Newsroom Ready: Doug Ford blasts Netflix doc on late brother Rob Ford: 'Let him rest in peace'
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says a new Netflix documentary about his late brother Rob Ford is "disgusting." The doc titled 'Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem" chronicles Rob Ford's rise to power as Toronto mayor in 2010 and his chaotic time in office. Speaking at a news conference in Toronto, Doug Ford said he wasn't going to watch the film, and he doesn't see eye-to-eye with the creators. (June 17, 2025)
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Fast Company
32 minutes ago
- Fast Company
Backlash against Mike Lee's tasteless tweets reminds us that online cruelty has a real-world impact
It's amazing how far a firebrand politician has to step over the line of decency in 2025 to prove that such a line even exists anymore. By any metric, U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah sprinted past that line over the weekend, with a deeply distasteful, macabre string of tweets about a political assassination in Minnesota. Now, he's experiencing something vanishingly rare in modern American politics: sustained, real-world blowback for something he wrote online. The day after a gunman shot and killed former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband at home—and also shot and injured Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife at their home— the shooter's motives remained in question. That didn't stop Senator Lee, however, from going all in on the Elon Musk-approved assumption that the shooter was acting on behalf of 'the far left.' On Sunday, June 15, Lee posted a pair of tweets on his personal account that betrayed a distinct lack of sympathy for the victims, let alone any sense of tact or decorum. Both included a police-released image of the shooter, with one assigning blame to the far left ('This is what happens [w]hen Marxists don't get their way') and the other absurdly implying that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz bore a share of the blame ('Nightmare on Waltz [sic] Street.') Soon enough, the facts collided with Lee's interpretation. Although alleged shooter Vance Boelter served on a civilian economic board under Walz, all current evidence indicates that he is a deeply religious, conservative anti-abortion advocate and a vocal Trump supporter. He is also said to have had a 'hit list' of 45 elected officials, all Democrats. Lee has long had a reputation for out-of-pocket tweets. The third-term Senator and January 6 enthusiast changed his personal X account handle to @BasedMikeLee in 2022, after MAGA influencers like Benny Johnson urged him to go harder on social media. (In MAGA parlance, 'based' essentially means being unapologetically conservative or anti-woke.) Since the change, he has repeatedly caused a stir with his frequent, provocative tweets, most recently for pushing a false claim about Prince Harry and suggesting the royal redhead be deported. None of Lee's previous tweets, though, have provoked a backlash like the one currently unfolding. The first wave of condemnation arrived online, with scathing tweets from a wide range of high-profile X users, including actress Sophia Bush, former Obama staffer and Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer, and former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele. Next came the responses on TV. The cohosts of The View took Lee to task for his callous tweets on Monday's episode. 'In any other job, you would be fired instantly,' cohost Sara Haines declared during the broadcast. On Monday night, the backlash continued on TV, with Jon Stewart excoriating Lee on The Daily Show. The host began by relaying an anecdote of his own previous encounter with Lee. While Stewart had been working to extend the 9/11 victim compensation fund in 2019, he facilitated a series of meetings between various senators and a group of first-responders—and apparently found Lee uniquely unmoved by the cause. 'I say this for context,' Stewart added, 'for why I use Senator Lee as the avatar for the insanity of this moment.' He then played a clip of Lee from 2024, talking through tears about Laken Riley, a young nursing student who was notoriously murdered by an undocumented immigrant—citing it as proof that Lee is indeed capable of being moved by senseless murder, but seemingly only when doing so is politically useful. 'He seemed kind of surprised to be confronted' Perhaps the most profound response to Lee's tweets came not on X or on TV but in person. On Monday afternoon, Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota—a friend and colleague of the shooting victims, and someone who was also allegedly on the killer's hit list —tracked Lee down and pulled him out of a meeting to confront him over his rhetoric. (One of her aides also reportedly sent Lee's office a furious letter about 'the additional pain you've caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend.') Although only a photograph exists to document the exchange, Smith later revealed to reporters that she told Lee his tweets were 'brutal' and 'cruel,' and that he should address the millions of viewers on X more responsibly. As for how Lee responded to the in-person confrontation, well, apparently he hardly did. 'He certainly didn't promise to take it down or say anything publicly about it,' Smith told one reporter. 'He seemed kind of surprised to be confronted.' Lee's reticence continued later on Monday, when he refused to speak with reporters asking for comment about his tweets and the ensuing confrontation. (During the writing of this article, Lee took down the tweets.) A brief history of senators behaving badly Lee obviously knows what he wrote about the shooting on his personal account was inappropriate. Anyone needing proof need merely look at the corresponding tweet from Lee's official account, which reads like boilerplate mainstream politician-speak after a senseless tragedy. The reason he may have felt comfortable posting something so beyond the pale on his other account is because senators so rarely face consequences outside of electoral defeat for words or actions that are legal, no matter how deplorable, and Lee isn't up for reelection until 2028. Apart from Senator Bob Menendez, who resigned last year following a bribery conviction, the last senator to resign in disgrace was Al Franken, who stepped down in 2017, when sexual misbehavior allegations emerged at the peak of the #MeToo movement. The difficulty and rarity of imposing any punitive action on a sitting senator was underscored a few years ago with similarly unfortunate commentary that passed without repercussions. In October 2022, an intruder broke into then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home in a targeted attack, and brutally assaulted her husband. While Paul Pelosi recovered from his skull fracture in the hospital, high-profile right-wing personalities such as Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk jokingly riffed on the conspiracy theory that Pelosi had injured himself in some sort of illicit tryst. Before the facts came in, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas joined in on the fantasizing, rather than condemn the violent attack, while his fellow Senator John Cornyn tried to spin the assault into an indictment of President Biden. Though Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin apologized for his own insensitive remarks, neither senator did so, without facing any consequences, and the world moved on. The situation with Lee is different, however, in a way that makes it harder to move on so quickly. Given that one of the political targets in this instance died of her injuries—along with her husband—the cold, stark, factually challenged instant politicization of their murders comes across as frankly sociopathic. If the lack of contrition around Cruz and Cornyn's tweets should have been a warning about where the culture was heading in 2022, Lee's tweets are a sign that we've arrived there—in a place where a successful political assassination can seemingly be shrugged or even laughed off if the target plays for the opposite team. Judging from Lee's reaction to Smith's confrontation, though, all that keyboard bravado seems to fall away when a representative of the real world comes knocking in person. It's hard to remain so based while looking someone right in the eye. Whether Lee eventually apologizes or not, the photo of Smith confronting him about his tweets has the potential to travel even further than the tweets themselves. This image is a reminder that U.S. politicians who have forgotten or lost their decency online should relentlessly be made to answer for it offline.
Bloomberg
42 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Thune Has His Big Moment in Wrangling Tax Bill Through Senate
This is Washington Edition, the newsletter about money, power and politics in the nation's capital. Today, congressional correspondent Erik Wasson looks at what's ahead in the Senate for the GOP tax and spending bill. Sign up here and follow us at @bpolitics. Email our editors here. This is John Thune's big moment. It's now down to the Senate majority leader to renegotiate the bill carrying President Donald Trump's promised tax cuts that was released just yesterday and wrangle enough GOP votes to get it passed.
Wall Street Journal
44 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
A Reminder to Trump to Conclude His Trade Fights
This week President Donald Trump left a meeting with the leaders of Canada, Japan and key European allies without striking any new trade agreements. Today brings a reminder of the urgent need for Mr. Trump to resolve his tariff disputes before causing lasting harm to consumers and the U.S. economy. Vipal Monga, Natalie Andrews and Brian Schwartz report for the Journal:
