By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America - Thom Tillis, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94252712
President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump is reportedly considering a potential Senate bid in North Carolina after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced he would not seek reelection.
A source confirmed to The Hill that Trump, who is married to Eric Trump, the president’s third child, was weighing her options in the wake of Tillis’s announcement Sunday. NOTUS first reported she was “seriously considering” a bid.
News: Lara Trump is seriously considering a bid for NC Senate, per source.
The president's daughter-in-law previously served as RNC co-chair.
Lara Trump is a North Carolina native who graduated from N.C. State University.
She was previously floated as a potential Senate candidate when former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) retired in 2023. However, she opted not to launch a campaign for the seat, leaving the door open to a future run for office.
Lara Trump served as a co-chair of the RNC during the 2024 campaign, with a focus on fundraising efforts. She stepped down from that position and earlier this year began hosting a weekend show on Fox News.
The North Carolina Senate seat is widely considered one of the toughest for the GOP to defend next year.
Other names being circulated among Republicans as potential Senate candidates include Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-N.C.), an Army veteran and first-term member of Congress, and Michael Whatley, who is chair of the RNC and previously led the North Carolina GOP.
An explosive new report from The New York Times revealed the disturbing frequency billionaire Elon Musk consumed illicit drugs while on the presidential campaign trail with Donald Trump.
The article comes as Musk is exiting the Trump administration after a whirlwind several months in which he led efforts to cut down on the government’s size.
Musk told people he was using ketamine so often that it was impacting his bladder, along with utilizing psychedelic mushrooms and taking ecstasy, the Times reported. The Times reporting included interviews with dozens of individuals Musk worked with or knew, along with obtaining private messages.
The tech executive, who was advising the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) panel on federal government cost-cutting measures, would travel every day with a box containing 20 pills, the Times said, citing individuals who have seen the box and the photo of it. Some of the pills were marked as Adderall.
Musk has publicly spoken about his mental health before, describing “great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress.” The tech billionaire has also refused the use of traditional antidepressants and said he was prescribed ketamine for depression, taking it “about every two weeks.”
According to the Times, some of Musk’s friends have severed ties with the tech billionaire over his public behavior.
“Elon has pushed the boundaries of his bad behavior more and more,” Philip Low, a neuroscientist, told The Times.
The Times also reports Musk received advance warning of employee drug tests at SpaceX, despite the company’s obligations as a federal contractor to maintain a drug-free workplace.
The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2024 that Musk has used cocaine, LSD, psychedelic mushrooms and ecstasy at private parties, prompting concerns from board members and executives at SpaceX and Tesla.
“After that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing,” Musk wrote in a social media post shortly after that article was published. “Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol. @WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird.”
After that one puff with Rogan, I agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing.
Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol. @WSJ is not fit to line a parrot cage for bird 💩
The report comes after Musk announced Wednesday that he would be departing the White House as his 130-day period as a special government employee expires.
As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.
The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.
Alec Perkins from Hoboken, USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Senior officials in the Trump administration are pressing federal prosecutors to take action against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has long been seen by conservatives as a politically motivated adversary of President Donald Trump.
According to a new ABC News report, Trump has personally urged Department of Justice leadership to investigate and pursue charges, while top officials like Ed Martin — head of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group — and Bill Pulte — director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — are pressing the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to file charges.
Their focus: alleged mortgage fraud involving a Virginia property that James claimed as her primary residence in 2023, despite being required by law to reside in New York while serving as attorney general. Officials argue that James may have misled a financial institution to secure favorable mortgage terms, which would constitute a federal offense.
Although a five-month investigation has so far yielded what some career prosecutors say is “no clear evidence” of fraud, Trump allies argue that the matter deserves a full and transparent examination. They point out that politically connected Democrats often avoid scrutiny, while conservatives are aggressively pursued over far less.
The FBI’s criminal investigation into James was formally launched in May. At the time, U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III emphasized that his office will not shy away from its duty if evidence emerges:
“We stand prepared to act in the capacity that we need to when and if we are informed there’s a charge to be made. Unlike Letitia James, who unethically ran around the state campaigning on getting Donald Trump… my office conducts itself in a manner that is proper and professional.”
