Donald Trump's appointee to head the Department of Defense came under criticism from retired Naval War College professor Tom Nichols, as his limited experience in the military and inexperience in leading anything but a weekend Fox News show is causing backlash.

Nichols spoke on Friday in a podcast with The Atlantic about Pete Hegseth's appointment as nothing more than "pure provocation."

While his "scandals and inflammatory rhetoric" are prompting questions, Nichols argued that the biggest danger that Hegseth presents is in recreating the U.S. military the way Donald Trump believes it should be.

"Hegseth’s going to sit at the top of all that, with no experience in any of this—not in budgeting, not in strategy, not in dealing with allies," Nichols told podcast host Hanna Rosin.

"I keep having these just head-spinning moments where I think about the first day in the office, and Pete Hegseth has to make calls to his equivalents, to his opposite numbers, as they do in this job," continued Nichols. "That’s another thing that you don’t do if you’re the secretary of HUD—you don’t call all the housing secretaries on the planet to say hello."

Yet, Hegseth will "be on the phone with the Russian minister of defense. He’s going to be on the phone with the Chinese minister of defense. The people [who] have had these jobs have had exposure to folks like that. This is a guy who’s done none of that— nothing. There’s literally zero background," the column noted.

Rosin read from Hegseth's book, recalling his campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion, saying it made the U.S. military weak. The comments have been criticized by women in military leadership and officials.

Speaking to "Face the Nation" last Sunday, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost her legs in combat, called the sentiment "flat-out wrong."

"Our military could not go to war without the women who wear this uniform," Duckworth said. "And frankly, America's daughters are just as capable of defending liberty and freedom as her sons."

According to Nichols, this made-up problem "comes from, like, morning editorial meetings at Fox."

"I worked with senior military officers, including a lot of my students who had just come back from deployments, and you just didn’t hear anybody talk this way about, you know, Marxism rampant in the Pentagon and DEI is destroying us—in part, because a lot of those folks were standing right next to people that Hegseth would say were DEI promotions," he continued.

"This is kind of the out-of-control bro culture that Hegseth came up in, and some of it’s just generational," Nichols said.

Listen or read the whole podcast here.

Donald Trump's presidential transition team was blindsided by reports that Fox News host Pete Hegseth had been accused of sexual misconduct — and is now reportedly considering their options over his nomination to head the Pentagon.

Trump nominated Hegseth for secretary of defense this week, but The Washington Post reported that the team is now "weighing the future" of the nomination.

"The transition team was caught by surprise by the detailed allegations and now fears more negative revelations about Hegseth," the Post wrote, citing a person familiar with the complaint.

“There’s a lot of frustration around this,” the person said. “He hadn’t been properly vetted.”

The Trump team decided to outsource all vetting of the candidates to a private company rather than use the FBI. According to CNN, Trump's team believes FBI background checks take too long.

Hegseth's lawyer, Tim Parlatore, said that the allegations of assault never resulted in any criminal charges. The evidence provided in the report was a bruise on the inner thigh of the accuser, police reports said.

The incident reportedly happened when Hegseth attended a California Federation of Republican Women conference. One incident took place between midnight on Oct. 7, 2017, and 7 a.m. at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa. The report was filed on Oct. 12.

Parlatore promised, “There’s no other skeletons to come out.”

He added, “There’s no reason to withdraw that I’m aware of.”

This comes after a Friday afternoon report that Hegseth was reported as a possible "insider threat" to the Army National Guard.

The complaint came from a fellow Guard member who was the unit’s "security manager and on an anti-terrorism team at the time," according to The Associated Press.

Hegseth has been married three times. His first divorce stemmed from an “irretrievable breakdown” of the marriage and Hegseth’s “infidelity,” the Post noted, according to a divorce filing. During his second marriage, Hegseth fathered a child with another woman, a then-producer at the network. A month after the child was born the second wife filed for divorce.

Read the full report here.

It has been a little over a week and Donald Trump is already being criticized over purportedly inexperienced people he says he intends to nominate to his Cabinet.

Investigative reporter Nina Burleigh joined "The New Republic's" Greg Sargent to discuss her cover story about the new U.S. reality and those ready to fight back.

The two agreed that the appointments of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will likely cause Americans a lot of anxiety, but it isn't without heartburn for Trump too.

The video player is currently playing an ad.

"It’s really hard to say which of these two will be more of a disaster, but taken together, the message is very clear: We may be in some serious trouble," said Sargent, who posted the transcript with the title, "Matt Gaetz’s Meltdown Suddenly Gets Much Worse for Trump."

"It’s pretty clear that shock and awe is the road that they’re going to travel," said Burleigh. "That was predicted to me, when I was working on this article that you referenced about what might happen, by the people who were predicting that—thought that—he would do shock and awe on day one, on the inauguration day when his hand came off the Bible."

She said that this is the groundwork for things to get a lot worse.

Burleigh also said she was shocked to see Trump bring Kennedy in since he's so far out on issues other than vaccines, like putting fluoride in the drinking water and even abortion.

"It’s the make America great again, which is, let’s go back to 1950 and let’s really disinter the paranoias and the way that anti-government sentiment was expressed then, which is, Oh God, they’re putting this stuff in the water and like reinvigorating that kind of paranoia," she said, claiming that such paranoia is about to become American policy.

Sargent said that it's going to put Republicans in a difficult position where they have to support candidates in confirmation hearings where they "actually start to expose in a very high-profile way the views of this nut."

He also said that Trump was the establishment in 2020 and buckled under the crisis Americans were facing. In 2024, he was able to run as an outsider again. But he wondered if the "superficial understanding of what Trump represents" is "now looking like it’s going to be really disastrous."

Burleigh agreed that kind of overreach could be the "seeds of his demise." She continued that some Republicans might be willing to join with Democrats and say, "Let's get this guy out of here."

She said the disaster could be a "boomerang" back at Trump, in which the Senate and presidency face off against each other, and the Supreme Court must step in.

Listen to the full interview right here.

