President Donald Trump is telling advisers he wants a man to replace outgoing White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, according to NOTUS.

Trump has told close advisers he would prefer a man for the job after four female press secretaries across his two terms, two anonymous sources familiar with the conversation told the outlet. The pick would be meant to head off comparisons with Leavitt, who plans to leave the White House at the end of August, according to reporting by NOTUS.

Trump has shown interest in Scott Jennings, a conservative media pundit widely reported to have been the frontrunner for a bit. One source told NOTUS that Trump is not sold on the idea, however. Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under President George W. Bush, has also been floated, according to NOTUS.

The reporting adds a new wrinkle to a search that has quietly consumed the West Wing since Leavitt announced last week that she would step down at the end of the month, which was just a month after she returned from maternity leave. She cited a desire to spend more time with family and plans to stay on as an outside senior adviser.

Trump has said he is in no rush to fill the role, according to one source who spoke to NOTUS. Instead, the White House could lean on the rotating briefing format used during Leavitt's maternity leave from late April to July, when Vice President JD Vance and Cabinet members such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took the podium.

Another dark-horse candidate has surfaced inside the West Wing. A person close to the White House predicted that the attention swirling around Trump's devoted aide Natalie Harp could push her into the job.

"She was on OANN," the source said, referring to her time as a host on the One America News Network. The source added that the media is going to "make her press secretary."

Conservative commentator Scott Jennings had to face a shouting and relentless CNN panel after he defended Trump aide Natalie Harp.

During a Wednesday appearance on CNN's NewsNight, Jennings reacted to comments from Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) about how President Donald Trump likes to "travel with Natalie Harp," his executive aide, who has found herself in the spotlight because of her close relationship with the president.

"I expect Ossoff to criticize Donald Trump. I expect every Democrat running for president to criticize Donald Trump," Jennings said. "What I thought was appalling about this is that Harp is not a public figure. She's not a household name. Nobody knows who she is, and when he injected her into this, he knew what he was doing, which is punching down on someone who's effectively defenseless."

"Doesn't Donald Trump do that all the time?" Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) quickly responded. Moskowitz pointed out that Trump attacked Rob Reiner after he died and has gone after CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins for doing her job.

The panel's moderator, Abby Phillip, played a montage of Trump attacking women, including female reporters, Hillary Clinton, and Rosie O'Donnell.

"If you're going to be outraged over traveling on a plane with Natalie, are you going to be outraged over all those things?" Phillip asked.

"I do not believe in demeaning women in any way," Jennings said.

Democratic political strategist Keith Boykin repeatedly called out Jennings for not answering the question. Jennings tried to go on making the point that Harp is not a public figure, but Boykin pointed out that members of the media that Trump attacked aren't either.

As Jennings kept talking, Boykin began yelling at him, saying, "You are not answering the question, Scott Jennings," and "You're avoiding the question again, Scott." Jennings even leaned away because he accused Boykin of yelling in his ear.

"By the way, you at home have no idea how loud this is," Jennings said before laughing.

"You have no idea how dishonest you are," Boykin shot back.

FBI Director Kash Patel's defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic will drag embarrassing records into open court, a legal expert predicted.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote in her Substack "Civil Discourse" on Wednesday that Patel's attack is likely to backfire. Patel is suing The Atlantic and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick for a story that cast him as an incompetent drunk endangering national security.

The Atlantic moved to dismiss the lawsuit in July, and Patel filed his response earlier this week. Patel argued that the case is too early in litigation to toss, but Vance argued that Patel is opening the door to a discovery process he won't be able to control. Vance, a former U.S. Attorney, said the coming fight over records from the Department of Justice and testimony would not go Patel's way.

"The Atlantic has already asked for official documents and communications from the FBI and DOJ, since Patel's lawsuit relies on them to refute The Atlantic's reporting," Vance wrote. "Anyone who saw the video of Patel drinking in an Olympic locker room knows that's unlikely to be pretty for Patel."

The judge in the case is District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is also handling lawyer and journalist Katie Phang's lawsuit against Attorney General Todd Blanche. Vance argued that, no matter how Sullivan rules on the motion to dismiss, the outcome is bad for Patel.

"Either way the Judge rules, Patel loses here," Vance wrote. "And he has no one to blame but himself. He could have let it go and become yesterday's news. Instead, he chose to sue."

The Atlantic told the court that the case is Patel's latest attempt to punish coverage he dislikes. The Atlantic will get a chance to reply to Patel's brief before Sullivan decides whether the case proceeds to discovery.

"This is Director Patel's fifth defamation lawsuit against the media in recent years, and the second one he has filed since being sworn in as FBI Director," The Atlantic noted, per Vance.

Pentagon officials are reportedly considering firing the longtime publisher of Stars and Stripes before he can retire this fall.

According to a Wednesday report by CBS News, Max Lederer announced to his colleagues that he plans to retire on September 30 after 19 years as the publisher of Stars and Stripes. Lederer cited fundamental differences with the Trump administration for his retirement.

However, Pentagon officials have discussed firing Lederer before his planned retirement as part of an effort to overhaul the military news outlet, which is partly funded by American taxpayers.

The outlet, which gets about 65 percent of its funding through the Defense Department, has long prided itself on editorial independence from the Pentagon's public affairs operation.

Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin has also spoken publicly about his disagreements with Pentagon leadership. Lederer, in a Tuesday note to staff obtained by CBS News, wrote that his "philosophy of leadership" and his "understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes" differ in "fundamental ways" from the direction the department's leadership wants for the organization.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell has publicly pushed to remake the outlet. He posted in January about "bringing Stars and Stripes into the 21st century."

Parnell wrote that the department would "modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members."

The outlet would "focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY," Parnell added. He said there would be "no more repurposed DC gossip columns" and "no more Associated Press reprints." CBS News reported that the outlet no longer uses wire services such as Reuters or the AP.

An average of 1.4 million people see Stars and Stripes each day, mostly online, according to CBS News. However, readership has declined from its peaks during World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War, CBS News noted. Print delivery slid from about 7 million annual copies in 2019 to 6.2 million in 2024, according to CBS News.

President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration is already facing a GOP revolt over her recent history.

According to a Wednesday article by The New York Times, Heidi Overton's support for Trump's order concerning vaccines and the production of the weedkiller glyphosate has drawn early backlash. Trump tapped Overton, a White House domestic policy official, on Wednesday as the replacement for Marty Makary, who resigned in May.

"The White House looks forward to her swift confirmation by the Senate," White House spokesman Kush Desai told The Times, adding that Overton has "spent the last year and a half coordinating an interagency policymaking process with senior officials" to deliver on the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again agenda.

However, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the chairman of the Senate health committee, said that Overton's support for Trump's "nonsensical vaccine executive order" issued last week creates "strong concerns."

The executive order in question calls for fewer childhood vaccinations and has drawn broad criticism from public health experts. Earlier this week, Cassidy called the order a "crazy, stupid thing," and on social media, he said that Overton's support for it "alone is almost disqualifying."

The Times noted that Overton will likely need the support of every Republican on the Senate health committee to advance her nomination to the full Senate.

Overton is also facing strong opposition from MAHA leaders, who are upset with her backing of Trump's executive order expanding glyphosate, which is made by Bayer and that some scientists have linked to cancer. Kelly Ryerson, an environmental activist who accused the Trump administration of being "entirely owned by Bayer and the chemical companies," told The Times that Overton echoes Bayer's talking points.

"When I was at the White House MAHA meeting, Overton delivered all of Bayer's talking points," Ryerson said. "She is how corporate capture will thrive at the FDA and is an enemy of MAHA, perpetuating chemical poisoning of the American people."

In a firestorm for Colorado Republicans, a local party leader is stepping down rather than endorse the GOP gubernatorial nominee.

Hugo Chavez-Rey, Vice-Chair of the Denver Republican Party, announced his resignation over his opposition to Victor Marx for governor, Kyle Clark of 9 News reported. The decision comes ahead of a vote by the party chapter to remove him from office for his objection to the nominee.

Colorado Republicans "should not be governed by fear, political expediency, personal agendas, retaliation, or a willingness to sacrifice principles and values for the sake of maintaining internal political harmony," Chavez-Rey wrote in his resignation letter.

He is now backing Greg Lopez, an unaffiliated conservative candidate, for the governor's race instead.

Marx, who narrowly won a bitterly divided primary earlier this year, has attracted intense national scrutiny over his claim that he was forced to kill a man at the age of seven.

Since getting the nomination, he has landed in further controversy by trying to get around state campaign finance law by selling unlimited merchandise.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth relies so heavily on his wife that he has put her in sensitive security roles, which has alarmed insiders.

According to a Wednesday New York Times article, Hegseth has leaned on his wife, Jennifer, so heavily that current and former officials say it has clouded his judgment and raised questions about his leadership.

Jennifer Hegseth used to be Pete Hegseth's producer on Fox News. She has since become her husband's most influential adviser and de facto producer at the Pentagon, according to The Times. She has prepped him for appearances, sat in on his meetings with journalists, interviewed potential staff, and helped shape Defense Department videos.

An anonymous source familiar with Hegseth's thinking told The Times that the defense secretary likes to have his wife around when he travels to keep him out of trouble. The Times noted that Hegseth has a history of heavy drinking.

Hegseth even credits his "two J's" for transforming his life: Jennifer and Jesus, according to The Times.

However, he's also gone further, bringing her into a highly sensitive meeting with top British defense officials after the U.S. temporarily stopped sharing military intelligence with Ukraine, The Times noted. British intelligence officials were forced to speak in general terms about the officers on the ground in Ukraine because they were uneasy with Jennifer's presence.

Jennifer was part of the Signal group chat in which Hegseth shared attack plans for U.S. warplanes targeting the Houthis in Yemen, The Times noted. The Pentagon has not said if she has a security clearance.

"It's bonkers that a defense secretary would involve his wife in his sensitive official duties, including sharing details of an impending military operation, and face zero consequences," John Ullyot, who left the Pentagon as chief spokesman after three months under Hegseth, told The Times. "Any president deserves better judgment from his national security leaders."

"This is not normal," Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview with MSNBC last year. "Secretary Hegseth has one of the highest levels of classification access. He can't just hand that to his wife and say, 'Here, honey, hold my beer, and hold my classified information.'"

President Donald Trump has completely turned his rationale for the White House ballroom project on its head, intending to "blackmail" the U.S. Supreme Court into allowing it, attorney and writer Ankush Khardori told Glenn Kirschner on his web show.

A federal court has blocked construction on the ballroom project. Trump is appealing that decision, arguing it is a vital project for national security.

