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‘Act of Open Hostility’: Trump Plans to Team Up With Tucker Carlson Instead of Attending GOP Debate

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Donald Trump is expected to team up with former top Fox News host Tucker Carlson instead of attending next week’s GOP presidential debate, furthering his battle with the right-wing cable channel.

Trump “plans to upstage the first Republican primary debate on Wednesday by sitting for an online interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, according to multiple people briefed on the matter,” The New York Times reports Friday. The paper calls the move “debate-night counterprogramming” that “would serve as an act of open hostility,” and “a major affront both to the Republican National Committee and to Fox News, which is hosting the event.”

Trump has long suggested he would not attend the debate, and has refused to sign an RNC required document pledging to support whatever candidate Republican primary voters choose to be their nominee. Candidates are not allowed to debate unless they have signed the pledge, a requirement put into place earlier this year by Trump-supported RNC chair Rona McDaniel.

“Fox News has been drawn into a public battle not only with Mr. Trump but with Mr. Carlson, who is still on contract and being paid by Fox despite having his show taken off the air,” The Times notes. “Fox sent Mr. Carlson a cease-and-desist letter after he aired a series of videos on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.”

READ MORE: Gaetz Filing Resolution to ‘Censure and Condemn’ Judge Overseeing Trump Election Fraud Trial

Carlson has long been accused of promoting white nationalist and white supremacist beliefs including the “great-replacement theory.” In 2019, The New York Times ran a fact check titled: “Tucker Carlson of Fox Falsely Calls White Supremacy a ‘Hoax’.” Last year, The Times published a profile titled, “How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable.”

On Thursday Trump hinted he would be skipping the debate.

“Many people are asking whether or not I will be doing the DEBATES? ALL AMERICANS have been clamoring for a President of extremely High Intelligence. As everyone is aware, my Poll numbers, over a ‘wonderful’ field of Republican candidates, are extraordinary. In fact, I am leading the runner up, whoever that may now be, by more than 50 Points. Reagan didn’t do it, and neither did others. People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate? I’M YOUR MAN. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Also on Thursday Trump, for the second day in a row, attacked Fox News.

“Why doesn’t Fox and Friends show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot. They just won’t do it! Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not. Just like 2016 all over again…And then they want me to debate!”

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On Wednesday Trump had complained, “FoxNews is going all out, just as they did in 2016, to figure who in this very large, but failing, Republican field, can beat your favorite President, Donald John Trump.”

“They use only the most negative polls, which are still great for me, and do everything possible to show that they still have a chance. They even pull out nice guy Marc Thiessen to do contortions with numbers that just don’t exist. On top of all that, I am the only one beating, by a lot, Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST ‘P’ EVER!”

It was revealed during discovery between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems, which won a $787.5 million settlement against the right-wing cable channel, that Carlson had made private statements about Trump, calling him “demonic,” a “destroyer,” and saying, “I hate him passionately.”

 

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Trump Slammed for ‘Bragging’ He Kicked Millions Off Food Stamps

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President Donald Trump was blasted during his State of the Union address after he declared that he has “lifted 2.4 million Americans — a record — off of food stamps.”

Critics noted that in his 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump cut billions of dollars from food stamps, also known as SNAP, and put in regulations making it harder for recipients to stay on the program.

“Trump didn’t ‘lift’ anyone off food stamps—he kicked them off,” wrote U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). “He’s forcing millions to go hungry. She also noted that SNAP is “not charity, it’s an investment.”

“Interesting way to say he kicked people off of SNAP,” said Democratic Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois.

Senate Budget Committee Democrats also slammed the president’s remarks.

“Republicans *cut* food funding for 3 MILLION hungry Americans making it harder for struggling families to put food on the table. All to fund more tax breaks for billionaires,” they wrote.

“Trump cut millions of people’s food assistance and is bragging about it,” said U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo (D-RI).

The progressive social media account The Tennessee Holler added, “He spelled ‘kicked’ wrong.”

Image via Reuters

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Trump Confronted With Sign Saying ‘Black People Aren’t Apes’ at State of the Union

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President Donald Trump was confronted with a sign held by a Democratic congressman that read, “Black People Aren’t Apes,” as he entered the chamber and began to deliver his State of the Union address.

U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) held up the sign before House Majority Leader Steve Scalise tried to remove it from him. Minutes later, as the president was speaking, Green was reportedly removed from the chamber.

The sign apparently referred to video President Trump posted to his Truth Social account that included a meme of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama depicted as apes. The video received widespread bipartisan condemnation before Trump removed it. He refused to apologize for it.

 

 

 

 

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GOP Infighting Threatens to Derail Party’s 2026 Agenda

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Republicans in Congress are so divided they may not be able to pass legislation to further President Donald Trump‘s and the Republican Party’s agenda — namely, a budget reconciliation bill that builds on Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

GOP lawmakers are attempting to stuff a legislative package with a wide variety of goals, including health care reform, tax cuts for the working class, voting legislation, and methods to reduce the deficit.

According to The Hill, “none of those legislative goals has the same support across the Senate and House GOP conferences that tax reform and major defense and homeland security spending initiatives had last year.”

A massive budget reconciliation bill does not appear to appeal to the president.

“It’s a tacit recognition that Trump is unlikely to muster the near-unanimous votes he needs to pass major partisan bills through Congress at a time when the federal debt has ballooned to nearly $39 trillion and Republicans up for reelection in swing states are worried about facing Democratic attack ads in the fall,” The Hill noted.

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“It doesn’t seem to me that there’s a plan for a second reconciliation bill and I don’t know how you could do one in the House,” a Republican senator, referring to the GOP House’s razor-thin majority, told The Hill. “The president says it’s not a good idea. At the moment, I don’t see reconciliation as a likely aspect of the remaining months this year.”

Some Republicans in the Senate appear to be ignoring the odds and are pushing forward — they just can’t agree on what they want to include in the legislative package.

“I don’t care how we do it but we’ve got to get health care costs down. The best way to do it is get the consumer involved,” said U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who wants to funnel taxpayer dollars into individual health savings accounts called Trump Health Freedom Accounts.

“I believe that we can do this. We’re going to be up here the rest of the year. We got to get some things done,” Scott added. “The American public demands that we accomplish some things.”

U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) wants to go in a different direction — finding funding to restore the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies that Republicans let lapse in the fall against Democratic support for the programs.

“I do want them addressed. I’m very concerned that people are losing their insurance, they simply can’t afford it. We do need to reform the whole health care system and bring down the costs,” Collins said.

It may all come down to process.

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune “doesn’t want to risk a protracted negotiation over a budget reconciliation bill only to have it blow up on the Senate floor — an embarrassment that befell the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act during the first year of Trump’s first term in 2017.”

READ MORE: ‘Orwellian Gaslighting’: Trump CIA Slammed for Retractions of ‘Biased’ Reports

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

 

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