Donald Trump's 2024 win means that he could enshrine far-right conservatism even further in the U.S. Supreme Court — but Justice Samuel Alito is standing in the way.

Given Alito's age of 74, there was speculation that he and Justice Clarence Thomas, 76, could step down to make way for younger conservative justices who would be expected to maintain control long into the future.

Last week, Trump allies butted heads over asking the justice to step down.

But according to the Wall Street Journa Tuesday, Alito isn't going anywhere.

“Despite what some people may think, this is a man who has never thought about this job from a political perspective,” said a person close to Alito. “The idea that he’s going to retire for political considerations is not consistent with who he is.”

As the New York Times reported last week, speculation about shoving the justices out has "prompted fissures in the conservative world, eliciting a striking rebuke from Leonard Leo, a leader of the Federalist Society and arguably the most powerful figure in the conservative legal movement."

Both Alito and Thomas are younger than President-elect Donald Trump, who, at 78, will be the oldest president in history when he leaves office at 82.

Conservatives hold a 6-3 majority on the court and have lifetime appointments.

Read the full report here.

Donald Trump hasn't been sworn into office yet but, according to one U.S. senator, he's already delaying his legal responsibilities.

Taking to X on Monday, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) cited a CNN report saying that Trump still hasn't signed an ethics agreement that has to be on file before a presidential transition takes place.

By law, no transition can take place before it's signed — and Trump is already making plans including appointing Cabinet members.

The video player is currently playing an ad. You can skip the ad in 5 sec with a mouse or keyboard

But transition briefings, needed before he takes office, have been delayed because by law they can't be given before the ethics agreement that's part of the Presidential Transition Act is signed.

The law applies to all members of the transition team.

In March 2020, Trump himself signed the bill requiring the ethics pledge into law. Wisconsin's Sen. Ron Johnson (R) introduced the bill and it was co-sponsored by Warren, among others.

"Donald Trump and his transition team are already breaking the law," said Warren on X. "I would know because I wrote the law. Incoming presidents must prevent conflicts of interest and sign an ethics agreement. This is what illegal corruption looks like."

Trump becomes president on Jan. 20, 2025.

A behind-the-scenes video that appears to be part of the documentary "The Art of the Surge: The Donald Trump Comeback," reveals a nervous Trump constantly requiring reassurance from his staff and members of his inner circle.The videos follow Trump as he races toward Election Day 2024.

Among the clips revealed by Courier Newsroom is a nervous Trump walking the debate site and trying to figure out how the time clock works.

"Well, what happens if I'm 10 seconds long? Will I be cut off?" he asks.

The video player is currently playing an ad.

The clock counts down to the limit of time he has to speak. It is green until the final several seconds, when it turns yellow, and then when it hits zero, the clock turns red. Trump was baffled by this and had questions.

Also Read: Not all former Trump 'spiritual advisors' appear in public to support his 2024 campaign

"Green means I'm on?" Trump asks.

An aide had to explain that green also meant that Harris could be speaking.

"It's not an indicator if the mic is on or off," the person says.

"When the mics are off, the mics are off," Trump says.

"Yes," someone off-screen is heard saying.

"Oh, okay. Good," Trump replies.

"The way I've normally done it is I will see that I'm on and she's off," Trump continues. "But we're going to go a little less formal, right?"

He then asks if the moderators "will be directing me" or if he'll merely respond to her. Stage managers try to explain how moderators will ask questions, and he will answer them.

In the second video, Trump is seen after the debate where his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), reveals that he thinks Trump lost.

"The story they're going to try to spin is that you got all the momentum right now, and she stopped the momentum," Vance tells Trump to his face. "That's bulls--t."

"I think I killed her," Trump says behind the curtain before entering the spin room.

"I don't think that anyone gives a s--t," says Vance. "I think you killed her."

"I'm getting calls from congressmen saying this is the best debate I've ever seen," Trump claims only a few moments after leaving the debate stage.

Trump then runs into Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) who reassures Trump the way the media will analyze it in the spin room will be different than the way "real voters" see the debate.

See the videos below or at the link here.

A top Trump adviser sees "something is off" with the former president, The Atlantic's Tim Alberta said Monday.

Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Monday, Alberta said that he found the conversation with the senior adviser "fascinating."

"I was having a meal with a pretty high-ranking Trump person about a month ago, maybe six weeks ago, and I'd said at that point to this person, I said, 'Is there any small part of you that hopes that he loses?" Alberta relayed.

"And they just sort of cocked their head to the side sort of in disbelief that I asked the question, but they didn't answer," he recalled. "And I said, really? No? Any small part of you?' And this person thought about it for a few minutes and said, 'Yeah, I guess there is because maybe we could all just sort of move on at that point.'"

He said that he'd likely "go to my deathbed still thinking about that conversation." It was a person who "poured their blood, sweat and tears" into Trump over the last several years.

"They know that this is not — something is off here and they recognize it," Alberta closed. "I think most of them."

Wallace said she will also "never forget" that story.

See the discussion below or at the link here.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

The Montana U.S. Senate race took a turn when controversial businessman Tim Sheehy said that the U.S. should eliminate the Department of Education because it was turning children into slaves.

The Huffington Post this week flagged a report from the Daily Montanan, which revealed the comments from the Republican candidate at a campaign stop in Billings.

“We have a Department of Education, which I don’t think we need any more,” said Sheehy, on audio clips obtained by the Montanan. “It should go away. That’ll save us $30 billion right there.”

“We formed that department so little Black girls could go to school down South and we could have integrated schooling. We don’t need that anymore,” he continued.

The plan comes from Project 2025, which calls for the elimination of the DoE as well as other moves that would overhaul the federal government.

A National Education Association analysis said Project 2025 would “gut” education funding and hurt vulnerable students, HuffPo cited.

The report also said, "Kids Count data show 89.6% of students in kindergarten through 12th grade attend public school in Montana."

In another campaign stop last year, Sheehy said that young people in the U.S. have "been indoctrinated for too long." He went on to blame abortion.