"They have totally flipped the rationale on its head," said Khardori.

From the outset of the project and months after, he noted, Trump "was very open about why he was doing this — he wanted a fancier event space because he thought it was beneath the office to have tents when they were hosting state dinners."

Now, instead, he's describing it as "an integrated military complex" and got FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to all vouch for this.

This isn't just Trump changing his position on the fly, though, Khardori said — it's a "blackmail" scheme against the Supreme Court.

"The reason I described it as blackmail is that it reminded me of exactly what the administration did in the tariff litigation," said Khardori. In that case, he also got a handful of advisers, "Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick," to "put on all these affidavits in the courts below saying that if you invalidate Trump's emergency tariffs, it's going to cause basically a global meltdown."

They even described that as a national security threat as well, and claimed a number of resolved wars might restart, said Khardori — none of which ultimately happened.

"It was really bad, and it was really transparent what they were doing," Khardori said. However, in that case, "everybody ignored them — the lower courts ignored it, the Supreme Court didn't give it much thought, and of course Trump lost that case. The world did not come crashing down. The global order is still such as it is. And the global doom predictions were promptly forgotten, which highlights the frivolity of these claims in the first instance."

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President Donald Trump's threat to unleash "economic D-Day" against countries doing business with Iran horrified some of his critics on Wednesday.

"No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a Deal than me. TRAGICALLY, for them, they have failed to take it," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale. Their navy is gone, their air force is destroyed, their military factories are now rubble, their currency is worthless, and their country is hanging by a thread."

The post was made at a time when negotiations between the U.S. and Iran had completely stalled. Meanwhile, Trump has struggled to gather international support for the strikes on Iran, and he threatened U.S. allies with economic punishments if they did not go along for the ride.

"These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide," Trump wrote. "IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON."

The president's threats horrified some of the president's critics.

"This is terrifying. Our president is insane," Jennifer Erin Valent, an award-winning author, posted on X.

"I guess the other empty threats weren’t working; otherwise, he would have just followed through on his threats. Now we’re on to more “throw something at the wall and see if it finally gets him out of the debacle he started” strategies. He’s completely out of his element here (if he even has an element that isn’t grifting or being a moron)," Camille Mackenzie, a conservative political consultant, wrote on X.

"If he actually enforced this, it would mean sanctioning Russia. And given he has no interest in sanctioning his boss, it’s just more hot air from Trump," Adam Cochran, a professor and policy consultant, posted on X.

Yet another polling controversy has rocked the political world, as a firm that spent months tracking the Florida GOP gubernatorial primary admitted to effectively fabricating the numbers in favor of far-right candidate James Fishback.

The Public Sentiment Institute (TPSI) stated in a new release that they encountered "a suspected data-quality issue in the text panel" and tried to correct it by essentially giving respondents who had expressed support for Lt. Gov. Jay Collins to Fishback instead.

Fishback, a hedge fund manager who repeatedly made headlines for his racist outbursts, routinely was presented as competitive with Trump-endorsed nominee Byron Donalds in TPSI surveys. Ultimately, he took less than 11 percent of the vote in this week's election.

"Jay Collins was polling in the twenties in our data," said the release. "That did not align with our read of the race, and we concluded it might reflect a data-quality problem specific to our text-message panel. Acting on that conclusion, we identified respondents who selected Collins but whose broader profile aligned with a competing coalition, and leaned those respondents toward James Fishback."

In other words, VoteHub data scientist Ryan McComb noted, "it took respondents who had already picked Jay Collins and switched them to James Fishback."

Austin Park, cofounder and head of research at VoteHub, called the revelation "disappointing," and noted, "TPSI has been excluded in VoteHub averages for several months already."

This is the second such admission of faked data from a polling firm this month. Earlier this week, an upstart firm called Median Strategies that released polls of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary and the Los Angeles mayoral election admitted that the results of those polls were made up out of whole cloth as a "social experiment," triggering uproar from political experts.

Devoted aide Natalie Harp is President Donald Trump's channel to the outside world and even texts world leaders on his behalf, a veteran Trump reporter revealed on Wednesday.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman revealed the details of Harp's role during an appearance on CNN. Haberman wrote about Harp's role in the Trump administration in a Wednesday article for The Times, as well as in the book she co-authored, Regime Change.

"She is not the White House Staff Secretary, which is supposed to be the last step for paper flow. She's not the Press Secretary from whom certain media requests are supposed to come. She is a channel by which foreign leaders try to reach him if they can't some other way," Haberman said. "She has a channel by which he reaches people he sees on television who he likes."

Throughout the day, Harp is talking to Trump about his social media posts. The CNN segment included clips from the documentary "Art of the Surge" about Trump's 2024 campaign, in which she's shown writing Trump's Truth Social posts as he dictates them, random capitalizations and all.

"She is a specific channel of information, but she is one that he considers very important. So do other people outside the White House," Haberman said. "She's got a position of incredible power, but it's not outside the Oval Office. It's inside the Oval Office."

According to Haberman's Wednesday article for The Times, Harp has a $150,000 taxpayer-funded salary. During the CNN segment, Haberman said she and co-author Jonathan Swan understand Harp has a security clearance. Haberman also described Harp's relationship with other White House staffers as a "food fight," noting that she's "not beloved."

The Times article also mentions videos it obtained that show Harp sprinting across a Scottish golf course to keep up with Trump's cart. She later wrote him a letter.

