The FBI issued a statement declaring former President Donald Trump was struck by a bullet and not glass or other shrapnel almost two weeks ago when a gunman fired on him at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
The clarification came two days day after FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress there was a possibility that Trump had been nicked in the ear
by something other than a would-be killer’s bullet.
Fox News anchor Bret Baier shared the statement on his X (formerly Twitter) page Friday afternoon.
The bureau said, “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.”
FBI Statement out this hour — attributable to the agency and not a specific person:
“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.”
As ABC News reported
, Wray was speaking to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan when he raised the possibility that Trump could have been bloodied from the ear by something other than a bullet the FBI
had said was fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks.
“I think with respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray said. “It’s conceivable – although as I sit here right now I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing could have also landed somewhere else.”
Wray’s comments prompted a response
from Trump, who unleashed on the man he appointed to lead the FBI in a lengthy post from his Truth Social account. Trump wrote:
“FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasn’t sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively “uneventful” – Wrong! That’s why he knows nothing about the terrorists and other criminals pouring into our Country at record levels. His only focus is destroying J6 Patriots, Raiding Mar-a-Lago, and saving Radical Left Lunatics, like the ones now in D.C. burning American flags and spray painting over our great National Monuments – with zero retribution. No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a “bullet wound to the ear,” and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!
The FBI’s Friday statement also elicited a response from Trump, who said he was owed an apology.
“I assume that’s the best apology that we’ll get from Director Wray, but it is fully accepted!” Trump wrote
.
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy slammed Donald Trump’s VP nominee JD Vance as a “moron” for proposing tax breaks for families with children.
During a prior interview with Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk, Vance advocated for having couples with children pay less taxes in order to promote large families. Vance argued that families who have kids should not have the same tax rate as single individuals or childless couples regardless of income.
“If you’re making a hundred thousand dollars, $400,000 a year and you’ve got three kids, you should pay a different lower tax rate than if you’re making the same amount of money and you don’t have any kids,” Vance noted.
BREAKING: Kamala Harris’ campaign has apparently come out *against* tax breaks for having children while trying to slam JD Vance for his past comments.
Yikes.
During a previous interview with Charlie Kirk, Vance explained how he thinks people with children should be taxed less… pic.twitter.com/doLDTpAHXD
More recently, Vance has been criticized for claiming that the Democratic party is ran by “childless cat ladies
” such as Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Portnoy, who has become advocated and praised Trump’s policies on social media, called out Vance for being a “moron” adding that his tax breaks for families was “fucking idiotic.”
“This is fucking idiotic,” Portnoy wrote on X, formerly Twitter, to his followers. “You want me to pay more taxes to take care of other people’s kids? We sure this dude is a Republican?”
This is fucking idiotic. You want me to pay more taxes to take care of other people’s kids? We sure this dude is a Republican? Sounds like a moron. If you can’t afford a big family don’t have a ton of kids. pic.twitter.com/oPCYMkq3G1
He added, “Sounds like a moron. If you can’t afford a big family don’t have a ton of kids.”
However, the proposed child tax credit that Vance is suggesting has been in place since the 1990s, which has made families without children pay more in taxes for decades.
The child tax credit has been in place since the 1990s — meaning that non-parents have paid more in taxes for decades — everyone on Twitter seems to have forgotten this today. https://t.co/7XPJsD3DoB
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who is reportedly among those being considered by Vice President Kamala Harris to be her running mate, had strong words for his potential counterpart, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH).
Former President Donald Trump tapped Vance as his running mate earlier this month. The senator had a career in venture capital before writing the bestseller, Hillbilly Elegy, in which he chronicled his childhood.
Appearing on MSNBC on Thursday night, Walz was asked to react to Vance’s career and political views.
“What is he missing about small-town, rural America?” Jen Psaki inquired. “And what is he getting wrong as he talks about it out there?”
“Pretty much everything,” the governor responded. “And he profited off it. I’ll start out with– he misreads this – in Hillbilly Elegy about there’s some type of cultural angst or whatever. No, we’re angry because rubber barons like him gutted middle America. They took our jobs.”
