Even Mike Johnson Recoils Over Plan for Livestreamed Execution

Even Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson disapproves of the Trump administration’s planned live execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan.

Johnson made his position known during a CBS News interview over the weekend.

“The concern would be that it would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t be watching it if it was aired … [but] that’s outside of my lane of course. But I need to tell the White House what some of my colleagues think about that, and not everybody’s in favor of the idea.”

Hasan, a 56-year-old former Army psychiatrist from Virginia, killed 13 soldiers and wounded 32 others when he attacked the Texas military post in 2009. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the Pentagon’s plans to livestream Hasan’s execution by military firing squad.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said at the time.

Multiple Republicans expressed their distaste for the decision.

“Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting,” Senator Thom Tillis said Thursday. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”

“I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” Representative Adam Scott chimed in the next day.

Hasan’s execution date is set for December 3. It is unclear what platform, if any, will agree to livestream it.

President Donald Trump’s midterm campaign rally blitz has him down in the dumps.

During the initial leg of his nationwide tour of half-full high school gyms, the president has been in a “foul mood,” one person with knowledge of his behavior told The Washington Post Monday.

Trump is still speaking in rooms that are packed with supporters—seeing as he’s purposefully touring in deep red areas—but this time around, the venues are smaller, and the vibe is different. Trump’s speaking events don’t feel so much like pep rallies as they do stops on a farewell tour.

Trump is a lot less popular now than he was the last time he hit the campaign trail. The president has even become a liability to some Republican candidates. Ahead of his visit to Syracuse on Friday to support the New York Republican gubernatorial candidate, conservative radio host Bob Lonsberry urged him to cancel, according to the Post. “Stay away, Mr. President,” he wrote on social media. “The last thing Bruce Blakeman needs is a visit from you.”

The Post reported that Trump “combines political strategy with his personal preferences,” jumping between races that need a boost and just stumping for his buddies. His team has also struggled with finding venues of appropriate size and security level, as well as accommodations for the president. “He does not like to stay overnight except at his own properties,” the paper found.

Plus, Trump is 80 years old now, and he’s slowing down. And perhaps it’s beginning to sink in just how close to impeachment he really is, should Democrats regain control of the House and Senate.

Mark Mitchell, an independent pollster and former Trump supporter, told the Post that if the president isn’t impeached following the midterm elections, it’s not looking likely that he’ll hit the campaign trail again.

“It’s the last time he’s really going to be able to do this in full force,” said Mitchell. “A 30-day blitz of the country to do these rallies again when he’s the most unpopular president—it just doesn’t really make sense.”

Texas attorney general and Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton was asked to explain the constant, controversial leaks coming from a September campaign event. He doesn’t think they matter.

“There have been now five audio leaks from a private fundraiser you attended on September 24 published by various media outlets,” Fox News host Alica Acuna asked Sunday. “Are you concerned that they all came from the same, and are you figuring out who did it? But then also, it raises some flags … over your thoughts, publicly and privately, over the president and Washington.”

“Look, I’m not worried about it at all,” Paxton replied. “You can look at my record, you can look [at] what I’ve done over the last 12 years. I’ve supported President Trump, I love President Trump. We’ve worked together on many many issues, he’s been at work extremely hard to help me get elected. And I really appreciate him.”

“Just because they were able to clip a few things doesn’t mean that’s actually what I meant. So let’s just go back to the record, not this little game that James Talarico has played the whole time, which is ‘let’s not talk about Ken Paxton’s actual record’.… Let’s muddy the water and try to trick people into believing he’s something that he’s not, which is a real Texan.”

Paxton is framing direct quotes that he said to his own supporters in confidence as a “little game.” The reason he has to justify his relationship to Trump is because he himself was critical of the president.

In previous leaks from the event last month, Paxton called Trump a drag on his campaign and said Trump’s war on Iran was raising prices and making it harder for him to campaign. He also claimed that Washington, D.C. was controlling his campaign from afar, and told people depending on federal benefits programs to “suck it up” and prepare for cuts. All of this makes him sound much more like a Never Trump Republican than the loyalist he claims to be.

Talarico—who was born and raised in Texas—is currently virtually tied with Paxton ahead of the November midterm elections.

The Trump administration won’t be reimbursing Americans for its $20 million, taxpayer-funded, pro–Donald Trump propaganda ads.

The issue was raised to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.

“Money that was allocated by Congress to Customs and Border Patrol was used to purchase roughly $20 million in ads that have run on networks.... It’s touting President Trump’s accomplishments and also him personally,” host Margaret Brennan said. “The president has since said his political action committee will pay for future ads.… What about the past spending? Will U.S. taxpayers be reimbursed for the money that was spent on this?”

“Any time we can do a public service announcement and brag about America, I’m all about it,” Mullin replied. “You have so much negative media that’s out there … constantly controversy … I think 99 percent of the coverage of President Trump is negative—”

“So no reimbursement of the $20 million?”

Mullin ignored the question and continued on.

“We have the most secure border in our nation’s history. Fentanyl deaths are dropping. Drug apprehension is gaining speed every single day. And we should be bragging about what’s happening inside America,” he said. “I commend the opportunity of President Trump to give us the opportunity to brag about America.”

“OK. So no reimbursement. Secretary Mullin, thank you,” Brennan concluded.

That is your money. The president has funded two different hype videos for himself, running them multiple times on multiple channels as a contentious midterm election draws nearer. There’s the strange “Love Me” ad, which debuted late September on Fox News during Jesse Watters Primetime, and the “Final Battle” one in which a voiceover of the president promises to “demolish the deep state,” “expel the warmongers,” “drive out the globalists,” and “cast out the Communists.” The commercials have drawn criticism from even Republican senators for their use of DHS funds.

The ads aren’t even convincing the people who paid for them, as 86 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s use of taxpayer funds on the commercials.

A federal judge has once again blocked President Donald Trump’s takeover of a public golf course in Washington, D.C.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ordered the National Park Service Monday to halt all tree removal on the East Potomac Golf Links, after the agency cut down dozens of trees over the weekend.

In a court filing Friday, the Department of the Interior declared its intention to cut down more than 500 trees “that do not contribute to the historic landscape.” Its plans included shearing 169 trees from one “heavily overgrown” area on Saturday alone.

Reyes blocked that plan Monday until 7:00 a.m. the following day or until she issues another order. She will also hear an emergency request Monday from a group of preservationists for a 14-day restraining order on tree removal at the course.

The tree clearing is part of a plan to transform the public golf course into an exclusive, high-end one. The venture is just one of the many expensive renovation projects the president has set on in the capital region—without receiving any congressional or legal approval.

In May, Reyes pumped the brakes on the renovation plans after the D.C. Preservation League intervened to stop tree removal. The group has good reason not to trust the Trump administration after the president demolished the White House’s East Wing and made clear his intentions to destroy the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts because he wasn’t allowed to plaster his name onto it.