Before joining Raw Story, Brad Reed spent eight years writing about technology at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on March 7, 2023, in Washington, DC. - Drew Angerer/Getty Images North America/TNS
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reportedly froze while talking to reporters for the second time in less than two months on Wednesday.
According to NBC News' Julie Tsirkin, the senior Kentucky senator "again appeared to freeze for more than 30 seconds after he was asked whether he would seek re-election in 2026" while making a public appearance in his home state.
Tsirkin added that McConnell subsequently "left the podium flanked by aides and a member of his detail" after he struggled to answer additional questions.
Bill Maher has previously criticized the hush money cover-up case against Donald Trump, but he said on Friday night that he now believes Trump could lose at trial.
Maher, who recently interviewed conservative pundit Piers Morgan about Trump, told former CNN host Don Lemon that he has "always been against" the criminal case accusing Trump of hiding payments to an adult film star for the purposes of affecting the 2016 election.
"Because I thought, of all the ones you are bringing, this is going the least serious," Maher said, adding that he went as far as to write editorials about it. "Now I think Trump could lose. I'm turning on this one, because it's not what I thought it was gonna be."
Lemon responded that this one "could take him down," and noted that the ex-president "looks small."
"He looks diminished," Lemon said of Trump at trial.
Maher went on to note that witness David Pecker, the head of the tabloid accused of orchestrating "catch-and-kill" schemes for the then-candidate is "not covering up anything," and is confirming Trump did it for the election and not his family.
"This is the key thing, and it's so clear, I think even a jury of Americans could get this," Maher tells Lemon.
Lemon then points out that Pecker still sees Trump as a mentor and as a friend.
"Now for you to testify against a mentor and a friend, it's gotta be true," Lemon says.
Maher adds that, if that's what happens, it will have huge consequences politically.
"If this goes that way and Trump loses, it's going to change the whole election," he said. "A significant number of independents and Republicans say their vote will change if he's a convicted criminal, and he'll look like a loser, not that he doesn't already."
He then added:
"And Alvin Bragg is gonna be the rising star of the Democratic party, because everyone said not a good idea, including me," Maher said.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr remains ever a Donald Trump disciple.
During his Friday sit-down with CNN's Kaitlan Collins the lifelong Republican who served as Trump's second attorney general from 2019 to 2020 characterized President Joe Biden as a greater threat to American democracy and, even though he resigned over the 45th president's 2020 election interference claims — still wants to see a second Trump term given the binary choice between his former boss and the incumbent president.
And all of this despite being openly mocked by the 45th president very recently.
"Wow! Former A.G. Bill Barr, who let a lot of great people down by not investigating Voter Fraud in our Country, has just Endorsed me for President despite the fact that I called him 'Weak, Slow Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy' (New York Post!)," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Based on the fact that I greatly appreciate his wholehearted Endorsement, I am removing the word 'Lethargic' from my statement."
Barr could only chuckle.
After an awkward pause he said, "Classic Trump. What's the question?"
Collins asked for some kind of substantive response.
"So, it's not about me," he said. "I think that I've said this all along: if faced with a choice between two people, neither of which I think should be president I feel it's my duty to pick the person who I think would do the least damage to the country."
"And I think Trump would do less damage than Biden; and I think all this stuff about a threat to democracy — I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the Biden administration... or president Biden himself."
Collins later pressed Barr about how after everything that transpired at the end of his post as attorney general he could make a sweeping statement when Trump was orchestrating the prevention of a peaceful transfer of power back on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his devout supporters rioted at the Capitol to prevent the certification of votes to Biden.
She wanted to know how Biden was the bad guy supposedly "threatening democracy?"
Barr started ticking off a list of items that fall under the "collectivist socialist agenda" where freedoms are purportedly being usurped.
Collins interjected, puzzled by how these things, even if true, could be "worse than a president of the United States trying to subvert the will of the people by overturning the results of the election?"
And Barr retreated to listing more problems: the Southern Border crisis, lawlessness in cities, people being told what kind of stoves they can buy and what cars they can't buy — "Those," he said "are the threats to democracy."
He added that America has succumbed to a "Stepford nation" and is being directed by the "progressive elite."
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg made a sharp move by putting former National Enquirer chief David Pecker on the stand first to testify at former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial, former court staffer and Lawfare correspondent Anna Bower explained on MSNBC Friday.
The reason for that, she said, is that unlike a witness like Michael Cohen, Pecker remains friendly with the former president, and so it is much harder to spin his claims about Trump's alleged "catch and kill" schemes to manipulate the 2016 election as false.
"I wonder if, from the jury's perspective, how meaningful is it that two of his friends are taking the stand to offer, not supportive evidence against him, and also on his wife's birthday, the wife for whom he is lying and creating elaborate scenarios, she's not there. None of the family has been in the courtroom," said anchor Alex Wagner.
"I think this is a great point, and it is one of the things that made testimony so powerful over the past week," said Bower. "Of course the defense counsel has indicated they are going to attack the credibility of Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels and portray them as people who are biased and out to get Trump, but with David Pecker, one of the last things he testified to under oath is actually he has very warm feelings for Donald Trump. He called him a mentor figure who helped him in his career. You can tell he had real affection for him."
"This is a guy who is basically a kind of key witness in setting up the scene and giving you the world of this scheme of hush money payments, and yet he is still telling you, I don't harbor any ill feelings toward Donald Trump. I am just here to tell the truth," Bower continued. "That is what, I think, made him such a powerful starting witness."
"With friends like these ... who needs enemies?" Wagner remarked.