And I think rural America is– they are angry. They were gutted, but Joe Biden’s policies and now soon-to-be President Harris bringing back manufacturing jobs. Bringing back dignity. Investing in infrastructure. How you gonna build a water treatment plant in a town of 400 if you don’t have a collective effort at it? So, I have to tell you, they scream socialism? We just build roads and we we build schools and we build prosperity into this.
Their whole plan is to go backwards, to give tax cuts to the wealthy. And look, so surprising. You know, the super successful Donald Trump who inherited $400 million and then proceeded to fail at everything. Middle America, you earn it. But you what? You’re not on your own. Neighbors help neighbors.
And this one bothers me. I heard you talking about punching back at the bullies. They see people less fortunate as scapegoats and punchlines for their jokes. We see them as neighbors. And I said, with my mom, my dad dies when my little brother’s young. We’re teenagers. We get Social Security survivor benefits. I’m all for pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. We didn’t have any boots. Social Security was the boots and we pulled ourselves up and we paid that back. And I think JD Vance gets none of that. You know, it’s the “Aw shucks, I’m from here or whatever. So, my hillbilly cousins did not go to Yale. But I’ll tell you what they did. They contributed to our community and they’re proud of it.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) claimed former President Donald Trump is “afraid” to debate presumptive Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, prompting an eye-roll from Fox News host Martha MacCallum on Friday.
Crow claimed that in addition to being fearful, Trump is tired and “fatigued,” which he said he learned to recognize during his military career.
MacCallum pointed out that Trump had agreed to a second debate with President Joe Biden which was scheduled for Sept. 10. Biden dropped out of the race
last Sunday – effectively canceling the debate, but Harris offered to take the president’s spot for the ABC News forum.
Harris and her allies have since portrayed
Trump as hesitant to face off against her with the vice president herself accusing Trump of “backpedaling.”
MacCallum noted that Democrats do not yet have an official nominee and asked Crow if attacks against Trump were unfair.
The host asked, “Given the fact that there has been an upheaval on the Democrats’ ticket, does it seem fair that you would want to sort of say, ‘Okay, now we have a new situation. We’re gonna do this debate and that debate and these are the terms and let both sides hash them out?’”
Crow responded by portraying Trump as a sleepy, fearful old man:
The last debate, Martha, happened when both candidates were not their confirmed nominees, so what has changed is my question. I think the obvious answer is Donald Trump is afraid. He is afraid of the change and he’s acting like it. I’m a combat veteran and I know fear and fatigue when I see it and he is acting tired and afraid here.
Someone needs to wake him up and I know he has a hard time staying awake – you know he fell asleep repeatedly at his own nominating convention and he fell asleep repeatedly at his own criminal trial – someone needs to wake him up and let him know the next generation of leadership is here.
Crow’s comments prompted a smirk and an eye roll from MacCallum, who cut in and said, “Oh, come on. Come on.”
MacCallum proposed that the candidates should work together in the very near future to schedule a debate.
Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheungsaid Thursday
it would be “inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds” about nominating her.
CNN anchor Brianna Keilar questioned Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) as to whether he believed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Mar-a-Lago Friday was an attempt to influence American voters ahead of the November election.
The question was asked a day after Netanyahu met with
the White House amid his country’s polarizing military campaign
in Gaza and then traveled to South Florida for a meeting with Republican nominee former President Donald Trump.
Trump fumed
about Netanyahu after losing the 2020 election when the prime minister recognized Joe Biden as the president-elect at the time.
Many eyes were on Mar-a-Lago Friday as the two met face-to-face for the first time in years, and with the possibility
that Trump could lead the country for another four years, beginning in January.
During an interview with Auchincloss, Keilar opined the Israeli leader would be pleased to see Trump elected over Vice President Kamala Harris or another candidate.
“It’s no secret that Netanyahu’s preferred candidate in the field would be Trump,” Keilar said. “Do you see Israeli officials trying to meddle in the election here?”
