Team Trump Answers Question About Hegseth’s Tie With “Your Mom” Insult

It looks like President Donald Trump’s administration is finally leaning into the fact that it’s staffed by witless bullies, after an aide for Pete Hegseth gave a moronic response to a reporter’s question about the defense secretary’s highly questionable accessory choices.

During a visit from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week, Hegseth wore a tie that had the same colors and pattern as the Russian flag. The tie was so similar that Tass, the Russian state news agency, remarked that Hegseth “stood out” from the “restrained” attire of colleagues by wearing a “tie in the colours of the Russian tricolor.” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, even shared a photograph of the secretary to X.

HuffPost reported Monday that when a reporter asked Hegseth’s office if he was aware of the attention the tie had garnered from Russia, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell replied, “Your mom bought it for him—and it’s a patriotic American tie, moron.”

It looks like this is becoming a thing—though it may be localized to questions from HuffPost, for now. Last week, when HuffPost reporter S.V. Dáte asked who had picked Hungary as the next venue for talks between Trump and Putin, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had stupidly replied: “Your mom.” A minute later, White House communications director Steven Cheung replied, “Your mom did.”

JD Vance responded to the tie controversy on X Friday: “Or maybe he was wearing the colors of America.” Or maybe Hegseth was wearing the colors of Cuba, or Czech Republic, or Cambodia, or any of the roughly 30 countries with red, white, and blue flags. But strangely enough, only one nation seemed to perceive it as a sneaky signal of support.

President Donald Trump’s hand-selected prosecutor reportedly voluntarily offered up information about sensitive grand jury matters while complaining to a legal reporter about a social media post.

Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s former personal lawyer whom he recently installed as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, reached out to Lawfare’s Anna Bower almost two weeks ago to discuss the recent indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud. 

“Anna, Lindsey Halligan here,” she began, messaging Bower on Signal. “You are reporting things that are simply not true. Thought you should have a heads up.”

Halligan proceeded to discuss her efforts to indict James. Throughout the entire exchange, she never requested that she be allowed to speak off the record—until Bower later reached out to the Department of Justice for comment. 

Halligan took issue with Bower’s sharing excerpts from The New York Times to X. The Times had reported that James’s second home was being occupied by her niece Nakia Thompson, who testified before a grand jury that “she had lived in the house for years and that she did not pay rent.” 

Bower wrote on X that the article was “important exculpatory evidence” because the reporting undermined the prosecution’s central claim that James used the second property as a rental home. But Thompson seemed to have testified before a separate grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, not the one in Alexandria that had indicted James. Thompson did not testify again. 

“Did they get something wrong?” Bower asked Halligan, referring to the Times report. 

“Yes they did but you went with it! Without even fact checking anything!!!!” Halligan replied. “And they are disclosing grand jury info—which is also not a full representation of what happened. I guess I expect them to do that but I was surprised by you running with it.”

When Bower prompted Halligan to specify what she would like corrected, the interim U.S. attorney referred her to the indictment, which alleged that James had received thousands of dollars in rent.

“I can’t tell you grand jury stuff,” Halligan added. But her correspondence with Bower had already touched on grand jury materials, which is wildly abnormal and legally risky.

While James’s tax information was not publicly available, the New York AG’s ethics disclosures revealed that she had previously collected rent on the property—but only once in 2020, and for a sum between $1000 and $5000. When Bowers relayed these findings, Halligan started ranting. 

“You’re biased. Your reporting isn’t accurate. I’m the one handling the case and I’m telling you that. If you want to twist and torture the facts to fit your narrative, there’s nothing I can do. Waste to even give you a heads up,” she wrote. 

When Bower reached out to the Department of Justice for comment, they said that Halligan was “attempting to point you to facts, not gossip, but when clarifying that she would adhere to the rule of the law and not disclose Grand Jury information, you threaten to leak an entire conversation.”

“Good luck ever getting anyone to talk to you when you publish their texts,” DOJ added. 

