Elon Musk has reportedly told Twitter employees the company which he paid $44 billion to acquire just six months ago is now worth only $20 billion.
According to The New York Times
, Musk sent an email to Twitter employees Friday night in which he said the company is now worth $20 billion. He argued “radical changes” were necessary to avoid bankruptcy.
“Twitter is being reshaped rapidly,” Musk wrote.
Musk made the valuation claim in an email outlining the company’s new stock compensation program. Twitter employees will receive stock in X Corporation, which is the holding company the Tesla CEO used to by Twitter. The Times reports the stock will be awarded to employees at the $20 billion valuation.
Times correspondents Kate Conger and Ryan Mac detailed their futile efforts to try to get Musk and Twitter to weigh in on their reporting.
“Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment and an email to Twitter’s communications department was returned with a poop emoji,” they wrote.
So because we’ve accepted the 2024 election will be another strange chapter of American politics — or at least, that there’s no escaping it — Fox News embraced our inevitable reality by interviewing Tiger King star Joseph Maldonado-Passage about his interest in running for president from prison.
The infamous former zookeeper known as Joe Exotic spoke with Fox’s Lawrence Jones over the weekend while he continues to serve
a 21-year prison sentence for wildlife charges and plotting a murder-for-hire conspiracy against rival conservationist Carole Baskin. While some people might think being confined to prison would make it difficult to pursue the Oval Office, the Tiger King announced earlier this month
that he wants to run for president, and Jones got the scoop on it with an interview over the phone.
When asked about those who see his presidential ambitions as a “big joke,” Maldonado-Passage retorted “It’s my Constitutional right to do this.”
“It doesn’t matter what people think. This ain’t a joke,” he continued. “Things have to be changed in our country, in our political system, in our Justice Department, our prison system. Somebody has to start asking some real questions for the people that work their butts off in this country to pay the bill for these politicians to just keep peeing this money away.”
After Maldonado-Passage brushed off his rejection
from the Libertarian Party, Jones asked him what he would do differently if he was president.
His answer:
First of all, we have to quit policing of the world, okay? And we have to quit funding everybody else’s culture. It’s not the working people of America’s problem to take care of the rest of the world.
We’re sending billions and billions of dollars to other countries for gender identity, for their wars, for their crap, and we’re cutting grandma and grandpa’s social security in America. And we have homeless vets, and it’s just ass-backwards. We have President Putin just has warrants for his arrest for war crimes. We have President Trump under the possibility of an indictment and other criminal charges. We have Hunter Biden and President Biden under investigation for money-laundering making bad deals.
What is the hell is the difference in somebody in prison that sees the system for what it really is, and exposing this and trying to fix it?
At the Waco, Texas Donald Trump rally on Saturday, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz joined Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in singling out former ambassador to the U.N. during Trump’s administration Nikki Haley for particularly dismissive criticism.
Greene, in an interview with Right Side Broadcasting, pulled a “whoever she is
” remark about Haley. But Gaetz separated Haley out from his criticism of other Republicans while he was on stage.
Gaetz in his remarks said that Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Ted Cruz owed their elections to Trump, and that they should show loyalty by endorsing the ex-president “today.”
But he singled Haley out all by herself separately in the speech, not suggesting that she join the fold or the movement but instead mocking her.
“Nikki Haley says that we must kick all of the world’s bullies with heels,” said Gaetz. “But we cannot go kicking and screaming around the globe, starting new wars behind every Middle Eastern sand dune as Nikki Haley would have us do.”
After pausing for the crowd’s applause, Gaetz delivered the kicker to his heels bit.
“So, Nikki Haley can keep clicking her heels,” he said. “What we know is that President Donald Trump will bring America’s enemies to heel.”
Haley and DeSantis took the brunt of intra-party criticism from speakers and rallygoers across the various livestreams from Trump’s Waco rally on Saturday, the first of his 2024 campaign.
