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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
CNN panel ends in chaos after liberal guest makes shock claim about Trump
A CNN panel descended into chaos when a liberal pundit cast doubt on whether President Donald Trump was shot during the July 2024 assassination attempt. Touré stunned his co-panelists with a comment that prompted gasps and immediate demands for an on-air correction during a segment about the president's health. 'He supposedly got shot in the ear,' the podcaster said, referencing the incident in Butler, Pennsylvania last year. 'We never heard from his doctors about that.' The remark triggered an explosive exchange as CNN NewsNight anchor Abby Phillip struggled to maintain order. Touré got an instant rebuke from conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings, who sounded off in disbelief. 'Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Did you say supposedly?' Jennings snapped, turning to Phillip looking for her to intervene. 'Abby, Abby…' Phillip, who had already been attempting to corral a loud round of crosstalk between guests, tried to bring the panel under control. 'If y'all stop screaming at the table, maybe I can actually respond,' she said firmly. But by then the on-air brawl was in full flow. 'Supposedly. That's where we're at now,' added conservative radio host Ben Ferguson, shaking his head. 'Touré, he was shot in the ear.' As voices clashed across the table, Jennings pushed back: 'He had blood on his face! Where did it come from?' he demanded. 'I went to the Republican National Commission — he had a bandage on his ear.' But Touré doubled down, challenging the panel and White House for not providing more transparency. 'But did we hear from the doctors?' he pressed. 'Wouldn't we always hear from his doctors when he gets shot?' Phillip interjected again, trying to steer the segment back to its original focus on Trump's visible hand injuries and his doctor's recent note. 'This is not really what we're talking about,' she said. 'He is fine. It's just a function, frankly, of being an older person.' Phillip eventually cut through the noise. 'He was shot in the ear,' she said, firmly. 'We saw the blood. We saw the bandage.' Touré's eyebrow-raising comments came just over a year since 20-year-old Michael Thomas Crooks fired eight shots from a rooftop at Trump during a campaign stop in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing a rally-goer, injuring two others, and grazing Trump's right ear in what law enforcement later admitted was a catastrophic breakdown in security. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), a former White House physician, said Trump's wound came 'less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head,' and that it resulted in 'significant bleeding and marked swelling.' Photos of the aftermath showed the then-former president's bloodied face and bandaged ear, images that instantly became symbolic of what his supporters call his political resilience — and what his critics feared would reshape the race. The Secret Service response, however, was widely condemned, and multiple federal investigations later confirmed there were glaring lapses in planning, communication, and threat assessment. Investigations found that the rooftop from which Crooks fired, just 135 meters from the rally stage, was known to pose a risk. But plans to obstruct the view with farm equipment were never executed, and no agents were posted to the vantage point. Worse still, local law enforcement and Secret Service personnel were operating from two separate command posts, with communication described as a 'chaotic mixture' of text messages, phone calls, radio chatter, and emails. Despite repeated requests for additional manpower in the days leading up to the rally, the Secret Service was stretched thin. A Senate report released this month declared: 'There were multiple, unacceptable failures in the planning and execution of the July 13 Butler rally.' Crooks was ultimately killed by a Secret Service countersniper moments after his rampage began. He left behind no manifesto and little trace of motive, and authorities believe he acted alone. The attack nevertheless prompted the swift resignation of Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle and spurred urgent reforms. That context made Touré's use of the word 'supposedly' all the more jarring — not just to his co-panelists, but to viewers still reeling from a shooting that nearly changed the course of US history.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Suddenly, Donald Trump is in trouble
The second Trump term was always going to get a little bumpy. You'd certainly need nerves of steel to be in the administration this week. Once the president seemed immune to the pressures of the 'Panicans'. He humiliated those wailing about an Iranian nuclear strike on Boston by ending the Iran-Israel war in 12 days with zero American casualties. When Elon Musk started up another bout of late night posting against the One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump told him to take a hike. This is a guy who built his reputation in business and politics on bouncing back from apparent disaster. He's made of sterner stuff than you or I. But there appear to be limits, even for him. An explosive Wall Street Journal article published last night, revealing a 'bawdy' letter purportedly from Trump to Jeffrey Epstein (the president denies the letter in question is from him), has sent shock waves through Maga-world. Tensions have been building since the department of justice and the FBI announced that they would not release any more files related to Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex trafficker. But the president's initial instinct – to rage against supporters who had fallen 'hook, line, and sinker' for conspiracy theories – could not hold. He has now asked Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to 'produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval'. Clearly, the administration thinks it cannot treat the Epstein conspiracy theorists as just another group of soon-to-be-embarrassed Panicans. The base doesn't care if America drops a couple of bombs on the Ayatollah or calls Musk a weirdo. But Trump and senior figures in his