Sheehy said at another campaign stop last year of young women voters that “abortion is their No. 1 concern. It’s all they want to talk about. They are single-issue voters.”

Republicans began supporting the anti-education crusade when President Jimmy Carter promoted the Education Secretary to a Cabinet-level position.

“We formed that department so little Black girls could go to school down south, and we could have integrated schooling. We don’t need that anymore," said Sheehy.

Montana gets about $40 million from the Department of Education just for students with disabilities alone. It's only 15% of the overall education budget, said Lance Melton, head of the Montana School Boards Association.

“Fairly significant harm would be implemented in Montana’s public schools if we suddenly snapped our fingers and said, ‘No more federal funding of education,’” he said.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is in the fight of his political life against Sheehy.

“Tim Sheehy doesn’t give a damn about our public schools. I’m a proud product of Montana’s public schools and a former public school teacher—and I’ll fight to protect them with all I’ve got,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.

It isn't the first time Sheehy has been caught using racially charged language when he thinks the cameras aren't on. During a September event, Sheehy accused Native Americans of being "drunk at 8:00 A.M."

Read the full report here.

A former assistant attorney general for George W. Bush penned a column for The New York Times trashing special counsel Jack Smith, and two top legal scholars issued their own takedown.

Former Justice Department official Andrew Weissmann and ex-Defense Department special counsel Ryan Goodman called Jack Goldsmith's attack likely political in a piece for Just Security.

The first thing Goodman pointed out is that Goldsmith's opinion appears to have evolved depending on which party controls the Justice Department. He posted a 2020 column from TIME in which Goldsmith said that then-Attorney General Bill Barr should have "enormous discretion" to ignore the informal policy about not announcing indictments 60 days before an election

In his recent column for the New York Times, Goldsmith called it "crucial" for current Attorney General Merrick Garland to comply with the rule.

"Simply put, DOJ’s 60-Day Rule against taking actions before an election DOES NOT APPLY and apparently never has to a case after an indictment has been filed," Goodman said.

Trump's election case has been going on for years and is in the hands of the court, not the DOJ, he said.

Meanwhile, on Sept. 5, Judge Tanya Chutkan "repeatedly said that the parties must go ahead without pretrial briefing being suspended or delayed by the campaign calendar," said Goodman. He accused Goldsmith of having "no awareness" of that fact.

The Times editorial implied that Smith aims to impact the 2024 election, which Goldman said would "require a conspiracy vast in scope at the Justice Department. It also ignores a ton of glaring details in court proceedings."

The two legal experts give even more details in their point-by-point takedown here.

Hundreds of healthcare professionals are calling for former President Donald Trump to release his medical information, as Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden have done.

Trump has never been one to reveal his private information, whether it be his taxes or his medical information. Even in the 2016 election, Trump obtained a letter from his long-haired personal physician that generated more laughs than it did assurance in his practice.

On Monday, Kamala Harris' campaign released a letter authorized by 250 healthcare professionals demanding that Trump release his medical information.

If elected, Trump will become the oldest president in history. That fact and his strange speeches have prompted some to suggest he isn't cognitively stable enough to lead the most powerful nation in the world.

The letter cites Trump's Aug. 20 statement, saying he'd' gladly' release his medical records.

"In the 55 days since, he has yet to do so," the letter said. "With no recent disclosure of health information from Donald Trump, we are left to extrapolate from public appearance. And on that front, Trump is falling concerningly short of any standard of fitness for office and displaying alarming characteristics of declining acuity."

The healthcare professionals highlighted Trump's advanced age as a reason to disclose his records.

"Donald Trump is nearly 80 years old," the letter continues. "While many older adults are highly functional, age can also come with cognitive changes that affect our ability to function well in complex settings. We are seeing that from Trump, as he uses his rallies and appearances to ramble, meander, and crudely lash out at his many perceived grievances."

The letter then names some of the conspiracy theories that Trump has invented, like the immigrants eating people's pets and FEMA withholding aid to those in North Carolina. The healthcare professionals say, "his refusal to disclose even basic health information is a disservice to the American people."

When speaking to CNN in 2019, former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) requested that Trump prove he has bone spurs, which is the reason he got out of fighting in Vietnam. Bone spurs don't go away, he explained. So, Trump would still have them visible on his X-rays.

When publishing the letter to the social media site X, Harris' campaign included a photo of Trump on the golf course looking out of shape.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was one of the international leaders willing to stand up to Donald Trump when he demanded a "favor" in exchange for sending military assistance already allocated by Congress. It seems Trump doesn't forget.

Punchbowl News pointed out that Trump has spent the past week bashing Zelenskyy, and it's causing Republicans to "wince."

Over the weekend, Zelenskyy was in Scranton, PA, for a tour of a plant manufacturing artillery that has aided Ukraine's defense from the Russian invasion. He was joined by Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) as the top elected officials in the state. But Trump allies attacked the move as "election interference."

Speaking to The New Yorker, Zelenskyy described Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as “too radical” and told him to “read up” on World War II.

Trump allies were immediately triggered.

“The idea that a foreign leader is here flying around on a C-17, in Pennsylvania, criticizing President Trump, criticizing JD Vance — it’s like a campaign stop that, again, just feels way over the top,” Trump surrogate Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), told Punchbowl.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called the comments “the biggest mistake he’d ever make.”

“I don’t mind him going to a munitions plant thanking people for helping Ukraine. But I think his comments about JD Vance and President Trump were out of bounds,” Graham told Punchbowl. “With conservatives, it’s going to hurt Ukraine.”

Conservatives have grown increasingly pro-Russia thanks to Donald Trump's ongoing support of Vladimir Putin.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), on the other hand, didn't much care.

“President Zelenskyy is trying to do everything he can to secure the support for a sustained successful effort against Putin. My guess is, if we were in similar circumstances, we’d do the same thing," said Tillis.

“He’s making a reference to J.D.’s comments about supporting the Ukraine effort," Tillis explained to Punchbowl. "And in that case, I agree. J.D. has a position I don’t share, unfortunately. The majority of Congress doesn’t either."

