HAROLD FORD JR. (CO-HOST): Tax cuts — as much as the president and Republicans want to say this tax bill extending things are going to help middle-class Americans, the vast majority of people who are going to be helped by the tax cuts are the wealthiest, because there’s one other number. Over the last 12 years, the S&P has gone up almost 400%, and the only way to benefit from the stock market is if you have money invested in the stock market and you have to have a lot for that to benefit you.

So, I say to Democrats: you have to cut spending. I say to Republicans: stop kidding Americans that you’re not raising — that you’re not cutting taxes for the richest Americans. Why not raise taxes on those earning two and half million or more to pay for these things? So, we may differ a little bit, but one thing we agree on, the debt is not going to go down because of this and the people that are going to benefit the most are not middle-class, working-class Americans, it’s going to be some people around this table and people much richer than this.

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): All right, Bernie Sanders.

Kim Kardashian always knows what people want to see. In the early 2010s, what people wanted was Kim, and Kim obliged. She was everywhere: on her show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians; on other people’s shows; on magazine covers; and, mostly, on the internet. There, she built an apparatus of self-surveillance out of newly available technology and newly acquired cultural hunger for unfiltered celebrity. Other stars were on social media, sure, but no one used it quite like Kim, endlessly and seemingly without shame. The effect was a magic trick: Kardashian had tens of millions of followers, and each felt like they were getting a special peek into a charmed world. Her feeds from Paris Fashion Week 2016 are a representative sample—a pacifying stream of cream and white, diamonds and lace, outsize wealth made as banal as breakfast. Here is Kim getting ready. Here are Kim’s outfits. Here is Kim’s engagement ring, a gift from her then-husband, then known as Kanye West, its stone as clear as glass and as big as a grape.

It was all breezily aspirational, and then it really wasn’t. A few hours after posting those Fashion Week photos, Kardashian was getting ready for bed in a Paris apartment when five men wearing balaclavas burst into her room. They duct-taped her mouth, bound her with zip ties, held her at gunpoint, locked her in a bathroom, and went about stealing millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry, including that engagement ring and a watch given to her by her late father. They had abducted the building’s night watchman and forced him to lead them to Kardashian’s room; she begged him to tell her attackers, in French, that she had young children at home. She was hoping that if they knew, they might spare her life.

They did—Kardashian emerged from the attack physically fine. But then came the news cycle. People magazine built a story around quotes from a security expert suggesting that Kardashian had made herself a target by “advertising what she’s doing and advertising her wealth,” as though that wasn’t exactly what people (and People) had been rewarding her for this whole time. The New York Times wondered why Kardashian had been traveling with such expensive jewelry. (The fairly obvious answer to the question is that she was on a work trip, and her work is wearing expensive jewelry.) Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel both made cruel jokes on late-night TV. The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, for some reason, spoke to the press about the incident, voicing what seemed to be on everyone’s mind. Kardashian is “too public, too public,” he said. “You cannot display your wealth, then be surprised that some people want to share it.” The mainstream consensus solidified: The robbery was karma, comeuppance, a corrective to all that vacuous extravagance and clueless exhibitionism.

Read: The pandemic clarified who the Kardashians Really Are

If the attack was some kind of cosmic lesson for Kardashian, she appeared to have learned it. She stopped posting her real-time whereabouts and dressing so ostentatiously. She went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and sounded less like the survivor of an unprovoked, violent assault than like a child apologizing for misbehavior. “It was meant to happen to me. Things happen in your life to teach you things,” she said. “I was definitely materialistic before, but I’m so happy that my kids get this me, because I just don’t care about that stuff anymore.” The very things that had made her famous were a liability, and she knew it. A few years later, she revealed on her own show that since the robbery, she hadn’t “really been about wearing jewelry.”

Until recently, it seems. Last week, Kardashian appeared in a Paris courtroom to testify against her alleged attackers. She wore—along with a vintage John Galliano dress, six-inch Saint Laurent slingback heels, and Alaïa sunglasses in an exaggerated cat-eye shape—diamond earrings, a diamond ear cuff, a diamond ring, a diamond anklet, and a $3 million white-gold necklace set with 80 diamonds. The necklace was meticulously engineered brand synergy: Samer Halimeh, the jeweler who’d designed the necklace, sent a press release to journalists as Kardashian testified. The necklace was also a message, and not a particularly subtle one—Kardashian is reclaiming her freedom, and for Kim Kardashian, freedom is diamonds.

