Raw Story

President Donald Trump lashed out at Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) on Wednesday after his endorsement of My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell for Minnesota governor raised eyebrows among critics.

Trump got defensive in a post on his Truth Social platform, attacking the longtime Democratic lawmaker and gubernatorial candidate.

"Amy Klobuchar, the lightly respected Senator from Minnesota, is running for Governor to take the place of the current Corrupt and Incompetent Tim Walz," Trump wrote.

Klobuchar has opted not to seek re-election to the Senate in 2026 and is expected to be the leading Democratic nominee with a "massive fundraising advantage," according to the Minnesota Reformer. She launched her bid in January after Gov. Tim Walz announced he would not seek a third term.

"I have gotten to know Klobuchar over the years, and find her to be equally as incompetent as Walz, and probably equally as corrupt in that, as a high Government Official from Minnesota, she knew everything that was going on," Trump wrote. "If the Elections in Minnesota weren’t RIGGED, any Republican could win, but they were, and that is why nobody has won there since Richard Nixon many years ago. I thought I won it all three times, only to be disappointed in the end. Vote for Mike Lindell for Governor, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement, and forget about these Corrupt Dumocrats like Amy Klobuchar. MAKE MINNESOTA GREAT AGAIN!"

Trump made this post even as criticism mounted online that his endorsement of Lindell was a poor one.

"The insurrection pillow man?" law professor and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard W. Painter wrote on X. "This is a guaranteed way to give [Klobuchar] a huge landslide victory in the governor's race this November, heading right into the 2028 presidential primaries."

Mary "Tracy" Morrison, owner of The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain in Arkansas, orchestrated a disturbing assault on a 13-year-old student during an April 2025 "circle time" session, ProPublica reported.

Morrison berated the boy, struck him repeatedly with a plastic cylinder, and instructed classmates to choke, slap, punch, and pinch him for nearly 40 minutes while three staff members watched without intervening.

The incident was captured on video.

Craighead County Sheriff’s Detective David Bailey, a Jonesboro native, began investigating the school.

"More came out in Bailey’s interviews with parents and current and former employees and in interviews that child advocates conducted with the students, documents show: allegations of “waterboarding” a child and cutting another’s hair as punishment," ProPublica found, and added, "Slapping a student. A wooden paddle named Fred.

Morrison pleaded guilty to permitting child abuse and was sentenced to 30 days in jail, 120 days of house arrest, five years' probation and surrendered her occupational therapy license.

The case exposed Arkansas's lack of oversight of private schools receiving public Education Freedom Account vouchers.

Despite the abuse allegations, state officials quickly restored funding to the school, which now operates under a new name with Morrison still owning the property.

Watch the video below.

CNBC was left holding the bag on Friday when Elon Musk abruptly backed out of a live, heavily promoted interview moments before it was set to air, as SpaceX shares slid below the price of their first public trade.

The network had spent the morning teasing the sit-down, billed as Musk's first television interview since SpaceX went public. Anchor Scott Wapner threw to correspondent Julia Boorstin at the Allen & Co. gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho, to explain why it suddenly wasn't happening.

"We've been promoting this exclusive interview that Elon Musk was expected to give to our Julia Boorstin, which is now apparently no longer happening. I want to bring in Julia Boorstin, who's been in Sun Valley. Julia, do you want to explain to us exactly what happened here, as this was imminent?" said Wapner.

"Yeah, we were expecting to start an interview with Elon Musk right now at noon Eastern. We just got word that he has to postpone," Boorstin replied, adding that the network hopes Musk will offer a new time.

Boorstin noted that SpaceX shares were trading below the level of their very first trade and well off the highs the stock reached after its record June debut. As she spoke, shares were off nearly 3% at around $148. SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 and opened at $150 on June 12 before surging in its opening sessions, then slipping back below that opening level as it was pulled into major market indexes.