Ted Nugent performed a guitar rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner for the event, peppering his appearance with a series of wild comments in a tirade
that included referring to Ukraine’s president as a “homosexual weirdo.”
Jon Stewart said he doesn’t care whether or not Donald Trump goes to jail over the Stormy Daniels hush money saga, but the former president should be indicted for the sake of holding him accountable to the law.
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed the former Daily Show host Sunday and started by asking Stewart what he thinks about the discourse surrounding Trump’s possible indictment. While Trump’s foes might want Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to go ahead and indict Trump for allegedly falsifying his business records, Zakaria noted “there are other people who say this is going to turn him into a martyr.”
Asked for his thoughts, Stewart sarcastically remarked “the law should always take into account someone’s popularity.”
What’s happened to our country? It’s as though you can’t even commit financial fraud anymore. You can’t inflate the value of your properties when you need a loan and then deflate it with taxes. I mean, the next thing you know, they’re going to send you to jail instead of your lawyer
, and your accountant
, and your campaign manager
, and everyone else around you. The idea that someone may face accountability who’s that rich and powerful is outrageous, and this country shouldn’t stand for it.
Stewart eventually got serious, arguing that even if the indictment fuelssupport
for Trump, “we either have the rule of law, or we have no rule of law.”
“The rule of law does not take into account if that might make you a martyr to somebody,” Steward said. “I’d much rather have the conversation be what is the law? What exactly are we saying that that he did? His lawyer went to jail for this same situation for a couple of years. So what is the crime? Is it a crime?”
Stewart similarly brushed off the appearance of selective prosecution because “everything is selective prosecution.” He also attributed Trump’s rise to power to Americans feeling “fed up with the lack of accountability for those in power.”
Trump is not immune to this line of thinking though, for Stewart said the question remains “Did he do something wrong? What was it? Explain that to us. What is the law that he supposedly violated?”
“I don’t see him ever actually going to jail,” he concluded. “I personally don’t even care. I just want a system that somehow finds a consistent accountability.”
A mixed martial arts fight was allowed by the referee to proceed for a full 38 seconds after the announcers began imploring him to stop it.
The stunning moment happened during the Fury Fighting Championships 76 bout between Edgar Cháirez and Gianni Vazquez. During the fourth round, Cháirez locked Vazquez in a triangle choke — and Vazquez immediately went limp and appeared to have his eyes closed.
But despite Vazquez appearing to be totally defenseless and perhaps even unconscious, and despite Vazquez’s own corner begging
for the contest to be stopped, referee Frank Collazo stunningly allowed the bout to continue for 38 excruciating seconds.
Cageside announcer Alex Morono screamed at Collazo to stop the fight, to no avail.
“FRANK, IT’S DONE!” Morono screamed. “FRANK, IT’S DONE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, IT’S DONE! WHAT IS HE DOING?! OH MY GOSH, WHAT IS HAPPENING?!”
This is one of the worst jobs by a ref in the history of refereeing. What in the world. As reckless as it gets. pic.twitter.com/M62wys1OA3
Vazquez’s eyes finally opened, and he promptly tapped out. Collazo finally recognized that the defenseless fighter was giving up, and mercifully waved off the contest.
After the bout, Vazquez posted a photo of his arm in a sling on Instagram and slammed the referee for not stepping in to protect him when he was out.
“Some stupid referee … didn’t stop the fight when I was out now I have to deal with a potential fracture on my arm and some ligaments damaged too,” Vazquez wrote.
In a statement
, Fury Fighting Championships slammed Collazo — who was assigned to referee the bout by the Texas State Athletic Commission.
“It is the referee’s job to protect the fighter when the fighter cannot protect him or herself. In last night’s main event, the referee failed to do this,” Fury wrote. “While the job of a referee is one of the hardest to do in this sport, the need for proper and continued training would help to alleviate things like this incident. We do not hire, train or select refs for our shows, but we would be more than willing to lead a revamp and overhaul of the reffing and judging selection and training process.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Saturday said no one in the GOP has a “list of names’ like Donald Trump has, including unannounced 2024 contender Gov. Ron DeSantis and fellow Republican primary opponent and former ambassador to the U.N. in the Trump administration Nikki Haley — “or whoever she is.”
