Russia’s Lavrov Lands in U.S. for G20 Meeting—Enraging Everyone

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Atlanta Friday for a G20 foreign minister’s meeting in Atlanta, and it’s drawing backlash from U.S. lawmakers and allies alike.

Lavrov is the highest profile Russian official to visit the U.S since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. His arrival upset other assembled diplomats, who didn’t want anything to do with him. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was forced to scrap the traditional photo with all of the foreign ministers after European leaders refused to stand next to Lavrov and threatened to walk out. Usually, the summit begins with the photograph.

At home, Republicans too are outraged by the decision to invite Lavrov. Representative Don Bacon condemned the visit on X, saying, “Lavrov should not be allowed in the country.

“As long as Putin is waging war against Ukraine and bombing cities, Russian leaders should not be welcomed in any of these forums. They lead a pariah state,” Bacon posted on Wednesday.

Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also condemned the visit in a joint letter last month. The group was made up of Republicans Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Roger Wicker, Jerry Moran, Thom Tillis, John Curtis, and Alan Armstrong, in addition to Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse, Michael Bennet, Chris Coons, Richard Blumenthal, Tim Kaine, and Ruben Gallego.

“President Putin bears sole responsibility for launching Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine. Allowing him to participate in a G20 Summit in the United States raises serious concerns about legitimizing and normalizing a government that continues to attack Ukrainian civilian targets every day,” the senators wrote.

Meanwhile, another key player in the G20 is missing. South Africa, which is part of the international forum, did not attend amid various disputes with the Trump administration, and representatives from the country said their absence wasn’t by choice.

“We have consistently maintained that our nonparticipation is not voluntary,” Phindile Kunene, spokesperson for South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola, told the Associated Press.

It’s pretty clear that the Trump administration is trying to force other countries to deal with Russia even as Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to make any concessions in the war with Ukraine. Excluding South Africa, which is actually a founding member of the G20, this also suggests that the White House is ignoring international concerns.

President Donald Trump completely lost it Thursday when asked about canceling multiple rallies ahead of the midterm elections.

Speaking to reporters, Trump exploded when one asked him why he’d canceled rallies in Kansas and Iowa over the weekend.

“So, you not going to Kansas has nothing to do with being sick of travel?” the reporter asked.

“Oh you’re sick to ask that question. You are sick. Who are you with?” Trump snapped.

“I’m with Reuters,” the reporter said.

“You are a sick guy, Reuters is terrible, by the way,” Trump said. “Look at this guy, he’s way out of shape. Look at how badly—he comes to me, ‘Sir you’re not gonna go to Kansas.’ No, I’m not going to Kansas because he’s doing very well. I’m gonna do a tele-rally. Tomorrow I’m doing Florida.

“He says ‘What’s the reason’—after doing, what, 28? He says, ‘What’s the reason for this, sir, that you’re not going to Kansas?’ You know what the reason is? I don’t feel I have to go to Kansas,” Trump raged. “I’m going to do Florida tomorrow, and I’ll do—if something else comes up—but he said, ‘You’re not going to Kansas, sir, are you feeling well?’ You’ve been following me for two weeks. I feel perfect. You are disgusting. Put yourself in shape. You look like hell.”

Trump’s outburst seemed to come out of nowhere, especially considering that the reporter’s question hadn’t been about the president’s health at all. Moments earlier, when a reporter had asked Trump about his health, the president had simply responded that he felt “good.” It seems that it was the word “sick” that sent him over the edge.

Questions about cancellations may have gotten under the president’s skin—by Friday morning, the rallies in Kansas and Iowa were back on.

Republican Texas Senate hopeful Ken Paxton’s office is suing election officials in his state’s largest county for helping people of color to vote.

Paxton’s lawsuit claims that a get-out-the-vote advertisement campaign from Harris County’s office essentially constitutes reverse racism because it encouraged Black and Latino voters (groups with historically lower access to elections) to vote. Harris County is Texas’s most diverse county, notably housing Houston.

“By specifically directing voting advertisements to these and many other racial or ethnic ‘detailed targeting’ terms, it is readily apparent that Harris County is attempting to increase the likelihood that only certain racial and ethnic groups—but not all—will vote,” the lawsuit reads. “In any event, there can be no legitimate reason for Harris County to intentionally target voter advertisements toward this peculiar assortment of African American, Asian, and Latino ethnicities, cultural interests, and countries, but not toward any European ethnicities.”

