Republican Rep. Questions His Own Party—and Trump—in Brutal Interview

GOP Representative Brian Fitzpatrick sat down with CNN’s Manu Raju on Sunday and directly criticized the recent policy decisions of President Trump and the Republican Party in general, further emphasizing the various internal rifts on the right.

The Pennsylvania representative first came for what he sees as his party’s steerless criticism of the Affordable Care Act.

“On health care, you’ve been pushing very hard to deal with these expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, pushing your own plan for this,” Raju said to Fitzpatrick. “But you’re encountering a lot of resistance from within your own party.... What do you say to them?”

“If you don’t have a better plan, then get on board with ours. But doing nothing is not an option,” the representative replied. “I’ve heard so many people in the Republican conference rail against the Affordable Care Act, rail on Obamacare, rail on the premium tax credits.... If you wanna criticize something that’s OK, as long as you have a better alternative. They have never offered a better alternative.”

Fitzpatrick also stressed the affordability issue.

“Everybody’s gotta have an answer to rising costs across the board, whether it be health care or anything. This is what people voted on,” he said. “This is what led to Donald Trump’s election in ’24, I believe it’s what led to Mamdani’s election in ’25. I think affordability is the issue, that’s what trumps everything else.”

“The president himself called affordability a Democratic scam,” Raju replied.

“I don’t believe that to be true. At all.”

“Do you find those comments problematic?”

“I don’t know what he was intending, I’ve heard him say the opposite of that, that he wants to focus on affordability,” Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t know where he’s going with that.... I can just tell you from my standpoint, affordability is the most important issue. Issue number one.”

Fitzpatrick reserved some of his harshest criticism for how Trump has handled Russia’s war on Ukraine, as the president has pushed what many have referred to as a 28-point pro-Putin peace plan.

“I have not liked the way either this or the prior administration has handled this.... We need a lot more moral clarity out of the administration,” he said. “Vladimir Putin invaded a peace-loving democracy. Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a legitimately elected president, Vladimir Putin is an unelected dictator. Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia has kidnapped close to 20,000 Ukrainian children. It is genocide, it is war crimes, and we have to call that out for what it is.”

“Has Trump been too deferential to Putin?”

“I believe so.”

This interview comes as narratives of GOP disharmony are peaking, sparked by MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s criticism of Trump’s disdain for anything but his own agenda, and her subsequent resignation announcement.

“I think emotions are really high… A lot of our colleagues are frustrated that their legislation has not been brought to the floor.… It’s a lack of priorities.”

While other Republicans recently criticizing Trump plan on retiring, Fitzpatrick has confirmed his intention to run for reelection in 2026.

There could be a major switch-up at the Department of Homeland Security “really soon.”

In a drastic turn of events, Donald Trump is reportedly considering replacing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem with outbound Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. That could make Noem the first person to be pushed out of Trump’s second-term Cabinet.

Noem has unquestioningly carried out practically every element of the president’s immigration agenda and endlessly fawned over his leadership. Last week, Noem nonsensically thanked Trump for keeping hurricanes at bay since he returned to office. Yet none of that has been enough to keep her in the administration’s good graces, because even while Trump may be satisfied with her performance, top White House officials have become increasingly frustrated with Noem’s sphere of influence—specifically, the tenure of her chief adviser, Corey Lewandowski, reported The Bulwark.

Three former DHS officials with ties to the current staff told the digital publication that the changeover could happen “really soon,” giving the term-limited Youngkin a future in Washington.

CNN reported in late November that Youngkin has “expressed more interest in an economic or business portfolio, rather than one focused on immigration” but would still be “excited by the prospect of joining the Cabinet.”

Lewandowski denied The Bulwark’s report, commenting to the outlet that “none of that is true.”

Exactly what a Noem exit means for DHS—or the president’s immigration agenda—is not clear, though political analysts predict that Youngkin could be less abrasive than his predecessor, a woman who bragged about killing her dog in order to curry favor with the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.