In a speech to a Georgia audience, Trump admitted he only recently learned about Russia's role in World War II and its battle with former French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

Read the full Punchbowl report here.

It's now 49 days until the November election and the Republican-led Congress is facing another major deadline. If there's no continuing resolution or budget bill passed by Sept. 30, the government will shut down a month before voters go to the polls.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is apparently willing to see a shutdown, saying that Republicans shouldn't cave until they get what they want.

As the Washington Post reported Monday, "House Republicans have been in power for nearly two years — and they're still unable to solve fiscal problems within their ranks."

Read Also:Uncivil war: How Speaker Mike Johnson's dream of bipartisan decency died in his hands

When handed the majority in 2022, and with a speaker swap from Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), Johnson still can't pass a budget, and most bills passed by the House don't make it for a vote in the Senate, the Post reported.

"The belligerent nature of the conference, coupled with a historically narrow majority, has made it almost impossible for any GOP leader to appease each corner of their constituency when nearly every Republican vote is necessary to pass bills along party lines," the report stated.

The House Republicans interviewed by the newspaper made it clear they have little hope of getting anything other than a continuing resolution.

"Let's just be honest: Republican lack of unity has often sent us into negotiations with less leverage than we should have," Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) told the Post. "That is a fact of being in a conference that values rugged individualism over collective action."

They still want to attach a bill that would change voting rules a month before an election. Democrats have made it clear that it's a nonstarter for them.

Even Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) told the Post that trying to hang another bill onto the CR would be a bad idea.

"The speaker tried to deliver," Cole, the Appropriations Committee chairman, said. "And he didn't lose because of people on my committee and people who wanted a shorter CR. He lost because of a disparate group of people who said, 'I don't like the long CR, I want this, I want that.' Come on."

In the end, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has voted against the CRs, said GOP leaders "would cave at the end."

Meanwhile, Democrats are calling the GOP's bluff.

"If they were serious about what they intend to do, then pass the bill themselves. But they've been unable to do that on their own," said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) during his Thursday news conference. "We are simply asking traditional Republicans to partner with House Democrats in a bipartisan way."

Read the full report here.

Two amicus briefs recently filed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals argue that Judge Aileen Cannon should be removed from Donald Trump's documents case, which she dismissed in July.

While special counsel Jack Smith appealed her ruling to throw out the case over claims he had not been properly appointed, one of the things he didn't do in the appeal was ask that she be removed from the case if it is re-established. The case involves claims that Trump took classified documents from the White House and refused to return them when asked.

Instead, two others made that argument in the filings: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and retired constitutional law professor for Harvard University Laurence Tribe, along with others.

Read Also: Behind the legal tactics Trump is using to dodge justice for January 6

Legal analysts Allison Gill and former FBI deputy director Andy McCabe took a deeper dive into the briefs in the Sunday "Jack" podcast.

CREW's ruling quoted the 11th Circuit's own past findings when it discussed the seriousness of Cannon's actions.

"Some of Judge Cannon’s rulings have been so unprecedented that affirming them would, in this Court’s words, 'violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations' and require 'a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations,'" the brief stated.

While they use many citations to argue that the case be reestablished and Cannon be removed, Gill and McCabe focused on one Florida case involving fake Rolex watches.

The case, United States v. Torkington, involved a man who was arrested for selling fake watches for $27. The judge in the lower court ruling, on the same level that Cannon is now, ruled that the arrest was absurd because no reasonable person could believe it was a real Rolex at just $27. He dismissed the case.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals not only overruled his dismissal, but removed him from the case entirely.

Torkington used three factors for reassignment that CREW applied in its brief: First, "Judge Cannon would have difficulty putting her previous views and findings aside on remand." Second, "reassignment is appropriate to preserve the appearance of justice." And third, "The gains realized from reassignment would outweigh any waste or duplication."

Read Also: A criminologist explains why Judge Cannon must step away from Trump trial immediately

"A reasonable observer could conclude that she has acted in accordance with a conviction that prosecuting a former president for retaining official documents — over 100 of which are marked classified — is 'an intolerable affront to his dignity,'" the brief says.

Gill translated from legalese: if a "reasonable member of the public" agrees she has the "appearance of impropriety," Cannon can be removed. This isn't evidence of actual partiality, but only the appearance of it.

McCabe said that as much as Trump foes want to believe "Cannon is in the tank for Trump," however, there's no concrete proof of that. But McCabe said that what Torkington does is remove the need for it entirely.

Gill also pointed out that in the Torkington case, the judge was only reversed once by the higher court. If the 11th Circuit comes back against Cannon this time, it will mean she's been reversed three times over the classified documents case.

Listen to the full podcast here.

New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi went to Mar-a-Lago for a sit-down chat Donald Trump's — and got a close-up look at his right ear.

The attempted assassination of the ex-president in Butler, PA, in July left many asking questions after his son, Eric Trump, claimed at the Republican National Convention the shooter "took off half" of his father's ear.

But several, including a Republican lawmaker, wondered if medical records on the injury were being hidden to keep the extent of the wound from the public.

“Trump has posted that his ear was pierced by a bullet, but the sad fact is that he’s an unreliable source. News organizations need to wait for more credible confirmation of what happened,” wrote journalist Steven Beschloss at the time.

Read Also: Trump’s ‘secretary of retribution’ has a ‘target list’ of 350 people he wants arrested

Nuzzi's details from the visit three weeks after the incident might explain why Trump's team has been so quiet.

"An ear had never before been so important, so burdened," she wrote on Monday. "An ear had never before represented the divide between the organic course of American history and an alternate timeline on which the democratic process was corrupted by an aberrant act of violence as it had not been in more than half a century."

But when it came to what she observed, it seemed more bark and less bite.

"Yet an ear had never appeared to have gone through less," Nuzzi wrote. "Except there, on the tiniest patch of this tiny sculpture of skin, a minor distortion that resembled not a crucifixion wound but the distant aftermath of a sunburn."