Auchincloss said he did not see the meetup in Florida as Netanyahu making an attempt to influence voters.
“No, I don’t think they’re necessarily trying to meddle in the election,” the congressman said. “I’ll just say it’s a good thing that Netanyahu doesn’t get a vote in American elections.”
The Massachusetts Democrat then ripped Trump’s running mate JD Vance, telling Keilar:
But you know, who does get a vote? Those Haley voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin, largely suburban women, who are listening to JD Vance and wondering to themselves what the heck was Donald Trump thinking? I mean, this is a guy who’s at the top of the ticket who already has bragged about him, been found liable for sexual assault now picks a guy who starts his campaign by insulting women who haven’t been able to start a family. This is a disaster by Donald Trump.
Sunny Hostin dismissed any criticisms that Vice President Kamala Harris is a “leftist,” declaring the former prosecutor is a “moderate” in a debate on The View.
Hostin pushed back on critics who are describing Harris as far left and claimed that “prosecutors are not really leftist.”
“I think the Republicans are trying to frame her as this deep leftist…she’s a former prosecutor. She’s not only a former prosecutor, she was the [attorney general] of the largest Department of Justice in the country, other than the real Department of Justice. Prosecutors are not really leftist,” Hostin, an attorney, said. “They put people in jail for a living, okay? They’re pretty moderate… I know the vice president personally. She’s moderate.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former communications official in former President Donald Trump’s administration, agreed that Harris is selling a “centrist” Democratic message with her current presidential campaign, but cited her rhetoric in 2020 ahead of joining President Joe Biden’s campaign as what most critics have an issue with.
“One example was this is the moment of George Floyd, the country’s torn apart, and she put out a statement saying she wanted to bail out people who were protesting in the streets. So people took that a certain way, they felt like she was running to resonate in that primary unlike someone like Biden would,” Griffin said.
Griffin is referring to Harris tweeting
out support for the controversial Minnesota Freedom Fund in 2020. The organization was working on bailing out people arrested during Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd dying
in police custody.
Harris’s rhetoric around the Defund the Police movement, which spiked in popularity following Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, has also come under question. In a June 2020 radio interview that resurfaced
this week, Harris can be heard praising the Defund the Police movement. It was only months later she joined Biden’s campaign and the pair denounced the movement.
“I think the point is that in 2020 she ran, in a moment, where she ran to the left,” Griffin said.
Hostin dismissed any rhetoric from Harris in 2020, chalking it up to just smart politics because running as a “law and order candidate” in 2020 would have been a “bad move.”
“She’s leaning into who she really is. If you really want to talk about it, after George Floyd people were angry about law enforcement. People were upset with prosecutors. They were upset with police officers. They were upset with policing in this country. So to run as a law and order candidate in 2020 would have been a bad move,” Hostin said.
The View
co-host declared that Harris’s current campaign actually reflects “who she really is” while the 2020 campaign did not.
“What she’s doing now is who she really is and I think that’s why it’s resonating,” she said.
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro claimed that if former President Donald Trump had a time machine, he would go back and choose someone other than Sen. JD Vance as his vice presidential running mate.
Recently, the Ohio senator has faced criticism due to past political commentary he has made on right-wing shows. In 2021, Vance appeared on Fox News for an interview with Tucker Carlson where he claimed the Democrats run the country with “childless cat ladies
who are miserable at their own lives.”
Vance specifically called out Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as Democrats who “don’t have a direct stake” in the future of the country.
Shapiro predicted on the latest episode
of his podcast that Trump would have probably picked a Republican who could have expanded his support such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin:
So, J.D. Vance is the vice presidential nominee for President Trump now. If you had a time machine, if you go back two weeks, would you have picked J.D. Vance again? I doubt it. I think he probably would have picked somebody like Glenn Youngkin from Virginia in an attempt to broaden out his base. Instead, he went with J.D. Vance, feeling because he was right that at the time he had a very solid advantage in the race against Joe Biden. Well, again, JD is super smart. He also has a long history of public commentary…
I agree that our country has moved away from caring about the future because too few Americans care about having children. I totally agree with that. However, this description that J.D. Vance is using is that politically smart or is it politically damaging? Now, again, he doesn’t have a time machine. He can’t go back and undo something he said three and a half years ago.
