Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones has come clean about why he’s been suddenly and unexpectedly absent from the network. Jones was forced to take an unscheduled break from his on-air duties after complications from eye surgery, he wrote in a post to X on Thursday. “You may have noticed my recent absence,” Jones began, explaining his eye surgery earlier in the year was caused by a childhood sports injury and then saying he had experienced another retina detachment, “which is common after the initial tear,” he wrote. “Yesterday, I underwent surgery again with the best care team... I’m optimistic that I’ll be back soon!” Jones took leave in January for the initial surgery on his eye, after the surprise discovery of the problem in December. Jones had a retinal detachment—when the retina separates from supportive tissue—which causes painless symptoms including flashes of light, spots in your vision, blurred vision, and darkening of peripheral vision, and can lead to blindness if untreated. He said he doesn’t know what incident in his childhood caused the condition.

Read it at X.com

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Scandal-hit companies tuned into a virtual Homeland Security briefing on a $ 2.3 billion Trump administration contract for its controversial self-deportation scheme, according to an investigation by PunchUp, the Daily Beast’s sister Substack. Data-mining giant Palantir, private prisons group GEO Group, and chartered deportation carrier CSI Aviation led the pack on last week’s call about the second iteration of Project Homecoming. Round one saw former Secretary Kristi Noem, 54, hand $915 million to Salus Worldwide Solutions in May 2025, a company just two years old at the time which has since faced corruption allegations over how it won that award. Draft terms for the new contract require the winning bidder, which is “unlikely” to be Salus, to pay unaccompanied migrant children who “choose” to leave the country. The winning firm will also track down eligible participants through commercial software normally used by bounty hunters and lead teams to find migrants at more than 35 detention sites nationwide.

Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Rosie O’Donnell closed out her week as Jimmy Kimmel’s guest host with a scathing song “dedicated to a very special boy.”

Singing to the tune of “Danny Boy,” O’Donnell eviscerated her longtime nemesis, Donald Trump.

As one of Kimmel’s rotating summer hosts, hand-picked by the ABC anchor as a “special treat” for the president, O’Donnell surprisingly spent little time on him. She didn’t utter Trump’s name once, instead using creative nicknames for the president, and decided only to open her monologues with brief quips about him.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A bizarre video has emerged raising yet more questions about the blonde 35-year-old who is constantly at President Donald Trump’s side.

The social media clip, recorded nine years ago, shows Harp, who was in her mid-20s at the time, claiming that she was the sole survivor of serious medical malpractice thanks to Trump.

Harp would go on to repeat the claim that the president’s policies had saved her life in a viral online essay in 2019, but many of the eyebrow-raising details listed in this first video were not repeated.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Vladimir Putin has a new weapon in his grinding war with Ukraine: relics dating back to the 14th Century.

The Russian president, 73, is looking to Russia’s medieval past as his war in Ukraine shows little progress. He has approved plans to send relics of Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy to Russian troops on the front line in an apparent attempt to boost morale, according to local media reports.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

President Donald Trump is a “bad person” and “not to be trusted,” according to a top Canadian politician.

Canada and the U.S. are enduring historically poor relations under the 80-year-old’s administration, which saw Trump threaten 50 percent tariffs on an array of goods, forcing both sides to the negotiating table to hash out a new agreement.

As part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s bid to secure a deal, he has pressured provincial leaders to end their boycott on U.S. booze, but as they did so, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew fired off a no-holds-barred takedown of Trump.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The setup of Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is an intriguing one. When Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is hired to reboot a storied slasher franchise, Camp Miasma, she meets with Billy (Gillian Anderson), the final girl from the original film.

Things get weird, fast, as the lines between reality and fiction blur. But one thing’s clear: Kris and Billy desire each other. One might even say they need each other. And it all culminates in a legitimately mindblowing sex scene.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The family of a Black war hero says they were blindsided by reports that an aircraft carrier named in his honor is to be renamed—potentially after Donald Trump.

CNN reported that the Navy is taking steps to rename the USS Doris Miller, an aircraft carrier still under construction, and has already stopped using the name supposed to honor the Pearl Harbor hero. Sources told the network there had been internal discussions about renaming it after the president.

CNN anchor Laura Coates spoke Thursday night with Thomas Bledsoe, Miller’s great-nephew, who relayed the reaction from Miller’s loved ones. “For our family, it was quite a shock to hear that there was conversation about the possibility of renaming the Doris Miller carrier,” Bledsoe said.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jimmy Fallon tore into the president’s increasingly dubious relationship with his personal assistant Natalie Harp, interviewing a Harp doppelganger on Thursday night’s The Tonight Show.

The sketch was inspired by the stories swirling about Harp, Trump’s 35-year-old executive assistant who rakes in $150,000 a year and has been a near-constant presence at his side.

Harp’s insistence on staying close to Trump, 80, was illustrated in a 2023 incident that has just come to light. According to CNN, Trump’s motorcade was once too full to include Harp, leading the personal aide to jump into the trunk of an SUV so that she wouldn’t be left behind.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

An American aircraft carrier caught up in Donald Trump’s war on Iran is finally heading home after a brutal nine-month deployment that saw conditions aboard deteriorate dangerously.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is heading back to its home port of San Diego after being replaced by the Japan-based USS George Washington, a U.S. official told The New York Times. The ship’s departure comes weeks after concerns were raised about the welfare of the crew of about 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard.

President Trump launched his war against Iran in February, confidently predicting that it would last just “a few weeks.” But the conflict is now nearing its sixth month, with no end in sight.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump’s obsession with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool resurfaced at 11:32 p.m. on Thursday, in a big self-own on Truth Social.

As part of his ongoing “beautification” of Washington D.C., the president ordered the relining of the pool with an “American flag blue” material that soon peeled off, as green algae bloomed, and the pool had to be drained again.

It has since become one of the 80-year-old’s many bugbears, and with midnight approaching on Thursday, he posted an AI-slop image of it in glorious blue, featuring an outline of his own face. But there was one big problem.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

One of Donald Trump’s staunchest defenders had a spectacular public meltdown over the rate at which unnamed MAGA aides are leaking details about the ongoing chaos inside the White House.

“An anonymous source insists what they heard from two other anonymous sources is 100% factually true—because one anonymous sources [sic] in the West Wing was told the exact same thing by two more anonymous sources at Cafe Milano, who also heard it,” Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, 50, posted in an apparently unedited Thursday-night tirade on X.

“So yes, we are writing this bulls--t story full of lies, and we’re sticking to it,” he went on, from the imagined perspective of an imaginary media outlet. “We’re going with the piece that rests on a grand total of six anonymous sources, while ignoring the eight Cabinet members who gave us statements on the record. I can’t imagine why the American people keep calling us Fake News!”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman says that letters sent by Natalie Harp to President Donald Trump “alarmed” the Secret Service.