"I also am sorry if I was an embarrassment walking the course in Scotland," Harp wrote Trump. "I want things to always be right between us."

Harp signed off, "With all my heart, Natalie."

New information about President Donald Trump's close aide Natalie Harp raised eyebrows among critics online Wednesday.

In a bombshell report, MS NOW reported that Harp worked at the White House for an entire year without security clearance.

Sources said "Harp’s reasoning for failing to complete the process was unknown," MS NOW White House correspondent Jake Traylor wrote on X. "After concerns mounted among the White House counsel’s office and security officials, the president himself intervened and Harp in recent months filled out the forms to launch a formal federal background investigation and received the clearance, one of the people said."

Political and media experts responded to the new details.

"She 'declined?' 'Declined?' You can’t just decline to get a security clearance. You either get one or you don’t have a job. So much dysfunction in this White House. When will the GOP have had enough? Why risk the country for this?" Joyce Vance, former federal prosecutor, wrote on X.

"Nat sec official said this was very concerning," MS NOW investigative reporter Carol Leonnig wrote on X.

"A year of classified access without vetting and nobody thought to mention it until now?" wrote X account ZeroBarkThirty(2), a combat veteran and frequent political commentator.

"You can’t convince me Natalie Harp isn’t a Russian/Israeli asset," Gen Z commentator Jack Cocchiarella wrote on X.

Knives are coming out for top Trump aide Natalie Harp among the president's other aides, The Nation correspondent Joan Walsh told MS NOW's Ari Melber.

National attention has flooded onto Harp, sometimes called the "human printer" for her tendency to give Trump favorable printouts on cue, after Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) highlighted the bizarrely close relationship she has with Trump during a campaign speech.

"It touches off so much ... it's a real story because she is this person feeding him undigested garbage that he puts out on social media," said Walsh, pointing out that the infamous racist meme Trump posted depicting the Obamas as apes allegedly came from her. "She's responsible for a lot of the garbage."

Moreover, Walsh said, "Aides who have more experience — there aren't a lot of them, I mean, he doesn't have the finest Cabinet — but there are other people who you can tell feel that they should be in more of that position. And she's crafting Truth Social with him late at night. I mean, it's a real job. She makes $150,000 a year. She's 35, she's not a child."

What's also notable, Walsh continued, is that it's actually Trump's people "who made Senator Ossoff's funny comments into something kind of dirty or perverse. But that's not what he said. And that's not what I think. I think she's the human binky, the human blanket. I think she's the nurse. She's not the mistress."

No matter what their relationship actually is, said Walsh, the fact is that "he needs that kind of loyalty. And he also needs that kind of love basically sent back to him and then, you know, constantly printing out. It's just so bizarre printing out Twitter posts. It's just like she has a lot of control over his mind space."

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A Republican political strategist gave an icy rebuke of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's use of a trans slur while touting his changes at the Pentagon.

Hegseth made the comment Monday at the Iowa State Fair, during a "Salute to the Troops" fundraiser at JR's Southpork Ranch, where he appeared alongside GOP Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA). Referencing the administration's rebranding of the Pentagon as the "Department of War," he said:

"At the Department of War, we do training, not trannies," per the Iowa Capital Dispatch. He went on: "Training, lethality, accountability, discipline, readiness — the bedrock of what it means to be an American warrior — is the only focus of our department. Colorblind, gender-neutral, merit-based. That's it."

During a Wednesday appearance on CNN, Shermichael Singleton agreed with anchor Jake Tapper that Hegseth should treat people with dignity even if he doesn't agree with their views. Singleton decried how Hegseth's statements lowered standards for how to treat others.

"I've always had a pretty high bar, even with people I've disagreed with, trying to maintain their humanity," Singleton said. "That's just my personal moral compass."

Singleton then quoted German 19th-century philosopher Georg Hegel because he wrote about "all men yearning for respect, all men yearning for recognition."

"That's my approach, and my advice to the secretary would be: disagree is okay. Having expectations of how you want to lead the military, perfectly fine," Singleton said. "I'll support you on that, but let's not lower the bar in terms of how we treat other human beings."

Singleton stressed, "We wouldn't want that done to anyone on our side."

Hegseth's remark fit a broader pattern of targeting transgender service members, who make up less than 1 percent of the military. The Pentagon moved last year to bar trans troops, and a federal judge has since pressed Hegseth to explain why he champions testosterone therapy for cisgender troops with low levels of the hormone while barring trans personnel.

President Donald Trump's close aide Natalie Harp apparently worked inside the White House for a year without a security clearance, according to a report on Wednesday.

MS NOW's White House correspondent Jake Traylor disclosed the revelation about Harp, who has been at the center of rumors about the nature her relationship with Trump.

"Both people said Harp’s reasoning for failing to complete the process was unknown," Traylor wrote in a post on X. "After concerns mounted among the White House counsel’s office and security officials, the president himself intervened and Harp in recent months filled out the forms to launch a formal federal background investigation and received the clearance, one of the people said."

Questions about Harp and Trump were ignited this week after Sen. Jon Ossoff delivered a takedown of the president, angering MAGA and the White House.

President Donald Trump's hardening stance on Iran has rattled even senior Republican officials and generals in his own Department of Defense, with one calling him "a madman who can't be trusted," according to an insider.

