The Dictatorship

Americans are asking if the president is OK

Published

2 months ago

April 24, 2026

Apr. 23, 2026, 6:36 PM EDT

Is the president OK?

I asked that question on TV this week. Not as a throwaway line or a partisan jab, but as a serious question about the capacity of the person holding the most powerful office in the world.

Since Donald Trump announced his first campaign for the White House in 2015, critics have wondered about his frequent digressions, anecdotes that never happened and seemingly dwindling vocabulary.

But in his second term, especially over the past few weeks, Trump has seemed more erratic than ever, making bizarre claims and accusations about the Iran war on social media and ratcheting up his already inflammatory rhetoric.

Americans are noticing. Only about one-fourth of Americans said Trump was even-tempered in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. Fifty-eight percent said the words “mentally sharp” did not describe the president very well or at all, while roughly half said his mental sharpness has gotten worse over the past year.

This not a question about the president’s policies or even his character. It’s about his basic ability to do the job he holds.

The past few days were not an outlier. As I’ve noted, Trump has always been erratic. But what’s changed is the system around him.

For years,“sanewashing” has helped normalize Trump’s words and actions.

For years, there was a quiet practice in Washington and in the press of “sanewashing” that helped normalize Trump’s words and actions that were often anything but normal. That is how a meandering speech at a political rally becomes “unconventional,” while unhinged threats at his perceived enemies become “hard-line negotiating tactics.”

Privately, even some Republicans will acknowledge that the president’s behavior is not right. But publicly, they either deny having seen it or explain it away, granting him a benefit of the doubt that stretches further and further.

But the behavior has become too blatant to ignore. Over the past month alone, the president threatened to destroy Iranian “civilization,” called on Iran to open the “f—in’ Strait” of Hormuz and mockingly wrote “Praise be to Allah” in a social media post, attacked the pope and posted an AI image of himself as Jesus, among other things.

The gap between the image that Republicans present of their leader and what the public can see for itself has grown too big. And once that trust collapses, voters start to wonder about everything else they’ve been told.

Even more appalling is that the party defending this spent four years questioning President Joe Biden’s fitness. There’s a clear double standard here. Had Biden done a fraction of this, the reaction would have been swift and unforgiving.

Republicans said Biden was tired and old. They questioned his stamina as entire news cycles were built around whether he had the energy for the job. But nobody argued that he was going to take the country to war on an impulse.

That is the difference. What we are seeing now is not about age — it’s about instability.

When I asked former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill if she believed the president was OK, her answer was unequivocal: “Hell no.” That’s not just hyperbole. It’s a serious concern about whether the person at the center of American power is exercising it with consistency and discipline.

So if what we are seeing is a president who has lost a step, whose erratic behavior is worsening, whose judgment appears inconsistent, then the question is unavoidable. Is he making these decisions himself? Is he fully aware of the consequences? Or is someone else stepping in, shaping outcomes and exercising power in his place?

Either way, the American people deserve an answer.

Don’t forget to subscribe to “MS NOW Presents: Clock It,” Symone Sanders Townsend’s new podcast series with Eugene Daniels on the latest political news, the catchiest cultural moments and how they converge. Listen to the latest episode here.

Symone D. Sanders Townsend is an author and a co-host of “The Weeknight.”

The Dictatorship

Judge denies Kennedy Center request for pause in ruling ordering Trump’s name removed from building

Published

8 hours ago

June 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Judge denies Kennedy Center request for pause in ruling ordering Trump’s name removed from building

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Kennedy Center was running out of options Friday evening to keep President Donald Trump’s name on the facade of the iconic performing arts venue.

A judge earlier in the afternoon rejected a request to pause a court-ordered deadline of Friday to remove references to Trump from the building and other aspects of the Kennedy Center’s operations. The institution appealed that ruling, an effort that was also rebuffed Friday evening.

Scaffolding was erected around a section of the building that includes Trump’s name but the Kennedy Center sought a short extension to complete the work. Shortly after midnight, the Kennedy Center asked a judge to extend the deadline until noon Eastern Time on Saturday because of storms that had swept through the Washington area Friday, causing a delay. Some of the thunderstorms included lightning.

In the filing, the Kennedy Center offered assurance that the “removal work is presently ongoing” and would “conclude in the early hours of the morning.”