Some words leap off the page, with Harp, a former right-wing cable host, going as far as to say she is “unworthy” of the president.

On Thursday, the Daily Beast published the letters in full, revealing new details of just how obsessed Harp, 35, seems to be with her 80-year-old boss.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The New York Times lost its first defamation suit in more than 50 years when a jury found it had defamed a former college basketball star. In 2023, the Times wrongly reported that Kai Spears, who played for the University of Alabama men’s basketball team, was in a car with teammates at the scene of a shooting where a 23-year-old mother died. A teammate was charged with murder and awaits trial. The reporter relied on a single anonymous source to place Spears at the scene. After publication, Spears’ father denied his son was present, and the article was updated with his denials. However, two months later, Spears sued, complaining that he would forever be linked with a murder. The article was corrected, and the reporter even apologized to Spears in court. On Thursday, the jury awarded Spears $9.25 million in damages. This followed a nine-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Spears’ lawyer told the jury in his closing argument that they had “the opportunity today to change the way journalism works at The New York Times.” “There was a mistake, an honest mistake,” Michael Bell, a lawyer for the paper, argued. After the verdict, Spears posted a Bible verse from James 1‬:‭17‬ on Instagram: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

Read it at New York Times

Read more at The Daily Beast.

President Donald Trump has made a fitting choice to replace outgoing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Leavitt, 28, is stepping down from the mouthpiece role to spend more time with her two young children and husband Nicholas Riccio, 60.

An array of Trump acolytes have been linked to the position, including CNN’s regular conservative pundit Scott Jennings, whose possible hiring has sown dissent in MAGA ranks.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

America’s newest cooking show host Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lashed out after his budget-busting recipes were brutally price-checked on TV.

The health secretary, 72, launched The Real Food Show on YouTube, where he travels across America to cook with guest chefs, following his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.

However, the claim that nutritious meals can be made for under $5 per portion and be “affordable for every family” went down the drain after a CNN investigation on OutFront, which triggered RFK Jr.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A star correspondent at beleaguered CBS show 60 Minutes has shared his feelings about staying on the program under its MAGA-curious new bosses.

Once a flagship news magazine for CBS, 60 Minutes has been mired in controversy since the network’s parent company was taken over by David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump ally Larry Ellison.

The younger Ellison installed Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News, leading to an exodus of reporters and staff, with some citing political interference in their stories to appease the Trump administration.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A Fox News debate grew contentious Thursday when a Democrat criticized a conservative commentator for “pearl clutching” about Jon Ossoff calling out Donald Trump’s bond with Natalie Harp.

On Special Report, ex-congressman Patrick Murphy and right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt went at it over the Georgia senator calling attention to Harp at an Atlanta rally last Sunday.

“[Trump] doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff, 39, told the crowd. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Democratic strategist James Carville has used a wild analogy to measure President Donald Trump’s sinking popularity with the American public.

Carville, 81, has previously predicted Trump, 80, will walk away from the presidency by next April, due to his health “deteriorating at an accelerated rate.”

In the full episode of his Politics War Room podcast released on Thursday, Carville doubled down on his criticism, adding that he has sunk to new levels of unpopularity.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump’s ever-present aide Natalie Harp appeared to abandon her usual post by the president’s side as Melania Trump made a rare White House appearance.

The 56-year-old first lady resurfaced publicly for the first time in more than a month on Thursday, emerging from the White House holding hands with her 80-year-old husband before speaking about the expansion of her Fostering the Future Initiative in the Rose Garden.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A national pageant revoked its titleholder’s crown just over a week after her victory.

Beauty queen Mekyla Li, representing Massachusetts, won the Miss Grand USA competition in Las Vegas on August 10. In an Instagram post, Li wrote that she was “on cloud nine” over her win.

But on August 19, the Miss Grand USA organization released a statement on Instagram that read, “Miss Grand USA announces the termination of Mekayla Li’s reign and her release from the Miss Grand USA title and all associated duties.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Dave Bautista is officially taking over as the titular role in God of War after the new series’ original lead actor suffered an on-set injury. Bautista, 57, was confirmed to be playing the role of Kratos in the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series based on the popular video game franchise, according to Variety. The series had previously announced in January that actor Ryan Hurst was cast in the lead role. However, Hurst suffered a torn bicep that required surgery during filming, which would have delayed production into 2027. Amazon and Sony, which are co-producing the series, announced shortly afterward that they were recasting Kratos. Bautista, a retired pro wrestler, is an ideal pick for the role, as the character in the games boasts an impressively muscular build. The series will focus on the story told in the two latest games of the God of War franchise. It will follow Kratos as he cares for his 10-year-old son Atreus (played by Callum Vinson) while they defend themselves against Norse gods such as Odin and Baldur.

Read it at Variety

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A top White House personnel office staffer and ally of Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is reportedly the subject of some mud-slinging within the West Wing, and her job is “hanging by a thread.”

Morgan DeWitt-Snow, the de facto head of the Presidential Personnel Office, is on “thin ice,” six sources told The Daily Mail.

The controversy, according to the report, stems in part from DeWitt-Snow’s $10 donation to Mike Pence’s 2024 presidential campaign. When aides to Trump, whose relationship with his former vice president soured after Pence presided over the certification of the 2020 Electoral College vote, informed him of DeWitt-Snow’s donation, he demanded she be fired.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump’s former fixer-turned-Judas rolled out the red carpet for his old boss in an embarrassing display of sycophancy.

Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal attorney who testified against him in his hush money trial, hosted Trump as a guest on his 77 WABC radio program, with a short portion of their chat premiering on Thursday. The interview will air in its entirety on the conservative radio station on Sunday.

In the roughly 15-minute snippet, Cohen fawned over his friend-turned-foe, frequently addressing him as “sir” and trying to walk down memory lane with the 80-year-old president.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

MAGA diehards are trying to torpedo Scott Jennings’ apparent bid to replace Karoline Leavitt as President Donald Trump’s press secretary, according to a new report.

The MAGA pundit, 48, is the current frontrunner for the job, the Daily Beast reported earlier this week, and he has been secretly meeting with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, to discuss taking on the role, according to the Daily Mail.

