Woman Flashing Peace Signs Carried Out of Republican Town Hall

New York Republican Representative Mike Lawler had yet another chaotic town hall on Sunday, in which multiple disgruntled constituents of his were forcibly removed by private security and a state trooper.

As his constituents grilled him with questions, and often loudly booed his answers, Lawler remained steadfast in his loyalty to the Trump administration and its destructive positions on tariffs, bureaucracy, Ukraine, and more.

“The courts have given the president the authority on tariffs,” Lawler said. He was met with groans and jeers, and even one “blah, blah, blah.” But he continued as security removed people from the crowd. “Well, if people would behave then there wouldn’t be a problem,’ said Lawler, which led to even more, louder boos from his constituents. “If they do not reach agreements within the next 30 to 45 days, then Congress will have to intervene—”

The crowd drowned Lawler out while more officers rushed to take a woman away by her ankles. An elderly constituent was given the same treatment. She flashed double peace signs as she was manhandled by security, as seen in a viral photo taken by Seth Harrison of The Journal News. The Associated Press reported that at least two more constituents were also removed from the town hall.

Lawler, who represents a swing district, is one of the few Republicans to keep holding town halls. Late last month, he had a similarly hostile town hall experience, where he lied about cuts to Medicaid as his constituents called him an authoritarian.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump’s “eyes and ears” in Hollywood seem to have hand-delivered him his shocking idea to tax foreign films.

On Sunday, Trump revealed that he would be instituting a “100 percent tariff” on films produced outside of the United States.

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.

“It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,” Trump continued. “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”

Days before Trump took office in January, he announced online that he’d be tapping Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight to be his special envoys to Hollywood, mentioning that he would “get done what they suggest” in order to spark another “Golden Age of Hollywood.”

Months later, it appears that Voight—also known as the film industry’s most ardent conservative—spoke with Trump, and Trump listened.

Voight has reportedly spent weeks talking to the Directors Guild of America, Teamsters, and IATSE, Deadline reported Friday. The fruit of those conversations, according to sources with knowledge of them who spoke to the entertainment publication, was supposed to be a tax incentive that Hollywood has been clamoring for.

Instead, Trump went the way of the tariff, which squares into an administration that has aggressively curtailed spending in order to extend extremely expensive tax breaks for billionaires.

The details of the tariff were still being sorted out by Hollywood executives as of Sunday night, reported Reuters. It’s unclear, per Trump’s post, whether the tariffs would only impact movies in the theater or if they would also apply to streaming services. It’s also unclear if the tariffs would be calculated based on production costs or box office revenue, the newswire noted. By Monday, Netflix, Disney, Paramount Global, and Fox Corp stocks went tumbling.

President Trump may have gotten his half-brained idea to reopen and expand the infamous Alcatraz prison from a movie that aired on WLRN this past weekend. 

“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” the president wrote on Truth Social Sunday evening. 

“I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” he continued. “We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally. The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”  

A Bluesky user provided some more details on this seemingly random announcement. 

“I may have context for this! Last night WPBT in Palm Beach broadcast the 1979 Clint Eastwood film ‘Escape from Alcatraz,’” they wrote. Trump was in Palm Beach on the night in question. 

Trump potentially making major policy decisions based on the last movie he watched is bleak but unsurprising. Alcatraz is a dilapidated full-time museum off the coast of San Francisco that closed in the 1960s because it was too expensive to operate and many of the buildings were falling apart. Getting it back to a full-time jail would be incredibly costly and labor intensive. 

“Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago. It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction,” California Representative Nancy Pelosi wrote on X. “The President’s proposal is not a serious one.”

The Trump administration did not rule out that its pitch to replace the nation’s space launch system could massively benefit Elon Musk.

In an interview with Fox Business Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought refused to clarify if the “Dark MAGA” tech billionaire would be pocketing off the budget increase.

“The budget phases out the grossly expensive and delayed space launch system,” Fox Business’s Charles Payne said. “Is there a chance that Elon Musk could benefit from that?”

“Look, this is a billion-dollar investment into Mars,” said Vought, a former Project 2025 architect. “We’re doing both, we’re going back to the moon as part of the Artemis. We’ve protected exploration funding that’s open to all companies. Elon Musk hasn’t been a part of the NASA budget conversations at all. And we also provide resources for what we’re doing on Mars.”

As part of its budget proposal Friday, the Trump administration is reportedly looking to slash NASA’s budget by 24 percent year over year, amounting to the largest single-year slice to the agency in its history, with $6 billion in cuts.

The proposal spells the end of the Space Launch System rocket and NASA’s brand-new Orion spacecraft. It also envisions killing the Gateway space station that is crucial to one of the space agency’s biggest missions: a full-fledged, multistep exploration of the moon dubbed the Artemis campaign. (As soon as the U.S. beats China in its space race.)

“We do believe that, after Artemis, it’s time to look for lower cost, commercial, cheaper vehicles that allow us to not have the cost overruns and the delays and the expense that we’ve seen in the SLS and the Orion program,” Vought told Fox. “We’re not doing anything that would in any way delay what’s necessary to get to the moon.”

Instead, the White House envisions that the future of the country’s space funding should be spent on Mars—an idea that isn’t too difficult to trace back to the SpaceX CEO.

Musk has been a vocal opponent of NASA’s Artemis campaign. In January, Musk posted on X that the moon is just a “distraction” and that his company would be looking to go “straight to Mars.”

Republican Representative Mike Collins is freaking out over a halal restaurant coming to the cafeteria in the House’s Rayburn building.

The skittish conservative complained on X Friday morning about CHA Street Food, a Pakistani restaurant, replacing Steak n Shake this summer, likening it to a religious war from thousands of years ago.

If Collins knew anything about cuisines, or even cultures, outside of America, he’d know that Pakistan is thousands of miles away from Jerusalem. His own X post includes a screenshot of an email pointing out that CHA Street Food is actually based out of northern Virginia. Not only that, his beloved Steak n Shake is owned by an Iranian American, Sardar Biglari.

If Collins thinks a new halal restaurant in a House cafeteria is like “the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem,” perhaps he should get to know his colleagues. There are currently four Muslims serving in the House: Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, André Carson of Indiana, and newly elected Lateefah Simon of California. There’s even a congresswoman in his own Republican Party of partial Pakistani descent, Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma.

But Collins is not known for his nuance or tolerance, cheering on racist protesters in Mississippi last year and blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion procedures for train derailments. Maybe the Georgia congressman ought to try out CHA Street Food and its menu of Pakistani street food, which includes burgers and fries. He might actually have his horizons broadened.