Dozens of people spent hours on the plaza in front of the Kennedy Center taking pictures and cheering occasionally as they broke into chants of “take it down.” Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio board member who sued to have Trump’s name removed from the building, was spotted at one point on the plaza as well.

After ignoring the Kennedy Center for much of his first term, Trump has wielded tremendous influence over the venue during his return to office. Just a month into his second term, he ousted the center’s previous leadership and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman. Trump’s name was quickly added to the building.

In his ruling that only Congress could make changes to the Kennedy Center’s name, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper also blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations that had been planned to start in July and last for two years.

The Kennedy Center’s leadership argued in its appeal Friday that the renovation was badly needed and accused the lower court, in terms that seemed similar to Trump’s speech patterns, of interfering in the effort.

“The District Court is not allowing us to close in order to properly fix up and repair the Building, including potentially life threatening structural damage like beams and parking garage ceilings that are rusted, and in serious danger of falling onto people below,” according to the appeal. “Indeed, total collapse!”

Even as the Kennedy Center has fought efforts to remove Trump’s name from the building, it has taken steps to comply with Cooper’s initial ruling.

A June 4 memo to staff from the Kennedy Center’s Office of General Counsel said email signatures, letterhead and other documents must reflect the name as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” or “Kennedy Center.”

The Kennedy Center’s website has dropped Trump’s name. And an earlier email sent to members offering ticket packages for the June 28 Mark Twain Award for American Humor ceremony came from the Kennedy Center without including Trump’s name.

___

Associated Press journalists Anna Johnson, Mark Sherman and Emily Wang in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch wanted an execution that a Trump judge deemed illegal

Published

24 hours ago

June 13, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch wanted an execution that a Trump judge deemed illegal

Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. The Supreme Court these days is generally in the business of helping executions go forward. But on Thursday night, the court did something notable: It told Alabama no.

Even then, the court wasn’t unanimous. Justices Clarence Thomas Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the refusal to let the nitrogen gas execution of Jeffery Lee proceed.

What prompted the rare rejection? In line with the typical shadow docket practice, the court didn’t explain itself. Nor did the dissenters, who merely noted their disagreement.

But a deeper look at the case helps us understand why a majority of the court was unwilling to help the state this time.

A Trump-appointed judge had permanently blocked Alabama from killing Lee using the nitrogen method, due to the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. In her ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Emily Marks made it clear that she wasn’t stopping officials from executing Lee for the 1998 murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson. Rather, she was only barring the nitrogen method while leaving the state free to use others, such as a firing squad.

Yet the state still pressed to execute Lee with nitrogen on Thursday. The next roadblock it hit was a divided appellate panel, which declined to lift Marks’ injunction. Trump-appointed Judge Robert Luck dissented, stressing the high bar the justices have set for Eighth Amendment claims and accusing Lee of delaying his claim until the last minute. Luck noted that Lee’s victims didn’t get to choose how they died.

The appellate dissent reflects the Supreme Court majority’s view on capital punishment. So, when Alabama filed an emergency application to the justices on Thursday, it felt like the setting of a familiar scene: A lower court halts an execution, only for the high court majority to let it move forward. We have seen this movie before.

Plus, the court previously permitted nitrogen gas executions in Alabama. In the case of Anthony Boyd last yearJustice Sonia Sotomayor lamented the majority’s refusal to extend him what she called “the barest form of mercy,” which she said would have been letting him die by firing squad, which “would kill him in seconds, rather than by a torturous suffocation lasting up to 4 minutes.” She issued a similar dissent the year before in the case of Kenneth Smithwhich she concluded “with deep sadness, but commitment to the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.”

Lee’s case was different, as his lawyers and a key outside advocate explained to the justices. His lawyers said it was “unlike every previous method of execution challenge that this Court has considered.” They said that unlike prior cases where lower courts issued temporary stays for inmates, this one had a permanent injunction that followed “a full three-day bench trial on the merits — the first such trial anywhere on the constitutionality of nitrogen asphyxiation.”

That key outside advocate was Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck, a Supreme Court expert who filed an amicus brief. He said Alabama was trying to do something procedurally that it shouldn’t be allowed to do. “After all,” Vladeck wrote, “allowing Alabama to execute Mr. Lee through a grant of emergency relief would necessarily frustrate this Court’s ability to conduct plenary review of the district court’s final, permanent injunction.”