The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel admitted his aggressive hatred of Donald Trump over the years has cost him.
During an appearance with the Naked Lunch podcast, Kimmel admitted he’s likely lost “half” of his fans due to his relentless bashing of Trump over the years.
“There was at one time, maybe, I don’t know, like right around the beginning of this whole Trump thing where … that was kind of hinted at,” Kimmel said.
“But I just said, ‘Listen, I get it. I don’t disagree. I mean, you’re right.’ I have lost half of my fans — maybe more than that,” he conceded. “Ten years ago, among Republicans, I was the most popular talk show host, at least according to the research that they did.”
Eventually, Kimmel gave ABC an ultimatum. “If you want somebody else to host the show, then that’s fine. That’s OK with me. I’m just not going to do it like that,” he said. “They knew I was serious … I just couldn’t live with myself.”
Along with defending his actions against Trump, Kimmel also swooped in to defend President Joe Biden, who has experienced record-low approval ratings.
“He’s a nice old man who quite plainly cared about people through[out] his whole life. He’s certainly not evil. If you believe that, you’ve got some real problems.”
Marine One lifts-off after returning President Donald J. Trump to Mar-a-Lago Friday, March 29, 2019, following his visit to the 143-mile Herbert Hoover Dike near Canal Point, Fla., that surrounds Lake Okeechobee. The visit was part of an infrastructure inspection of the dike, which is part of the Kissimmee-Okeechobee Everglades system, and reduces impacts of flooding for areas of south Florida. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian) [Photo Credit: The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]
Judge Aileen Cannon suspended a key deadline in former President Trump’s documents case after his attorneys suggested that special counsel Jack Smith’s team had “failed to preserve critical evidence” in the case after prosecutors disclosed some classified records may not be in the original order in which they were found.
In a Saturday letter posted to the court docket Tuesday morning, Trump’s legal team pounces on the admission by Smith’s team that the order in which the documents were found may have shifted slightly.
“Your failure to disclose the spoliation of this evidence until this month is an extraordinary breach of your constitutional and ethical obligations, Trump attorney Todd Blanche wrote.
The letter lays out a series of demands for more information, including on the instructions given to those who initially searched the boxes, all communications surrounding the searches of the boxes and their movements, and a list of personnel who had access to them.
“If the investigative team found a document with classification markings, it removed the document, segregated it, and replaced it with a placeholder sheet. The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose, until the FBI ran out because there were so many classified documents, at which point the team began using blank sheets with handwritten notes indicating the classification level of the document(s) seized,” prosecutors noted.
Trump’s team in their letter shot back at Smith’s efforts to dismiss the issue, saying it has repercussions beyond what classified information might be presented at trial.
“You cannot seriously contend that your recent spoliation concession is irrelevant to President Trump’s pending pretrial motions,” Blanche wrote.
The suspension marks yet another delay in a prosecution where Cannon has yet to even set a new trial date, casting further doubt on the chances the case will come before a jury ahead of the election.
President Trump blasted his own supporters who continue to fume over the Jeffrey Epstein files.
“You mentioned past supporters when you were talking about the Epstein issue. Does that mean that you’re effectively disowning any supporters who are now calling—” a reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
Trump cut off the question and added, “I’ve lost a lot of faith in certain people, yeah, I’ve lost. Because they got duped by the Democrats.”
In a lengthy social media post, which included references to the president’s previous claims about the 2017 Russian election interference probe, Trump blamed Democrats for creating what he called a “scam” and “hoax.”
“Scams and Hoaxes are all the Democrats are good at – It’s all they have – They are no good at governing, no good at policy, and no good at picking winning candidates,” Trump said. He added, “Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”
The president made clear he no longer wants the support of those who remain interested in the Epstein investigation.
By Ralph Alswang, White House photographer – https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-epstein-maxwell/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=143417695
“I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” Trump said.
Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have come under fire from conservatives for declining to release the Epstein probe files in their entirety. A new CNN poll shows just 3 percent of the public, and 4 percent of Republicans, are satisfied with the amount of information the government has put out about the Epstein case.
The Justice Department and FBI last week stated they found no evidence the deceased financier kept a “client list” of associates whom he blackmailed or conspired with to victimize dozens of women.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that Bondi should explain the administration’s handling of the case especially after she told Fox News in February that Epstein’s alleged “client list” was “sitting on my desk now to review.”