Harris County has already stopped running the ads, and Paxton has recused himself from this lawsuit, even though he is, of course, Texas’s current attorney general.

This lawsuit also comes as Harris County is shattering early voting records, with over 950,000 residents having cast their ballots and one day of early voting still left. The previous record for a nonpresidential election was 855,711 people in 2018.

“Ken Paxton filed this lawsuit in the final days of voting because he wants to stop Houstonians from going to the polls. He’s whining about ads that do nothing more than tell neighbors when to vote and where to get information about voting,” Texas Democratic Congressman Christian D. Menefee wrote online. “Paxton is upset that diverse voters across Harris County are making their voices heard. He doesn’t like that in this election, people are showing up in big numbers in neighborhoods like Third Ward, Acres Homes, Cypress, Tidwell, and Sunnyside.

“Remember this: Someone with as much power as the Texas Attorney General would only take desperate action like this lawsuit because he is scared,” Menefee continued. “I hope everyone in Harris County who is eligible to vote sees this lawsuit for what it is, and goes to cast their ballot in this election.”

Vice President JD Vance just showed everyone why he isn’t a viable presidential candidate for 2028.

During a pretaped Fox News town hall that aired Thursday, Vance punted a crucial question about lowering the cost of living to talk about President Donald Trump’s new favorite topic: Republican Senator Jon Husted’s ass.

“A constant message that my generation hears from the right is to get married young, have kids young, have as many kids as possible. And I think what the right doesn’t acknowledge most of the time is how disincentivized we are currently because of the cost of owning a home and the general expenses of raising a family,” one young woman said.

“How does the right and yourself expect us to start families young when, you know, the average price of a home in America now costs more than $415,000, which just feels out of reach for us?”

“Sure, sure. Well first of all, again. Thank you for the question, and thanks for the support. I want to point out that I think that I’ve been asked four or maybe five questions by my count. I’ve only been asked one question about Jon Husted’s ass,” Vance said.

Host Jesse Watters managed to laugh, but to viewers at home, the moment felt tone-deaf.

“How is this real and how is he this bad at politics? Or humor? Or interacting with other humans?” wrote Pod Save America’s John Favreau on X.

“If Vance is the candidate in 2028, he will be eminently beatable. He is an awful politician,” Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan wrote on X.

The most embarrassing part? Vance’s actual answer wasn’t much better.

“The one thing that I’d say is, my job is to make it easier for you guys to be able to afford a good life. But as a pure personal advice I’d say: It’s never the right time,” Vance said. “And the one regret, the one regret that I have in my life—Usha and I talk about this all the time—is, I wish we had gotten married earlier, and I wish we had kids earlier. Because you can’t go back and make the decision differently.”

So, after all of that, Vance’s advice is just to get married and have kids even if the cost of living keeps getting higher? The vice president has preached about young people having babies since before he first entered the White House, but when faced with actual voters’ concerns, he preferred to go for a stupid viral moment.

President Donald Trump reportedly flew into a rage once he learned that Alina Habba Mildon got a $50 million contract to secure a pardon for a billionaire family.

The New York Times reports that Mildon, Trump’s former personal lawyer who has held multiple jobs with his administration, inked the lucrative deal with a company started by the daughter of Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan national who was looking for a presidential pardon. Trump was angered by the size of Mildon’s contract, and said that she should donate some of that money to his presidential library or another entity related to him, according to the Times.

Trump even told one of his confidants that the Herrera family shouldn’t pay out the rest of their contract with Mildon, the Times reported. He later called Mildon, but it’s not known if he directly told her to make a donation.

What Trump seems to be mad about is that he has created a pay-to-play pardon procedure for his administration, where individuals seeking pardons arrange a way for the president to personally benefit in some way in exchange for forgiveness for the crimes they’ve committed. Trump basically admitted as much earlier this month, expressing disappointment over Representative Henry Cuellar staying loyal to the Democratic Party after Trump pardoned him for corruption charges.

Trump has issued many pardons to people who successfully lobbied his administration, spending millions to get the ear of White House lawyers and the president himself. He also reportedly promises pardons to White House staffers, including “anyone who comes within 10 feet” of the Oval Office, according to a Wall Street Journal report from April. It seems he’s mad if anyone close to him is making money off of pardons without giving him a cut.