Later, Halligan texted Bower again to insist they had been speaking off record. “You’re not a journalist so it’s weird saying that but just letting you know,” she wrote.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not how this works. You don’t get to say that in retrospect,” Bower replied. 

“Yes I do. Off record,” Halligan responded.  

“I am really sorry. I would have been happy to speak with you on an off the record basis had you asked,” Bower replied “But you didn’t ask, and I still haven’t agreed to speak on that basis. Do you have any further comment for the story?” 

Even then, Halligan continued. “It’s obvious the whole convo is off record. There’s disappearing messages and it’s on signal. What is your story? You never told me about a story.”

This isn’t the first gaffe Halligan’s made since being installed. She previously submitted faulty paperwork in both James’s case and the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. 

Federal workers were told to stop documenting changes to the White House after images of the East Wing’s facade being torn down amid construction on President Donald Trump’s planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom sparked outrage online.

On Monday evening, a Treasury Department official directed staff, who, as occupants of the building neighboring the East Wing, have a direct vantage point to the site, not to snap photos.

“As construction proceeds on the White House grounds, employees should refrain from taking and sharing photographs of the grounds, to include the East Wing, without prior approval from the Office of Public Affairs,” stated an email to Treasury Department personnel, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In a statement to CNN, a Treasury spokesperson explained the ban as follows: “Carelessly shared photographs of the White House complex during this process could potentially reveal sensitive items, including security features or confidential structural details. Out of an abundance of caution, we have urged our employees to avoid sharing these images.”

Earlier Monday, viral images showed a construction crew taking a backhoe to the side of the East Wing.

Throughout the day, Democrats took to social media to comment on the arresting footage of the East Wing and decry the Trump administration.

“Seeing the White House torn apart is really emblematic of the times we’re in,” wrote Senator Tina Smith on social media.

“Oh you’re trying to say the cost of living is skyrocketing?” tweeted Senator Elizabeth Warren. “Donald Trump can’t hear you over the sound of bulldozers demolishing a wing of the White House to build a new grand ballroom.”

Trump originally said the White House ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,” but press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “necessary construction will take place” so that the East Wing, which was added in 1942, could be “modernized.” The president confirmed Monday on Truth Social that the East Wing is “being fully modernized.”

The MAGA crowd was appalled Monday as one of the Trump administration’s top officials dared to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights—and they weren’t shy about sharing their disgust.

Diwali is celebrated by more than a billion people around the world, including Sikhs, Jains, and some Buddhists. It represents the spiritual fight of light over darkness, and of knowledge over ignorance. But FBI Director Kash Patel’s simple post commemorating the joyous holiday ushered in a scourge of vitriol from the Trump administration’s political base.

“Happy Diwali—celebrating the Festival of Lights around the world, as good triumphs over evil,” Patel wrote on his personal X account, sharing an image of thousands of clay oil lamps known as diyas floating down a river.

The post received nearly 3,000 comments—many of which were repulsed by Patel’s religion. Instead, they chastised paganism and condemned him for not choosing Jesus Christ, flagrantly forgetting the protections granted for freedom of religion by the First Amendment.

“This is a Christian Nation. Check your foreigner stuff at the gate,” commented X user John McGlone, whose bio describes him as an “unapologetic Christian American.”

A Christian nationalist known as Sons of Korah responded with a meme that read, “Not today Satan.”

X user Scott Hambrick symbolically flagged Patel’s account for the Department of Homeland Security, responding to his Diwali post with just one word: “Deport.” He wasn’t the only one. A self-described “Project 2025 respecter” on the site, Rusty Shackleford, wrote: “We need to deport all hindus.”

Ben Garrett, a pastor at Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah, had a particularly Christian response: “Go back.”

Gabriel Rench, the host of the CrossPolitic podcast, offered Patel a choice.