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), who was the White House physician for Trump, described the specifics of the injury to the reporter.

The wound was “kind of a half-moon shape,” he claimed. “There was nothing to stitch.”

He said the bullet had “scooped” a small amount of “skin and fat” off the top of Trump's ear.

Nuzzi wrote, "By which he did not mean to imply that Trump has especially fat ears."

It turns out, “Everybody has fat and skin on top of their ears,” Jackson said. “He’s got good ears.”

Trump was seen wearing a bandage over his ear at the Republican National Convention days after the shooting, though he took if off soon after because he's reportedly a "fast healer."

Obama photographer Pete Souza was attacked on X after posting a photo of Trump's ear after the incident, showing what Nuzzi appeared to see.

"I was perplexed by photos online of Trump boarding his plane en route to a Bitcoin conference," he wrote on Instagram. "There was no bandage on his right ear. I re-posted one of the photos on Twitter and wrote, 'look closely at his ear that was ‘hit’ by a bullet from a AR-15 assault rifle.'"

The response was so "ugly" he left the platform for Threads.

Read the full piece here.

Montana Republican Tim Sheehy, who is running for the U.S. Senate against Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), was recorded making racially charged and disparaging comments about Native Americans.

Char-Koosta News, the official news publication of the Flathead Indian Reservation, revealed shocking audio of the Republican candidate during a November fundraiser.

Sheehy trashed his relationship with Crow Reservation tribal members, saying, "a great way to bond with all the Indians while they’re drunk at 8:00 A.M.”

"We ranch together on the Crow res," he told the group. "So, I'm pretty involved down there. Road through their annual Crow Fair this year. Um, and I've broken bread with them every year... so... Great way to bond with all the Indians while they're drunk at 8:00 A.M. and you're ropin' together."

A number of male voices laugh.

The comments are remarkably similar to those he made during a Nov. 10 event in Hamilton, claiming he rode in the Cow Fair parade.

He claimed that one of the first things he did was strap a Sheehy sign to his horse and ride through the "Crow Res parade."

"And if you know a tough crowd, go through the Crow parade," he said. "Now, they’ll let you know when they like you or not, if Coors Light cans flying by your head… They respect that. You know, you go where the action is. They say, that guy's not that bad, ya know? Rode a horse through the parade. That's pretty cool. And I threw a beer can at his head, and he didn't even flinch!"

Char-Koosta News said it was working to verify the authenticity of the audio and asked for comment from the Sheehy campaign.

Last month, it was revealed Sheehy was on the verge of watching the business he started — and has touted as his main qualification for the job — collapse because the company can't pay its bills.

Meanwhile, Sheehy's service as a Navy Seal in Iraq was questionedafter the Washington Post found inconsistencies in his account.

"Most notably, Sheehy, who now owns an aerial firefighting business, has told voters that he has a bullet in his arm from combat in Afghanistan," the Post reported.

The reality, however, is that Sheehy told a National Park Service ranger in 2015 that he accidentally shot himself when his Colt .45 revolver fell. The gun then discharged in Montana’s Glacier National Park, ultimately shooting himself, court records showed.

Sheehy also hired a staffer known for liking and sharing racist posts.

Listen to the clips here.

A Washington, D.C. grand jury has returned a superseding indictment against Donald Trump for his involvement in the attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.

Superseding indictments typically mean that the charges or definitions differ. As the Justice Department defines, "If an indictment is dismissed because of legal defect or grand jury irregularity, the government may return a new indictment within six months of the date of dismissal or within the original limitation period (whichever is later)."

According to Georgia constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis, "The superseding indictment is the Special Counsel's attempt to adhere to the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision without showing the prosecution's cards in an evidentiary hearing a/k/a a mini trial. Jack Smith is working to preserve his case and move expeditiously."

Smith didn't add more charges but the indictment appeared to be more focused, reporter David Spunt said on Fox News.

About 10 pages shorter than the original indictment from last year.

"The same four core charges are included on this indictment," he said. "The reason that Donald Trump was reindicted if you will is because the Supreme Court came back somewhat in his favor on July 1st of this year telling Jack Smith, the special counsel, essentially in layman's terms, 'You need to go back and re-think your case before District Judge Tanya Chutkin."

The Arizona Police Association typically supports Republican candidates for elected office, but as the 2024 election approaches they have endorsed a Democrat for the U.S. Senate race.

The "largest police/public safety association in the state, representing thousands of active law enforcement officers, proudly announces its endorsement of Representative Ruben Gallego to represent Arizona in the United States Senate," the group said in a press release Monday.

During the previous election, the same group supported both Kari Lake for governor and Blake Masters for U.S. Senate in 2022. Despite being an incumbent in 2022, the group also didn't endorse Gallego then, said The Copper Courier's chief political correspondent Camaron Stevenson in an X post.

"As a Marine combat veteran, we know Congressman Gallego understands the complexities of modern policing in American society today, while at the same time recognizing the public's expectation," Arizona Police Association President Justin Harris said in a release. "The APA does not take our endorsement lightly; we recognize the importance of having a U.S. Senator that can bring people together to improve society for all. We believe Congressman Gallego will be that U.S. Senator."

Read the full endorsement here.

A new report is sounding the alarm about Republican election officials in Colorado who will likely protest the 2024 election results.

Colorado's election certification system is run by local canvassing boards that feature one Democratic appointee and one Republican, along with an elected elections official, USA Today reported. In the past few elections where the GOP appointee has protested certification, the Democrat and the elected official have outvoted the Republican.

In Jefferson County, which is the western and southwestern part of Denver, Republican representative Nancy Pallozzi has spent the last three elections refusing to certify results, but critics say that she hasn't ever raised any legitimate reasons to call the results of the election into doubt.

“We’ve worked with Nancy many times, and every election, she sends us a letter with some sort of reason for not certifying the election, and none of it is ever coherent,” wrote Jefferson County Clerk spokesperson Sarah McAfee. “It seems to be some sort of political statement.”

