Why the Hell Did JD Vance and Erika Kirk Hug Like That?

Vice President JD Vance has some explaining to do over a hug that was a little too close with Erika Kirk, the widow of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk.

The two were at the University of Mississippi Wednesday night for Turning Point USA’s “This Is the Turning Point” tour, the organization co-founded by Charlie that Erika took over after his death. Vance not only was the headlining guest but also filled Charlie’s old role of debating college students from a stage.

But the internet isn’t as concerned with the tour itself, or the fact that Vance has time to play conservative influencer while serving as vice president. Instead, they’re talking about the embrace between him and Kirk’s widow, with Vance’s hands on her waist and her face appearing to betray some emotion at the same time.

Several commentators seemed to suggest that this doesn’t bode well for Vance’s wife, Usha.

The pictures from Mississippi aren’t helped by Vance’s remarks about his wife at the event, where he said he hopes Usha will leave her Hindu faith and convert to Christianity. All three of their children are being raised as Christians, with the two older ones attending a Christian school.

“I honestly do wish that because I believe in the Christian gospel, and I hope eventually, my wife comes to see it the same way,” he said. “If she doesn’t, then God says, everybody has free will, so that doesn’t cause a problem for me. That’s something you work out.”

Is there something going on between Kirk and Vance? If there isn’t, the vice president’s words and that hug are already spreading rumors otherwise. Usha and her parents have both done a lot for Vance, and what happened Wednesday looks disrespectful, at a minimum.

President Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center has been a financial death sentence for the famed cultural institution.

The Washington Post has reported that ticket sales at the Kennedy Center are the worst they’ve been since the Covid-19 pandemic. The average show is selling just over half of its tickets right now, with some of those tickets being comped for various reasons. This is a massive dip. In 2023, that number was at 80 percent, and in 2024, it was at 93 percent.

This likely is the result of Trump’s crusade to “unwoke” the Kennedy Center.

“The programming was out of control with rampant political propaganda, DEI, and inappropriate shows,” Trump said back in May. “They had dance parties for, quote, ‘queer and trans youth.’ And I guess that’s all right for certain people.… But that wasn’t working out too well.”

Trump promised to make the Kennedy Center “hot” again and reinvigorate ticket sales that didn’t need much help in the first place.

“Given the unprecedented takeover of a nonpartisan arts institution combined with the inexperience and rhetoric of the new management, I expected a decline in sales; however, it is truly shocking to see that these actions have been worse for business at the Kennedy Center than the aftermath of a global pandemic,” an anonymous former staff member told the Post. “These numbers are likely more dire than they appear, as they don’t account for canceled productions or shows moved into smaller theaters due to weak ticket sales.”

Furthermore, Trump has placed the center in another precarious position, as it risks losing donors due to Trump’s right-wing cultural push.

“Depressed ticket sales not only cause a shortfall in revenue; they also bode unfavorably for future fundraising revenue,” former Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser wrote in an email to the Post. He had the center running at a surplus during his tenure. “The vast majority of donors are ticket buyers who are anxious to enhance their relationships with the organization by making contributions in addition to paying for their tickets. We had 40,000 generous individual donors by the time I left the Center in 2014. Funding from these individuals formed the foundation for all we accomplished.”

Not only is Trump bad for the quality of cultural stewardship, he’s bad for business. We risk losing even more of the Kennedy Center’s operations as this administration continues.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted Thursday that President Donald Trump’s supposedly triumphant talks about a rare earths deal with China were far from finished.

Speaking on Fox News, Bessent touted Trump’s recent efforts in getting China to agree to pause export controls on its rare earth minerals supply for one year. China, which is the dominant supplier of an array of rare earth minerals, had announced the export controls at the beginning of the month, prompting Trump to threaten outrageous 100 percent tariffs on Chinese goods.

“China unilaterally put, or said they were going to put, a rare earth licensing regime on the entire world, the entire world. And President Trump, as the leader of the free world, got this delayed by one year,” Bessent said. “So it wasn’t just for the U.S., it was for the entire world.”

“Well, what happens a year from now?” host Laura Ingraham asked.

“My guess is a year from now, we’ll be back at the table, and we’ll get another delay, another roll,” Bessent said.

The secretary explained that China’s dominion over rare earths was nothing compared to the threat of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods. “We are the deficit country, China has to export to us. So, the deficit country always wins. The surplus country loses,” Bessent said.

“What’s more interesting here is maybe we can settle into a good place where the competition is more fair,” he continued.

But there is no “settling” Trump’s plan—only an endless cycle of negotiation.

At the beginning of October, China’s Commerce Ministry added five more rare earths, as well as magnets and other materials made from them, to a list of 17 minerals that had export controls placed on them. China also placed restrictions on the export of rare earth processing equipment, battery manufacturing equipment, and diamond saws, which would allow other countries to build out their own rare earth manufacturing sectors.