“Here is the deal. Either go back to your home country or assimilate into Christian America,” Rench wrote. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

MAGA’s digital diatribe could be a snapshot of what’s to come later Tuesday, when Donald Trump hosts a formal Diwali event at the White House at 4 p.m. Amid heated tariff negotiations with India, Trump commemorated the holiday Monday, extending a Diwali greeting to all Americans in celebration.  

“It is also a time to bring families and friends together to celebrate community, draw strength from hope, and embrace a lasting spirit of renewal,” Trump wrote in a statement posted to the White House website. “To every American celebrating Diwali, may this observance bring abiding serenity, prosperity, hope, and peace.”

Republican Senator Ted Cruz warned his party of “political peril” in 2026 if the GOP doesn’t take the No Kings protests seriously. 

“Unquestionably we should take political peril seriously,” Cruz said on Monday on Bloomberg Television. “I think it’s bad for America when one of our two major political parties has gotten so extreme and radical the way the Democrats are. They’re a party that is unified behind hate for Donald Trump.” 

While the first part of Cruz’s warning falls into the same hyperbolic rhetoric that the GOP has been pushing about No Kings being an antifa meet up, the second half rang surprisingly true. 

“In terms of the midterms in 2026, it’s dangerous.... Substantively Republicans have a lot to campaign on,” he continued, citing things like the drop in illegal border crossings and the release of Israeli hostages. “That being said … there is a lot of energy, there is a lot of anger on the left, and elections can be dangerous when one side is mobilized, is angry.  I’ll tell you in terms of fundraising, the Democrats are raising a lot more money because their radicals hate Trump so much. And look, angry, energized voters show up to vote. And I do worry just about ordinary voters who are happy or complacent who say, ‘Gosh, Trump won, things are good, I don’t need to show up and vote.’ There’s no doubt that if one side shows up and the other doesn’t, that that leads to a bad election.” 

Even as they overexaggerate and misrepresent the Democrats—whose leadership is clearly center-left at best—Cruz’s point shows that Republicans are paying attention to the size and scope of the No Kings rallies. But they just still can’t seem to figure out why everyone is so upset with President Trump. 

Paul Ingrassia—President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Special Counsel—may not be confirmed after his racist and antisemitic messages were unearthed Monday by Politico, leading some Republican senators to repudiate him.

In the private text messages, Ingrassia, a MAGA attorney and podcaster, said he has a “Nazi streak,” and that he believes Martin Luther King Jr. Day ought to be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell.” He also called for an end to other holidays that celebrate Black history, which he referred to using an Italian slur for Black people.

While Ingrassia has an extensive public record of MAGA extremism, these private messages were a bridge too far for some Senate Republicans.

One of them is Majority Leader John Thune, who told reporters Monday night that Ingrassia is “not going to pass,” and that he hopes the White House withdraws his nomination.

Senator Rick Scott similarly said, “I don’t plan on voting for him.” Senator James Lankford told reporters he has “tons of questions for him when he comes on Thursday, but I can’t imagine supporting that.” Senator Ron Johnson told HuffPost he hopes the Trump administration pulls the nomination as well.

Prior to the scandal, Senator Thom Tillis already said he would oppose Ingrassia’s nomination, citing the nominee’s comments about the January 6 Capitol riot, as well as “a number of other things.”

Assuming full Democratic opposition, Ingrassia can only afford to lose three Republican votes before Vice President JD Vance would have to step in to break the tie. Four Republicans opposing him would tank the nomination.

Scott, Johnson, Lankford are also all on the 15-member (8 Republicans, 7 Democrats) Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has a confirmation hearing for Ingrassia scheduled for Thursday. Ingrassia needs a simple majority of the panel’s votes to advance his nomination to the full Senate.

A Trump-pardoned January 6 insurrectionist was arrested last week for threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in a chilling example of the right-wing political violence the GOP has been downplaying.

CBS reports that Christopher Moynihan—sentenced in 2022 to 21 months in prison for his role in the Capitol riot and fully pardoned by Trump—was arrested on Sunday after he sent texts about plans to “eliminate” Jeffries at an Economic Club event in New York City on Monday.

“Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live,” he allegedly wrote. “Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future.”

Moynihan has been charged with a felony for making a terroristic threat, and will make his first court appearance on Thursday.

“Following a thorough investigation, Moynihan was arrested and arraigned before the Town of Clinton Court,” a New York State Police statement read. “He was remanded to the Dutchess County Justice and Transition Center in lieu of $10,000 cash bail, a $30,000 bond, or an $80,000 partially secured bond.”

Moynihan is not the first January 6 insurrectionist to spoil their pardon with more run-ins with the law. Rioter Zachary Alam was arrested just weeks after his pardon for allegedly breaking and entering a Richmond, Virginia, home. And rioter Matthew Huttle was shot dead at a traffic stop by police after allegedly “raising a firearm at police.”

Not only are many of the insurrectionists going right back to committing alarming crimes, they’re continuing to directly contribute to right-wing violence.

Former FBI Director James Comey is hoping to get the indictment against him dismissed by proving President Donald Trump is on a vindictive quest to send him to prison. Easy enough, right?

In a 51-page filing Monday, Comey’s legal team called for the government’s charges against the former Trump ally to be dismissed because of the president’s “vindictive animus.” Last month, the former FBI director was charged with lying to Congress regarding his testimony to Senator Ted Cruz in a 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“Such a vindictive and selective prosecution violates the First Amendment, Due Process Clause, and equal protection principles,” the filing stated, noting that the case should be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning that the verdict could not be appealed by the government.

The filing evoked the laundry list of times that Trump had made public statements attacking Comey since he was ousted from FBI leadership in 2017. Since then, Comey has openly criticized Trump during the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, writing in his memoir that Trump was “unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values.”

“In response to Mr. Comey’s protected speech, President Trump has resorted to personal attacks and calls to retaliate against Mr. Comey through punishment and imprisonment,” the filing stated. Comey’s legal team wrote there was “objective evidence” that Trump harbored genuine animus toward their client, based on the president’s clear “personal bias.”

As recently as September, Trump mistakenly posted on social media a private message to Attorney General Pam Bondi directing Comey’s prosecution, and the president has all but admitted his direct involvement in the proceedings. Not to mention that Comey’s name appeared on the “enemies list” penned by Trump’s new FBI Director Kash Patel. In any case, Trump’s hatred for Comey has been long-standing and well documented.

In a second filing Monday, Comey’s attorneys argued that the case should be nullified because Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s former personal lawyer, whom he recently installed as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had been “defectively” appointed.

“The United States cannot charge, maintain, and prosecute a case through an official who has no entitlement to exercise governmental authority,” the motion said.

Americans don’t want their representatives to bow to the pressures of the government shutdown.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are hearing the same message from their constituents, whether they’re in vulnerable districts or partisan strongholds, reported MSNBC Monday: “Keep up the fight.”

“Almost to a T, I hear from people that they want us to keep fighting for them, that they want us to stand up and they don’t want us to cave,” Democratic Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal told the network.

The pressure would suggest that Americans are not interested in having their parties reach a resolution to continue funding the government. Instead, they’d rather the shutdown carry on.

“It won’t surprise you, being from a red state, that most of the calls are encouraging Republicans to stand their ground and keep up the fight,” GOP Indiana Senator Todd Young told MSNBC.

More than 700,000 federal employees have been furloughed under the auspices of the shutdown, according to a report from the Bipartisan Policy Center. Congress has yet to pass either a stop-gap funding measure or full-year appropriations bill to bring the shutdown to a close. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has axed thousands of federal employees.

Monday marked the twentieth day that the government has stayed shuttered as Republicans and Democrats disagree over how to fund Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget, which included details to slice billions from Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid.