The Times called Kardashian’s outfit an “unconventional” choice, but for the most part, the response was fairly neutral. To some degree, this is a reflection of the kinder and gentler moment we are in, at least as far as the mainstream media is concerned: In the near-decade since the robbery and the backlash, an entire subgenre of content has sprung up to reexamine, and atone for, the viciousness that society inflicted on female celebrities in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. Much of the press simply knows better than to openly hate women in the same way it used to. Kardashian was in court to share new details from a horrific assault in the name of seeking justice; to comment meanly on her outfit would have been a weird move.

Read: Why were we so cruel to Britney Spears?

But also, such a comment would have revealed a grave misunderstanding of the world we live in, the world Kardashian built. It’s one where every moment is a photo opp, every uncapped lens is a tool for brand building, every iota of attention is a chance to make money, and every flat surface is a red carpet. The rapper A$AP Rocky wore head-to-toe Yves Saint Laurent daily during his February trial for felony assault, and he looked so good doing it that the brand shared paparazzi photos on social media even before he was acquitted. In 2023, Gwyneth Paltrow captured the internet’s attention with the clothes she wore during her trial for reckless skiing, to the degree that Town and Country ran a feature on where to buy them, as though the Park City civil court were a fashion shoot. (Paltrow was found not at fault.) “Is this a courthouse or the Cannes Film Festival?” a court security guard asked Le Parisien as a scrum of reporters waited for Kardashian. The answer, of course, was both.

In this case, the star witness is a woman who has been selling her family, her likeness, her glamour, and her trauma for almost half her life. She writes her narrative through her appearance, and she’s great at it. In the language of Instagram—a language she helped invent—she knows her angles. (Not for nothing did she release a 445-page book of selfies.) In the mid-2010s, she became a symbol for a certain kind of highly conspicuous consumption and was lambasted for it; in 2025, she has reclaimed her right to engage in that same conspicuous consumption. The critics have had it wrong: As it turns out, there’s no such thing as being “too public” about your wealth. Here are Kim’s outfits, here are Kim’s diamonds, still as banal as breakfast.

Tim and Cam talk the Grok AI promoting white replacement theory and Holocaust denial. They also delve into the hypocrisy of Bari Weiss’s “pro-free speech” University of Austin, and exchange stories from their own sexual encounters back in college.

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My new book offers an incisive exploration of why many young women wear body-revealing outfits and share sexy selfies and what these choices say about our toxic, sexist culture.

Panicked parents kept messaging me about their daughters’ “inappropriate” clothes and selfies. What do I, an expert on slut-shaming, they asked, suggest they say to their daughters? I realized the only way I could be of help was to speak with young people to find out what was going on. 

I ended up spending six years speaking with young women and nonbinary people around the U.S., ages 14-30. We talked about the nonconsensual sexualization they experience on a regular basis at school, online, and in nearly every space they inhabit in their daily lives—and how they are seizing a sense of bodily autonomy for themselves. We also discussed their victimization through revenge porn and deepfakes, and the pros and cons of OnlyFans.

The result is Sexy Selfie Nation: Standing Up for Yourself in Today’s Toxic, Sexist Culture. I show that critiques of young women’s clothing and selfies are misguided, even harmful. Instead, the problem we all should be concerned about is the toxic, sexist conditions that shape young women’s daily lives. With women’s bodily autonomy under attack, this issue is more important than ever.

The following is an excerpt from my new book, out May 20.

In the spring of 2023, as temperatures in New York City climbed, young women faced a dilemma: They wanted to wear summery tank tops and miniskirts but were concerned that as they traveled around the city, especially on the subway, they would be met with predatory stares, harassing, “Hey baby, won’t you give me a smile?” comments, and even unwanted touches and gropes.

And so, being resourceful New York women, they hatched a solution: the “subway shirt.”

An oversized, shapeless shirt one slips over her “real” outfit, the subway shirt—also referred to as an “outfit dampener”—hides the contours of one’s body from neck to thighs, shielding from view the skimpy outfit beneath. And, because this is the age of TikTok, a few women shared their genius trick with other women on social media. The cover-up went viral.

Former U.S. pardon attorney Liz Oyer was fired after refusing to recommend restoring Mel Gibson’s gun rights. She speaks out about Trump’s abuse of the pardon system to reward allies and donors, DOJ intimidation tactics, and her fight to bring transparency to a secretive and corrupt process.