Speaking with reporters on Air Force one this week, Trump claimed that the pause on export controls could be “routinely extended.” China’s Commerce Ministry, however, suggested that Beijing would suspend the measures for a year but then “study and refine specific plans.”

It seems that Trump delayed these new controls, but the original list still remains.

Evan Fiegenbaum, a political scientist and vice president of the Carnegie Endowment, criticized the administration’s approach on X. He warned that the U.S. should prepare for “China to retaliate tit-for-tat anytime the U.S. takes a punitive action,” and that there were plenty of other pressure points China could press.

Alternatively, Louise Loo, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics, suggested that continuing trade negotiations with China could provide a pressure valve for tensions between the two countries. “China’s leverage in rare earths and critical minerals processing will continue to surface episodically, effectively capping any escalation in bilateral tensions,” Loo wrote in a note Thursday.

At least one Trump administration official can see the forest for the trees when it comes to the reality of the government shutdown.

Much to the chagrin of Republican leadership, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins delivered a rare level-headed missive Friday for Americans struggling with expiring SNAP benefits.

“My message to America is first, the fact that your government is failing you right now,” Rollins told reporters. “That poverty is not red or blue, it is not a Democrat or Republican issue. Doesn’t matter who you voted for or even if you voted. That if you are in a position where you can’t feed your family, and you’re relying on that $187 dollars a month for an average family in the SNAP program, that we have failed you.”

But that was a politically unsavory appeal for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who immediately jumped into recovery mode, attempting to twist Rollins’s words to fit the party message.

“And it’s, um, clarified that when she says, ‘We have failed you,’ she means, ‘We the Democrats,’ OK?” Johnson said.

Rollins is no stranger to the conservative message—she has run conservative think tanks for decades. After Johnson’s quick spin, she then proceeded to refuse to commit to releasing SNAP funds if a judge ordered her to do so.

“We’re looking at all the options,” she told reporters.

The government has been shut down for more than 30 days as of Friday, making it the second-longest federal closure in U.S. history. It’s only bested by a 35-day shutdown between 2018 and 2019 that occurred during Donald Trump’s first term.

After spending weeks singularly blaming Democrats for the stalemate, Trump ordered Republicans late Thursday to “INITIATE THE ‘NUCLEAR OPTION’” by axing the Senate filibuster. The directive adds monumental pressure on Republicans, who have long fought to maintain the filibuster—which grants enormous power to the Senate’s minority—as a trump card during times of Democratic legislative upheaval.

Meanwhile, thousands of federal workers have gone weeks without pay, Affordable Care Act marketplace credits have lapsed in several states, and some 42 million Americans stand to go hungry when SNAP benefits expire on Saturday.

Donald Trump’s obsession with blowing stuff up is nothing new, according to his former staffers.

The president “fantasized quite openly” about detonating bombs during his first term, according to Miles Taylor, who served as Department of Homeland Security chief of staff at the time.

“I will tell you very honestly, Trump, in the first term, at least when I was there, fantasized quite openly to advisers about wanting to blow up bombs,” Taylor told CNN Thursday. “It wasn’t more complicated than that, he didn’t have this 3D-chess strategy. He wanted to see bombs blown up.”

The president directed his administration Wednesday to resume nuclear weapons testing, in apparent violation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1996. Russia—which has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world—immediately reacted, warning that it “would follow suit” if the U.S. moves forward with the revised military policy.

Taylor recalled a distressed White House situation room meeting in 2017 during Trump’s game of brinksmanship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, after which top administration officials warned that the U.S. could enter war at any moment due to Trump’s flagrant tweets.

“Anyone who thought that there was some sophisticated strategy to try and intimidate Kim didn’t know the truth,” Taylor said. “Which was that, the president was freestyling. It was scaring his team. The secretary of defense walked out of one of those meetings and turned to us at the Department of Homeland Security and said, ‘I hope you are preparing for the United States to go to war.’”

Taylor drew national attention in 2018 when he anonymously penned an op-ed for The New York Times claiming to be part of the internal “resistance” against Trump’s agenda, lumping himself in with a group of senior officials who did not believe Trump was fit for the nation’s highest office. He has since written several books assessing Trump’s behavior in the White House that revealed intimate insider accounts.

Just 10 months into his second term, Trump has already illustrated a lackadaisical attitude toward unwarranted explosions. Earlier this month, Trump threw a parade in California to celebrate the Marine Corp’s 250th anniversary—a month before the actual anniversary date, and conveniently timed to coincide with the nationwide No Kings protests. The most controversial element of the plan, however, involved plans to shoot live ordnance over sections of Interstate 5 toward Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. During the display, shrapnel ended up hitting vehicles in Vice President JD Vance’s motorcade.

And during a trip to Japan earlier this week, Trump’s team pressured the Navy to launch 2,000-pound live bombs during a military demonstration, instead of dummy explosives. The Navy did use live bombs, although the White House later said that had always been the plan.