a president who “contributes to the rhetoric that got your friend Charlie killed.”

The 54-year-old former Fox News host, who has flip-flopped on her support of Trump, got into an argument with the student, who told her, "You saw his rally recently, [Trump] said, ‘I hate my enemies.’ [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller said similar things. How can you support him when he contributed to what got Charlie killed?

Kelly shot back, saying the student's remark “assumes facts not in evidence” and is “not true," but the student wouldn't back down, noting how the Department of Justice had scrapped a study from its website that concluded that far-right extremists have committed “far more ideologically motivated homicides” than far-left or Islamist extremists since 1990.

The student said the pulled DOJ study showed “70 percent of political violence is committed by Republicans."

Kelly ripped into him, saying, “Once you pull the crazies out of there, it is overwhelmingly left-wing violence,” adding that his comments were “defamatory blaspheme, and it’s inappropriate in the setting.”

Not backing down, the student asked if the unproven assertion that Kirk's killer was motivated by left-wing influencers, “[makes] it okay for the sitting president of the United States to incite violence against liberals."

Kelly blew off Trump's remarks about hating his opponents as "jokes," saying, the president has “every right to loathe his enemies,” because they “tried to put him in jail for the rest of his life” and “bankrupt him.”

Firing the last shot before turning over the mic, the student said, “Rightfully so, he’s a criminal."

When it comes to President Donald Trump's efforts to disassociate from the scandal surrounding his relationship with late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, it's the president's own FBI Director who "really gave away the game here," wrote The New Republic's Greg Sargent on The Daily Blast podcast.

In his combative testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, Kash Patel, Sargent wrote, "filibustered when asked questions about whether Trump’s name is in the files. He seemed to accidentally reveal that he does know how many times Trump’s name appears in them."

Historian and Vanderbilt University professor Nicole Hemmer, who has written books on media, conservatism and the presidency, agreed, saying it was "a transparent attempt to change the subject," and that Patel, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi, "may be loyal to Trump, but they’re not doing a very good job of defending him."

In response to Rep. Eric Swalwell's (D-CA) grilling on how many times Trump's name appears in the Epstein files, Patel's evasiveness, Hemmer says, made "it clear that he is familiar enough with these files to know that Trump is mentioned in them and likely knows at least roughly how many times he’s mentioned."

On Wednesday. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) told Patel in a fiery exchange that he was part of the Epstein cover-up.

"The MAGA ecosystem spent literally years demanding to know what’s in the Epstein files and they screamed again for years that an elite cover-up was happening that the deep state was behind it yet here on video is Kash Patel, who is the FBI director, visibly covering up what he knows about what’s in them in real time. How can MAGA overlook this?" Sargent asked.

Though Hemmer doesn't think they're overlooking it, she does say that it's causing a deep divide among Trump loyalists.

"There is a division between, like, do you want the Epstein files or do you want to show your loyalty to Trump? And that’s where the dividing line is right now," she says, adding, "the problem is they turn Donald Trump into the avatar of their movement and he is implicated in the Epstein files. And there’s such a cognitive dissonance there that I think for many of them, they just can’t square it."

This dissonance, both Sargent and Hemmer noted, is an example of one of the far-right's loudest rallying cries.

"It’s an actual deep state cover-up and it is an actual example of elite corruption. Like this is the kind of thing that populist movements arise in response to. And if MAGA is a genuine populist movement, then it should be leading the way on this," Hemmer says.

"They certainly could release more of the files if they wanted to," Hemmer added, noting that Trump and MAGA have made a mess of the situation.

"It’s one of those Frankenstein monsters stories, right? You create the monster and then you can’t control it after," she said. "It’s a story that keeps coming up and, even though they try to whack-a-mole back down, they’re just not successful in getting people’s attention off of the story."