Pallozzi's actions are part of a broader trend of Republican elections officials refusing to sign off one elections where Democrats win. While these objections so far haven't blocked elected officials from taking office, they could nonetheless create chaos and delay the certification of the electoral college this November.

“I think the powers driving the election denial movement have been using the last three years as a testing ground for different techniques, different strategies to see what they can do to create confusion and cause chaos in the process,” Matt Crane, the executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, told USA Today.

Professor Rick Hasen, from the University of California Los Angeles, who runs ElectionLawBlog.org, said that those local officials could stop the final result if they have enough allies and the election is close.

“It’s a kind of strategy, if it’s a close election, to find a way to slow things down or provide a path for changing election outcomes,” said Hasen.

See the full report and other concerning elections canvassing board officials here.

I Heart Radio host Jay Weber was pulled off the air after his attack on Gov. Tim Walz's (D-MN) neurodivergent son, his website revealed on Friday. Ben Yount was filling in, the site says.

Critics pressured I Heart Radio to fire Weber after he made fun of the youngster's emotional response to his father's shoutout on the Democratic Convention stage on Wednesday night.

Healthcare advocate Kendall Brown posted the since-deleted tweet from Weber calling Gus Walz "a blubbering b---- boy" and saying it was "embarrassing for both father and son." In an X post, she tagged I Heart Radio and Wisconsin News Talk 1130, asking how their advertisers feel about the comments. The post had over 18,000 retweets and 69,000 likes.

Read Also: Racism, fascism and cruelty: Donald Trump’s New Hampshire performance in nine quotes

Weber deleted the tweet and posted what some criticized as a "non-apology," saying, "I didn't realize the kid was disabled, and have taken the post down. But, I've been challenging Walz on substance AND character ever since he was named as the VP candidate. He's a congenital liar who's destroyed Minn in a number of ways."

Weber then deleted the apology statement.

Right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter also attacked Walz's son, calling him "weird." She, too, deleted the comment but has faced backlash in the days that followed.

Right-wing streaming host and failed New Jersey Republican candidate Mike Crispi also attacked the "stupid crying son" he called a "puffy beta male."

The Nation's national affairs correspondent Jeet Heer wrote in a column Friday that the "vile" comments are part of the "continued war on the young."

A court ruled that Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, couldn't sue the ex-president and his attorney general, Bill Barr, over claims they weaponized the Department of Justice in retaliation against him. Now Cohen is appealing — and he's got an extensive list of Republicans and conservatives standing beside him.

The case stems from 2020 when imprisoned Cohen, Trump's former lawyer who pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges in 2018, was set to be released to home confinement because of health risks posed by COVID.

To secure the release, however, Cohen was ordered to sign an agreement stating he wouldn't speak to the media, and he wouldn't publish a book he'd been working on behind bars. When Cohen refused, he was not only thrown back in prison, but into solitary confinement for 16 days.

It wasn't until he sued and was granted a hearing that he was released, and the judge admonished the Justice Department. Cohen has spent the past several years claiming the imprisonment was unlawful.

One federal judge argued that Cohen's experience was indeed “retaliation” for his speech about Trump, but Cohen couldn't file a lawsuit seeking damages. Another two federal courts dismissed the case, saying there were no consequences for a president throwing a political critic in prison.

The ex-Trump lawyer has appealed, and in a recently filed amicus curiae brief made public Wednesday, he brings together a number of Republicans who agree that Cohen has a right to file a lawsuit.

Among them is George W. Bush's appointee to the Federal ElectionsCommission, Trevor Potter, and former Republican Rep. Claudine Schneider (R.I.).

Robert Shanks, the deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel to former President Ronald Reagan, also signed on. As did Alan Charles Raul, the former associate counsel to then-President George H. W. Bush. Philip Allen Lacovara, who served as the deputy solicitor general in Richard Nixon's administration, is also included.

Perhaps the most notable is former Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-OK), a founding trustee of the far-right Heritage Foundation.

Writing about the matter for Slate, Jon Daugherty and Norm Eisen said, "It is hard to imagine a more clear-cut violation of the Constitution than jailing an American for expressing his political opinions."

Read the court filing here.

Donald Trump's former acting Director of National Intelligence, Ric Grenell, took issue with Friday's bombshell Washington Post report that accused Egypt of trying to funnel $10 million to his 2016 presidential campaign.

According to reporter Carol Leonnig, "A secret investigation pursued CIA intelligence indicating Egypt's president sought to illegally inject $10 million into Trump's cash-starved 2016 campaign. The Justice Department investigators discovered a mysterious $10 million cash withdrawal. But they were blocked from seeking key records to determine if Trump took the money, then the case was shut down."

"This is made up," Grenell posted on the social media site X. "It's not an exclusive. And it's fake news. It's been investigated and was dismissed. You pushed a fake Russian collusion story and the phony charge that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation. Your boss Jeff Bezos said it best: 'People are not reading your stuff.' Right. I can't sugarcoat it anymore.'"

The quote attributed to Bezos was actually said by Washington Post publisher William Lewis, according to Fox News.

National security expert Marcy Wheeler fact-checked Grenell's claim that the story was false.

ALSO READ: We asked 10 Republican senators: ‘Is Kamala Harris Black?’ Things got weird fast

"1) How could it be 'made up' if it was dismissed — because Barr shut down [the] subpoena? That's simply dumb!" Wheeler wrote. "2) Five of Trump's top flunkies confessed or were adjudged to have lied abt what happened with Russia."

Wheeler also wrote that the Post wasn't the "big entity who reported on the still-true Spook letter that the [Hunter Biden] laptop had the earmarks of a Russian info operation."

The infamous laptop was obtained by the FBI in 2019, but a reported "copy" of the hard drive was given to Rudy Giuliani, who then gave it to the conservative New York Post.

"When The Washington Post finally got access to the material in 2022, we were able to verify some of it as authentic. There was also evidence, though, that the material on the hard drive that went from Giuliani to the New York Post was moved around with some information added," wrote Philip Bump for the Post in June.

