It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, October 02, 2026
Fox forced to cut away from JD Vance's speech as protesters repeatedly heckled him
US Vice President JD Vance speaks during a midterm campaign rally to support the GOP gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds in Lakeland, Florida, US, October 1, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/Pool
Fox News sister network Live Now from Fox cut away from Vice President JD Vance after hecklers repeatedly interrupted his speech at a rally boosting Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) campaign for Florida governor.
The network was streaming Vance live Thursday from a Lakeland, Florida, midterm rally paid for by the Trump 47 Committee, according to the event listing. The rally was held to boost Donalds and Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL), who both spoke before Vance.
Vance was praising Moody when a man in the crowd began heckling him.
"She wants…" Vance said as the man shouted over him.
"She wants to make sure…" he tried again.
"We got a clown over here, ladies and gentlemen," Vance said as the crowd booed.
"We…" Vance started, before the man shouted again and the audience jeered.
"You know, you always have to laugh at these protesters, because that guy, you know, he pretends like he just broke out into an emotional protest, but he made sure to bring his cell phone at the end of a pole," Vance told the crowd.
"This is not a representative voter from the state of Florida. That guy is a Democrat plant who wants… he wants to raise your taxes and release illegal aliens on the streets of Florida," the frustrated vice president continued. "Well, we kicked him out just like we're gonna kick out the rest of the Democrats who wanna do the exact same thing!"
Vance had moved on to Donalds and his push to help Florida homeowners when a woman began shouting.
"Byron Donalds…" Vance said. "Byron Donalds is fighting to protect…"
The vice president increased his tempo as he struggled to finish the sentence.
"...Florida parents every single day," Vance said quickly.
"USA! USA!" the crowd chanted over the boos as Live Now from Fox cut away from the speech.
"And there you have it, another protester being led out of this rally right here," Live Now from Fox anchor Christina Evans told viewers. As she spoke, the network's footage showed a protester being escorted from the building.
The network soon cut back to Vance as the crowd's "USA! USA!" chant continued.
Within seconds, another woman began yelling.
"And here's the thing," Vance said. The woman kept yelling for several more seconds as boos rose again.
"Now what… What that woman is yelling is that she wants… is left-wing bureaucrats in control of your schools," Vance said, speeding up again to finish over her.
"But Byron thinks you ought to be in control of your kids' schools," Vance said as the crowd cheered and the yelling went on.
Kimberly Guilfoyle 'unfit' to serve after her overseas antics were exposed: lawmakers
FILE PHOTO: Greek Minister of the Environment and Energy, Stavros Papastavrou, U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Ann Guilfoyle, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Vice President New Ventures at Chevron, Gavin Lewis, Chief Executive Officer Hellenic Hydrocarbon Resources Management S.A. Aristofanis Stefatos react, after signing Chevron-led consortium contracts for gas exploration off Greece, in Athens, Greece, February 16, 2026. REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki/File Photo
President Donald Trump's ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, faces calls for her removal after reportedly pulling a lobbyist into meetings with foreign officials.
Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host who was once engaged to Donald Trump Jr., was confirmed to the post last year. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that top lawmakers on the House and Senate foreign affairs panels have pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to examine her conduct. They cited a recent Journal investigation into her campaign to promote natural gas deals involving a Greek company across southeastern Europe.
"If these reports are accurate, Ambassador Guilfoyle is unfit to represent the United States abroad and should be removed from her position," Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) wrote in a Wednesday letter to Rubio.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who supported Guilfoyle's confirmation, sent her own letter Thursday. "Such actions do not serve U.S. credibility overseas and risk undermining U.S. diplomacy," she wrote.
The lawmakers want records of every meeting attended by Christos Marafatsos, a registered lobbyist for Aktor Group. Aktor's joint venture with a Greek state-backed energy firm signed a 20-year agreement last fall to buy American liquefied natural gas from Venture Global. They also asked about Guilfoyle's financial interests and her travel on private jets, including one flight covered by Aktor's chief executive. Former embassy staffers told The Journal that ambassadors rarely fly private and need explicit approval to do so.