Jennings has staged several media stunts that appear to be informal auditions for the job, including coming out swinging for Trump’s assistant Natalie Harp, calling Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff a “sucker punching coward” after he name-dropped her in an attack on Trump.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Nancy Kissinger, wife of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, has died at 92. The philanthropist and socialite died on Thursday at her home in South Kent, Connecticut, according to the New York Times. Her death was announced by her family. Henry Kissinger died in 2023, also at home, at 100. She was born Nancy Maginnes in Manhattan in 1934 and raised in White Plains, New York. Prior to marrying Kissinger in 1974, she worked as an aide to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. She was Kissinger’s researcher while he worked at Harvard University, and later became a foreign policy specialist for Rockefeller’s Commission on Critical Choices for Americans. She traveled widely with her husband on diplomatic missions. After Kissinger stepped down from Secretary of State in 1977, the couple became a fixture at Washington state dinners, embassy parties and Republican White House receptions. The Times noted the “ash-blond, chain-smoking” Mrs. Kissinger was nearly six feet tall, and her husband was 5-foot-8, “but friends said that they were a good match, intellectually and emotionally, and described them as inseparable.” In 1982, when Ellen Kaplan, a follower of extreme cult leader Lyndon LaRouche, insulted both Kissingers at Newark International Airport, witnesses said Nancy grabbed the heckler by the throat and threatened to throttle her. The Kissingers had no children. She is survived by two stepchildren, Elizabeth Vandermark and David Kissinger, and five step-grandchildren.

Read it at The New York Times

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was widely criticized for saying he didn’t “really understand” Thursday’s spike in oil prices—moments after he pledged the “toughest sanctions in history” against Iran.

Bessent, reacting to the spike during a press gaggle outside the White House, said, “Anything that happens within a 24-hour period is noise.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Natalie Harp’s intimate letters to Donald Trump are being revealed in full for the first time—showing her spilling her heart and saying she is “unworthy” of him.

“You are all that matters to me,” Harp writes to Trump, “I don’t want to ever let you down.”

The Daily Beast is publishing them amid swirling questions over the national security implications of 35-year-old Harp’s status as 80-year-old Trump’s most significant gatekeeper, even being used as a conduit to the president by foreign leaders. David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Barack Obama, described the situation as “a deadly serious issue” on Thursday.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump’s biographer is sounding the alarm on newly uncovered letters written by his “lovesick” aide Natalie Harp, saying they offer a concerning glimpse into her extraordinary relationship with the president.

“These letters are a red flag,” author Michael Wolff told the Inside Trump’s Head podcast.

The Daily Beast on Thursday published, in full, two letters Harp, 35, wrote to Trump, 80, revealing a relationship that appears to have few boundaries, amid mounting concerns over her proximity to the president and the nature of their relationship. Extracts from the letters have previously been published, but the full texts and images of the originals have never been seen.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Sarah Paulson shocked fans with her transformation into real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

The 51-year-old actress takes on the role of Wuornos in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, the fourth season of Ryan Murphy’s true crime drama on Netflix.

In the trailer released Thursday, Paulson is seen with a jagged blond haircut, thin eyebrows, and a blank expression.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

CNN’s resident data expert highlighted that a majority of Americans believe Donald Trump to be a proponent of the “swamp” he promised to “drain.”

The network’s chief data correspondent, Harry Enten, explained on CNN News Central Thursday morning that the 80-year-old president’s mission of tackling corruption isn’t going swimmingly in the eyes of Americans.

“President Trump came into Washington with the promise of cleaning up the swamp,” Enten said. “Well, the American people say he is failing at doing so, and increasingly so.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The White House is defending Donald Trump’s peculiar relationship with his blonde aide, 35, this time hitting back at Jimmy Kimmel stand-in Rosie O’Donnell for quipping that Natalie Harp “tucks him in” at night.

O’Donnell made the comment on Wednesday night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live during her stint as guest host during Kimmel’s break. Trump’s longtime nemesis opened her monologue by speaking directly to the president. “A special hello to those of you watching from home and from the White House,” she began.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

An aircraft carrier meant to be named after a Black sailor credited with rescuing shipmates during the attack on Pearl Harbor is inexplicably being renamed—potentially after Donald Trump.

Two unnamed sources cited by CNN late Thursday said there have been internal discussions about renaming the vessel to honor the 80-year-old president.

The carrier was touted as a tribute to Doris “Dorie” Miller back in Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, and former Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced during a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day ceremony in January 2020 that it would be named the USS Doris Miller.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Melania Trump reemerged in public view for the first time in more than a month on Thursday, and she tried to downplay her noticeable absence.

The first lady was joined by President Donald Trump in the White House Rose Garden for an event celebrating the expansion of her Fostering the Future Initiative.

Her return to the spotlight came exactly one month and a day after the last time Melania had been seen in public, prompting a series of questions and jokes about her vanishing act in recent weeks.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Vladimir Putin has deployed Russia’s National Guard to gas stations as the country’s fuel crisis spirals into street brawls and scenes of public outrage.

With only enough gas and diesel for roughly 28 percent of gas stations across the country, according to a local monitoring site, more and more ordinary Russians have begun to sound the alarm publicly—only to quickly be arrested or hit with fines.

Five people were detained in Volgograd after filming a public appeal to federal authorities over the fuel shortage, while another man was detained and fined in Perm for planning a public protest.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Data centers are becoming the latest flashpoint in American politics, and as the midterms approach, candidates are still trying to figure out how to broach the issue.

In both blue and red districts, the centers are facing backlash.

In Ohio, a tight race is heating up between incumbent Sen. Jon Husted and his Democratic opponent, former Sen. Sherrod Brown, and data centers are playing an increasingly important role in the race.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

An AI-generated post shared on X by the Department of Education raised eyebrows Thursday, as many believed it included a cameo by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The image, which the post says was AI-generated with Grok Imagine, shows President Donald Trump driving a Mario Kart-style vehicle alongside Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and another man, who internet users say looks a lot like Epstein.

“Freedom REVS,” the post, shared Wednesday afternoon, read. “Stay tuned for the Freedom 250 Grand Prix THIS WEEKEND!”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The sudden death of Hayden Panettiere has sparked intense speculation about her abusive ex-boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, who broke his silence for the first time on Thursday.

Panettiere was found dead from a suspected overdose at the age of 36 on Sunday, just a day after she arrived at Hickerson’s home state of South Carolina. Hickerson, 37, and his brother Zach were in the luxury loft where Panettiere was found unresponsive. Hickerson had been arrested multiple times for assaulting the actress over the course of their relationship.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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As someone whose whole house is flocked and flooded by Ruggable’s durable, machine-washable rugs, it’s safe to say my space is running dangerously low on actual floor space. And yet, even I can’t resist the brand’s latest collaboration with Morris & Co., the British design pattern house famous for its vibrant floral prints.

The recently launched Morris & Co. x The Huntington Collection showcases breathtaking rugs featuring previously undiscovered, never-before-released artwork from the studio of English textile designer William Morris. The new collection feels both historic and fresh, merging archival art with Ruggable’s practical two-piece system.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Full House star John Stamos celebrated his 63rd birthday in a very modern way: by sharing a shirtless selfie to social media.