“If he gets the gig, he probably won’t be as flashily cruel as Noem has been,” argued The New Republic’s editor, Michael Tomasky. “But there’s every reason to think that he’ll do just what Stephen Miller tells him to do—if only because he’s leaving Richmond with his political future in shambles and needs to revive his career. If the Trump Cabinet is his meal ticket, he’ll follow orders.”

DHS staffers, meanwhile, are reportedly looking forward to the leadership change.

“Things are fucked” at the department, a former staffer relayed on behalf of a current DHS official to The Bulwark. “It’s horrible.”

“‘They’re going to destroy this place. I’m just hoping the new secretary gets here in time.’”

President Trump is almost certainly supporting Paramount’s hostile takeover bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes CNN. 

After Netflix announced they were acquiring the media and entertainment company in an $83 billion cash-and-stock deal Friday, Paramount on Monday announced a $108.4 billion cash offer in a takeover bid that reeks of Trump’s cooperation. Trump was asked over the weekend if he thought Netflix should be allowed to make the deal, and he flat-out said he would be involved in the ultimate decision. 

“They have a very big market share. And when they have Warner Bros. you know that share goes up a lot, so I don’t know, that’s going to be for some economists to tell and also I’ll be involved in that decision too,” Trump said at the Kennedy Center Honors.  

Paramount CEO David Ellison went on CNBC Monday morning to talk about Paramount’s bid, and tried to play coy about how Trump would feel about Ellison taking over CNN, a news network that Trump has railed against over “unfair” coverage. 

“We’ve had great conversations with the president about this, but I don’t want to speak for him in any way, shape or form,” Ellison said. Those great conversations have reportedly involved which CNN hosts to fire if Ellison takes over the network and putting CBS’s 60 Minutes on CNN. 

Paramount’s takeover bid also involves Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, specifically his private equity firm Affinity Partners, as well as sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar. Paramount conveniently left that out of the press release announcing the takeover. 

Paramount’s owners, Larry Ellison and his son David, are staunch Trump supporters and are building a right-wing media empire, having CBS in their Paramount portfolio, acquiring the anti-woke publication The Free Press, and also bringing TikTok under U.S. ownership to push pro-Israel views. 

All of this suggests that Trump, through the Ellisons, is trying to force mainstream media outlets into submission and cease critical coverage. Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos may have helped his Warner Bros. deal thanks to private meetings with the president, but if it comes down to a choice between that or having the Ellisons take over CNN with his son-in-law’s help to make it pro-Trump, it’s clear what Trump would prefer. 

The online MAGA-verse were at each other’s throats more than usual this weekend, as right-wing commentators Benny Johnson, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Tucker Carlson were all points of controversy.

The first tiff started on Saturday, when Yiannopoulos—who has made a name for himself as an openly gay far-right bigot—accused multiple conservative influencers like Johnson and Charlie Kirk of being closeted gay men on Tim Pool’s podcast with swindler and former MAGA Representative George Santos, who is also gay.

“One of the most distinctive things about the right-wing in this country is its homosexual overtones. Benny Johnson posts pictures of his children every two days—it’s weird. And everybody knows what went on with Benny Johnson in those lobbies and those hotel rooms at SAS. Everybody knows,” said Yiannopoulos.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Santos replied.

“Men, younger men. Not underage, at least I don’t know that. His wife was crying drunk in the lobby three SAS’s in a row about how her husband was upstairs with boys,” Yiannopoulos claimed. “Go ask her.”

“Come on, Milo, aren’t you ever scared of getting sued?” Santos asked.

Yiannopoulos insisted he was telling the truth, and that he’d never been sued.

On Sunday, Johnson threatened to sue him.

“I am duty bound to take action to protect my family against those who maliciously defame and attack us. More to come on that soon,” he wrote. “Pray for healing for some really sick and delusional people. Jesus is about redemption. The legal system is about justice. Happy Sunday.”