In his post, Trump disavowed those who focus on the Epstein story rather than his accomplishments.
“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!” Trump said.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said he is in favor of Bondi releasing “credible” documents related to the Epstein case. He praised Bondi when it was pointed out that she and other officials have made “inconsistent statements” about the Epstein case in the past.
“I really think that she’s done very good. She says, I gave you all the credible information. And if she finds any more credible information, she’ll give that too. What more can she do than that? I mean, honestly, what more can she do?” Trump said.
The president argued there are “bigger problems” than Epstein, like the southern border.
“She’s got a lot of things she’s working on. And, you know, it’s very sad that somebody can be waylaid, they just get waylaid, but she’s — I think she’s doing a great job,” he said.
On Sunday, President Trump addressed speculation he could be angling to attempt to pursue another term in the White House despite being term-limited by the Constitution.
Trump has been floating the idea of blowing off term limits for years, and one Republican has already introduced an amendment to allow it. During an interview with NBC News anchor Kristen Welker over the weekend, President Trump joked that he would consider running for a “fourth term.”
On his way back from Mar-a-Lago Sunday, Trump emerged into the press cabin on Air Force One to take questions from reporters and was confronted about his latest remarks.
Read:
Q: You said you were not joking about possibly wanting a third term. Does that mean you’re not planning to leave office on January 20?
POTUS: “I’m not looking at that but I’ll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election was totally rigged, so it’s actually sort of a fourth term. I just don’t want the credit for the second because Biden was so bad, he did such a bad job, and I think that’s one of the reasons that I’m popular, if you want to know the truth.
“I think I’m popular because we’ve done a great job. I think we’ve had the best hundred days of almost any president. Most people are saying that and it’s an honour, bringing back our country. We’re respected as a country again. We’re strongly respected and people are amazed.
“I was with some very important people today and they said they’ve never seen a turnaround of a country as fast as this. Even look at our border. We have nobody coming in and you can’t come into our country; you have to come in legally. We have nobody coming into our country. It’s almost shut down.”
Q: The constitution limits a president to two terms –
POTUS: “I don’t even want to talk about it. I’m just telling you I have had more people saying, please run again. We have a long way to go before we even think about that but I’ve had a lot of people.”
Q: Do you think that’s an appropriate precedent to set, even if it’s not you in that position?
POTUS: “I don’t even want to talk about a third term now because no matter how you look at it, you’ve got a long time to go. We have a long time. We have almost four years to go and that’s a long time but despite that so many people are saying you’ve got to run again. They love the job we’re doing. Most importantly they love the job we’re doing.”
Watch:
Reporter: You said you were not joking about a third term. Does that mean you’re not planning to leave office?
Trump: I have had more people ask me to have a 3rd term which in a way is a 4th term because the 2020 election was totally rigged…I don't want to talk about it because… pic.twitter.com/Kq5P4eidUF
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) March 31, 2025
The US Constitution seems to rule out anyone having a third term. The 22nd Amendment states:
“No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the president more than once.”
Changing the constitution would require a two-thirds approval from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as approval from three-quarters of the country’s state-level governments.
However, some Trump supporters have argued there is a loophole in the Constitution, untested in court.
They argue that the 22nd Amendment only explicitly bans someone being “elected” to more than two presidential terms – and says nothing of “succession”.
Under this theory, Trump could be the vice-presidential running-mate to another candidate – perhaps his own vice-president, JD Vance – in the 2028 election.
If they win, the candidate could be sworn into the White House and then immediately resign – letting Trump take over by succession.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a former National Security Council official best known for his role in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, announced Tuesday that he is entering Florida’s 2026 U.S. Senate race as a Democrat, challenging Republican Sen. Ashley Moody.
Vindman rose to national prominence in 2019 after testifying against President Trump over a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—testimony that became central to Democrats’ first impeachment effort. That impeachment ultimately failed, with the Senate acquitting Trump in a 52–48 vote largely along party lines.
In his campaign launch video, Vindman leaned heavily on footage from the impeachment proceedings, framing his candidacy as an extension of his opposition to Trump. “The last time you saw me was here,” Vindman said, referring to the impeachment hearing. “Swearing an oath to tell the truth about a president who broke his.”
