What the Hell Just Happened to Mitch McConnell in This Press Conference?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was escorted away from the cameras during a news conference Wednesday, after he froze and appeared unable to continue speaking.

McConnell began the press conference but soon trailed off mid-sentence and stood frozen at the podium. Eventually, Senator Joni Ernst put her hand on McConnell’s shoulder and asked, “Are you good? Mitch?”

Senator John Barrasso also approached and quietly asked, “Are you OK, Mitch? Anything else you want to say, or should we just go back to your office?”

McConnell did not respond verbally, only turning and walking off to the side. Senator John Thune then stepped up to the podium to continue the briefing.

When McConnell returned to the podium a little later, CNN reporter Manu Raju asked him if his freezing up was “related to your injury from earlier this year, when you suffered a concussion?”

“No, I’m fine,” McConnell replied.

Raju was referring to March 8, when McConnell tripped and fell after an event in Washington. He was hospitalized with a concussion and discharged on March 13. McConnell then spent more than a week in a physical rehabilitation facility.

If his freezing up is related to that injury, then that’s perfectly normal. McConnell is 81 years old and suffered terrible physical harm—and his injury is common for many older Americans. It’s understandable that he might still be dealing with negative effects.

What is not understandable is his apparent decision to cling to power after suffering incapacitating physical harm. When asked during the press conference by The New Republic’s Pablo Manríquez whether he had someone in mind to replace him if (let’s be real, when) he steps down as Republican leader, McConnell glared, then smiled and walked away.

The situation is starting to look like that of Dianne Feinstein, who has refused to step down despite growing concerns that she is no longer mentally capable of governing. Both politicians are looking less and less able to keep up with the demands of their job—again, understandable!—but simply cannot bring themselves to walk away.

Republicans on Wednesday are eagerly celebrating the last-minute collapse of Hunter Biden’s plea deal on tax evasion.

Biden agreed in June with Delaware federal prosecutors that he would plead guilty to two misdemeanors of tax evasion and admit to a gun violation. Under the terms, he would likely avoid jail if he stayed drug-free for two years. Since the announcement of the plea agreement, Republicans have complained that the deal is too soft.

Biden arrived at the Wilmington, Delaware, courthouse Wednesday to formally plead guilty, but Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika refused to accept the plea deal, saying that she would not “just rubber-stamp the agreement.”

As a result, Hunter Biden is pleading not guilty for the time being to the two tax misdemeanor charges.

The plea deal has not been outright rejected, but Noreika asked both sides to file additional briefs to further explain the agreement’s legal structure.

Still, Republicans have been quick to celebrate Biden’s downfall. “His attorneys shouldn’t have lied to the clerk of the court,” tweeted Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is so desperate to prove Biden committed tax fraud that she waved his nude photos around a congressional hearing.

Representative Mayra Flores tweeted simply:

Others on the right accused the entire Biden family of acting as foreign agents and failing to register as such under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. “The Biden Family cannot take CASH & DIAMONDS from China, Russia, and Ukraine without registering as foreign agents under FARA!” tweeted Representative Mary Miller.

Right-wing influencers like Jack Posobiec, Ian Miles Cheong, and Catturd all also celebrated the collapse of the deal.

This story has been updated.

When he’s not working to endanger national security, Tommy Tuberville is apparently lying about details of his dad’s military record.

The Alabama Republican has long praised his father’s record serving in World War II. But a new analysis by The Washington Post shows that the Senator may have made false claims about the extent of his father’s service.

Tuberville says his father lied about his birthday to enlist at age 16 and then went on to become a tank commander who earned five Bronze Stars, landed at Normandy Beach on D-Day, and drove a tank through Paris when U.S. forces freed the city from Nazi control. While there is no question that Tuberville’s father served in WWII, it is unlikely—and in some cases impossible—that he achieved everything else Tuberville brags about.

Charles Tuberville was born on July 16, 1925. His draft registration card shows he submitted it on July 16, 1943—his eighteenth birthday. His tombstone lists his highest rank as technician fifth grade (TEC 5). This rank indicates technical skills, not combat leadership. He reportedly was only a corporal, not a sergeant (the minimum rank to be a tank commander). While it is possible he could have filled in for a tank commander, it is unlikely that he was regularly in that position.

Charles Tuberville also did not earn five Bronze Stars. No after-action reports mention that he earned the award given for “heroic or meritorious achievement or service” in combat, nor is it mentioned on his tombstone or in his widow’s obituary. A photo of him shows that he earned five Bronze Service Stars, which show that a soldier was physically present during a particular military campaign.

It is also impossible for Charles Tuberville to have driven a tank through Paris on the day it was liberated. After-action reports for his tank battalion show they were about 90 miles away from the city at the time.

While it is possible that Charles Tuberville participated in D-Day, it’s unclear whether he actually did. He is only reported to have been overseas starting the day after D-Day, something that Tommy Tuberville has said himself.

