MS NOW's The Last Word on SnapStream Many Americans disapprove of the war in Iran, but only the most unrealistic and TDS-afflicted would want a fake court to investigate the President for his social media posts. As crazy as that sounds, Catherine Rampell, the substitute teacher of MS NOW, did exactly that when she filled in for Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday’s episode of The Last Word.Rampell could barely hide her glee when she imagined Donald Trump being dragged before an international kangaroo court, presumably the International Criminal Court, as she interviewed Michigan Democratic Senator Gary Peters:So, what I was asking before the break was, with Donald Trump threatening potential war crimes again this morning, what consequences would he face if he actually goes through with that threat?   Peters replied with a noncommittal answer about how he hopes the military’s leaders “will push back and not allow those kinds of operations,” and that Trump may face “the condemnation of the whole world community.” He also gave a strange account of the war, in which Trump was unable to push the Iranians towards signing a deal:We can target military targets in a way to cause the kinds of - really the kind of actions necessary to bring Iran to the bargaining table, to negotiate, to try to end this war. The President has to be able to do that.As we saw with the ceasefires and MOU, which the Iranians recently broke, the issue isn’t that Trump can’t negotiate. It’s that the Iranians will break any deal they sign, thereby prompting further military action. No one can deny that Trump has worked harder than the Iranians, who seem content to allow their country to be bombed into oblivion, to end this war.But Rampell wasn’t satisfied with Peters's answer that blamed Trump, but not as much as she wanted. So, she clarified what she really wanted to hear:Well, with all due respect, I'm not sure that the threat of disapproval from the rest of the world, or disrespect from the rest of the world is going to be a whole lot in the way of deterring Donald Trump from, again, executing war crimes as he has threatened to do. So, my question, once again, is what actual consequences might this President face if he crosses that line of deliberately taking out civilian infrastructure in violation of the Geneva Conventions? Are there any tools that lawmakers have to hold him accountable, or international bodies have to hold him accountable beyond, you know, wagging their finger and saying, 'this is unacceptable'?Firstly, Trump threatened infrastructures that support the Iranian military in retaliation for Iran attacking ships in the Hormuz Strait. The Geneva Conventions’ Protocol 1, which the U.S. has not ratified, provides exemptions from targeting electric plants if they benefit the enemy’s military. Bridges can be classified as military targets if they are used to facilitate troop movements or military logistics.Secondly, the ICC, the main international body investigating violations of the Geneva Conventions, has no power in the United States. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently learned that the hard way. Iran also never signed the Rome Statute, so they cannot ask the ICC to investigate America’s alleged war crimes against them. And if they did, the ICC would certainly find more war crimes and human rights violations from the Iranians.Peters sadly informed Rampell that Congress cannot take action without the assent from the Republicans, which is not likely.So, ultimately Rampell didn’t get any supporting information for her fantasy of seeing Trump at the center of a new Nuremberg trial. Sad! The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:MS NOW's The Last Word7/22/2610:16:12 p.m. EasternCATHERINE RAMPELL: We are back with Senator Gary Peters. Apologies for the technical difficulties there. Live TV, always an adventure. Senator, thank you for sticking with us.  So, what I was asking before the break was, with Donald Trump threatening potential war crimes again this morning, what consequences would he face if he actually goes through with that threat?SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): Well, certainly the condemnation of the whole world community. This is - this simply is unacceptable.  We'll see exactly what actually happens, you know, Donald Trump says a lot of things, doesn't necessarily mean it actually happens.  I would certainly hope that our military leaders who understand the rule of war, and how it's important to abide by those rules, will push back and not allow those kinds of operations.  Those would basically be illegal orders, if he's asking folks to commit crimes.  But we just have to make sure that the President understands that this type of behavior is unacceptable.  The United States, we have the best military in the world. We can target military targets in a way to cause the kinds of - really the kind of actions necessary to bring Iran to the bargaining table, to negotiate, to try to end this war.  The President has to be able to do that. But we don't see a strategy.  And when you look at what's happened so far, he says his number one goal was to deal with the nuclear arsenal. We heard it on an earlier clip that you have, that nuclear material is still there. Nothing has changed from before the war. He said that we've basically destroyed the missiles, and they aren't going to be able to have those attacks. Unfortunately, we have soldiers that were recently killed by missiles that seem to be more lethal, and actually more maneuverable. So, they are developing new weapons as well.  And as you mentioned, the Straits of Hormuz - the Strait of Hormuz, which was open, and oil was flowing to the world and the United States, has been closed because it wasn't adequately dealt with at the beginning of this war.  So this has been, certainly, a failure on the part of leadership. This is, both Hegseth and President Trump have failed.  And we have to make sure that in this failure, they are not flailing and engaged in actions that really bring disrespect to the United States and the - our forces, who always fight with honor and under the rule of law.RAMPELL: Well, with all due respect, I'm not sure that the threat of disapproval from the rest of the world, or disrespect from the rest of the world is going to be a whole lot in the way of deterring Donald Trump from, again, executing war crimes as he has threatened to do.  So, my question, once again, is what actual consequences might this President face if he crosses that line of deliberately taking out civilian infrastructure in violation of the Geneva Conventions? Are there any tools that lawmakers have to hold him accountable, or international bodies have to hold him accountable beyond, you know, wagging their finger and saying, 'This is unacceptable'? PETERS: Well, certainly there's some actions, the international courts can do it as well. The international community, as we've seen, of states that have violated humanitarian laws that you could possibly bring into play. Certainly the Congress should take action against the President as well. We'd have to get my Republican colleagues to actually do that.  Unfortunately, as you know, my Republican colleagues have never been willing to step up and hold the President accountable. They never ask anything when he asks something of them other than how high that they should jump. So, the Congress can't act. But we do need to have Republicans stand with us. That has not happened in the past. I'll be honest with you, I don't know if that would happen in the future.  So ultimately, we have to have a majority in the Congress to be able to step up and take Congressional action. And that means elections. And they're coming up really soon.  And we now have to - the American people have to understand that it's time for us to take action and basically rein in a president who has been lawless in so many ways, not just during this war in Iran, but lawless on the streets of America as well.RAMPELL: Senator Gary Peters, thanks so much for your time tonight.PETERS: Thank you.