Liz Oyer Substack

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The Trump administration has agreed to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Ashli Babbitt, one of five people who died in or immediately after the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, according to The Washington Post. The Department of Justice will reportedly pay Babbitt’s family nearly $5 million.

Babbitt, then a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from California, was at the front lines of rioters rushing the Capitol doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby, which leads to the House chamber. She was  attempting to jump through a shattered doorway when she was shot by a Capitol Police officer. Video footage from the day shows she had a Trump flag strewn over her backpack.

Babbitt’s family filed the lawsuit in early 2024, seeking $30 million. It argued that “Ashli posed no threat to the safety of anyone” and that she was unarmed and had her hands in the air when she was shot. 

In 2021, the Justice Department announced it had conducted an internal investigation and cleared Lt. Michael Byrd, the officer who fatally shot Babbitt, of any wrongdoing. A Capitol Police investigation also cleared the officer and found that his actions “potentially saved members and staff from serious injury and possible death from a large crowd of rioters.” The Justice Department under President Joe Biden opposed the case, and a trial was set for July 2026.

But the Trump administration has reversed that position, keeping in line with his campaign promise to issue pardons for about 1,500 rioters who faced convictions for their involvement in the riot. President Donald Trump repeatedly referred to January 6 as “a day of love” and the rioters as “patriots” and “hostages.” For many Trump supporters, Babbitt was cast as a martyr in a collective patriotic act. 

Trump released a pre-recorded video in October 2021 to mark Babbitt’s birthday in which he praised her actions and demanded justice for her death. 

“There was no reason Ashli should’ve lost her life that day,” Trump said in the video. “We must all demand justice for Ashli and her family, so, on this solemn occasion as we celebrate her life, we renew our call for a fair and nonpartisan investigation into the death of Ashli Babbitt.” 

The events of January 6 — in which a mob of Trump supporters temporarily halted the certification of the legitimate results of the 2020 election — have been called an act of domestic terrorism by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It sparked the Department of Justice’s largest criminal investigation in the country’s history and led to more than 1,500 people being federally charged. Rioters brought firearms, knives, hatchets, pepper spray, baseball bats, stun guns and explosive devices to storm the building where lawmakers were voting to certify the 2020 election. Approximately 140 law enforcement officers were injured and $2.9 million worth of damage was done to the Capitol. Congress also impeached Trump  on grounds that he incited the riot – his second impeachment, for which he was acquitted – and held  separate committee hearings in 2022 to shed further light on the events of the day.

The settlement reverses a 2021 DOJ finding that Babbitt’s civil rights were not violated and it was reasonable for the officer who shot her to believe he was acting in self-defense or in defense of members of Congress.

U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd was also cleared by a Capitol Police investigation, which found that his actions “potentially saved members and staff from serious injury and possible death from a large crowd of rioters who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol and to the House Chamber where members and staff were steps away.”

One-third of the settlement will go toward the Babbitt family’s lawyers, which include the right-wing legal group Judicial Watch and Richard Driscoll, an attorney in Alexandria, Virginia. Conservatives, led by Trump, have tried to rewrite the narrative of January 6, 2021, minimizing the violence of the rioters, who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and paint them as victims who were unfairly punished by the justice system for supporting Trump.

Today’s phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump was a painful reminder that Trump is the junior partner in the Russian-American relationship and that Putin will continue his mass-murder campaign in Ukraine for as long as he can get away with it. Nothing else of substance emerged from the call. When it comes to Europe’s largest armed conflict since World War II, Putin’s still in charge.

Putin, exuding confidence, got out ahead of Trump just minutes after the call and talked in person to the media, which allowed him the first move in framing the discussion. (Today’s Russian autocrats understand public relations far better than their dour Soviet predecessors.) Putin’s quick, personal readout of the call was a perfect nothingburger:

I speak Russian, but no translator is needed here: This is the universal language of political stalling. “Russia will propose” means “We’ll drag our feet and then whip up an unacceptable set of talking points.” “Ready to work on a memorandum” means “We’ll agree in principle to talk about talking about stuff.” “Defining a number of positions” means “We’ll come up with a list of nonstarter conditions.” And “the timing of a possible peace agreement” means “We’ll set up some unattainable schedule date for a cease-fire and then scuttle it.”

Phillips Payson O’Brien: Heads, Ukraine loses. Tails, Russia wins.

The official account of Putin’s remarks, released later by the Russian news service TASS, was even less conciliatory, pointedly excluding the reference to agreeing with the American president. But none of it matters: Trump spent more than two hours on the phone with Putin, and he got exactly nothing.