Veteran White House reporter Brian Karem, in a report for Raw America, identified how Trump has been weighing using nuclear weapons against Iran over the past two months.

"One unnamed Pentagon official confided to Raw America that the president’s threat that 'a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,' which he posted to his Truth Social early last month, was seen as particularly alarming within the DoD," Karem wrote.

"After what Trump said back in July, everyone should have known this is on the table," the Pentagon official told Raw America. "What do you think he meant by that?"

The comments follow a chilling statement from former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). The former Trump MAGA ally claimed in a post on X Sunday that the president discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Iran in recent strategy meetings and called him "pure evil."

Greene argued that Iran was "nowhere near creating a nuclear weapon," and that the U.S. military had "killed their leaders and innocent little children in a school, and Iran has controlled the Strait of Hormuz ever since and punished the region for their part in it."

"And now our government is the one actually discussing lowering the nuclear threshold in order to use nuclear weapons against Iran even though Trump claims he’s won the war like 40 times and says the U.S. controls the [Strait of Hormuz]," Greene wrote.

She described why that was so troubling.

"Trump promised no more foreign wars, but may actually be the one who delivers a nuclear holocaust that would likely drag the entire world into major conflict, economic depression, and mass human suffering we’ve never seen in our lifetimes and maybe throughout history," Greene added.

President Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social platform he would turn all economic guns on Iran, as his war drags on with no sign of productive talks.

"No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a Deal than me," wrote Trump. "TRAGICALLY, for them, they have failed to take it. Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!"

The president vowed "Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale" and proclaimed, "Their navy is gone, their air force is destroyed, their military factories are now rubble, their currency is worthless, and their country is hanging by a thread."

"Today, I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences," Trump said. "Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies — It all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are."

"This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat. These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide," said Trump.

The president already announced earlier in the week that he was throwing in the towel on peace talks.

President Donald Trump's devoted aide lost her cool and hurled a vulgar insult at paparazzi as she faces heightened scrutiny.

According to a Wednesday article by The Daily Mail, the scene unfolded in Washington, D.C., traffic after a cameraman spotted Natalie Harp, Trump's executive aide known for her fawning relationship with the president. The Daily Mail described how Harp appeared to "lose her cool."

The photographer caught her at an intersection as she headed to the White House in her white Chevy SUV. In a video obtained by The Daily Mail, she seemed surprised at first, but then she smiled and pulled out her phone.

She began filming the photographer with her phone while she sat in traffic and kept filming as traffic moved forward, according to The Daily Mail. She accelerated toward a crosswalk without her hands on the wheel to keep recording the photographer.

Before she "sped away," Harp looked at the photographer and mouthed the words, "f--- you," according to the report.

The confrontation comes as Harp draws fresh attention to a job that had kept her largely out of public view. Sen. Jon Ossoff singled her out during a speech Sunday, claiming Trump would rather build his White House ballroom and "travel with Natalie" than do his job as president.

Harp has become a near-constant presence at Trump's side. CNN reported that she has emerged as a main conduit between the president and the outside world, and, per the network, one person familiar with the pair described their bond as a "father-daughter" relationship.

She was also among the few who accompanied Trump during a plane switch as he left Turkey amid an alleged security threat, while other staff and reporters stayed aboard a decoy aircraft. CNN reported that in October 2023, she even got in the trunk of an SUV to accompany Trump.

Former Trump aide Miles Taylor divulged why a Democratic lawmaker's attack on President Donald Trump hit so hard.

The former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security explained how claims that Sen. Jon Ossoff's attack on the president and his relationship with aide Natalie Harp was a "low-brow" move, Taylor argued in his Substack on Wednesday.

"It’s a scorching hot laser beam," Taylor wrote. "He took documented reporting of Trump’s corruption (including the secret flights, the ballroom obsession, the golf, the stock trades, the war he’s losing, and the weird stories about his too-adoring personal assistant) and compressed it into one sentence that delivered a hornet sting to the wannabe dictator in the White House."

What Ossoff did was identify a weak point for Trump, Taylor explained.

"Ossoff has rediscovered the Achilles’ heel of autocrats. And it’s mockery," Taylor wrote. "Strongmen can handle all the hatred because, weirdly (and this is Trump’s long-standing view), the hatred confirms their power. What they actually have such a hard time with is laughter. When people point and laugh, they cower and quiver. The tactic is as old as time."

That's what made Trump — and Republicans — so frustrated.

"Trump understands this instinctively, which is why the briefest, winking mention of 'Natalie' in Ossoff’s speech produced a coordinated White House meltdown," Taylor wrote. "Ossoff found the nerve, and — oh boy — it connected with the whole body of Trump’s corruption. Now, the president is screaming in agony."

Taylor exposed why this was so damaging to the Trump administration and what Democrats can learn from Ossoff's move.

"Ossoff, the supposedly vulnerable incumbent, has been choosing a different path," Taylor wrote. "While he’s no trained comedian, he’s out there with the swagger of Aristophanes by pointedly naming the enablers, mocking the corrupt, and smiling wryly as Trump and his minions demand apologies."

"So here’s a lesson for every Democrat who’s tried to do battle with a lowlife president by using high-minded policy papers," he added. "Fight like Jon Ossoff. You might just find that you’ll actually win."

A democratic socialist's landslide upset in a red state primary has rattled the party establishment and handed Republicans a fresh warning.