Yiannopoulos responded in a message addressed to Johnson and his wife, Kate:

“I know more about defamation than any lawyer you will hire. Benny is a public figure. Malice is a nonstarter. I have receipts, and the truth is a total defense against any claim of defamation or libel. Do you want to lose a defamation case to MILO YIANNOPOULOS OF ALL PEOPLE about whether or not you are gay? Do you want to even fight one? The people who have poured money into making you a big deal are about to lose their entire investment,” he ranted.

“I know more about your marriage than you think I do,” he continued, “and I have evidence, and I have witnesses. I know who to subpoena. I know what questions to ask. About nocturnal liaisons dangereuses with chaps in assless chaps and about being caught in flagrante delicto at conferences attended by students, some of whom may have been under 18 (I guess we’ll find out!).”

Yiannopoulos also claimed that Turning Point USA may have faked Charlie Kirk’s death.

Meanwhile, other far-righters—mostly Islamophobes and Zionists—were at pundit Tucker Carlson’s throat for his purchase of a property in Qatar.

“Speaking on stage at the Doha Forum in Qatar, Tucker Carlson told Qatar’s Prime Minister Al Thani that he is buying a place in Qatar this week because he’s an ‘American”; and he will live and go wherever he wants,” MAGA crank Laura Loomer posted on Sunday. “Qatar is the financier of the Muslim Brotherhood and they continue to allow HAMAS officials to live in Doha, where Tucker now wants to buy a place to live.”

“Let me explain the joke: Qatar is a bloodthirsty, terror-supporting slave state, and Tucker Carlson is rubbing it in your face that he’s an unregistered foreign agent for them,” another account wrote.

It’s clear that Trump’s base is fraying at the seams. From those questioning the validity of Trump’s “America First” and our fealty to Israel, like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes, and Tucker Carlson, to those like Yiannopoulos spreading conspiracy theories only Candace Owens would touch, it’s clear that whatever base of hatred Trump still has is fractured.

Vice President JD Vance offered up a defense for his own racism so baffling that it makes you wonder: What in the world are they teaching at Yale Law School? 

Vance slammed an X account for paraphrasing one of his anti-immigrant tirades as “completely dishonest”—before confirming that he pretty much agreed with the sentiment anyway.

During an October interview with conservative podcaster Miranda Devine, Vance made a series of comments claiming Americans struggled living next door to immigrants. 

“‘Well, wait a second. What is going on here? I don’t know these people. They don’t speak the same language that I do.’ And because there are 20 in the house next door, it’s a little bit rowdier than it was when there was just a family of four or a family of five,” Vance said on the podcast.

“It is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I wanna live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers,’” Vance said. 

Vance’s comments were old-school racist, as he proselytized about the invented struggles of not living in a homogeneous community made up of white, English-speaking, nuclear families. The inclusion of immigrant families meant noise and chaos for their well-meaning white neighbors. Vance, who has previously admitted to telling racist lies for attention, uses comments like these to justify the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and deportation efforts. 

On X, hedge fund manager and frequent anti-Trump poster Spencer Hakimian offered a summation of Vance’s comments: “It’s totally reasonable to not want neighbors who speak another language.” 

Vance hit back in a post of his own. “First of all, it’s just a made up quote. Completely dishonest,” he wrote, referring to Hakimian.  

“Second, what’s reasonable is to want to share a language with your neighbor. How do you borrow a cup of sugar? Resolve disagreements? Have a nice conversation? You need a common language, and in America, that language is English,” Vance wrote. “The far left became so deranged on immigration that they’re attacking people for wanting to be able to speak to their neighbors.”

In one fell swoop, Vance denied thinking it was reasonable to not want neighbors who don’t speak English, before clarifying that it was not unreasonable to want your neighbors to speak English. If your defense of racism is to offer up a brainteaser, you may be working too hard. 

Donald Trump threw a temper tantrum Monday, demanding an apology from Paramount after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene bashed him on their network—and it’ll probably work.

In an interview on 60 Minutes Sunday, Greene, a recent MAGA defector, exposed just how much Republican lawmakers hate Trump and slammed his second-term agenda.

In his meltdown, Trump continued to elaborate on his inane nickname for “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown” in a post on Truth Social, writing, “Green turns Brown under stress!” and “She sort of reminds me of a Rotten Apple!”