She said there was plenty she had hoped to raise, including Grok 4.5, the AI model Musk's company launched Wednesday, and how SpaceX is holding down customer prices as component costs climb. That thread would have followed a CNBC interview a day earlier with OpenAI's Sam Altman about efficiency gains in his company's newest models.

Wapner called it an unfortunate development and said the network would report any update.

A former Republican operative on Friday warned CNN conservative pundit Scott Jennings that he could lose his job if his claims about Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) prove false.

After video footage obtained by CNN showed an ambulance loading the Republican lawmaker inside — nearly a month after he was first hospitalized — Cheri Jacobus suggested that CNN should take action against Jennings, who claimed that he spoke to McConnell Tuesday for about 17 minutes.

"If @ScottJenningsKY is proven to have lied about having a nearly 20 minute phone conversation with McConnell, @cnn needs to fire him immediately," Jacobus wrote on X.

Jennings told CNN anchor Kasie Hunt that the senator, whom he has known since he was a teenager, was speaking to him on the phone during the apparent call. He described it as a "wide-ranging conversation" about Iran, and his "voice sounded strong."

"I wasn't really expecting him to call this morning," Jennings said. "So when I heard his voice today, and he was clearly keeping up with stuff."

Jennings said that McConnell told him that he was talking to Republican leaders. The update followed growing speculation over his health after he was hospitalized for more than three weeks following reports of cardiac arrest.

"It made me pretty happy," Jennings said.

"All the rumors about him being dead, or brain dead, or his body being hidden somewhere — I've seen all kinds of crazy things on the internet that are obviously not true because he picked up the phone and called me, and that was a good thing," Jennings added.

On Thursday, Jennings said he spoke with McConnell's team and urged them to speak up about the senator's health.

"My personal view is that they do need to actually have a little more transparency with the people of Kentucky," Jennings said. "I counseled him and his team as such."

Conservative CNN pundit Scott Jennings was quickly fact-checked as he tried to convince panelists that Trump has lowered gas prices.

During an appearance on a panel hosted by CNN anchor Abby Phillip, Jennings flatly stated that "gas is lower today than when he took office," referring to Trump.

"No, it's not," Phillip shot back. She had to repeat herself as Jennings continued trying to make the assertion.

Jennings was responding to comments by Democratic political strategist Neera Tanden, who was also a Biden White House advisor. Tanden pointed out that the price of oil and gas had gone up.

"What's the price of gas today, do you know?" Jennings asked. When Tanden gave estimates for a barrel of oil at $78 and gas at $4.30 per gallon, Jennings responded, "And what's the price of gas under Joe Biden?" and asked Tanden if she ever talked about oil and gas prices when Biden was president.

"Scott, that's actually not the question," Phillip intervened, which is when Jennings made his claim about gas now being lower since Trump took office. Meanwhile, Tanden said that gas was $3.20 a gallon under Biden.

"Gas is not lower today than when Trump took office, and it's not lower today than it was before Trump started the war" with Iran, Phillip said, continuing her point.

"So look, you can dismiss the gas thing, but it's a real thing that people are going to the gas pump, filling up their tank, and it's costing them 70 bucks," Phillip said.

At the NATO summit in Turkey Wednesday, President Donald Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "difficult character" directly to his face, then laughed awkwardly at his own comment.

During brief remarks before media questions, as he pointed to Zelenskyy, Trump said, "We've settled a lot of wars, and this one is the one that I thought maybe would be the easiest, but Putin's a difficult character, and this guy's a difficult character!"

Unlike Trump's apparent amusement at the jab, Zelenskyy remained stone-faced and stoic, glaring at the President without reciprocating the laughter.

“It's not the easiest thing,” Trump acknowledged.

He continued, "There's a lot of commitment and there's a lot of love of the countries and everything else," and claimed progress had been made in recent weeks.

The tense exchange highlighted the strained dynamics between the two leaders during peace negotiations.

Watch the video below.