The Emmy-nominated actor, who played Uncle Jesse on the beloved family sitcom, did not share specific details about his birthday festivities. Still, the risqué Instagram he shared on August 19 gave fans something else to celebrate.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Pizza Hut is dropping “Pizza” from its name as the chain begins a temporary football-themed makeover. The franchise is going simply by “HUT” to mark the start of football season, covering the word “Pizza” on some restaurant signs with a large red football banner. The company noted that “hut” has been called before football snaps for generations, adding that now “it’s calling your next order.” The company said in a social media post the temporary rebrand will be in place for the next 25 weeks. The transformation comes as the parent company Yum! Brands is preparing to sell the chain in a deal worth $2.7 billion. Private equity firm LongRange Capital agreed to acquire Pizza Hut’s operations outside mainland China for about $1.5 billion, while Yum China will buy the Chinese business for $1.2 billion. Pizza Hut Global CEO Aaron Powell announced on Friday that he will leave the company after the LongRange deal closes, despite being asked to remain in the role. “I’ve always believed in leaving things better than you found them—and this business is in a better state,” Powell wrote on LinkedIn. Pizza Hut is not the first major food chain to shorten an iconic name. Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC in 1991 to distance itself from negative health connotations, while Dunkin’ Donuts officially became Dunkin’ in 2019. The Daily Beast has reached out to ‘Hut’ for comment.

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Donald Trump has been with his 35-year-old blonde aide at least 18 days in the last month—a period in which First Lady Melania Trump has not been photographed with the president once.

A Daily Beast analysis found that Natalie Harp, a former right-wing TV host who now makes $150,000 annually as the president’s executive assistant, has been with Trump for at least 56 percent of the days since Melania last appeared publicly with him.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

President Donald Trump has discussed promoting his 35-year-old blonde assistant to be his next press secretary, a new report alleges.

An insider tells CNN that Natalie Harp, a former right-wing TV host who now tags along with the president everywhere as his trusted executive assistant, has now “entered the mix” to replace the departing Karoline Leavitt as press secretary.

CNN wrote on Thursday that Trump “has joked to advisers that maybe he would tap his executive assistant for the role.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

An award-winning country singer said his “thick neck” sparked worried comments from fans, eventually prompting him to seek medical testing.

On Wednesday, Justin Moore opened up about the health scare on fellow country artist Tracy Lawrence’s TL’s Road House podcast.

“I’ve had some health issues. Nothing life-threatening, thankfully,” the 42-year-old said. “I’m sure people think, ‘Golly, he’s been eating good.’”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Republicans were hit with a brutal warning sign with less than two and a half months to go before the midterms, as the ratings for two states that Donald Trump easily won in 2024 have been shifted in Democrats’ favor.

The Cook Political Report moved the Texas Senate race from “lean Republican” to a toss-up as Democrat James Talarico faces off against scandal-plagued Republican Ken Paxton for the seat.

The non-partisan analysis also shifted the Iowa Senate race to fill the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst to a toss-up after it had previously been considered “lean Republican.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Iconic bodybuilder Dwayne Quamina died suddenly on Sunday after a bodybuilding competition. The former Mr. Olympia competitor, who lived in California, finished sixth at the 2026 Atlanta Pro Event on August 8 and 9. Quamina served in the Navy until 2016, when he turned to bodybuilding. He placed tenth at the 2016 Mr. Olympia tournament. Days before his death, the Trinidad and Tobago native posted a clip on social media stating that he was recovering from an illness. “I just felt like death,” Quamina said. He also shared a post weeks before his death in which he encouraged his 114,000 followers to “stop taking life for granted” and “go all the way and have zero regrets when it’s all over.” The post showed him working out in preparation for his Atlanta show. The well-respected muscleman is remembered as a positive and inspirational member of his community. “Dwayne was a loving yet fierce man, someone who protected and provided for his family while uplifting others with his presence, kindness, and unwavering spirit,” his friend Keri Valdez said. “His loss has left an unimaginable void in the hearts of all who knew and loved him.” His cause of death is unknown.

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A prominent conservative commentator predicted a bleak future for President Donald Trump if Democrats take control of Congress after the midterms.

Bill O’Reilly, 76, warned that Democrats would stamp out Trump’s legacy by impeaching him and blocking his legislation if they secure both houses of Congress in November.

“I can’t tell you who’s going to win, because things are gonna change. But if the Democrats win the Senate and the House, it’s over for President Trump. It’s over,” he said Thursday on No Spin News.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Michael Jackson’s nephew said the follow-up to the record-breaking biopic Michael will address the family’s “issue” with how the pop star has been portrayed.

On Thursday, Jafaar Jackson, who plays his famous uncle in the film and its sequel, cast doubt on the allegations of child sex abuse that plagued the music legend’s legacy until his death in 2009.

Addressing what audiences should expect for the second film, Jackson told GQ on Thursday that it will give “even more insight from his point of view, because at the end of the day, [the allegations] are always from someone else’s.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Follow Tom Sykes’ royal reporting at The Royalist on Substack, and get exclusive insight on everything going down behind the palace gates.

One constituency of professionals is tracking Harry and Meghan’s blockbuster return to the United Kingdom differently from the rest of us: the accountants. Experts in the field believe the timeline of their departure and return is—from a U.K. tax perspective—perfect, if the goal was to minimize tax liabilities. As Nimesh Shah, chief executive of the London tax and advisory firm Blick Rothenberg, wrote on X: “Good to see Harry and Meghan achieve six full tax years of non-UK residency to manage the ‘temporary non-resident’ rules for capital gains tax... the timing of their move back to the U.K. is immaculate.” The U.K. has a “temporary non-residence” rule—if you leave the country and come back within five years, you never really left for tax purposes as far as “capital gains” are concerned. But if you stay out for over five years (which in practice means six complete tax years) you’re golden. Now look at the Sussex calendar: Having left just before the 2020 U.K. tax year wrapped up, they’ve now been non-resident for—surprise!—the requisite six full tax years. Say what you like about their staff management skills, somebody in Montecito seems to have a very good accountant.

Want more royal gossip, scoops and scandal? Follow all Tom Sykes’ reporting at The Royalist on Substack or listen to The Royalist podcast on YouTube.

Read it at Substack

Read more at The Daily Beast.

As bad as you think things are, they’re worse.

How do I know? I mean, besides that I am Jewish and this bleak worldview has been inculcated in me since growing up in the tiny shtetl of Summit, New Jersey.

I know because while this administration has waged war on the First Amendment and is the least transparent in history, while it is erratic and chaotic and the goat rodeo to end all clusterf–ks, there is one thing about which we can be absolutely certain.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Good Will Hunting star Minnie Driver shared an emotional update just over two weeks after getting into a serious car accident.

“Paris update: It sucks being traumatized,” the British-American Oscar nominee, 56, said in a video she posted on Instagram on Tuesday.

“Like you look like you’re OK and you keep saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and showing up but… You’re just not OK,” she said.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A top Democratic strategist has sounded the alarm on a “deadly serious” problem with President Donald Trump’s ever-present aide.

David Axelrod, a senior Obama administration adviser, expressed concern about Trump’s adoring aide after MS NOW reported that she worked at the White House without security clearance for a year.

