A possible third term (calm down, libs, it was just a joke), Nicki Minaj twerking, and the biggest collection of Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers all under one roof. The White House promised President Trump would deliver a speech that was both “unifying yet vicious” at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He did exactly that. Three months after the original dinner was scrapped when yet another assassination attempt on Trump’s life unfolded outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton, the annual black-tie affair finally returned Friday night. This time, it was a very different scene. The Secret Service dramatically tightened security, putting guests through airport-style magnetometer screenings before they entered the Waldorf Astoria, formerly the Trump International Hotel. “It’s great to be back at a place that I know very well because I built it,” Trump joked as he took the stage. The president immediately gave the room a taste of what was coming. “But just like my presidency the second time is always better,” Trump said. “It’s always better. And the third time will be better yet. I’m only kidding.” Trump then turned to the terrifying reason the original dinner was cut short, calling the attempted attack “an assault on our democracy itself” and praising the law enforcement officers who rushed toward the danger. But he still found a way to get a laugh out of the chaos. “After hearing the gunshots many people yelled ‘Get down get down,’ which caused Nicki Minaj to start twerking,” Trump joked. “Do you believe it? Get down. She’s the only one that really understood what that meant.” From there, nearly everyone was fair game. Trump declared it “the largest group of Trump Derangement Syndrome people ever put together at one time.” He then turned his attention to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., trolling him about his roadkill controversies. “I want you all to know that Bobby Kennedy who’s right here personally ran over the cow in his car,” Trump joked about the beef tenderloin served for dinner. “And he cut it up and he brought it here for you to eat tonight so it’s very fresh.” He was not done. “Bobby also suggested an appetizer featuring his favorite cut of male raccoon roadkill,” Trump added. “But we drew the line at that.” Trump also took swings at Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Adam Schiff, Rosie O’Donnell, Jake Tapper, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and plenty of others. Springsteen’s recent jabs at Trump earned him one of the harsher roasts of the night. “What about Bruce Springsteen? What the hell happened to that guy? He looks like hell,” Trump said before joking that his tour had been renamed “Bored in the USA.” The president even announced another run for the White House, at least for a few seconds. “I’m pleased to announce my intention to run for a fourth term as President of the United States,” Trump said. “I will be doing that.” He quickly made clear he was joking, though not before adding, “I won 3 times now, I’m gonna do it again.” The jokes got the laughs, but Trump also made sure the audience left with the message he actually wanted them to hear. He called the current moment “the golden age of America” and touted new investment, manufacturing, military recruitment, and falling crime in Washington, D.C. Despite years of fighting with many of the reporters in the room, Trump ended on a surprisingly friendly note. “Sometimes I don’t feel you treat me fair,” he said. “Maybe you do I don’t know I don’t feel that but sometimes you treat me very fairly.” “I have a lot of respect for your profession,” Trump continued. “Your profession’s amazing and I just wanna thank you for having me and it’s been fun.” Then came the familiar promise. “We have made America great again and it’s gonna get a lot greater.”

Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery have agreed to delay closing their proposed $110 billion merger until at least June 2027 as they battle a multistate antitrust lawsuit, extending uncertainty over a deal that could reshape the American media landscape. The agreement allows both sides to avoid a court fight over a preliminary injunction while the case proceeds toward trial. A coalition of 12 Democratic state attorneys general, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, sued to block the transaction. The lawsuit claims the merger would “extinguish competition” in the media and entertainment industries. If approved, the merger would unite major media brands, including Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, the Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming platforms, CBS News, and CNN under one corporate umbrella. Rather than continue fighting emergency motions, the companies agreed not to close the transaction until June 2027 or until the court reaches a final decision. Bonta celebrated the agreement as a major victory for the states challenging the merger. Today’s agreement is great news for audiences, movie theaters, and the many people who write, build, and create the art, news, and entertainment so many of us enjoy. We are eager to continue to make our case in court and celebrate another tremendous win in our effort to ensure… pic.twitter.com/m4LFxiA5tP — Rob Bonta (@AGRobBonta) July 24, 2026 “Today’s agreement is great news for audiences, movie theaters, and the many people who write, build, and create the art, news, and entertainment so many of us enjoy,” Bonta said. “We are eager to continue to make our case in court and celebrate another tremendous win in our effort to ensure this unlawful merger never sees the light of day.” New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James also praised the decision, calling it “a critical victory in our efforts to uphold the law and protect the film and television industries.” Paramount defended the merger and said the delay would allow the company to make its case in court. “This is the fastest and clearest way to prove that this transaction is good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators, a conclusion dozens of competition authorities around the world have already reached,” a Paramount spokesperson told NBC News. “We look forward to proving our case at trial.” The merger has attracted attention beyond Hollywood because Paramount is now controlled by Skydance founder and CEO David Ellison, 43, whose acquisition of Paramount was backed by his father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a longtime ally and supporter of President Donald Trump. Since Skydance took control of Paramount earlier this year, Ellison has overseen significant changes at CBS News, including bringing in journalist Bari Weiss to overhaul the network’s news division. Ellison has drawn praise from President Donald Trump, who has expressed optimism that new ownership could restore credibility to CBS News after years of criticism from conservatives and Republicans. If this merger happens, one company will control CBS and CNN under ownership that conservatives believe is moving in a different editorial direction.

Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer endorsed Democratic Senate candidate Haley Stevens on Friday, backing her over far-Left rival Abdul El-Sayed in the state’s closely watched primary.  “Just like me, Haley will do whatever it takes to get things done for the people of Michigan, and we need her now more than ever,” Whitmer said in a video Stevens posted on X. Whitmer accused Republicans of raising the cost of living through the tariffs, cuts to Medicaid, and “soaring gas prices” while praising Stevens’ record on manufacturing, prescription drug costs, and economic issues, arguing she would put “Michigan first.” Stevens celebrated the endorsement on X, calling Whitmer “a champion for our state” who understands “the stakes of this race.” Following Whitmer’s nomination, Stevens’ odds of winning the Democratic primary on prediction market Polymarket rose from 21% to 36%. Stevens has also drawn attention in recent weeks after videos resurfaced showing her speaking with an exaggerated accent, including a campaign speech in which she urged supporters to “Stick it to ‘em.”  The endorsement gives Stevens a boost in one of the nation’s most competitive Democratic Senate primaries.

Happy Friday, folks. Let’s check in on our favorite socialist mayor’s city. Shall we? In the span of 24 hours, the terror sympathizing, Ugandan native took to X to proclaim that if landlords stepped out of line he’d seize their property, that his “talk with the people” (more like Hugo Chávez’s rambling Aló, Presidente) is dropping soon, that anyone sitting on a second home worth over five million dollars in New York City should expect a little love letter in the mail about their new pied-a-terre tax, and that HE HAS BEEN BRIEFED on the terror attack on the Upper West Side, where an Asian man and a Jewish man were stabbed with a screwdriver by a Muslim screaming “Allahu Akbar.” Be careful subscribing to his social media pages. You might get whiplash. Or have a heart attack. But of course all of this comes as a shock to no one. This is a man who ran for office promising to come for pesky landlords’ buildings and squeeze every last penny from New York’s most successful residents. He is, by his own design, a communist cosplayer whose favorite new hobby is announcing “he has been briefed.” The only shocking thing about a shocking week is that we’ve all stopped being shocked. He spent time at a a mosque earlier this year that has documented ties to an Iranian-government front, where the imam sang about “the killing of the infidels by your sword.” (Infidels, for those keeping score at home, means anyone who isn’t Muslim. So, most of his subjects.) He says, often and loudly, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, and that he’ll use his vast and terrifying mayoral power to have him arrested for “genocidal actions.” (He has no such power, and appears equally unclear on what “genocide” means.) This week he posted a moody little video branding the Jewish state as evil incarnate and urging New Yorkers to use “every tool they have” against it. He also declined to condemn the call to “globalize the intifada,” a rallying cry for violence against Jews and Israelis. So no, my jaw did not hit the floor when a man took his wisdom to heart and stabbed a man on his way to synagogue. Jewish New Yorkers are furious, and rightly frightened. City leaders used a press conference to accuse the mayor of “fanning the flames of hatred and division.” Which is exactly what he’s done. Even Hedge Hero Bill Ackman suggested the mayor take a little field trip to the Holocaust Museum, presumably so someone can finally explain to him what the word he keeps butchering actually means. The NYPD has had it with the smarmball, too. Their relationship soured the moment the internet unearthed a video of Mamdani claiming the department’s boots are “laced by the IDF,” and they’ve been in full breakup mode ever since. President of the New York City Police Benevolent Association Patrick Hendry warned that the mayor’s rhetoric is pushing things too far: “When the mayor of the city is actively calling for demonstrations, violent agitators will assume they have permission to cause as much havoc as possible.” NYPD Detectives Endowment Association President Scott Munro put it more bluntly, saying Mamdani “acts like he’s leading a protest movement instead of running the largest city in America.” Yep. And boy has havoc ensued. Because for the Left, violent protest is encouraged, excused, and practically canonized, so long as it’s done in the name of the almighty omnicause. And Zohran, ever the multitasker, tries to hold every banner at once. He’s pro-trans, throwing pride parties at Town Hall and announcing a $15 million investment in gender-mutilative care (one imagines the imam was thrilled). He’s pro-“underprivileged,” except his rent freeze is quietly crushing the immigrants and working-class renters he claims to champion, who are now staring down record-high payments. He’s pro-Palestine, a cause whose governing authority executes gay people for the crime of existing, and he’s decidedly anti-America, a country he insists is starving its children while oligarchs run wild. He’s doing cartwheels around these ideologies. It’s exhausting to try and follow. But that’s who he is, and how he clawed his way to the top. A theater kid turned failed rapper who talked his way into Gracie Mansion and started acting like a warm and fuzzy dictator instead of what he actually is: the overseer of a five-borough sanitation budget. None of his promises have landed. Bus fares are more expensive. Rents are up, not down; the city isn’t safer, it’s louder. But he will keep pretending to fix these problems after being duly “briefed.” He’s a walking contradiction in a suit and keffiyeh. Twenty-five years after this country buried nearly 3,000 people killed in the name of the very rhetoric Mamdani can’t bring himself to condemn, New York elected a mayor who sat through a call to kill the infidels and called it a privilege to be there. History does not usually repeat itself so quickly, or so loudly, but here we are. Ahlan. Happy Friday, indeed.