Vindman went on to describe Trump as a “wannabe tyrant” and claimed the former president unleashed a “reign of terror and retribution” against him and his family—language that underscores how central anti-Trump activism is likely to be to his campaign pitch.
A political newcomer with no prior electoral experience, Vindman faces steep odds in Florida, a state that has moved decisively to the right in recent election cycles. Trump carried the Sunshine State by 13 points in November 2024, and Republicans currently hold every statewide elected office. Florida has not elected a Democratic senator since Bill Nelson’s narrow reelection victory in 2012.
Vindman, an Iraq War veteran, retired from the Army in 2020 after a decades-long military career. He later filed a lawsuit against Trump and several former aides, alleging “intimidation and retaliation,” but the suit was unsuccessful. His wife, Rachel Vindman, publicly criticized former President Joe Biden for declining to issue pardons to the couple at the end of his term.
“Whatever happens to my family, know this: No pardons were offered or discussed,” Rachel Vindman wrote in a post on Bluesky. She added that she “cannot begin to describe the level of betrayal and hurt” she felt toward the Biden administration.
Sen. Ashley Moody, a Republican and former Florida attorney general, was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Ron DeSantis to fill the seat vacated by Marco Rubio after Rubio became secretary of state. Moody is running for reelection with the backing of President Trump and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, giving her a significant institutional and fundraising advantage.
The Cook Political Report currently rates the race as “solid Republican,” its strongest rating for GOP-held seats—reflecting Florida’s recent political realignment and Democrats’ continued struggles to remain competitive statewide.
The 2026 contest is a special election to serve the final two years of Rubio’s term. The winner will need to run again in 2028 to secure a full six-year term.
Vindman has lived in Broward County since 2023, a Democratic stronghold in South Florida. His twin brother, Eugene Vindman, represents a safely Democratic House district in northern Virginia, further highlighting the family’s close ties to Democratic politics.
Nationally, Democrats face a difficult map in 2026 as they attempt a longshot effort to retake control of the Senate. To do so, they would need to defend vulnerable seats in states like Michigan and Georgia while flipping at least four Republican-held seats—an outcome most analysts consider unlikely.
Former ABC News correspondent Terry Moran recently pulled back the curtain on his previous employer’s outright bias against Trump.
Moran, who spent nearly 28 years at ABC News, was dropped by the outlet in June after attacking President Donald Trump and White House aide Stephen Miller on social media. He now offers his commentary on Substack and penned a look at the future of CBS News after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said incoming ownership would implement an ombudsman to “root out the bias” last week when approving a long-planned merger.
“Let’s talk about bias. I worked at ABC News for almost 28 years, and I’m proud to say that,” Moran wrote on his Substack on Tuesday. “But: Were we biased? Yes. Almost inadvertently, I’d say. ABC News has the same problem so many leading cultural institutions do in America: A lack of viewpoint diversity.”
Moran explained that ABC News was run by “White men” when he joined the network, but the Disney-owned news organization made efforts to increase diversity to change the company “for the better.”
“But there was one way ABC did not change and did not diversify. It is no secret. There are hardly any people who supported Donald Trump at ABC News,” Moran wrote.
“And this is bound to impact coverage, not so much out of malevolent bias… but more out of what is a kind of deafness,” Moran continued. “The old news divisions don’t hear many of the voices of the country, because those voices aren’t in the newsroom. Yes, news teams go out with a microphone and a camera and accost people at Trump rallies; but to me that often comes off as weirdly anthropological and inaccurate, kind of like trying to understand nature by visiting a zoo.”
Moran added that it might “sound strange” coming from someone who was shown the door for an anti-Trump outburst, but he played devil’s advocate to Trump critics inside ABC News.
“But inside the newsroom, I had a reputation of trying to get colleagues to see the other side, to walk a mile in the shoes of MAGA, to acknowledge the democratic forces that have made Donald Trump the dominant political figure of our time,” Moran wrote. “So, yes, from my perspective, the old news networks are biased.”
Moran’s firing came less than six weeks after he interviewed Trump as part of a major primetime special for ABC marking Trump’s first 100 days in office. Trump repeatedly chided Moran for his various lines of questioning.