But Greene wasn’t the only recipient of the president’s ire.

“My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME!” Trump wrote.

Paramount has already bent over backward to build a pro-Trump media behemoth. Earlier this year, the organization paid $16 million to Trump to settle a lawsuit over an edited 60 Minutes interview of failed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, clearing the way for a merger with Skydance. (Months later, it chopped up an interview with the president to make him sound normal.)

Paramount later installed Bari Weiss, a boring center-right pundit, to lead CBS News and started to install editorial rules to benefit Trump’s administration. Hell, Paramount even agreed to revive the Rush Hour movies after Trump begged his billionaire buddy Larry Ellison, whose son David runs Paramount Skydance.

Why will the president’s childish outburst probably get him exactly what he wants? On Monday, Paramount launched a $104.8 billion hostile bid to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Warner Bros., after losing out to Netflix. Semafor reported that Paramount executives had initially been hopeful Trump would step in to block the sale to Netflix, but the president had demurred. Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump said he would be “involved” in the Warner Bros. sale, positioning himself as a dealmaker for interested parties to suck up to.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene still isn’t willing to admit her contributions to the toxicity in American politics. 

The onetime MAGA loyalist who has become critical of President Trump in recent months was interviewed by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes Sunday. When Greene started speaking about how toxic the political culture in Washington is, Stahl pointed out her past. 

“It’s the most toxic political culture, and it’s not helping the American people,” Greene began, before Stahl jumped in. 

“But you contributed to that. You, you, you were out there pounding and insulting people,” Stahl said. Greene avoided taking responsibility, becoming her own combative self and calling Stahl toxic and accusatory. 

“You’re accusing me, but we don’t have to accuse one other,” Greene said with a big grin. Stahl replied that she wanted Greene to respond to her own record, but the congresswoman wouldn’t own up and instead kept claiming that Stahl’s accusations were part of the problem.  

After President Trump and other top Republicans reportedly objected to her running for Senate, Greene has seemingly turned on her own party, calling out Republicans and Donald Trump on everything from the Epstein files to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In her announcement that she will resign from Congress next year, Greene blasted the president, saying she would not be a “battered wife.” He responded with his usual insults.  

But Sunday’s interview shows that while Greene may be on the outs with MAGA, her reactionary politics and toxicity haven’t changed. Greene was clearly using 60 Minutes to establish her far-right credentials by using Stahl as a “liberal media” foil. Whatever is next for Greene, she’s not moving an inch from the right wing. 

At least one Republican is encouraging the Defense Department to blow up boats in the Carribbean—even if the ships have no apparent plans to enter U.S. waters.

New reports indicate that before the Pentagon double-tapped a boat on September 2, mercilessly killing a pair of survivors who clung to the flotsam, officials knew that the small watercraft was headed to Suriname and then to Europe or Africa—not the United States.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton told NBC News’s Kristin Welker Sunday that he wasn’t just “comfortable” that the military had bombed a ship in international waters that had no intention of arriving in the U.S., but that he would actually like the government to “continue” the practice.

“Is there any hard evidence that shows this particular boat was headed to the United States?” asked Welker.

“That didn’t come up in my briefing,” Cotton said. “But again, there’s very reliable, multiple sources of intelligence that tells us this boat had drugs on it, that everyone on this boat is associated with these designated foreign terrorist organizations that are trying to kill American children.”

“Are you comfortable having the United States target a boat in which you have not seen evidence that it’s actually heading to the United States?” Welker pressed.

“I’m not just comfortable with it, I want to continue it,” Cotton said.

Since early September, the U.S. has conducted at least 22 strikes on small boats traversing the Caribbean that Trump administration officials have deemed—without an investigation or interdiction—were smuggling drugs. At least 86 people have been killed in the attacks.

The White House has defended the violence, chalking it up to allegedly necessary efforts to thwart the pipeline of fentanyl into the country. But Donald Trump has simultaneously leveraged the aggression to try to shove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro out of power, something that he tried and failed to do in 2019.