"Even Mac Isaac [the computer repair man who got access to the computer] warned that material being attributed to 'the laptop' was not on the laptop when he undertook the file recovery process."

Wheeler explained that "Russian involvement in the laptop cannot be ruled out."

"Wow. Poor Ric is in a bit of a panic," she wrote.

CNN and NBC News are projecting a winner in the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Arizona between MAGA Donald Trump-ally Kari Lake and her far-right opponent Mark Lamb.

Both outlets projected Lake as be the winner Tuesday night.

Trump hedged in his endorsement of Republican congressional candidates Abraham Hamadeh and Blake Masters, who are running for a safe Democratic seat.

Trump issued a very early endorsement of Lake for the Senate race against Pinal County Sheriff Lamb. He campaigned by running to her right.

On the day before the election, Trump echoed his endorsement, saying, “She’s fearless when it comes to being a champion for the common-sense, America-first policies. Kari will vote to seal the border. We’re going to seal that border. It will stop them immediately, and that will stop, in turn, the invasion, the largest invasion in the history of probably any country. There’s never been anything like it.”

In the latest numbers from Noble Predictive Insight (NPI), taken July 22-23, Lake had a net favorability of +12 against Lamb, who was at 38 percent.

Lake is an avid 2020 election denier who failed in her 2022 gubernatorial pursuits and protested that result as well. Lamb spent most of the race claiming that Lake couldn't win a general election and, thus, voters should cast a ballot for him.

Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego will appear on the Democratic side of the general election to replace outgoing Sen. Krysten Sinema.

An Emerson College poll taken around the same time as the GOP primary poll shows that Gallego is ahead of Lake by four points (46 percent to 42 percent).

"Lake looks promising in overcoming the first challenge in the Senate race—winning the primary—but she'll have to shape her general election strategy to capture the key voter blocs she's currently struggling with to compete with the Democratic candidate," NPI founder and CEO Mike Noble, said in a written statement.

SiriusXM Progress host Michelangelo Signorile is questioning Donald Trump's "cognitive decline" after he appears to have forgotten a potential nominee for Treasury Secretary.

Trump spoke with Bloomberg earlier this month and agreed that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon could be a potential candidate for the position.

"Let me just say one thing first," Trump began. "So, I had a meeting with them. First, I had a meeting with Congress, Republican Congress. It was like a lovefest. Then, I met with them and the US Senate, which was all Republicans, 49. And it was also a lovefest, but my best meeting of the three (sic) was with the executives. And Biden’s misinformation — people put out a thing: Oh, he went on, he rambled. There was no rambling. This, you could say, this is rambling, but in order to get to the point, you have to, you know, this is a very complex subject, that a lot of people, most people don’t understand. But I just wanted to say, that that was the best meeting. They loved it. They were happy with."

Read Also: How is it possible Trump’s habitual incoherence caught top CEOs by surprise?

The rambling comments continued as he bragged about his tax cuts in 2017.

"But I would like to get it down to 15, if we could, because that would put us in the absolute lowest in terms of incentive. But that meeting and we had, I don’t know, 70—all CEOs, the top guys. That was a lovefest. And I will tell you when I’m not loved because I feel that better than anybody. But that was a lovefest. And it was reported by some people so wrong. Actually, CNBC called and apologized to me, because they found out. But we had a great meeting, Jamie Dimon was there. I have a lot of respect for Jamie Dimon."

The reporter at Bloomberg asked the question again whether Dimon would be a candidate for Treasury Secretary.

"He is somebody that I would consider, sure," Trump said. "He was at the meeting. Tim Cook was right next to him. You know, we had everybody."

In a post on Truth Social this week, Trump denied he commented.

"I don’t know who said it, or where it came from, perhaps the Radical Left, but I never discussed, or thought of, Jamie Dimon or Larry Fink for Secretary of the Treasury,” Trump said. Fink is the CEO of the BlackRock investment firm.

Signorile pointed out that Trump's forgetting the conversation he had just three weeks ago indicates a questionable "decline."

Psychologists duo Dr. John Gartner and Dr. Harry Segal host the podcast "Shrinking Trump," which examines the mind of the 45th president. Both doctors agree that what is being seen is a mental decline.

In May, they discussed Trump's obsession with the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter to explore Trump's loss of cognition further.

Trump's ramblings about Lecter began last year. In an Oct. 7, 2023 rally, in in Waterloo, Iowa, Trump told the crowd: "Hannibal Lecter, how great an actor was he? You know why I like him? Because he said on television on one of the – ‘I love Donald Trump.’ So I love him. I love him. I love him. He said that a long time ago and once he said that, he was in my camp, I was in his camp. I don’t care if he was the worst actor, I’d say he was great to me."

After the story was widely reported with questions about Trump's decline, he began telling the Lecter story differently, recognizing it was a film and Lecter was not a real person.

He brought up Lecter in his keynote speech at the Republican National Convention last week.

"The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He'd love to have you for dinner," he said at the time.

Donald Trump announced that his vice presidential running mate will be J.D. Vance, the Ohio Senator and a close friend of Trump's son Donald Jr.

While Vance has a long history of harshly criticizing Trump, he has spent the past few years working to pivot to be a MAGA loyalist.

As The Nation's Joan Walsh wrote in June, Vance became the supposed bard of the white working class after he wrote his memoir Hillbilly Elegy. The New York Times promoted it as "a tough love analysis of the poor who back Trump."

Meanwhile, PBS noted that after Trump's near-death experience at the weekend, the role of Vance is now much more significant.

Here are five things that Americans should know about Vance:

1. Onlookers have claimed Vance's morals have collapsed

According to retired professor Tom Nichols, who describes himself as a Never Trump conservative, Vance is a "contemptible and cringe-inducing clown."

Writing for The Nation in July 2021, Nichols said that the lawmaker has turned "on everything he once claimed to believe." He's a "sellout” or “backstabber." A “traitor” or “apostate.”