Florida Democratic Senate primary winner Angie Nixon, a former union organizer who has represented Jacksonville in the Florida House since 2020, defeated retired Army intelligence officer Alex Vindman on Tuesday despite being outspent by more than 10 to one, a Wednesday article by The Guardian reported.

She raised $975,000 to Vindman's $16.3 million but pulled in more than 750,000 votes to his 550,000.

Conservative commentator Noah Rothman, writing in National Review, branded Nixon "communist-curious" and cast the result as proof of a broader threat.

"Even if the race for Senate in Florida is now a foregone conclusion, this race will still feature prominently in the national conversation," Rothman wrote. "Why? Because it demonstrates that Republicans are right when they warn that the socialist phenomenon is coming to a town near you."

Nixon, who only recently joined the Democratic Socialists of America and was not endorsed by the group, brushed off the labels in her victory speech.

"They call us extreme, they call us radical," she said, per The Guardian. "But I think people see through that. I won't let them define me."

She closed with a shot at her November opponent, Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL), saying, "Ashley Moody can call me whatever she wants, but in November she'll be calling me senator."

Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, said the outcome exposed a shift in the party's base with "a strong majority of progressive social Democrats in Florida." However, she questioned whether the wider electorate would follow. Organizer Hayley Margolis said Nixon's grassroots campaign "sent shock waves through the Democratic establishment."

The win scrambled establishment plans, The Guardian noted. Within hours, Sabato's Crystal Ball moved the race from "likely Republican" to "safe Republican," according to The Guardian.

Vindman pledged to back his former rival and vowed to stand "by her side in the fight against Ashley Moody."

President Donald Trump's cabinet could look different — and have a new scapegoat — in the near future as Republicans become more aggravated over the Iran war and the president, an insider said.

Raw America's Brian Karem, a veteran White House correspondent, detailed how Trump has faced mounting pressure over the Iran war as the Republican Party fractures.

"Trump’s recent decisions have spurred multiple Republicans in Congress to rethink their support of the Iran war, though most have refrained from publicly criticizing Trump," Karem wrote. "Republican consensus seems to have centered on naming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as a convenient scapegoat for the war the longer it drags on."

In an interview, Chris Vance, a senior adviser to "Our Republican Legacy," an anti-Trump GOP organization, explained why Republicans want to "shake off the Trump stigma" and have been "seriously searching for sanity."

"Those remaining with him know better," Vance said. "They definitely know he’s dangerous, but because of greed or personal interest they aren’t going to come forward. Those who have are those he’s pushed out of office."

Trump is now in a different position than he has ever been before.

"Trump is incredibly and increasingly insulated," Vance continued. "There are Republicans on the outside who are trying to effect change, but those left inside are as delusional as he is."

And as Pentagon officials have bypassed talking about the Iran war after Hegseth fired multiple high-ranking generals, that could be changing.

"The pressure against Hegseth is 'mounting,'" a source disclosed to Karem.

"We could see movement on that front against Hegseth sooner rather than later, particularly if the current negotiations fail to produce any tangible results," the source told Karem.

As confidence in Hegseth wanes, and amid reported low munitions, there has been "growing unease that will only 'ease somewhat' if Hegseth is forced out," Karem added.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC, is out with a brutal ad attacking North Carolina Senate candidate Roy Cooper — but they mixed up the Carolinas in their attack.

The ad featured Logan Federico, a 22-year-old woman who was brutally murdered, and tied this killing to Cooper's decision to "release 3,500 North Carolina prisoners" as governor. Cooper's "reckless policies and decision to release 3,500 violent criminals put every family in North Carolina at risk. Stephen’s daughter Logan was a casualty of an agenda," posted the SLF X account.

There's only one problem: all of this happened in South Carolina.

"Republicans are trying to score political points from a tragedy," wrote Senate Majority PAC, the Democratic Party's counterpart to the SLF. "Logan Federico was murdered in South Carolina. Her killer was released from a South Carolina jail after racking up charges in South Carolina. This has nothing to do with Roy Cooper or North Carolina."

"Bizarre: the @WhatleyNC campaign is now blaming Roy Cooper for a murder committed in... South Carolina, where he has never been Governor," wrote Carolina Forward. "The man who murdered Logan Federico, Alexander Dickey, was released from a South Carolina jail, and had numerous previous charges — again, in South Carolina. The whole crime literally has no connection to North Carolina whatsoever, except that Federico (the victim) happens to have been born in Waxhaw."

"This may be the most egregious ad of the cycle," wrote John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster who has worked with Cooper. "This criminal lived and committed crimes, including this one, in South Carolina, not North Carolina. So the GOP makes an ad to try and deceive NC voters into believing that @RoyCooperNC is somehow responsible for this man's slain daughter, whose killer committed this and all his crimes in South Carolina. Beyond out of bounds and disgusting."

A blistering new lawsuit accuses a contractor for President Donald Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement of leaving inspectors "flying in the dark" after a tuberculosis outbreak at a facility in Colorado.

On Wednesday, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser filed a lawsuit against Geo Group, a private prison contractor that runs multiple ICE detention facilities in Colorado, after the company failed to provide records about a tuberculosis outbreak that Colorado authorities learned about in June, The Denver Post reported. The lawsuit claims the company has left state inspectors “flying in the dark when it comes to a contagious and deadly infectious disease within its borders," according to the report.