“How is a boat that’s not heading to the United States an imminent threat to this country, senator?” Welker said at another point in the interview.

“Well, that’s one possibility,” Cotton said, explaining that he’s heard reports that some smaller watercraft “link up” with larger boats to pass drugs into the country. “I didn’t hear that specifically from Admiral [Frank “Mitch”] Bradley in my briefing, but what we know is that these drug cartels … are trafficking drugs to our shores.”

Other lawmakers that were briefed on the September 2 double tap left the meeting appalled by the country’s actions, relaying to members of the media that they were “deeply disturbed” by the barbarity of the killings.

“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday. “You have two individuals [in] clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, [who] were killed by the United States.”

President and former slumlord Donald Trump appears to have spent years committing the same kind of mortgage fraud that he’s been accusing his political enemies of.

ProPublica has reported that in 1993, Trump signed mortgages for two lavish homes right next to his Mar-a-Lago estate—one for $525,000 and one for $1,200,000. Like any standard mortgage, the agreement (ushered by Merril Lynch) required Trump to reside in those homes within 60 days and actually live there for at least 365 days.  

Yet ProPublica’s investigation confirmed that Trump never lived in either of those residences for enough time, maintaining his actual personal address as Trump Tower in Manhattan. He bragged to Vanity Fair in 1994 about splitting time between Manhattan and Mar-a-Lago proper, but not either of the other two large properties. 

In reality, Trump wasn’t completely truthful about his plans to reside in the residences and instead rented them out to people.

This is absurdly ironic if true. Trump has baselessly accused New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook, Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell, and Senator Adam Schiff—all enemies of his in one way or another—of mortgage fraud. 

The White House profusely defended Trump. 

“President Trump’s two mortgages you are referencing are from the same lender. There was no defraudation. It is illogical to believe that the same lender would agree to defraud itself,” a spokesperson told ProPublica. “This is yet another desperate attempt by the Left wing media to disparage President Trump with false allegations,” they said, adding, “President Trump has never, or will ever, break the law.”

While Trump’s decision to obtain multiple mortgages for more than one primary residence goes unprosecuted, it certainly meets the paltry standards of fraud that his administration has set for anyone Trump wants to get revenge on. 

“Given Trump’s position on situations like this, he’s going to either need to fire himself or refer himself to the Department of Justice,” Suffolk University law professor and mortgage finance expert Kathleen Engel told ProPublica. “Trump has deemed that this type of misrepresentation is sufficient to preclude someone from serving the country.”

President Donald Trump’s attempt to pay tribute to the honorees at the Kennedy Center Sunday night was marred by the president’s verbal diarrhea.

While discussing the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, Trump made a strange verbal detour into gushing about a round of golf he’d played with Gary Player.

“They have talent. They have talent. The great Gary Player, he hits shots. He’s 90 years old. He still plays good. Shot a 70 with me the other day. He’s 90. We’re playing pretty far back too. He’s incredible. You think [Joe] Biden could do that? I don’t think so. Can’t, can’t lift the club,” Trump said.

Trump, who has a tendency to repeat his own jokes and stories, previously bragged about Player shooting a 70 in late October. This time, the president claimed they’d been playing with another person who kept getting stuck in sand traps.

“It was sad to watch. And, and Gary says, ‘You don’t understand. Just—’ And he dropped five balls, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping!” Trump said, employing one of his time-honored verbal gaffes.

So, what exactly was the point of Trump’s story? A truly inspirational message for us all.

“[Player] said, ‘Well, here’s the problem. I’ve got talent and you don’t.’ And that’s, and that’s what that’s true about you. You have talent,” Trump said, adding his own thoughts: “If you don’t have talent, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

Throughout Trump’s speech Sunday, the president repeatedly struggled to stay on topic, bragging about renovations he’d made to the supposedly crumbling Kennedy Center, lying about young women thanking him for lowering the crime rate in D.C., and weirdly ranking the Supreme Court, Senate, and NFL owners committee as having the “hottest boards.”