“Now THIS is a different matter,” Axelrod wrote in an X post on Thursday. “If this story is true, and the person closest to the @POTUS and his thinking on a daily basis has no security clearance and refuses to submit to the process of getting it, it’s a deadly serious issue.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

This piece first ran on the Obsessed by Kevin Fallon Substack. Subscribe here to read more like it!

There are roughly 400 people around the world whose wardrobes have been upgraded, hair finally works for them, and homes have traded tragic for chic, all thanks to the keen eyes of queer men.

Since Queer Eye for the Straight Guy first premiered on Bravo in 2003, the makeover series not only sparked a pop culture phenomenon and style movement—never forget the “metrosexuals”!—but has also spawned a slew of international adaptations and found new poignancy in a modern blockbuster Netflix reboot.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump’s plot to build another ballroom is moving at a snail’s pace.

Away from the circus of his gargantuan White House project, for which he destroyed the East Wing of the People’s House and set off a dispute now being considered by the Supreme Court, the president is also trying to build a ballroom at one of his golf courses across the Atlantic in Ireland.

But the project in Doonbeg, County Clare, has unraveled thanks to a nationally renowned planning protester and the conservation of a very small local resident.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Two teenagers who were left dangling upside down on a malfunctioning amusement park ride have been awarded a combined $550,000. Xitlali Gomez-Salais and Evie Yannotta were 13 and 14 when they became trapped with 26 other riders on the AtmosFEAR pendulum ride at Oaks Amusement Park in Portland in June 2024. The ride malfunctioned during its 360-degree cycle, leaving passengers suspended about 100 feet in the air for 25 minutes. A jury awarded the girls, both now 16, $275,000 each Wednesday after they sued the park and ride manufacturer Zamperla for $2 million. “Just the highest terror I ever felt,” Yannotta testified. “There’s nothing like it ever in my life,” Gomez-Salais told jurors, saying she feared dying in front of her friends below. “I didn’t want people to see me die,” she said. Both teens have suffered anxiety and post-traumatic stress since the incident, according to their lawsuits. “We are grateful that all of the riders are safe, and this incident is now resolved,” a park spokesperson told KATU.

Read it at New York Post

Read more at The Daily Beast.

MAGA activist Laura Loomer has accused West Wing staffers of a smear campaign against the president’s fawning young aide.

In an interview with Politico, Loomer, 33, slammed the criticism of 80-year-old Donald Trump’s close relationship with his executive assistant, Natalie Harp. The 35-year-old’s closeness with Trump has taken center stage after Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff name-dropped her during an election rally on Sunday.

“He doesn’t want to do the job,” the Democratic senator, 39, said of Trump. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump has warned that not even the Supreme Court will be able to halt construction of his ballroom project because he built it with indestructible concrete that can’t be taken down.

America’s highest court is expected to rule on Friday whether the project should go ahead, after a federal judge declared this month the president did not have the authority to unilaterally demolish parts of the White House without approval and funding from Congress.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s rant against Harvard University for apparently corrupting young girls stands in stark contrast to the many conservative personalities who call it their alma mater.

Duffy, a graduate of St. Mary’s College of Minnesota, which boasts a 92% acceptance rate, raged against Harvard, objectively one of the top colleges, if not the top, in the U.S., as he spoke with his daughter, Paloma, about her college options.

His views are explained in the Duffy family’s six-part docuseries “The Great American Road Trip,” which was uploaded on the official DOT channels and features Duffy, his wife, Fox & Friends weekend co-host Rachel Campos Duffy, and several of his nine children traveling on a noncontinuous trip across the United States.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The Office star Jenna Fischer revealed the “intense” reason why she decided to step away from acting.

The 52-year-old actress is known for her main role as Pam Beesly in the NBC adaptation of the British sitcom. The Office ran until 2013. Fischer left acting in 2019 after the ABC sitcom Splitting Up Together ended.

During a new appearance on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s On Me podcast, Fischer explained her decision.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Stephen Colbert is back and looking more relaxed than ever.

The former late-night host made a rare appearance, complete with a new gray goatee, to accept the Television Critics Association’s award for Outstanding Achievement in Variety, Talk or Sketch on behalf of The Late Show, as well as his own TCA Career Achievement Award.

“On behalf of everybody at The Late Show, we are honored to be the Outstanding Achievement in Variety, Talk or Sketch,” Colbert said, looking cheery, in a video message. “I think we did and/or many of these this past year. I couldn’t have been prouder of our folks.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Legendary fashion designer Marc Jacobs, 63, is facing backlash for wild comments he made under a lie detector test for a Vanity Fair interview. Jacobs, who has styled countless celebrities—including Lil’ Kim, Courtney Love, and Winona Ryder during their criminal trials—said he would be open to styling confessed UnitedHealthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione. “Yes,” said Jacobs, when asked if he would style Mangione for his murder trial. “I think he looks pretty good the way he dresses.” He called the 28-year-old who pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges last week a fashion “trendsetter,” citing a maroon sweater he wore to court sold out at Nordstrom. Critics called him out on X. “Hopefully he’ll never have a loved one shot in the back by a deranged killer,” said one X user. “Maybe Marc Jacobs of the global luxury brand Marc Jacobs hasn’t fully considered the idea of random people killing off wealthy businessmen,” wrote another.

Read it at The New York Post

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Fall is officially around the corner, which means shorter days, cooler weather, and criminally overrated pumpkin spice everything is on the agenda in the coming month. As we inch closer to the dreaded end of daylight saving time and the beginning of SAD season (or “cuffing season,” if you’re a glass-half-full person), the good news is that it’s the perfect time to cozy up with a new blanket. Lola Blankets are indisputably the best on the market—they’re designed from the softest faux fur fabric we’ve ever felt and are actually machine-washable. Right now, the brand is offering a very generous 50 percent-off deal to help us quell our post-summer blues during its annual Christmas in August sale.

In addition to this unheard-of deal, the brand is also offering free shipping on orders over $250 and a $50 gift card with every order. It’s a great opportunity to treat yourself and save one for holiday gifting... or not. If you’re new to Lola Blankets, you cannot go wrong with the Original Lola, but we also love the XL size (it fits over a queen-size bed) and the weighted versions. Either way, it’s one of (if not *the*) biggest deals of the year, so if you’re looking for a luxury blanket for snuggle season, now’s the time to treat yourself. Use the code AUG50 at checkout to unlock the savings.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

One of President Donald Trump’s most loyal goons has raised eyebrows with an unhinged social media tirade aimed at an unspecified target.

Dan Scavino, chief of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, the conduit through which all political appointees are chosen, dripped with scorned Facebook Mom energy as he posted the expletive-laden message on X at 10 p.m. on Wednesday.