The illegal immigrant who claimed to have been nabbed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while buying diapers — and whose sob story fueled an anti-ICE hunger strike in a detention center — was actually taken into ICE custody after being arrested for a violent domestic assault, The Daily Wire has learned. Gabriela Soto claimed that her husband, Martin Soto, 31, of Peru, “was abducted” by ICE and that he was “a loving father, husband, son, church member, worker” when he was taken to Delaney Hall, an ICE detention facility. Media outlets ran with the story as the hunger strike carried on, leading to weeks of violent riots outside the facility. But a police report and sources who spoke with The Daily Wire tell a very different story. Martin Soto “purposely” caused “bodily injury” to an unnamed female victim “specifically by using his hands, both opened and closed to strike” her “in her face, causing minor scratches and cuts to her face and neck,” a copy of the police report obtained by the Oversight Project and shared with The Daily Wire reads. Soto then allegedly “placed a hand over” her “mouth so she could not scream for help,” according to the report. After her husband’s arrest, Gabriela Soto led protests outside Delaney Hall for days in May and June, claiming that the conditions inside were inhumane and that the stress would cause her to miscarry. “Martin has committed no harm,” Gabriela — whose GoFundMe for her husband that has raised more than $67,000 — wrote in a column last month. Scott Mechkowski, a visiting fellow for deportation studies at the Oversight Project, told The Daily Wire that her entire story unraveled after a police report surfaced showing that Martin was actually arrested by local police for a domestic assault. “The public was told a good man was grabbed by ICE while buying diapers. The record says he was arrested by Kearny police, handed to Hudson County, taken into ICE custody, and detained at Delaney Hall while charged with assaulting the very woman who then made him a headline,” Mechkowski, who formerly served as the ICE New York field office deputy director, said. The Daily Wire could not immediately confirm the identity of the assault victim. “This is the pattern: a sympathetic claim built to go viral, while the facts sit unread in a file. Delaney Hall was inspected and cleared, its officers branded jailers of the innocent on stories that collapse the moment you check the record. This is one example; there are many,” he added. Martin Soto crossed the Arizona border illegally in January 2024 and was processed to be deported immediately under what’s known as expedited removal, law enforcement sources told The Daily Wire. He was allowed to stay after he presented a fear of returning to his home country and was released from custody by April 2024. Police in Kearny, New Jersey, arrested Soto on February 1, 2026, for simple assault stemming from a domestic violence incident, according to records obtained by The Daily Wire. ICE officers paid a visit to the Hudson County Correctional Center on February 2, whereupon they swiftly took Soto into custody. While leading a May protest aimed at blocking ICE vans from driving in and out of the facility, Gabriela told NJ.com that she started the protest “to close Delaney Hall and free every detainee” inside the facility, claiming that her husband was being retaliated against for her activism. “If I have a miscarriage because of this pressure, I will sue them,” she said. “I am tired of them controlling the situation. He is in that van. I saw him resisting to get in the van; they forced him in there, two big ass guards. He was handcuffed. They were trying to move him.” Media outlets largely embraced Martin and Gabriela Soto as sympathetic figures, accepting without question Gabriela’s account of Martin’s arrest. She claimed that she “suddenly got a phone call from a number listed as ‘prison/jail'” on February 1, “after Martin stepped out to get diapers for our 11-month-old son.” “My heart dropped,” she wrote. “When I answered, I was terrified about what had happened. As soon as the call ended, I raced over to Delaney Hall to get some answers. A guard there told me Martin was in ‘good hands’ and once he was processed, he would be able to see me during visiting hours. I was relieved to hear he was safe, but when I started hearing about the conditions inside Delaney — rotten food, medical neglect, and more — I began to doubt the guard’s words.” In fact, at that time, her husband was still in local custody after having been arrested in Kearny for the domestic incident. He was only later moved to Delaney Hall, where inmates who claimed to be “starving” during their hunger strike were actually purchasing snacks — including sushi and clams — from the commissary, as The Daily Wire reported.