To be clear, the justices can still reverse Marks’ ruling in a future round of litigation. Or, as the judge noted, the state can execute him by other means. The question on Thursday night was whether the court would make the case moot by letting Alabama execute Lee before the state’s appeal could be fully vetted in an orderly fashion. With that in mind, it would almost be unremarkable that the court rejected the state’s emergency application, if it weren’t for the fact that the justices had previously intervened to help governments conduct executions over lower courts’ objections.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that three justices voted to let Lee’s execution go forward as planned, its unconstitutionality notwithstanding. Of course, while none of the justices explained their views, we can presume that the three dissenters are prepared to disagree with the lower courts’ constitutional analysis if and when the case comes back to the high court.

Next week, the justices are set to issue another round of opinions from cases argued this term, as we creep toward the end of June, when some of the court’s most contentious decisions have historically come.

Have any questions or comments for me? Pleasesubmit them through this formfor a chance to be featured in the Deadline: Legal Blog and newsletter.

Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.

The Dictatorship

Spencer Pratt concedes LA mayoral race with combative message

Published

24 hours ago

June 13, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Spencer Pratt concedes LA mayoral race with combative message

Jun. 12, 2026, 5:10 PM EDT

Ex-reality TV star and MAGA-backed Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt angrily conceded the race Friday in a combative video in which he derided, and appeared to threaten, the women who finished ahead of him.

Nearly four days after The Associated Press projected Councilmember Nithya Raman will advance to the November general election to face incumbent Mayor Karen BassPratt announced that “the campaign portion of my mission to save Los Angeles is coming to a close, and I’m moving on to the next, more interesting phase.”

With 99% of ballots counted as of Friday, the AP put Pratt in third place, with just more than a quarter of the vote — 3.5 percentage points behind Raman and nearly 9 points behind Bass.

Pratt initially stood in second as returns came in on primary night, but his lead over Raman steadily narrowed as mail-in ballots were counted. By Sunday, she had overtaken him by less than 1 percentage point.

President Donald Trump and other MAGA supporters suggested Pratt’s apparent reversal of fortune proved fraud, but elections experts say it is California’s voting systemcoupled with the city’s small Republican voter base, that explain his third-place finish.

What, exactly, Pratt’s next chapter in civic life will consist of is unclear. But if his Friday announcement is any indication — he called Bass and Raman “dumb and dumber” and “corrupt communists” — it will include continued attacks on his former opponents. And contrary to Pratt’s pledge that he would leave the city if he lost, he suggested he will instead stay put in LA.

“A lot of dim-witted jerks thought I was in this for a grift, that I was going to roll up and leave town if I didn’t get into City Hall,” Pratt said in the video. “Hey, morons, I didn’t get in this for political power. I got in this to expose this corrupt machine, and nothing has changed.”

Addressing Bass and Raman, Pratt added: “I will be lighting you up every single day, and now I don’t have to worry about offending BLN viewers. I don’t have campaign laws hamstringing me now. It’s war.”

Filled with expletives and images of fires, violence and homeless encampments, Pratt’s video channels the same angry populism he ran on. His Republican supporters —including Benny JohnsonTrump administration official Richard Grenell and the chair of the LA County GOP — cheered his final message as a candidate.

Best known for his role as Heidi Montag’s bad boyfriend on MTV’s “The Hills,” Pratt launched his surprise mayoral campaign in January, a year after his family home burned down in the Pacific Palisades fire. While his platform initially focused heavily on what he and his supporters characterized as the failures that led to the damage caused by the fires, Pratt expanded his campaign to focus on forcing homeless people off the streets, cleaning up alleged “fraud” in the city’s finances and saving abused dogs on Skid Row.

With his massive online following and social media savvy, Pratt catapulted himself from long-shot candidate to one who earned Trump’s support and managed to outraise both Bass and Raman.

In the video, Pratt also said he possesses “some recordings of one of your exalted candidates doing and saying something that would make her resign in shame.”

A spokesperson for Raman’s campaign declined to comment to MS NOW on Pratt’s message. Spokespeople for the Bass campaign did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.