The Journal previously reported that Guilfoyle clashed with Greece's energy minister at a March dinner in Athens. Referring to Romania's government, which was then nearing collapse, she allegedly said, "We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here." Her lawyer disputed that account, per The Journal. Romania's government fell in a no-confidence vote in May.
A U.S. Embassy official in Greece said Guilfoyle "continues to follow all State Department ethical guidelines" and that "any insinuation that she was operating outside of ethical guidelines are categorically false."
A lawyer for Aktor told The Journal, "The Ambassador has been consistently promoting U.S. interests."
WSJ editors bury Hegseth for bizarrely offensive 'weirdo' speech: 'Has he met anyone?'
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Department of Defense's FY27 budget request on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board had scorn for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's bizarre speech boasting about how his military only had "warriors," rather than "beardos," "weirdos," or slurs for transgender people.
Hegseth, wrote the board, "rolled out several good U.S. military initiatives on Wednesday, and usually the purpose of big speeches is to persuade the public of worthy ideas. Yet Mr. Hegseth seems determined to shrink his support with gratuitous potshots, and that bears on whether the Administration can boost recruitment or confront new technology in warfare."
Many of the things Hegseth talked about are decent, the board wrote, like a program for recruiting officers out of schools — even if the focus is intensely on right-wing schools like Liberty University and Hillsdale College — as well as plans to establish a four-star command for autonomous weaponry.
However, the board said, Hegseth "couldn’t resist his usual polarizing attack routine against all and sundry, and he even accused the press of 'treason' for publishing what’s leaking out of the secretary’s shop. The most remembered line of the speech will be Mr. Hegseth’s declaration that the U.S. military no longer abides 'beardos' or 'weirdos.' As a practical matter, has he met anyone in defense technology lately?"
The fact is, said the board, "voters wanted the Trump Administration to restore and protect the military’s meritocracy, after race and identity excesses in the Biden Administration," something Hegseth promises to do, but now "his shoot-first firings of general officers have exasperated even some Republican Members of Congress, and the public is losing confidence in the project as it descends into debates about testosterone levels."
Ultimately, the board concluded, "Mr. Hegseth relishes attacking opponents, and even sometimes allies, as if he’s running a political campaign. But he’s a cabinet officer who needs allies to achieve his military goals."
Hegseth mocked for 'not achieving full extension' after speech about troop fitness
Kasie Hunt and retired Army Lt. Gen. Karen Gibson on "The Arena." (Screengrab via CNN)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s fixation on military fitness became a punchline when a retired lieutenant general was asked to evaluate his own workout form.
CNN’s Kasie Hunt noted Wednesday that Hegseth has repeatedly stressed physical fitness standards and cited an assessment in The Atlantic that described his push-ups as more like “half-ups.”
Hunt then played several clips of Hegseth working out on camera and asked retired Army Lt. Gen. Karen Gibson whether he was performing the exercises correctly.
“The kettlebell, not so much,” Hunt joked as laughter broke out on the CNN set of her show, “The Arena.”
“The pull-up is like this, not like this. Yes? No?” Hunt asked while mimicking the movement.
Gibson agreed that Hegseth’s form appeared incomplete.
“Well, he’s not achieving full extension of his arms or the joint there,” she said.
But Gibson quickly shifted to a broader point about Hegseth’s emphasis on physical fitness.
“I think every soldier should be fit. That’s really important,” she said. “But his fixation on some specific exercises is not the quality that makes the U.S. military so incredibly lethal and powerful.”
“There are lots of other things that make a good soldier,” Gibson added.
Ex-Trump official flags disturbing aspect of Jared Kushner's 'volunteer' status
Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham flagged Jared Kushner's 'volunteer' status (CNN/Screenshot)
A former TrumpWhite House press secretary says Jared Kushner's "volunteer" role with the current administration lets him avoid disclosing how much money he makes.