Greene spoke from the stage at Trump’s first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas on Saturday, along with fellow Trump faithfuls such as Rep. Matt Gaetz, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and former rock star Ted Nugent.
Aside from her speech, Greene also spoke with hosts of the Right Side Broadcasting livestream coverage of the rally, including Christina Bobb.
Bobb asked MTG what the GOP would do in 2025 if the party controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House.
“Oh that would be a dream come true,” said Greene. “If we had full control that would be the greatest.”
Greene then transitioned to talking about Trump versus the other candidates.
“Here’s what we know about President Trump,” she said. “President Trump has a list of names, and no one else has that.”
“Ron DeSantis doesn’t have that. Nikki Haley, or whoever she is, she doesn’t have anything like that,” Greene said. “No one else knows how to clean out the swamp like President Trump.”
Whether she was being dismissive of Haley as a nobody or making an oblique reference to the former governor’s name, the way many critics from the left have done
, is open to interpretation.
Ted Nugent performed at Donald Trump’s Saturday rally in Waco, Texas where the rocker dubbed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “homosexual weirdo.”
In a rant on taxes, Nugent screamed about multiple things the federal government is paying for that he’s not in approval of, including supporting Ukraine
while the country continues to fight off an invasion by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I want my money back! I didn’t authorize any money to Ukraine to some homosexual weirdo!” Nugent yelled. “I want my money back!”
During his time on stage, the Cat Scratch Fever singer also led a “moment of silence” for January 6 Capitol rioters who are currently in jail or, as Nugent put it, the “political prisoners in the gulags of Washington D.C.” Nugent demanded the U.S. border be secured with U.S. tax dollars.
Nugent has long been an outspoken conservative
and a vocal Trump supporter. He is best known for hits like Cat Scratch Fever and Stranglehold, both released in the ’70s.
Nugent teased his Wacoappearance
on Twitter where he promised a “firebreathing” rendition of The Star Spangled Banner to introduce the former president.
I will unleash a firebreathing Star-Spangled Banner with the great president Donald Trump at the Waco regional airport tomorrow at 2PM! McLennan county is the epicenter of conservative American Dream spirit/values! See you there patriots!https://t.co/84EfP5g0PR
“I will unleash a firebreathing Star-Spangled Banner with the great president Donald Trump at the Waco regional airport tomorrow at 2PM! McLennan county is the epicenter of conservative American Dream spirit/values! See you there patriots!” the rock musician tweeted.
Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) is renewing his criticism of President Joe Biden and the White House over their handling over classified documents.
Back in January, Warner — the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee — appeared on Face the Nation jointly
with ranking member Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Both men criticized the Biden administration for stonewalling the committee’s requests about the classified documents found in the homes of President Biden and former President Donald Trump.
“You were very frustrated that the administration wasn’t sharing more information about the classified materials improperly held by the current president when he was out of office, and the former president,” CBS anchor Margaret Brennan “told Warner Sunday. You’ve been briefed. Any more clarity on this? Any further information?”
Warner responded that the intelligence committee still is not getting enough answers, and he again called out the Biden administration for not providing them.
“We need more information about these documents,” Warner said. “And more importantly, we need to make sure [about] what the intel community has done to mitigate the harm. And we’re still in conversations with the Justice Department. The administration’s position does not pass the smell test. We’ve got a job not to go into the legal ramifications, but to make sure that the intelligence community has done what’s right.”
The senator reiterated a threat he’s previously made that the committee could decide to withhold funding from intelligence agencies, should they continue to rebuff the committee.
“We’ve got some additional tools,” Warner said. “We can restrict some of the spending. We’re in active conversations with the Justice Department.Bbut we’ve got to get those documents.”
Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-TX) resorted to both sides-ism as he struggled to defend former President Donald Trump’s constant elevation of his supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol.
In an interview with Gonzales on Face The Nation, CBS’ Margaret Brennan noted how Trump opened his Saturday rally
in Waco, TX by playing a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” sung by the J6 Choir, a group of inmates currently in prison for their alleged involvement in the January 6th Capitol riot. The song was interwoven at the rally with footage from the riot, plus a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Brennan brought up all of this, along with Trump continuing to push violent rhetoric
about Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg potentially indicting him on the Stormy Daniels hush money scandal. With the stage set, Brennan asked Gonzales “Do you support statements like this?”
“January 6th was a terrible day. We have to make sure that never happens again,” Gonzales answered. In spite of that, he quickly went on to say “it was great to have President Trump back in Texas and it was a reminder that Trump’s policies worked.”
While Gonzales tried to pivot toward his critiques of the Biden administration, Brennan drilled down and pointed out “what the former president was talking about was not policy or substance. Don’t you see some danger from lionizing those who are being prosecuted for breaking the law and attacking the place where you and other lawmakers work? Isn’t that part of it something that must give you pause?”
“The rhetoric is absolutely out of control, on both sides,” Gonzales answered. He then digressed by complaining about the level of scrutiny Trump has received over the Mar-a-Lago classified documents scandal.
“I think a lot of people are done with the political rhetoric,” he said. “They want solutions and whichever presidential candidate is going to bring real solutions to their lives is going to get their vote.”
Brennan still wouldn’t let Gonzales off the hook, citing numerous instances where he stood apart from the GOP, “but this is a line that you feel you can’t cross when it comes to criticizing what the former president did with lionizing the January 6th attackers?” She emphasized this by asking Gonzales if he was “bothered” by Trump glorifying the same rioters who attacked Capitol Police officers.
Gonzales: Look, January 6th should never have happened and those that are [found] wrong for doing that, they need to be held to the highest standard.
Brennan: Well, they were singing last night as the walk-on for the former president. Seventeen of the 20 inmates held in that jail were accused of assaulting law enforcement. That’s the walk-on song.
Gonzales: Yeah, look, there is no room for anyone that assaults law enforcement, right? Similar to what happened in Oregon or anywhere else throughout our country. We have to absolutely surround our law enforcement. They have the toughest job right now, you have to get it right every single time, so now is not the time to attack law enforcement.
Sunny Hostin and Don Lemon got heated when Lemon dropped a hard-“R” n-word during a CNN segment on when or if it’s ever appropriate to use the word on the air, in a 2015 segment about then-President Barack Obama’s use of the word.
Both are high-profile Black media figures who regularly confront thorny race issues — Hostin as a co-host of ABC’s The View and Lemon as a co-anchor
of CNN This Morning
— but once upon a time, they both worked at CNN.
That’s how they wound up discussing the president’s use of the word in an interview, during which he said:
And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say “nigger” in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don’t overnight completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.
On a June 22, 2015 edition of The Situation Room, anchor Wolf Blitzer played the clip, then asked Lemon and Hostin — then a CNN legal analyst — to weigh in. Things really heated up when Lemon used the actual word during the segment:
BLITZER: Let’s get some more. Joining us, our CNN anchor Don Lemon and CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin.
First to you, Sunny. What did you think? Was the president right to use that word?
SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I don’t think so. I will tell you that I was surprised. I was shocked. I was disappointed. I think language matters, especially when that language is coming from the leader of the free world, the president of the United States, especially as an African-American man.
I think what it does, quite frankly, Wolf, is give people the feeling that they, too, can use it. We hear that argument being made oftentimes. “Well, rappers use it, so I can use it too.”
And I think that the president was sort of ill-advised in thinking that he was either going to be provocative or be instructive and nuanced. Because we all know he’s a wordsmith. We know that he chooses his words carefully. So I don’t think this was an accidental use of the term. But it now opens up the field for others using it.