Trump, of course, doesn’t see things that way. After Putin’s statements were out, the president released his own version of the call on his Truth Social platform (which, one must assume, is more authoritative than anything from the White House press office). “Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote, “will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War.” After rhapsodizing about all the money everyone could make if the two sides could end the war, Trump repeated: “Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately.”

The problem, of course, is that nothing Putin said today could be remotely construed as “immediately” starting anything. This is probably why Putin got out in public first; he has long experience managing Trump, and he knows that the American president loves to announce deals even when no deal exists. Putin’s statement, in effect, preemptively undermined anything too positive from Trump. (The Russians also unleashed a massive drone attack against Ukraine last night, which should have been a sign that today’s conversation probably wasn’t going to make much progress.)

Putin, having swatted away Trump’s efforts, will now continue his war, and people will continue to die. Perhaps the only positive sign today is that Trump seems to be giving up on American involvement in peace talks. That’s good, but only because Putin has been using the president’s personal interest in being a peacemaker to string Trump along and prevent the Americans from sending help to Kyiv or imposing more sanctions on Moscow. Trump has now said that the conditions for a cease-fire “will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.” That’s a long way from Trump’s daft campaign promise that he could end the war in a day, perhaps even before taking office, but if it shakes Trump out of his fantasy that he can stop the fighting by just yammering at Putin, so much the better.

Trump’s retreat could also open the door to renewed sanctions. The president doesn’t like looking weak, and if Putin continues his butchery, other Republicans may be able to press Trump to react. In the best outcome, they might even prevail on Trump to help Ukraine with more weapons, but that seems unlikely; Trump has made America functionally an ally of Russia, and Trump seems to personally fear angering Putin.

Anne Applebaum: Nobody in Ukraine thinks the war will end soon

The other possibility is that an American withdrawal from the peace process could clear the way for other nations to intensify their efforts to pressure Putin, which might be helpful, because American leaders simply do not understand who they’re dealing with, or what’s at stake for Russia.

Earlier today, Vice President J. D. Vance said: “I think honestly that President Putin, he doesn’t quite know how to get out of the war.” Vance has a point: Putin stupidly blundered into this war and now he’s stuck, unable to advance and unwilling to retreat. Vance, however, doesn’t understand what professional diplomats in the United States and other nations know is the fundamental problem: Putin is stuck only because he’s still committed to a set of war aims that include the partition and eventual destruction of the Ukrainian state. If Putin wanted out, he could get out tomorrow, but he won’t accept losing a war after three years that he thought he could win in a week.

Vance and other “both sides” apologists have a shallow understanding of international conflict and almost none of Russia, which is why they seem flummoxed by Putin’s stubbornness. To them, this is just a costly, bogged-down war over land, or churches, or something. For them, it all must end so that Trump doesn’t look like a sap who has yet again been played by the sharpies in the Kremlin. They cannot grasp that Putin, who so far seems to be in no political danger at home from this war, still has the low-cost option of just pulverizing Ukrainian civilian targets while the West dithers.

Putin may well be ready for some kind of cease-fire agreement, if only so that his forces can catch their breath and regroup, his government can cast off some sanctions, and Putin himself can keep his own political house in order in Red Square. He’s done it before in Crimea, playing for time while plotting his next move. But if that happens, it won’t be because of Trump’s efforts—and even the president himself seems to know it now.

ALEX JONES (HOST): Now that said, it would take hours to go over how ridiculously obvious the murder of Jeffrey Epstein was in that federal jail in New York. I mean, the coroner said his neck was broken in three spots. It would take a gorilla to do that. And the cameras all turned off magically. Now we’re learning that they put nitrous oxide in from good sources and made the guards pass out. This was a state level hit because Epstein was threatening to go public, thought he was getting out soon. And to have Kash and and Bongino — and look, I know I’ve seen Bongino and Kash talk about Epstein and how he didn’t kill himself, and I just got too busy to go find them, but we’ll do it in post.

…

So we’ll just take those clips and we’ll stick them on the end of here, and then I know they’ll be like, ‘Well, we hadn’t seen the files.’ It’s on record they all disappeared. You’ve seen the files. The files you were given? Give me a break. There’s three things don’t hang themselves: Christmas tree lights, drywall, and Jeffrey Epstein, as Senator Kennedy rightfully said. 

A bogus lawsuit, a media merger, and a newsroom on the brink. Tim and JVL break down Trump’s latest power play.

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