“When you get fired for doing a spectacularly s----y job at an agency, with your badge deactivated, building access revoked, and the full ‘you’re dead to us’ package—or when you get passed over for Ambassadorships, Boards, or Commissions—because there are candidates who are actually far more qualified than you, please resist the urge to sprint to every media outlet that will platform your lying bull s--t, and then falsely attack the people in the Presidential Personnel Office who are out here serving President Trump, the Administration, and the American people each and every day—Just take the L, and move on, LOSER🤡” he ranted.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A book which details the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency has now spent eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list.

The success of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, shows the intense interest in the new Trump world.

The juicy exposé has been flying off shelves ever since it was released, selling 150,000 copies on its first day of sale, and 500,000 copies in the first month.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The FDA has given GreenWise Organic frozen blueberries and whole mixed berries the FDA’s highest-risk classification after 12 people fell ill and four were hospitalized. The illnesses occurred in Florida and Georgia between May 11 and June 5. The recall has been issued in eight Southern states that serve the brand at Publix stores: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The recall began at a Chile-based store, Frutas y Hortalizas del Sur S.A., which tested a bag of the GreenWise Organic frozen blueberries presumptive positive for E. Coli on July 3. The FDA is investigating the outbreak. There have been no deaths reported.

Read it at New York Post

Read more at The Daily Beast.

MAGA Fox host Sean Hannity told Rosie O’Donnell to “stay in Ireland” after the comedian used her new late-night hosting gig to take shots at President Donald Trump.

O’Donnell, 64, is guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! while Jimmy Kimmel takes a voluntary two-month break. She kicked off her first monologue explaining why she moved to Ireland after Trump’s return to the White House.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A Pennsylvania pilot has died following a harrowing crash with a state police helicopter Wednesday, officials said. The Cessna 150 was traveling down the runway when it collided with the Bell 407 helicopter at a small airport in Carlisle, about 100 miles from Philadelphia, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). “When I say it was a very violent crash, that plane was cut into a lot of pieces,” Lt. Col. George Bivens, the state’s acting police commissioner, said in a statement. Bivens said the helicopter lost its blades and tail boom as it crashed onto its side. Both state troopers in the helicopter are in stable condition after escaping through a broken window. “Tonight could’ve been much worse,” Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said. “Tonight could’ve been much more tragic for our state police family.” The identity of the plane’s pilot has not been released. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.

Read it at Associated Press

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.

Read it at PunchUp

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Two college athletes are dead and others are fighting for their lives after a “reckless” driver plowed into a cycling team in East Tennessee on Wednesday, according to local troopers. The Tennessee Highway Patrol said Milligan University sophomores Haylan Engdahl and Brayden Rogers died at the scene after being hit by 69-year-old John Benfield in Hampton, about 11 miles from campus. They were riding as part of an “elite cycle team” in a group of 11 when Benfield allegedly ran into them. Police said four other athletes, who have not been named, remain in critical condition at the Johnson City Medical Center. Officials have not shared exactly how Benfield was driving recklessly or whether he was under the influence, but he is in custody on a pair of vehicular homicide by recklessness charges. Engdahl, a native of Winthrop Harbor, Illinois, and Rogers, from Huntsville, Alabama, were both in their second season at the private Christian university, which competes at the NAIA level. The team’s first competitive race, scheduled for Thursday in South Carolina, has been canceled.

Read it at New York Post

Read more at The Daily Beast.

CNN panelist Scott Jennings made a desperate play to be President Donald Trump’s next press secretary.

Jennings, 48, is one of the names being touted to replace the outgoing Karoline Leavitt, 28, who has thrown in the towel to spend more time with her new baby and 60-year-old husband.

Jennings announced his candidacy for the job by defending Trump’s assistant Natalie Harp, 35, calling Senator Jon Ossoff a “sucker punching coward” after he name-dropped her in an attack on Trump.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Lindsey Graham’s sister has been cornered on her embarrassing debate flop, where she spectacularly fumbled an easy question.

Darline Graham, 62, backed by President Donald Trump, was parachuted in to fill the void left by her late brother after he suddenly died in early July. On Tuesday, she left jaws on the floor as she debated with Rep. Ralph Norman, her opponent in the runoff election to permanently succeed her brother as senator for South Carolina.

Graham, who led the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, a state-level government agency, before filling in for her brother, admitted she was “not that informed on national security” when questioned about Taiwan and the South China Sea, earning groans from the crowd.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are coming home. Archie and Lilibet have been enrolled in British schools. A private residence is being readied for their arrival in a matter of mere days.

A friend of Harry’s told me back in March that their house search has been focused on the Cotswolds, specifically the countryside around Highgrove where Harry grew up, where he knows the people, the roads and even the more discreet footpaths, so let’s wait and see, but I suspect he won’t be far from Pa.

The return of the Sussexes is being presented in some quarters as a humiliation for the couple.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has joined the investigation into Hayden Panettiere’s death, according to new reports.

Sources familiar with the investigation say the DEA will assist the Greenville City Police Department, which is leading the investigation, the New York Times and ABC News reported

Panettiere, known for her roles in Heroes, Nashville, and Ice Princess, was found dead at age 36 in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday. The actress was days away from her 37th birthday.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A passenger jet narrowly averted “disaster” after it scraped along a runway, skidded across grass and hit light poles during a terrifying take-off. The 250-ton Vietnam Airlines Boeing 787, which was carrying 271 passengers and 16 crew, was beginning its flight from Munich to Hanoi when its tail hit the runway. The aircraft’s pilots only had 300 feet of runway left when they desperately pulled up, causing the tail to hit the ground. A cloud of dust billowed from the plane as it bumped along grass and hit the light poles during its ascent. According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), the pilots reported that the aircraft stopped accelerating for around two seconds as it made its way down the runway. The plane later landed back in Munich. No one on board was injured. Juan Browne, an American Airlines Boeing pilot, said, “A rejected take-off this near to the end of the runway would have been a disaster.“ Jacques Jaurand, a retired pilot who previously flew with Air France Boeing, said, ”There may have been a problem with decision-making on the flight deck and also perhaps a problem with the aircraft itself.” The German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation is looking into what happened.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

There’s vengeful anger coursing through The Rivals of Amziah King, but also a compassion and love that’s so strong, it’s just about overpowering—highlighted by the feel-good scene of the cinematic summer.

Writer/director Andrew Patterson’s follow-up to The Vast of Night is a thrillingly engrossing tale of a beekeeper named Amziah King (Matthew McConaughey), his former foster daughter Kateri (newcomer Angelina LookingGlass), and the motley individuals who populate their neck of the rural Oklahoma woods. A fable of idiosyncratic personality and unconventional rhythms, it’s unlike anything else that’s premiered in theaters this year, and it crescendos with an early off-the-cuff musical number whose enveloping empathy is nothing short of inspiring.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jimmy Fallon sounded the alarm on Trump’s mental state after the president announced he’s planning to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year.