administration helped spread the idea that there was more to the Epstein scandal than we were being told. The dynamics of the online media ecosystem now turning against the president are also worth examining, as they portend poorly to the future of the American Right. For all the progressive teasing about the Fox-News-on-crack aesthetics of Maga, Trump's movement has always been one that is supremely comfortable with the online sphere. His first campaign was defined by 'meme magic', arcane internet imageboards and Pepe the Frog. The same people ironically (and then sincerely) amplifying Trump didn't fit easily into the mental image of the left-behind white Americans that supposedly made up the Republican candidate's base: they were young, media-savvy, and deeply paranoid. Perhaps it was inevitable that the man who popularised Birtherism would attract the guys who shouted about Pizzagate – the lurid conspiracy theory that falsely claimed a paedophile ring was being run out of a Washington DC pizza restaurant. A new generation of influencers rose from the imageboards and chatrooms and came out into the open. They were edgier than Joe Rogan, but like him had interests outside of the purely political. You can see the evolution of their thinking clearly: Maga wasn't just the project of a single extraordinary man, but a brand, a broad church where you could shill supplements and drone into your podcast mic – as long as you stuck by your president. Then again, the 47th president wasn't paying you. That was your audience, and they craved intrigue even after the election campaign was over. A belief that these influencers brought the president to power in the first place (just don't ask them what they said about Ron DeSantis back in 2022) made them think they could make demands. Trump needed them, they thought, not the other way around. If you want a glimpse at what Maga without the president looks like, take a look at Laura Loomer. She's been at the centre of internet bloodsports for more than a decade now, and created a space for herself within Maga by acting as a regime pitbull. She's spent the last few days making veiled threats about the damage this Epstein crisis could cause Trump. Loomer is not representative of the base, but she is representative of an online influencer class that is one of the administration's main vectors for getting out news. If they turn Panican, ignoring them isn't an option: they need to be smacked down, and fast. The president and his allies played with fire in letting the conspiracy-obsessives grow their power for so long. The stakes are high: without Trump, the political project of Maga dies. In its place will be a dangerous fantasy woven by those who make a living frightening people into impotence.
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Superinjunctions must never be used to shroud mistakes
British forces in Helmand province SUNDAY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE I n September 2023 a High Court judge granted the British government its first superinjunction. The order by Mr Justice Knowles prevented not only reporting of a terrible data breach but any reference even to the existence of restrictions. The unprecedented measure, extended several times at the request of Conservative and Labour governments, finally lapsed last week, allowing the public to learn that the details of 19,000 Afghans who had worked with the UK before the Taliban retook power had been released on Facebook, putting them and others at risk of torture or death. The mistake by an official in the UK special forces headquarters led the government to launch a secret refugee scheme that relocated to the UK more than 16,000 people compromised by the leak, at a cost of £850 million. The incompetence of the original act, which involved a spreadsheet containing hidden data being shared via email, should not cloud the argument over whether the superinjunction was reasonable. It would have been worse had the individuals affected suffered reprisals from the Taliban. Ben Wallace, then the Tory defence secretary, was undoubtedly terrified of costing lives when he first requested an injunction in August 2023. But as the injunction became a superinjunction, its very existence became a secret. Its lifespan then stretched into two years. Government officials warned the Commons and Lords Speakers not to allow any parliamentary questions hinting at it. The Labour opposition was not informed; nor was the intelligence and security committee or the defence committee. There came an indeterminate point when the interests of the Afghan breach victims faded and the interests of Whitehall officials grew stronger. Mr Justice Chamberlain, who took over the case and ruled in favour of maintaining the restrictions in November 2023, said the superinjunction was 'likely to give rise to the understandable suspicion that the court's processes are being used for the purposes of censorship'. It fell away at midday on Tuesday after a retired deputy chief of defence intelligence, Paul Rimmer, completed a review that concluded the leaked data had not spread as widely as feared and its value to the Taliban, and risk to those named in it, had diminished. Media organisations were allowed to reveal that the resettlement scheme had been hidden even from councils responsible for providing housing at considerable cost to the taxpayer, and that the Ministry of Defence's annual report had been massaged to avoid mentioning that a data incident had been reported to the Information Commissioner's Office. All this is a disgraceful abuse of the original argument over national security and the safety of the Afghans affected. The 2022 breach was a blunder rather than a systemic problem such as the infected blood or Post Office scandal. In those cases elaborate and long-running institutional cover-ups were exposed only thanks to media scrutiny, which eventually forced the government to take responsibility. As Heather Brooke brilliantly argues today, UK officialdom nearly always tends towards obfuscation and non-disclosure. Ministers and civil servants dodge embarrassment wherever they can. We must ensure that the original decision to grant the government a superinjunction is a one-off, not a precedent — and that those who rule us cannot again abuse such a powerful tool.