And in fact, on our very network, Wolf, you know that this term was not used. It wasn’t something that journalists could use. And it wasn’t something that we aired on our network. But now, because the president said it, I have heard that word, a very hurtful word, over and over and over again.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: That’s not right.
HOSTIN: Just today. It is right, it is right.
LEMON: No, I disagree with you. We have been able to use that word on this network for the entire nine years that I’ve been here.
HOSTIN: We haven’t done it.
LEMON: Yes, we have. I’ve used it. I’ve done it the entire time that I’ve been here. And the guidance has been, if the anchor is comfortable saying the word, the anchor can say the word on this network.
HOSTIN: Don, we had a correspondent a couple of years ago, and I’ve been here for six, seven years…
LEMON: But the correspondent said it — said…
HOSTIN: And that correspondent was not — was reprimanded for using that term.
LEMON: No, she was not. She was reprimanded for using an expletive, not for using that word…
HOSTIN: That’s even worse, Don.
LEMON: That word is not — that word is not an expletive.
HOSTIN: It says it’s worse than using a racial epithet. That’s what she’s saying.
LEMON: No, if you’re using — if she was on television calling someone that word, then yes, she should be suspended for it. But if she’s on television using that word in context as to what someone said or what was used in a court of law or what have you, then no one should be suspended for that.
We should not sanitize that word by saying, “This person called such and such the ‘N’ word.” No, that person didn’t call that person the “N” word. That person called — Sunny, I know you’re going to get upset. That person called you or that person a nigger. They didn’t say the “N” word.
HOSTIN: I can’t believe, Don…
LEMON: As journalists — as journalists, we are — there’s…
HOSTIN: … that you as an African-American man are going to use that word.
LEMON: Of course, because…
HOSTIN: Words matter, and you should know that.
LEMON: I do know that. I have said the entire time that I’ve been here, I don’t think we should bastardize the word. I don’t think it should be used freely in songs over and over again.
HOSTIN: You shouldn’t use it at all.
LEMON: If you’re using it in context of a story, and it is relevant, you should be able to say it. And in fact, I encourage people to say it, because I think…
HOSTIN: You’re encouraging people to use a racial epithet?
LEMON: … you should hear the — because you should hear the impact of the word. No, I’m not encouraging people to call people the “N” word. I’m using it in historically. If you are — I’m a journalist. Journalists are part of the record. It is our job to convey the truth and to tell people reality —
HOSTIN: It’s also our job to realize —
LEMON: It’s not our job to sanitize a word.
HOSTIN: — that there are certain words that should not be used.
(CROSSTLAK)
LEMON: It shouldn’t be used if you’re calling someone —
HOSTIN: To use our journalistic conscience to make sure —
LEMON: That’s what we’re doing.
(CROSSTALK)
HOSTIN: Get on air and use expletives —
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Don, I just —
LEMON: If you’re using it to call someone a derogatory name, not if you’re reporting a story.
BLITZER: Don, let me — in the last two hours, I’ve interviewed Cornell Brooks, president of the NAACP, Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League. They both wish that word would not be uttered. Why do you have to use that word instead of saying the “N” word?
LEMON: You don’t have to use that word. I wish that word would not be uttered. I wish people would not call —
(CROSSTALK)
HOSTIN: You’re uttering it yourself.
LEMON: But I’m not calling someone the word. I’m a journalist, I’m supposed to use it. We’re supposed to tell the truth. We’re not supposed to sanitize it.
HOSTIN: Oh my goodness. Wow.
LEMON: You’re sanitizing it by using — by saying that.
BLITZER: All right, guys. We’re not going to continue this conversation right now.
But, Don, you’re going to continue this conversation later tonight. I want our viewers to tune in, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, CNN, tonight.
Sunny, thanks very much. Next time, Sunny, you have to tell us how you really feel about that word. And, Don, you as well. Don’t hold back as you did today.