During a Thursday interview with CNN anchor Erin Burnett, Stephanie Grisham made the claim following a CNN investigation into Kushner's financial ties to an Israeli company with stakes in firms that have seen business grow from the war in Gaza. According to CNN, Kushner's investment firm, Affinity Partners, is the largest shareholder in Phoenix Financial, which holds stakes worth more than $456 million in Israeli defense companies.
"None of this surprises me," Grisham said. "I recall back in our Trump administration, he had his hands in everything."
She also recalled how Kushner talked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"I remember he used to bring Bibi up as if it was just like an old guy he plays basketball with. He would drop his name so casually," she said. "Jared had a way of, you know, making it seem like he was this mover and shaker, and don't worry, he'll fix everything."
Grisham then pointed to Affinity's growth since Kushner left the White House.
"After the first Trump administration, as you guys probably know, Affinity Partners was committed $2 billion from Saudi Arabia. And now I believe its assets are around $6 billion," she said. "Meanwhile, he's calling himself a volunteer. I mean, that's great volunteer work if you can get it, I guess."
She added, "I don't mean to be glib, but the reason he's a volunteer is because you don't have to then claim and show a lot of the money that you make during the time as a temporary public worker."
Asked whether the arrangement fit Kushner's past claim that "what people call conflicts of interest, I call experience and trusted relationships," Grisham said it didn't.
Trump's approval rating plunges to 'extremely rare' level as midterm message flatlines
U.S. President Donald Trump looks at media members after returning to the White House from Scotland, Britain, in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 29, 2025. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
President Donald Trump's handling of inflation has become a defining liability of his presidency, with new polling showing roughly 8 in 10 Americans disapproving of his approach to the cost of living.
A new AP-NORC poll released Thursday found Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of cost-of-living issues by a staggering 82 percent to 17 percent margin. Reuters-Ipsos and Marquette Law School polls also put his approval in the high teens, while Marquette and CNN separately found disapproval at 80 percent. Such a level of unity against the president, wrote CNN's Aaron Blake, is "extremely rare" in American politics.
Even within Trump's own coalition, cracks are showing, with at least half of Republicans disapproving across four separate polls, 29% of self-identified MAGA Republicans souring on his handling per Fox News polling, and between 63 percent and 72 percent of white voters without college degrees, historically among his strongest supporters, expressing disapproval as well.
Few issues in recent presidential history have generated this kind of consensus. Economic troubles came close for past presidents; George W. Bush faced heavy criticism over the 2008 financial crash, and Jimmy Carter dealt with similar backlash amid runaway inflation and unemployment decades earlier, but neither reached quite the same depths Trump is seeing now.
Past scandals offer a similar contrast. Ronald Reagan weathered serious backlash over Iran-Contra, and Richard Nixon faced widespread public anger during Watergate, yet both stayed below the threshold Trump has now crossed on economic frustration alone. Even Gerald Ford's deeply controversial decision to pardon Nixon didn't generate disapproval this severe.
The closest Trump himself previously came to matching these numbers was over his decision to pardon violent January 6 defendants, which also fell a few points short of where his inflation numbers sit now.
Despite the historic unpopularity, Trump pushed back in a new Time magazine interview published Thursday, insisting Americans shouldn't blame him for affordability struggles and pointing fingers at Biden instead, even though inflation is currently running higher than when Trump took office. Polling suggests that messaging isn't landing: a clear majority of Americans hold Trump's own policy choices responsible for today's high prices, a far larger share than blamed Biden's policies at a similar point before the 2022 midterms.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, U.S., September 10, 2026. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's (R) ties to Elon Musk show what happens when Republicans control every lever of state power, a legal analyst warned.
Lawyer and journalist Katie Phang made the case in a Thursday video for her YouTube channel while interviewing Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic state representative challenging Abbott in November.