"Worse, Vance has not only repudiated his earlier views on Trump, but has done so with ruthless cynicism, embracing the former president and his madness while winking at the media with a What can you do? shrug about the stupidity of Ohio’s voters," said Nichols

“If I actually care about these people and the things I say I care about,” Nichols quoted Vance telling Time Magazine, “I need to just suck it up and support him.”

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called Vance a “pathetic loser poser fake jerk."

Cleveland News Scene said of Vance: "If politics is the art of empty gestures, J.D. was proving himself a prodigy."

2. Vance has been accused of lying about being a "working class hero."

New York Magazine reporter Sarah Jones wrote in March that Vance pretends he's fighting for working-class people but that the reality is he's trying to "reshape the Republican Party, and America too, in part by appealing to working-class voters."

She was responding to a Politico profile heralding that Vance was "something like an intellectual, or at least like a completely unselfconscious nerd."

The reality is, she wrote, he's become a "figurehead for the New Right," attacking anti-Trump conservatives and the left to ensure the "upper echelons of American government, business, media, entertainment and academia" are all "populated" by conservatives.

Vance isn't fighting for working-class people, she argued. His voting record in the Senate shows he opposes union organizing while marching on picket lines with the UAW.

Historian Gabriel Winant wrote Vance’s “false class politics” puts “the suffering of working-class people” in “conspiratorial rather than structural terms.”

"Vance isn’t stupid," Jones said. "And he knows that he can stitch anything onto a critique that is divorced from reality. He can peddle racism in anti-immigration ads and justify himself by his mother’s addiction... He can insist that he is still that working-class whisperer. But the truth is far uglier. The working class has many enemies in Washington, and Vance is one of them. He is selling out America’s workers to his friends and allies on the right — and they have no interest in sharing power or wealth with the masses. The New Right seeks power for itself and itself alone. In Vance’s America, workers will stay on the bottom rung."

3. Trump has complete control over Vance, critics have said.

Unlike former Vice President Mike Pence, Vance's career in Republican politics is tied to Trump. While Vance's successful book may have catapulted him to success, it is his association with Trump and MAGA that has put him in a position of power, experts have said.

As the Cleveland News Scene recalled, Trump "is a cruel master. He demanded servility from his yes-men, then belittled them for their weakness in doing so. He couldn’t resist mocking J.D. for the toady he’d become."

“J.D. is kissing my a-s he wants my support so bad,” Trump told a rally crowd in Ohio. It was a humiliation for Vance, said the Toledo Blade.

Still, the Cleveland report called Trump the "impresario of fraud," who was doing nothing more than "mocking a lesser practitioner."

4. He's been criticized as being little more than a right-wing troll

The Guardian's Jan-Werner Müller wrote, "Vance has perfected what, on the right, tends to substitute for policy ideas these days: trolling the liberals," Müller wrote. "Mobilizing voters is less about programs, let alone a real legislative record (Vance has none; his initiatives like making English the official language of the US are just virtue signaling for conservative culture warriors). Rather, it’s to generate political energy by deepening people’s sense of shared victimhood."

The column noted that "Vance has perfected what, on the right, tends to substitute for policy ideas these days: trolling the liberals."

MSNBC opinion columnist Hayes Brown highlighted another way that Vance was able to deploy his trolling beyond social media to the halls of the U.S. Senate.

In a letter to the Justice Department, Brown said that right-wing trolls are always known for asking questions they claim they're "just asking."

"Ones who pretend they aren’t necessarily arguing for any specific point of view or outcome but are just bravely bringing thorny subjects up," Brown said.

A South Carolina state senate candidate is suing his Republican opponents after they called him a "domestic abuser."

According to court records obtained by The Post and Courier, John Gallman, who lost an election four years ago for a Horry County seat is suing state Reps. Lee Hewitt and Chris Murphy. Both lawmakers are also Republicans.

Gallman alleges that the man defamed him and inflicted "emotional distress" in April of this year.

On April 16, the state House adopted a resolution in Gallman's honor, recognizing Gallman for "significant contributions to developing legislation that allows children equal access to both parents after separation and divorce."

Gallman temporarily lost custody of his children during his divorce, and he began lobbying the state legislature for more equitable parting policies

On April 17, however, state records showed about 60 House legislators asked to have their names removed as sponsors of the resolution. Among those asking that their names be removed were Hewitt and Murphy. According to the complaint, the two lawmakers told other House members that Gallman abused his ex-wife.

"The allegations about (Gallman) were defamatory and published with actual malice, as (Hewitt and Murphy) knew they were false," the complaint says. "As a result of (Hewitt and Murphy's) slander, (Gallman) was harmed and damages have been incurred, including but not limited to, actual and future damage to reputation."

"Murphy stated that 'House Leadership' instructed him to spread the information that John Gallman was a domestic abuser," the filing continues. "Defendants acted with actual malice and with the intent to destroy the reputation of John Gallman for illegitimate purposes."

The lawmakers denied the claim in a public statement from their attorneys.

"Representatives Murphy and Hewitt look forward to their day in court and have faith that the legal process will fully vindicate them and demonstrate that this litigious plaintiff's claims are completely meritless," the statement claimed.

The 2020 campaign broadcast the messy Gallman divorce all over the media, including stories that he dragged his former wife by her hair and broke her finger.

The lawsuit says that Murphy and Hewitt also claimed Gallman was mentally unstable.

Gallman was never charged and denies the allegations. He said that the defamation had made him lose business.

In a different case after the election, Gallman alleged that a news outlet failed to give "a fair and reasonably true summary of the contents of his Family Court file, or that these defendants published false and defamatory information about him with actual malice," according to the court records.

The report said the judge granted summary judgment in favor of the news outlet.

Before the case against the news outlet, Gallman attempted another defamation case, this time against the school nurse at his children's private Catholic school, and her husband.

In 2018, Gallman alleged that the nurse gave an interview to a court-appointed guardian during the divorce. According to court documents, Gallman said the nurse's husband worked for one of his competitors, which was the reason for the attacks on him. That case was stayed in November of 2019.

Read the full report here.