It’s not surprising that Tommy Tuberville misrepresented parts of his father’s service record, because it makes the senator look more heroic by association. It also helps distract from his ongoing efforts to wreck the military’s readiness.

Tuberville has blocked hundreds of military promotions since March, in objection to the Defense Department’s policy of reimbursing travel costs for service members who need to travel for an abortion. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has warned that Tuberville’s blockade “harms America’s national security” and poses a “clear risk” to the military’s readiness.

Tuberville has actually done very little to support the military, despite his purported passion for the institution. During his campaign for Senate, Tuberville promised to donate “every dime I make when I’m in Washington, D.C.” to veterans in his home state. He has yet to do so.

He has also said that white nationalists are not racist and should be allowed to serve in the military, despite the fact that the very definition of white nationalism involves being racist and the Department of Defense has made great efforts to eradicate extremism from the ranks.

Before Vivek Ramaswamy wanted to become president of the United States, he wanted to become … a libertarian rapper.

Politico reported Wednesday that Ramaswamy, while an undergrad student at Harvard, had a side gig as “a libertarian-minded rap artist who went by the stage name ‘Da Vek.’”

The “anti-woke” candidate was especially inspired by Eminem, whose hit song “Lose Yourself” came out in 2002, just before Ramaswamy started at Harvard.

A friend provided footage of Ramaswamy’s performance of the song—and it is almost as bad as his presidential campaign.

Ramaswamy appears out of breath and raps offbeat for much of the cringey clip, which you can watch for yourself here, if you dare:

Ramaswamy regularly performed at Harvard open mics, and frequently chose to sing “Lose Yourself.” He also often tried out lyrics with “libertarian themes” in his performances.

“I saw myself, honestly, making it big through American capitalism, and that’s why the Eminem story spoke to me,” Ramaswamy told Politico.

He described finding inspiration in Eminem’s success, given his background.

“He’s growing up in the trailers, with a single mom, and he wants to make it. He’s going to use the moment to do it. He feels like he’s going to use the moment to do it, he seizes it and then he makes it happen, and I thought it was a pretty cool story,” said Ramaswamy, who is of Indian descent.

“I didn’t grow up in a trailer,” he added, “but I also didn’t grow up in the same circumstances that most of my peers at Harvard did, either. I aspired to achieve what many of their parents did. It kind of spoke to me, I would say.”

Ramaswamy conveniently ignored that Eminem has railed against Donald Trump’s politics, racism, and general morals. In a 2017 freestyle rap, Eminem made his views quite clear:

The rest of America stand up,

We love our military, and we love our country,

But we f---ing hate Trump.

Ramaswamy instead has gone in the opposite direction from his role model, sucking up to Trump every chance he gets, even while running against him. Ramaswamy has promised to pardon his 2024 rival and dismissed Trump’s encouragement of the January 6 attack as “not a crime.”

Rudy Giuliani has finally conceded to making “false” statements about two Georgia election workers, part of efforts to overturn the state’s presidential election results in 2020.

Giuliani, then acting as former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, for months accused election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss of election fraud. The man once known as “America’s mayor” insisted that security footage of the pair proved that thousands of ballots in Georgia were mishandled or sabotaged.

His claims have been widely and repeatedly disproven by both state and federal investigators, but Trump and his allies have held up Giuliani’s statements as evidence the 2020 election was rigged. Freeman and Moss sued Giuliani for defamation and told the House January 6 investigative committee that they have faced threats and experienced damage to their livelihoods as a result of Trump and Giuliani’s actions.

But in a Tuesday night court filing in the defamation case, Giuliani at long last conceded that his claims were “false”—although he worded his admission in a way to meet the barest minimum level of accountability.

“Defendant Giuliani made the statements of and concerning Plaintiffs … and he does not dispute for the purposes of this litigation, that the statements carry meaning that is defamatory,” the filing said.

“Defendant Giuliani, for the purposes of this litigation only, does not contest that, to the extent the statements were statements of fact and other wise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false.”

Giuliani seems to be slipping in his stance on the 2020 election. In addition to this concession, he also met in June with special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump for mishandling classified documents and trying to overturn the election. The fact that the slavishly loyal Giuliani agreed to meet with Smith could be a sign he is about to—or has already—flipped on Trump. (Giuliani has denied flipping thus far.)

But Giuliani insisted in Tuesday’s filing that he only made the concession to move the lawsuit along and that he believes he still has legal defenses in the case that he intends to pursue. His adviser Ted Goodman said in a statement, “This is a legal issue, not a factual issue. Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case.”

Giuliani is already under fire on multiple fronts, including in this defamation case. The presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, threatened to sanction him over claims that he failed to preserve evidence related to the case.

Separately, Giuliani has been accused of promising to pay a woman a $1 million annual salary to be his aide but instead raping and abusing her for years. His accuser also alleges that Giuliani plotted to sell pardons to criminals. And earlier this month, a court panel called for Giuliani to be disbarred for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.