Over the weekend, Trump, 80, declared his plans to rekindle his relationship with North Korea’s supreme leader, 42.

The president bragged about his “very good relationship” with the dictator and said that he plans to “substantially reduce” America and South Korea’s joint military exercises, calling them “totally inappropriate and hostile, to a country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A top White House correspondent has revealed that Donald Trump’s blonde aide has so much influence in his administration that she is even screening world leaders who can’t reach him any other way.

Natalie Harp, 35 and more than four-and-a-half decades younger than her 80-year-old boss, makes $150,000 a year as special assistant and executive assistant to the president. Her habit of carrying a portable printer to reel off nice tweets for Trump to read earned her the early nickname “human printer” among other aides.

New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman has since suggested that “human binkie,” given that Harp’s effectively become the aging president’s “comfort blanket,” would be more fitting.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A Florida TV executive and the owner of an established Miami restaurant are among five U.S. citizens killed when a safari helicopter crashed in northern Kenya on Wednesday. The State Department confirmed their deaths but has not released their identities. NBC later identified one of the deceased as journalist Jose Alberto Suarez, a Telemundo station manager, while family confirmed Roger Duarte as the deceased restaurateur. NBC described Suarez as “an exceptional colleague and mentor to many.” Duarte’s relatives said they were “devastated and heartbroken,” adding, “The magnitude of this tragedy is impossible to comprehend, and there are no words to express our pain.” The State Department says that it is coordinating with local authorities in the aftermath of the crash and providing consular services to the bereaved. “We extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones on their loss,” a spokesperson for the department said. It is the second fatal helicopter crash in Kenya so far this year after another chopper went down in February, killing all six people on board, including a Kenyan politician.

Read it at CBS News

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump’s attempt to curry favor with Kim Jong Un received an embarrassing response from Pyongyang.

Trump, who radically cut joint military drills between the U.S. and South Korea while bragging about his “very good relationship” with Kim, suggested this week that he is secretly negotiating with the dictator and planned to meet with him this year.

In response, Kim Yo Jong—the North Korean leader’s sister and a top adviser—dismissed outright any talk of correspondence.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Vladimir Putin’s war has come to his favorite vacation resort in explosive fashion.

Sochi, a Black Sea city, is known for its beach resort, which before the war was crawling with domestic tourists. It was a favorite of the Kremlin dictator, who frequented the city before his “special military operation” kicked off in February 2022.

Now, he appears to have deserted it as drones whizz overhead. Indeed, the whole Black Sea coast has been battered by a Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A CNN pundit fired a brutal shot at Donald Trump’s virility in a discussion about the president’s relationship with a young blonde aide.

MAGA has been in meltdown mode after a Democratic rising star mocked Trump, 80, and 35-year-old aide Natalie Harp at an election rally.

But former Democratic congressman-turned-pundit Max Rose said he was sure the president wasn’t having an affair—although not for the right reasons.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Rosie O’Donnell didn’t mince her words when it came to Donald Trump and his exceptionally loyal aide, Natalie Harp.

With rumors increasingly swirling about the president and his 35-year-old executive assistant, O’Donnell decided to go there on her third night of hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!

“A special hello to those of you watching from home and from the White House,” the former host of The View and sworn Trump nemesis began.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump’s top Department of Homeland Security lawyer has been accused of risking bloodshed by publishing a “Worst of the Worst” list of sitting federal judges.

A group of 128 former state and federal judges, described by organizers as bipartisan, announced Wednesday that it had filed an ethics complaint against DHS general counsel James Percival. The Florida Bar member, 40, is accused of making false or recklessly misleading claims about judges who ruled against the Trump administration.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The frantic race to replace Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary is heating up after the bettors’ favorite broke her silence on whether she’s gunning for the job.

Leavitt, 28, announced last week that she’ll be stepping down as Donald Trump’s official mouthpiece to spend more time with her family after the birth of her second child in May. Insiders said Trump’s incessant phone calls while she was on maternity leave were a factor in her decision.

The White House is now scrabbling to man the podium with someone capable of defending the administration from itself as Trump’s gaffes threaten a bloodbath at the November midterms. Republicans hold only slim majorities in the House and Senate, and the Democrats’ current 8-point lead on the generic congressional ballot suggests the GOP could very well lose control of both.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

One of President Donald Trump’s congressional point men has fled the White House, deepening a growing departure crisis.

James Braid, described by Politico as “the top White House aide in charge of liaising with Congress,” lasted just 19 months in Trump’s tumultuous second term, a tenure punctuated by several high-profile departures.

The timing will prove a headache for Trump, who, with just 75 days to go until the Midterm elections, could use a canny operator to bridge the gap between the White House and Congress.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Scott Jennings was taken to task for his selective outrage over Donald Trump’s “defenseless” aide Natalie Harp when confronted on CNN with the president’s long record of insulting women.

The Daily Beast revealed last week that Jennings, 48, is the frontrunner to replace outgoing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. And on Wednesday night, he delivered a masterful display of avoiding any criticism of the octogenarian president.

Host Abby Phillip cornered the MAGA pundit during an edition of CNN’s NewsNight as the conservative commentator continued attacking Sen. Jon Ossoff over a joke about Trump’s ever-present 35-year-old aide.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

She’s Donald Trump’s closest aide, a constant presence in the Oval Office or on the president’s regular weekend golf trips.

But even though Trump clearly relishes her company, Natalie Harp’s colleagues are not so keen, according to a New York Times reporter who says Harp is “not beloved” in the White House.

Harp, 35, is known in the West Wing as Trump’s “human printer.” She prints out news stories, social media posts and messages she thinks he’d like to see, as well as helping him craft his late-night tirades on Truth Social.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Lindsey Graham’s sister offered a bizarre excuse for her mental lapse during a disastrous debate performance by insisting in another stammering public appearance: “I don’t speak politician.”

Sen. Darline Graham, 62, was parachuted in with the backing of President Donald Trump to replace her as a South Carolina senator after he died suddenly and unexpectedly last month at age 71.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Actress Dakota Johnson, 36, has reportedly split from her musician boyfriend Role Model, 29, after dating for around eight months. Role Model, whose real name is Tucker Pillsbury, is known for the viral hit “Sally, When The Wine Runs Out.” Awkwardly, Johnson just made a guest appearance on the singer’s new album, Chuck Timely & the Hourglass, which debuted at No.10 on the Billboard 200 last week. In the track, “Love I You,” Role Model can be heard telling Johnson, “Hey, I think you’re perfect,” and she replies, “You say that to everyone.” The musician asks her, “OK, well, is it working?” She replies, “Yeah, but don’t tell anyone.” He told Rolling Stone this week that the interlude on his album was his way of “publicly admitting the relationship” and said Johnson’s voice “was perfect on it.” The pair were first photographed together in December last year, but a source told People that they broke up “a while ago.” Johnson, who found stardom on Fifty Shades of Grey, split with Coldplay singer Chris Martin, 49, in June 2025, after an eight-year on-and-off relationship.