Phang pointed to what she called "a very suspicious, almost, I'd say, scratching of the back happening between Abbott and Elon Musk," citing state grants and tax breaks that have flowed to the billionaire's companies. She said Starlink received $110 million upfront from the Texas Broadband Office and that SpaceX landed a tax break shortly after Musk gave half a million dollars to Abbott's reelection campaign.
The arrangement, Phang argued, is the product of one-party rule.
"Texas state politics has been what I call a power trifecta," she said. "Just like on the national level in D.C., just like in my home state of Florida, your state house, your state senate, and your governor's mansion, all run by the GOP, all run by Republicans. And so if the state of affairs in the state of play is woefully, sadly miserable, there's only one party to blame, and that's the Republicans."
She added, "There is no daylight between Greg Abbott and the billionaires," and asked Hinojosa why she "thought it was important to expose this type of backscratching."
Hinojosa has sent the governor's office a public records request for Abbott's communications with Musk. She said a state broadband contract was rewritten to Musk's benefit just before awards went out. According to Hinojosa, the head of the broadband office told lawmakers at a hearing this summer that the terms changed "because the governor's office made a phone call and told us to change it."
"Before that, Elon Musk was given the keys to the castle," Hinojosa said, referring to Musk's authority to close a public beach.
President Donald Trump's latest crypto dinner looks like a predatory scheme to steal money from investors, Russ Buettner of The New York Times told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday.
It isn't the first round of shady crypto dealings, he noted, as the whole enterprise has made Trumpand his family vastly wealthier.
"Overall, this past year of crypto wealth and Donald Trump's life, I think, has been more income, pure profit than anything else," said Buettner. "Probably the sum total of his entire life and business before ... absolutely more than his inheritance, and the money from 'The Apprentice' and his best business deals all combined."
The other notable aspect, he said, is that "they were so roundly criticized for the first go-round because they offered these coins as he was entering office; 58 people bought them. We can't tell who bought a lot of them and sold them immediately. The period when they owned it raised the price a lot. Those people made all more than $10 million each. Almost everybody else who bought it after that lost a ton of money, I think to the tune of $700 million."
"Which is just incredible when you think about it," said Cooper.
Buettner agreed.
These tokens, he added, are "essentially a baseball card where you don't get the baseball card. It's just a piece of electronic, ephemeral. And it doesn't have any value unless somebody else wants to pay you more for it. You can't use it, typically, to buy other things. And they were really roundly criticized even by the crypto industry for doing what's called a rug pull, which is the equivalent of, like, a pump-and-dump scheme."
BUYING ALASKA VOTES
US ally shoots down Trump's $50 billion investment boast: 'Far beyond what was agreed'
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks about an energy infrastructure project in Alaska as US President Donald Trump and US Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) listen in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 30, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
A $50 billion investment deal touted by President Donald Trump during a Wednesday Oval Office event is running into pushback from the ally he says agreed to it.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters South Korea would invest more than $50 billion in the long-stalled Alaska LNG pipeline project, plus another $120 billion in U.S. nuclear power plants, as part of a "broader trade package."
That earned applause in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican who has pushed the pipeline for years, celebrated on X: "Alaska LNG is happening thanks to a $50 billion+ investment from South Korea that we announced today at the White House. This project will deliver low-cost energy for Alaskans for generations and create 10,000+ good-paying jobs. A historic day for our state!"
But South Korea's government says the celebration is premature, the Wall Street Journal reported early Thursday morning.
Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan pushed back on the U.S. framing, saying "the announcement went far beyond what was agreed, as the countries agreed to proceed with the Alaska project only on the premise that commercial reasonableness is guaranteed," according to the Korea Times.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung echoed the objection, insisting no blank check had been written.
"We agreed to begin working on the Alaska LNG project on the conditions that, first, its commercial viability is confirmed and, second, it complies with Korea's legal procedures," Lee said.
According to the Journal, Seoul has reportedly secured "a $20 billion annual investment ceiling and a $200 billion overall cap" as part of the broader trade framework, guardrails that leave the specific Alaska pipeline commitment far from finalized despite Wednesday's applause line.