“The Geo Group is endangering Coloradans’ public health by refusing to follow the state health department’s order and by violating Colorado law,” Weiser said. “This law keeps our residents safe and enables the health department to take necessary measures to prevent the spread of infectious diseases like tuberculosis.”

A spokesperson for Geo Group told the outlet that there are no "active" cases at the facility and that federal authorities "remain actively involved in disease-prevention and control measures."

The lawsuit was filed at a time when Trump's ICE has faced growing scrutiny over its treatment of detainees and American citizens. Recently, the agency announced plans to procure electric shock gloves to improve its "de-escalation" tactics, an announcement that rankled several of the president's critics.

Legal analysts on MeidasTouch's "Legal AF" podcast were gobsmacked this week by what they called a "bombshell" New York Times report.

They said the report caught President Donald Trump's "forked-tongue" Justice Department in the act just days after new Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to pledge that the department would operate independently of the White House.

Asked whether the DOJ would always act independently of the White House, Blanche wouldn't commit.

"No, I'm not going to pledge that," he said.

Days later, the Times reported that the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago has been investigating a Democratic firm tied to the daughter of Justice Juan Merchan, the judge who presided over Trump's conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case. Prosecutors issued subpoenas probing Authentic Campaigns, partly owned by Lauren Merchan, and its dealings with prominent Democrats, including Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and the DNC.

The panel noted the bias claim isn't new — and was already rejected by New York's judicial ethics commission and appellate courts, which upheld Merchan as impartial.

"Right on cue," legal analyst Michael Popok said, calling the Justice Department's denial "double talk" and "forked-tongued" as it's "going after Donald Trump's political enemies after Todd Blanche has told the world he doesn't do that."

"It's obvious that you do do that," he railed.

Fellow legal analyst Adam Klasfeld called it harassment of the judge's family, while analyst Dina Doll warned that "nobody who has stood up to him is safe."

Analysts flagged that the probe is led by Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, whose office is already roiled by the "Broadview Six" grand-jury misconduct allegations and had probed Reid Hoffman's litigation financing for E. Jean Carroll. They warned Blanche and Boutros could face professional fallout, noting attorneys like Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman faced disbarment after Trump's first term.

President Donald Trump's impromptu half-hour tour of the White House South Lawn surprised a CNN anchor with his use of time.

During a Wednesday segment on CNN, Kasie Hunt said Trump spent 32 minutes leading reporters around the White House while talking about stones, flagpoles, and his planned ballroom.

"32 minutes in a presidential day is an enormously long amount of time," Hunt said. "It doesn't feel like it. You can easily waste 32 minutes on Instagram like the rest of us, but he's running the country."

According to Kate Bedingfield, a former White House communications director for Joe Biden, the president's day "is scheduled within minute increments, and there are decisions made that give him the time to do this rather than other things."

Trump's schedule initially said he was participating in a policy meeting during the time slot he used for his impromptu tour, Hunt said.

"I would just be absolutely ripping my hair out," Bedingfield said.

Axios reporter Alex Thompson said, "Democrats running in competitive seats are jumping for joy" because of Trump's time-wasting.

Politico reporter Marc Caputo said that Trump's misuse of his time is part of the reason "why his approval ratings have been slipping, even among Republicans." However, Trump focuses on his projects because "he loves it. He is the builder in chief."

Mark Sanford, the Republican former governor of South Carolina, suggested Trump is trying to achieve "immortality" with his pet projects.

"It's frightening in that none of us are wild about dying, but I think he's preoccupied with it. It's a triumphant arch, whether it's renaming the peace center, whether it's the ballroom, you just go down the list," Sanford said. "It ought to be your actions in a governance role that stand out."

However, Caputo said that Trump has "stamped his legacy on the GOP and altered its DNA."

A federal judge just lit "a real red light" for one of President Donald Trump's pet prosecutions with an extraordinarily rare move, according to one legal expert.

In Minnesota, a federal judge told prosecutors from the Trump Department of Justice that she wants to see all of the minutes from the grand jury proceedings to see if grand jurors were given all of the correct information in the case against journalist Don Lemon, who was arrested in January while covering a protest that occurred inside of Cities Church in St. Paul.

Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor, told Jake Tapper on CNN's "The Lead" that the judge's order was "extraordinarily rare," and said it should be a warning sign for federal prosecutors because it shows she is giving "serious consideration to dismissing the case."

"Two things to know about the grand jury. One, it's a one-sided process. The only people in the room are the prosecutor, witnesses, grand jurors, and a transcriber," Honig said. "And, two, judges almost never agree to look at the minutes before a trial happens. So, we don't know exactly what the alleged infirmity here is, but 99 times out of 100, judges are going to say, 'The grand jury is not my business.'"

"The fact that the judge is saying, 'I'm going to take a look at those' is a real red light to me," he continued. "And the judge has noted this Justice Department has been found to have violated grand jury procedures in other cases, including in Illinois against anti-ICE protesters. So there's a bit of history here as well."

Conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly on Wednesday criticized Sen. Darline Graham's (R-SC) botched debate performance.

Kelly said on her podcast that Graham's responses left her "mortified" and referred to the sister of late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as a "placeholder" senator, The Daily Beast reported. Kelly played back the debate stage flop.

Trump had endorsed Darline Graham, 62, and asked her to step into her late brother's Senate seat after his unexpected death. During the debate Tuesday night, she was booed by the crowd in Newberry, her hometown.