With that said, Democrats are, of course, using this as a club with which to be Donald Trump and JD Vance. They’re trying to run up the gender gap. So one of the things to understand about this election cycle is that the gender gap is larger than it has ever been in the history of American politics, in all likelihood. Males overwhelmingly vote for Trump. Females, particularly single females, overwhelmingly vote for Biden. And so they’re going to try to find some sort of wedge to claim that all Republicans are sexist. And this is the wedge they’re using today.
CNN reported on Friday that France’s high-speed rail lines were in disarray after a “coordinated sabotage” that left hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded ahead of the Olympics in Paris.
Anchor Boris Sanchez asked senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem about the attack, which apparently took place overnight and resulted in several trains being disrupted:
Kayyem: So on the impact side, it’s going to impact a couple hundred thousand travelers, they think, over the course of the time that the trains are down. There are alternatives, lots of shuttles are being used. I’ve talked to a couple of the Team Olympic Committee, National Olympic Committees. They’re going to get their folks on busses, as is the U.S. Olympic Committee.
As to who it is, there’s high likelihood incidents. For one, the Russians have always been worrisome during this Olympics. But this is not the kind of attack that you would expect the Russians to do. They would generally use a cyberattack. This is more physical in nature. And so there’s been a lot of discussion about political groups, maybe from the left wing. And the reason why there’s people are saying that as you remember, Paris just went through this, or France just went through this absolutely quick and crazy election
in which they really did head off the far-right, but that there’s still a coalition government. And a lot of these pieces are not in place.
There is always, as you know, Boris, also an anti-Olympic sentiment for any city that’s hosting an Olympics. And those people have been threatening and protesting over the course of the last two or three weeks. So the officials will focus on it. In about, I don’t know, four minutes the opening ceremonies will start and it’s, I’m right above it and it’s plenty crowded.
Sanchez: Yeah, I can imagine now these attacks were described as coordinated, prepared and organized. From your perspective, was this at all preventable? Was this a lapse in intelligence?
Kayyem: Yeah. It’s hard to say. I mean, that obviously is a lapse in intelligence because we were not hearing that they knew of anything. Although I get a lot of these intel reports. There were discussions about concerns about this kind of vandalism. This was pretty well-organized. The one silver lining is whoever did it — I’m not defending them — clearly did not want a mass casualty event. It’s done in the middle of the night. It’s done in a way in which it was clear that the trains would not be functional. In terms of a lapse, this is a country, like most of Europe, is very dependent on rail. There’s rail lines everywhere. And a lot of them are vulnerable. They’re in fields, they’re in suburbs and, and other places.
CNN reported
on its site that the “malicious” attacks on the rails included cases of arson and quoted France’s state railway company SNCF’s Twitter/X post that explained: “a large number of trains were diverted or canceled,” and asked “all travelers who can to postpone their trip and not go to the station.”
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the prosecutor’s office in Paris opened an investigation into the damaging of state property and organized crime.
TBS and Warner Bros. Discovery have filed a lawsuit against the NBA after the league rejecting its matching offer to retain media rights.
The lawsuit comes a day after the NBA announced it reached an agreement
with Amazon on a long-term deal. WBD has insisted that its current deal with the league gives it matching rights to keep NBA games on TNT after next season — when the deal ends. Days prior to the NBA’s announcement, TNT Sports published a statement expressing its intention to match Amazon’s offer of $1.8 billion annually.
On Wednesday, however, the NBA claimed its own statement that TNT did not match the terms of Amazon’s offer. TNT then threatened to take “appropriate action” and accused the NBA of “grossly” misinterpreting their contractual rights.
Now, it seems the first step of that “appropriate action” has been taken. Documents obtained by The Athletic’sDaniel Wallach revealed that TBS and WBD filed the suit with the New York Supreme Court.