"The clashing versions add another twist to protracted, and often contentious, talks between Washington and Seoul over last year’s trade pact. South Korea has pledged $350 billion in U.S. investments, plus an additional $100 billion for American energy purchases, in exchange for dropping tariffs on most goods from 25% to 15%," the Journal reported.
Trump's trade war wrecked industry he swore he was defending: 'Everyone is losing'
President Donald Trump's trade war with Canada is battering the American dairy producers he has repeatedly claimed to be protecting.
In a Thursday article for "The Bulwark," economics editor Catherine Rampell said U.S. dairy "was supposed to be the one industry President Donald Trump was actually helping." Instead, she wrote, "American dairy farmers are now saying: Please, stop helping."
Trump often points to dairy as proof that Canada cheats the U.S. on trade, and he has put Canada's dairy tariffs at 250 percent or 400 percent, depending on the day. Rampell noted that those steep rates apply only to sales above a tariff-free quota set under the USMCA, the trade deal Trump negotiated in his first term. Citing the International Dairy Foods Association, she reported that U.S. producers have never come close to hitting that cap. The U.S. also sells roughly three times as much dairy to Canada as it buys.
Mateo Kehler, CEO of Vermont's Jasper Hill Farm, told Rampell his Canadian customers disappeared almost overnight last year as tariffs, counter-tariffs and boycotts piled up. His farm's Winnimere cheese recently won Best of Show from the American Cheese Society.
"I can't figure out who's winning here," Kehler said. "Everybody I know is losing."
He added that he doesn't fault Canadian shoppers.
"Honestly, if I were a Canadian consumer, I would not be buying anything from the U.S. either," he said. "This is a time for resistance, and I applaud Canadians for voting with their dollars."
The pressure has grown in recent weeks. Canada began imposing a 25 percent tariff on U.S. cheese last month, and this week Trump banned some Canadian dairy imports, mostly whey products, along with Canadian motorcycles and alcohol, according to Rampell.
Pete Hardin, longtime editor of the Wisconsin dairy publication the Milkweed, said two Wisconsin cheese-plant owners told him their large Canadian orders had been canceled.
"The notion that for dairy, Canada is a problem to the U.S. is a joke, in my opinion," Hardin said.
Rampell had a blunter view, writing that "whatever the f— Trump is doing now is making things worse. For everyone."
Trump started a fight that's giving his rival 'unthinkable' popularity: WSJ
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at a working lunch with leaders of G7 and the Middle East, in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 16, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/File Photo
Carney is barreling forward with "a rewiring of Canada's economic, national-security and foreign policies" that, in some cases, would once have been "unthinkable" and unpopular, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
A political novice until he won the premiership last year, Carney has vanquished opposition that might have felled his predecessors thanks to a confrontation with Trump that has given him "unthinkable" popularity.
Polls show Carney's Liberals would win a majority if an election were held today.
According to the Journal, "Polls show that Carney’s Liberals would win a majority if an election were held today. A survey released Tuesday from Nanos Research found that Carney was the preferred choice for prime minister of more than 60% of respondents, the highest level it has recorded for him."
That has lawmakers from "across the political spectrum" defecting to the Liberals over the past year, and his opponents are struggling to land a punch; Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has spent recent months fending off critics in his own party."
Even in Alberta, a conservative stronghold, people view Carney more favorably than Poilievre or Premier Danielle Smith, according to the report.
"I cannot remember, in my adult life, a prime minister having this good an 18 months," said Darrell Bricker, chief executive of Ipsos told the Journal. "There has been very little pushback against any of the things that he's proposed."
Lori Turnbull, a political scientist at Nova Scotia's Dalhousie University, said Carney likely wanted to pursue many of these policies regardless, but the conflict with the U.S. "gives him a logic, gives him a narrative that might make more sense to people."
She added: "The way he's describing it is essentially we're in an emergency situation, we're in a kind of something that's similar to a war. He's made this about our sovereignty, and so it all kind of fits together."
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