Read it at Daily Mail

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Rising Democrat star Jon Ossoff has blasted Donald Trump and his MAGA goons after they melted down over his comments surrounding the president’s blonde 35-year-old aide.

The 39-year-old Georgia senator namechecked Natalie Harp, who is an executive assistant and personal aide to the 80-year-old president, during a re-election rally in Atlanta on Sunday.

Harp is known in White House circles as the ”human printer” for her role in shadowing the president, printing out news stories for him to read and helping write his Truth Social posts.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Mike Lindell, the 2020 election denier who convincingly lost his Minnesota gubernatorial race earlier this month, wants a recount—and claims he will pay for it.

The Trump-endorsed former CEO of MyPillow fell short by about 11 percentage points, or more than 45,000 votes, according to the Associated Press. In Minnesota, an automatic recount occurs when the margin of victory is less than 0.25 percent. Candidates outside that range can request a recount, but they have to foot the bill.

Lindell, who was reportedly late to pay about $48,000 in property taxes for last year and the first half of this year, insists he is prepared to do so.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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If you’re planning to tune into the U.S. Open this year, there’s a new way to get in on the action (even if your knowledge of tennis begins and ends with Challengers). Polymarket, the popular prediction-market platform, increasingly allows users to trade on the outcomes of real-world events, ranging from politics and pop culture to sports.

Unlike a traditional sportsbook, Polymarket works more like a financial market: Users buy and sell contracts based on whether they think a particular outcome will happen, with prices fluctuating as the market’s collective expectations change. This means you can put your tennis predictions to the test while seeing what thousands of other traders think will happen in real time.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

CNN data guru Harry Enten has highlighted a sharp drop in President Donald Trump’s popularity among one critical section of his core supporters.

Enten crunched the problematic numbers for Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections, a day after Trump’s approval rating sank to a diabolical 33 percent, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Joining Erin Burnett on CNN’s OutFront on Wednesday, the pair weighed in on the success of Brandon Dukes, the Democratic candidate, who is projected to flip a Philadelphia state House seat held by the Republicans since the late 1990s. Trump also won Pennsylvania’s 12th District by 18 points in 2024.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A new documentary reveals the bonkers way that comedian Dane Cook lost millions in an embezzlement scheme run by his half-brother. The film, Funny Money: The Dane Cook Story, reveals that Cook’s half-brother and business manager, Darryl McCauley, stole $12 million from him and hid bricks of the cash inside cans of pasta sauce. McCauley had withdrawn gradually increasing sums from Cook’s accounts, stashing piles of money in safes or wrapping them in plastic to be stuffed inside containers of pasta sauce. The scheme is reminiscent of a similar money-hiding operation seen in the FX show, The Bear. McCauley was arrested in 2008 and eventually pleaded guilty to larceny and embezzlement, among other charges. He and his wife, Erika, were ordered to pay $12 million in restitution to Cook, and McCauley served six years in prison. In the film’s trailer, Cook admits his brother may have stolen even more than $12 million. “I do believe that there’s money out there,” he says. “I believe there’s people that know more.” Funny Money premieres on Netflix on Sept. 29.

Read it at Variety

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump’s gnarly right hand was on display Monday at two White House events, with his makeup doing its best to conceal persistent bruising.

The 80-year-old president’s first public appearance of the day was on the South Lawn, where he discussed the construction of his latest vanity project, a helipad, and acknowledged that his ballroom “is so much a military component” of the White House that it will have “bomb shelters.”

Trump spoke for more than 20 minutes, at times bragging about his renovation skills and how he’s “very good at flagpoles.” His bruised hand also appeared to be discolored and swollen.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

A former Trump 1.0 staffer has lifted the lid on what the president’s fawning aide was like before she entered his inner circle.

Sarah Matthews, who worked as a deputy press secretary during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, recalled her experience working alongside Natalie Harp in an appearance on MS NOW on Wednesday.

“I actually knew Natalie Harp during my time when I was working for the administration, and before I joined the first administration, I worked on Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign for a year,” Matthews, 31, told Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace. “And Natalie Harp was a campaign surrogate for us because she was a benefactor of Right to Try.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Oscar-winning screen legend Shirley MacLaine made a rare video appearance.

On August 17, the Southampton Playhouse posted a video from the beloved 92-year-old actress on Instagram. The Southampton, New York, movie theater shared the short-and-sweet message to fans ahead of its screening of her 1969 cult-classic musical comedy, Sweet Charity.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump’s fawning aide Natalie Harp is helping keep the president cocooned in a “distorted version of reality,” according to two experts.

The 80-year-old president has shown a remarkable disconnect from political reality, routinely claiming to be one of the most popular presidents ever even as a range of polls shows his approval rating plunging into the low 30 percent range amid his quagmire war with Iran.

Harp, the president’s 35-year-old executive assistant, plays a key role in fueling his delusions while soothing him through his setbacks, according to Hugh Dougherty, the Daily Beast’s executive editor.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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I’ve always hated mowing the lawn. I remember the first time my father asked me to mow the lawn, passing the torch from father to son in a ritual as old as lawn mowers themselves. (I suspect the first person to use a lawn mower’s first thought was, “Man, I can’t wait until my kid is old enough to make them do this.”) Parents look forward to that day because they also hate mowing the lawn. I vividly remember the horrified look on my dad’s face when he gazed upon my completed work. The patchy nightmare that I created of the backyard necessitated that he reclaim the task he had so joyfully handed off. If only the Navimow i2 LiDAR Robotic Lawn Mower existed in my youth, this whole messy affair could have been avoided.

I’d known about the existence of robotic lawn mowers for a while, and to say I was skeptical would be an understatement. I’d resigned myself to the idea that mowing the lawn is just one of those Sisyphean chores that you accept with home ownership. As I unboxed the Navimow i2 LiDAR Robotic Lawn Mower, my skepticism remained wholly intact. It reminded me of a large radio-controlled car; something that does not seem like it would be sufficient to tackle the average suburban lawn. I flipped it over to examine the blade, and was shocked that rather than the typical large spinning blade you would see on the underside of a traditional lawn mower, there were six small blades that looked like razors.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

President Donald Trump’s relationship with his ever-present aide Natalie Harp has become the subject of a troubling new revelation.

Harp, the president’s 35-year-old executive assistant, went more than a year without seeking the routine security clearance West Wing staffers typically obtain, MS NOW reports, citing two people familiar with the matter.

The Secret Service, the White House counsel’s office, and security officials grew alarmed over Harp’s refusal to obtain the clearance, and Trump eventually intervened personally, sources told the outlet.

Read more at The Daily Beast.