Moran was axed by ABC News in June, just before his contract with the network was set to expire, after he called Trump and Miller “world-class” haters.
“The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism,” Moran began his post. “Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. But that’s not what’s interesting about Miller. It’s not brains. It’s bile.”
“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater,” Moran wrote. “You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.”
Moran’s post went on to also call Trump a “world-class hater” but added that “his hatred [is] only a means to an end, and that end [is] his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”
Moran has said he doesn’t regret the anti-Trump post on social media.
On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron filed a lawsuit against podcaster Candace Owens over her repeated claims that his wife, Brigitte, is a man.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware, calls Owens’ claims “devastating lies” and adds that the podcast host “disregarded all credible evidence disproving her claim in favor of platforming known conspiracy theorists and proven defamers.”
In 2024, Owens —who was then a host at Ben Shapiro’s outlet the Daily Wire — boldly stated that she’d stake her “entire professional reputation” on Brigitte Macron being a man. Since then, Owens has repeatedly insisted that the French first lady is a biological man.
Owens even launched an eight-episode series called “Becoming Brigitte” to further examine the conspiracy theory.
That series, the suit alleges, is packed with “outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions” including “that Mrs. Macron was born a man, stole another person’s identity, and transitioned to become Brigitte; Mrs. Macron and President Macron are blood relatives committing incest; President Macron was chosen to be the President of France as part of the CIA-operated MKUltra program or a similar mind-control program; and Mrs. Macron and President Macron are committing forgery, fraud, and abuses of power to conceal these secrets.”
“These claims are demonstrably false, and Owens knew they were,” the suit states.
NEW: French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte have filed a defamation lawsuit against Candace Owens over claims that Brigitte was a man.
Brigitte Macron says she was not born a man and is ‘traumatized’ by Owens’ comments.
This is nothing new for Owens. She has built a brand on provocation, not truth. Owens labels herself as an independent “investigative journalist” while routinely peddling misinformation under the guise of legitimate reporting. She has promoted a range of conspiracy theories, including anti-vaccine falsehoods, long-debunked antisemitic tropes such as blood libel, and Holocaust distortion — going so far as to dismiss the atrocities of Josef Mengele’s medical experiments as mere “propaganda.” Her content is not intended to inform but to inflame and attract attention through sensationalism and conspiracy theories.
The Macron family, represented by high-profile American law firm Clare Locke, is seeking damages and is demanding a jury trial.
A spokesman for Owens told Mediaite that she would respond to the suit on Wednesday’s episode of her podcast.
“Candace will be officially responding to this on her podcast today,” the spokesman said, “as we are just learning about this in the press.”
Last week, Candace Owens accused President Donald Trump of thinking that his political base is “stupid” on the latest episode of her show, which she opened by calling the Jeffrey Epstein scandal “terminal cancer” for the MAGA movement.
After comparing the administration’s attempt at moving on from the Epstein scandal to the stories about Hunter Biden that were dismissed by the “Deep State,” Owens accused Trump of “being guilty of gaslighting the public.”
“It seems like you think your base is stupid. That’s how I feel. I feel like Trump thinks his base is stupid, or, again, because I don’t think he’s pressing send on these messages, the people around him think that Trump is stupid. And that shouldn’t surprise you given the fact that all of these people were ‘Never Trump.’ They were ‘Never Trump.’ Trump is surrounded by people who hate him and have infiltrated his base,” argued Owens, who went on to submit that Trump — or those around him — had decided to give Ukraine more weapons in order to distract from the conversation about Epstein.
“Operation: Just Give Them More War. Yeah, war as a distraction. Never mind! We can’t talk about Epstein because guys, guess what? Look at this headline: Trump announces an aggressive, or Trump is to announce an aggressive Ukraine weapons plan. Yeah, he already indicated that in that same press conference that there’s just going to be more weapons sent to Ukraine, they’re going to attack Russia. We’re just going to have to have a world war and another reset, I guess. So, you guys just stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein,” she added. “I am telling you that I will be the very last person that will stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein. I will do his entire genealogy backwards and forwards, including everybody around him, get their genealogy, before we let go of this.”