Democrats—and their constituents—have insisted that party representatives hold firm until they can find a way to salvage the subsidized health care programs. But a major hitch looms on the horizon: Open enrollment for Obamacare plans begins on November 1. If the shutdown is not resolved by then, millions of Americans will be forced to make a decision about their health coverage without knowing whether premiums will come down.

Democratic Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin told MSNBC that “the vast majority of people I’m hearing from and seeing insist that we hang tough to resolve the health care crisis and the government shutdown at the same time.”

“We don’t have the luxury of choosing here,” Raskin said.

The issue, remarkably, has not gotten a lot of play in congressional offices around the country. Politicians on both sides of the aisle remarked to MSNBC that they were surprised by the minimal volume of calls about the shutdown their offices have received.

“I know there are a lot of Americans who are anxious about the shutdown, but I just don’t know that, until the last couple of days, there’s been a whole lot of engagement,” Young told MSNBC last week.

A 2–1 majority on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday granted President Trump a major legal win, ruling to allow him to deploy the National Guard in Portland, against the wishes of the state of Oregon, which had filed a temporary restraining order to pause the deployments. The victory was made possible thanks to two Trump judges.

Judges Ryan D. Nelson and Bridget S. Bade—both first-term Trump appointees—voted to affirm the president’s decision to “federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard for 60 days to protect federal personnel and property at the Lindquist Building, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, Oregon.” Judge Susan Graber, a Clinton appointee, was the lone dissent.

“We conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority under 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3), which authorizes the federalization of the National Guard when ‘the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States,’” the affirming judges wrote. “The evidence the President relied on reflects a ‘colorable assessment of the facts and law within a ‘range of honest judgment.’’”

This is the exact kind of situation in which the right would start to bemoan “activist judges.” They went on to compare the anti-ICE protests in Portland to Shays’s Rebellion in the eighteenth century, which resulted in nine deaths, dozens of woundings, and two eventual executions.

“The President federalized the militia to ensure that the law could be fully enforced ... Shays’s Rebellion … occurred during the Articles of Confederation period,” the affirming judges wrote. “General Washington feared that American republicanism might fail as the ‘mobbers’ tried ‘to shut down courts’ and attacked government officials who ‘earnestly [sought] to obey [and enforce] the laws that the people themselves had authorized.’ This episode left an indelible mark on the Founders. They designed the Constitution to provide a Union that could safeguard the lives of law-abiding Americans trying to enforce the nation’s laws the next time a Shays’s Rebellion arose.”

In her dissent, Judge Graber dispelled any such notions.

“Those rebellions shared several salient characteristics, including a large number of participants relative to the population and to available law enforcement, a wide geographic scope, evident organization and leadership, widespread use of arms, intense ferocity, and the creation of extreme difficulty restoring control by means of ordinary law enforcement,” she wrote. “What occurred in Portland differed in every dimension. As already noted, there is no evidence of organization or leadership, widespread use of arms, ferocity, or difficulty exerting control by ordinary means.”

She then used examples from police themselves to demonstrate that there was no “urgent need” for federal involvement, and warned against “political theater” in the judiciary.

“We have come to expect a dose of political theater in the political branches, drama designed to rally the base or to rile or intimidate political opponents. We also may expect there a measure of bending—sometimes breaking—the truth,” Graber concluded. “By design of the Founders, the judicial branch stands apart. We rule on facts, not on supposition or conjecture, and certainly not on fabrication or propaganda. I urge my colleagues on this court to act swiftly to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur.”

Oregon’s attorney general Dan Rayfield chimed in shortly after the ruling was announced.

“We are on a dangerous path in America. A panel of Ninth Circuit judges has chosen to not hold the president accountable: They just granted the federal government’s motion to stay our first TRO, which prevented the president from deploying Oregon National Guard troops in Oregon,” he wrote on X. “We will oppose the government’s motion to dissolve the second TRO, and we urge the full Ninth Circuit to vacate today’s decision before the illegal deployments can occur. We’ll continue to fight for Oregon’s laws and values no matter what—and we’ll continue to share updates.”