BREAKING: TBS and Warner Brothers Discovery have just filed a lawsuit against the NBA in New York County Supreme Court over the league’s rejection of WBD’s attempted match of the Amazon media rights bid (h/t @ls87NY
) pic.twitter.com/WUHHPZF8z8
Though much of it is filed under seal, Wallach was able to access a copy of the 2014 contract. The matching rights stated in the contract give the “incumbent” — in this case, TNT — the right to enter into a licensing agreement on the terms and conditions provided by the “third party offer” — Amazon.
“Given the NBA’s unjustified rejection of our matching of a third-party offer,” TNT Sports said in a Friday statement, “we have taken legal action to enforce our rights. We strongly believe this is not just our contractual right, but also in the best interest of fans who want to keep watching our industry-leading NBA content with the choice and flexibility we offer them through our widely distributed WBD video-first distribution platforms — including TNT and Max.”
It’s literally the hottest ticket in town — Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is vetting possible running mates
, and there is one telegenic white man under the age of 80 who is very ready to step in.
Rob Lowe crashed Jimmy Fallon’s monologue on The Tonight Show on Thursday to audition for the role of vice presidential candidate, and he cited his record of public service (i.e., entertaining the public) to make his argument. He also bent his own rules/ego to audition for the role/position at this stage in his career.
His argument started with his assurance that “I know how it works, Jimmy. I was in The West Wing.” And then he launched into his stump speech:
America, I’m not like the others. There’s no greater outsider than the person who starred in The Outsiders. I can adapt to any situation. I can be comedic, like in Tommy Boy. Dramatic, like in St. Elmo’s Fire. Or stop a nuclear threat, like in Atomic Train. So, remember — when they go high, we go Lowe, spelled with an E!
This is very exciting. Not only was Rob Lowe willing to audition, he was also willing to remind people that he was in Atomic Train. And considering how much of his dirty laundry is already out there, he’s basically been not just vetted, but he’s also been roasted
, and that has to count for something.
The actor Rob Lowe will certainly not be getting the role of actual vice president, despite the fictional public service roles he has held in shows like The West Wing, Parks and Recreation, and Brothers and Sisters. And I feel like the idea of attending the Democratic National Convention might feel like returning to the scene of a crime
. But since the announcement that Harris was going to be entering the race, the West Wing fanfiction writer in me — because some of us turn to that when real life is ::waves hands:: — could only ponder how absolutely perfect Sam Seaborn would be as a VP pick for Kamala Harris if only he were a real person. Let’s have a look at Sam’s qualifications while he was on my favorite four-season show and its crappy reboot.
His White House experience (Deputy Communications Director under President Jed Bartlet, and then deputy chief of staff under President Matt Santos) already gives Sam a huge edge. Not only has he been in on major policy decisions both foreign and domestic, he also knows how to convey the message
. He has a strong legal background, albeit in corporate law, but that looks pretty solid matched with Harris’s experience as a prosecutor and California’s Attorney General. And while it was unsuccessful, he ran for Congress in California’s 47th, so he is no stranger to being a candidate himself. [Only problem is that pesky “same-state” issue that was reportedly a major stumbling block preventing former President Donald Trump from choosing infinitely better choice Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) from being his VP. So, good thing Sam Seaborn is a fictional character.]
In my headcanon, Sam left the Santos administration to run for and become California’s Attorney General, paving the way for a possible U.S. Senate run and maybe governor. So his political pathway makes a lot of logical sense. I also believe in my heart of hearts that Sam Seaborn eventually married his former White House colleague, the right-leaning Ainsley Hayes, making it a bipartisan, mixed marriage that proves how well he can communicate and compromise, plus it says a lot about his respect for strong women.
Big plus: Bartlet has a lot of faith in him
, so he’d have a fictional president’s endorsement locked up.
And if he ages anything like the actor Rob Lowe, age will never, ever, ever be an issue. He may very well be the first human being to live to be 150
.
But it’s not like I gave this a whole lot of thought or anything.