“I’m just going to be honest here... I’m not that informed on national security,” Graham said as the audience jeered. "But I do support the military."

"I’m not a polished politician up here. National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I support the military," she said.

Kelly was not impressed with Graham's comments.

"I’m sorry," Kelly said. "I know she’s just pinch-hitting, but that’s disqualifying, is it not?"

Tom Bevan, one of Kelly's guests on the show, questioned Graham.

"She didn’t get anything through osmosis from her brother about foreign policy, apparently,' Bevan said. "I mean, that’s all he talked about!"

Kelly agreed with that.

"Not even through osmosis, not even through sitting in the Senate for the past couple of months," she said. "I’m mortified by that answer. It’s not really, exactly her fault, although she did accept the appointment."

"But has no one looked into whether she knows anything about politics, world events, international events?" Kelly added. "This actually is an important thing to understand as a U.S. Senator."

Infighting broke out between far-right commentators at The Daily Wire over a key women's health issue — culminating in influencer Ben Shapiro indirectly calling one of his own colleagues a "moron."

The dustup started over postpartum depression, a common and serious mental health condition that can happen to women after giving birth, leading in the worst cases to self-harm or harm to the child.

But in a post to X on Monday, Daily Wire host Matt Walsh dismissed the condition as merely women being selfish.

"A lot of people aren't going to want to hear this but much of the 'depression' that parents (and not just moms) suffer after child birth is due not so much to hormones but to the fact that children, especially babies, are demanding and difficult and require us to subordinate our own needs and desires for their sake," said Walsh. "The more selfish you are, the more of an adjustment it's going to be."

Faced with outrage, he doubled down in a post to Facebook the next day.

"I don't think it helps anyone to completely reduce the mental hardship and frustration of this experience to a matter solely of hormones and brain chemistry, as if there aren't even deeper reasons why a parent might feel depressed as they learn to live in an entirely different way, and are forced, for the first time, to orient their lives around something other than their own needs and desires," he continued. "Of course I would say the same thing about depression in general. There are very often deeper issues than just the chemicals. People tend to get very angry at that suggestion, too, no matter how obviously true (and important) it is."

Shapiro, the outlet's founder, posted a video of himself refuting this on Wednesday.

"For any men, and a few women, who are saying that postpartum depression is somehow lack of willpower or that postpartum psychosis doesn't cause people to do violent things, or that postpartum depression is because of the selfishness of modern women or something, please, please, please stop being a moron," said Shapiro.

The Federal Election Commission has forced Darline Graham to refund Senate campaign donations from powerful backers that surpassed legal limits.

According to a Wednesday report by NOTUS, the GOP candidate for Senate in South Carolina and sister of late Sen. Lindsey Graham violated campaign finance rules. Graham must refund or redesignate roughly 10 percent of her cash on hand, currently $251,000, according to NOTUS.

Individual donors may give a federal-level political candidate up to $3,500 per election, including primaries, runoffs, and general elections, under FEC rules.

In a letter to Graham's campaign, the FEC flagged "excessive" donations from powerful business and political figures like Charles Schwab, David Wilkins, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada, and Ziad Ojakli, the head of public policy at TikTok.

Some of the largest donations were more than $7,000. Schwab donated $7,000 even to Graham's campaign, while most of the other flagged donations were just over the $3,500 limit. All of the donations flagged by the FEC were given between July 29 and August 5, only a few weeks after Sen. Lindsey Graham's death.

The FEC also flagged contributions from the leaders of Blackstone, AmTrust, Micco Corporation, Westrock Capital Partners, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-AK) PAC Denali Leadership, whose $10,000 donation went $5,000 over the legal limit for contributions from committees, according to the FEC.

Graham received more than $24,000 worth of contributions over the legal limit in the course of a single week early in her campaign.

If Graham fails to respond and refund her donations by September 21, her campaign will face a possible audit or "enforcement action," according to the FEC.

Graham is headed for a runoff against Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) to decide who will face Democratic candidate Annie Andrews, who has raised $10 million, per CNN.

James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, was also forced to give back more than $1 million after violating FEC rules.

President Donald Trump was criticized on Wednesday after claiming he had a great relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, prompting backlash over his recent comments.

Trump, who had called for U.S. military exercises with South Korea to be cut, claimed during an Oval Office press conference that continuing the drills would be unfair to North Korea's supreme leader.

"I do have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un," Trump said. "I didn't like the fact that we're doing these massive military exercises really against North Korea when I'm friendly with him."

Commentators on social media were furious with the president's remarks.

"Maybe next time we shouldn’t elect someone President who kisses the a---- of Putin and Kim," David Yoffee, a frequent political commentator who self-describes as a Democrat, wrote on X.

"@RepDonBacon still waiting for you to pull your 29 years of honorable service out of the trash and do something that should not have to seem so brave. Please wake up, D̴r̴.̴ ̴J̴o̴n̴e̴s̴ Rep. Bacon," wrote attorney John Oleske in a post on X, calling on the veteran and GOP lawmaker to respond.

"Trump: Maybe Kim does a little 'military operation' and takes over South Korea in a Putin-ish manner. Maybe I look the other way unless $10 billion appears in my lap. Who knows," liberal political commentator Chris Robinson wrote on X.

"Worst reboot ever of the movie ‘The Interview’ with Seth Rogen and James Franco," journalist Nancy Levine Stearns wrote on X.