Snapstream Over the last week, the media have continuously ridiculed President Trump’s address to the nation, in which he pointed out major election security concerns. In typical hypocritical fashion, however, they have been actively entertaining Democrats’ conspiracy theories of rigged midterm elections instead. With a history of eagerly entertaining ridiculous theories about a Trumpist takeover, MS NOW reinforced their narrative on this Thursday’s Morning Joe.The segment opened with correspondent Ali Vitali interviewing House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on his “doomsday plans” for if Trump made a move against free elections. Vitali summarized Schumer’s concerns:Schumer feels there is enough information to go off of from the president's own statements, not just in recent weeks, but in recent years, casting doubt on elections that Republicans lose. To Schumer's mind, it says that Democrats have not just an edge going into the midterms, but that they need to be able to have some reflexes to draw upon if there are attempts to sow disinformation or send federal troops to polling places. Those are just some of the fears that he has.Not long after Vitali aired Schumer’s doubts about 2026, fill-in host Jonathan Lemire would attack Trump’s:But at the same time, I think it's necessary to be out there and saying, “look, this is coming,” because President Trump is doing that! He had an oval office address last week with sort of ridiculous claims about 2020. But really, it's clear the goal of that was to sow doubt for 2026. Today's MS NOW Morning Joe, Ali Vitali entertains Senator Chuck Schumer's paranoid conspiracies about Trump rigging the elections. This is the same network that laughed off Trump's warnings about vulnerabilities in the election system just a week ago! It's all just fearmongering. pic.twitter.com/Py6lAu6r5O— James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) July 23, 2026 Lemire might have been upset about Trump sowing doubt around elections, but he’d have done better to look at his side’s own conduct! Mere minutes earlier, Vitali and Schumer were doing the exact same thing, but against the right.As the show went on, MS NOW’s hypocrisy only grew. Terrified of Trump possibly being right, Lemire and national affairs analyst John Heilemann downplayed massive new evidence of voter fraud:LEMIRE: He [Trump] got his single best headline on any topic in months when the state of New Jersey had to acknowledge-HEILEMANN: Yes, Yes.LEMIRE: -that a few hundred voters were noncitizens, were mistakenly added to the voting rolls, and some did. And it was a mix of Republican and independents-HEILEMANN: And statistically insignificant. Like not to diminish it and defend it, if anything it breaks the law, and we should be serious and vigilant about making sure that there's no voter fraud. But-LEMIRE: It was a mistake.HEILEMANN: -400 votes were cast in, you know, against, against- given the raw vote totals, it's a statistically insignificant number. And that's been the case, we've seen voter fraud in the history of America, but just not on a scale that's ever been enough to tip an election.LEMIRE: But for his campaign?HEILEMANN: Incredible! Incredible, especially in a blue state. Then, when actual voter fraud occurs in Democrat New Jersey, John Heilemann brushes it off as "statistically insignificant", downplaying the severity of the breach. They seem more concerned with how the story will help Trump than the dangers in the election system it exposes! pic.twitter.com/qQyGJgTIsM— James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) July 23, 2026 Trying to trivialize the breach in electoral security, Lemire claimed that only a few hundred noncitizens were involved in New Jersey. According to the governor’s actual admission, however, that number was actually in the thousands. The implications of this bombshell report for the American election system are massive, but MS NOW didn’t focus on that. Skimming over the consequences of the scandal, they were more concerned about how Trump would benefit from the news.The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view.MS NOW’s Morning JoeJuly 23, 202606:20:32 a.m. Eastern(…)ALI VITALI: The exercise that you just did, I imagine in all of your years here in the Senate, you've never prepared for a midterm election that way, right?SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): That is exactly right.VITALI: So why is this moment different?SCHUMER: We've never had a president like Donald Trump, whose ambition, whose sole focus and desire, it seems, is to overturn the election and cheat in the election.[Cuts to live]JONATHAN LEMIRE: So behind closed doors this week, Democratic senators were running through what Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called “doomsday scenarios” surrounding this November's midterms. The simulations are part of a broader effort in anticipation of threats that Democrats believe could emerge from President Trump and his allies, from misinformation campaigns to potential disruptions at polling places. Republicans, however, argue that Democrats are exaggerating the risks. Let's bring in MS NOW senior Capitol Hill reporter and the host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitali. You just saw her there with Senator Schumer. Ali, good to see you. Talk to us, if you will, about what the minority leader says they're preparing for.ALI VITALI: I mean, look, this is happening just steps away from the Senate floor yesterday, in a room where almost a dozen senators gathered with top election officials, or rather, experts to game-play some scenarios that they're thinking could happen in the lead up, on the day of, and after election day in November of 2026. And I think the fact that Senator Chuck Schumer is involved - this is not an effort of rank and file senators - this is led from the top, because Schumer feels there is enough information to go off of from the president's own statements, not just in recent weeks, but in recent years, casting doubt on elections that Republicans lose. To Schumer's mind, it says that Democrats have not just an edge going into the midterms, but that they need to be able to have some reflexes to draw upon if there are attempts to sow disinformation or send federal troops to polling places. Those are just some of the fears that he has. And so they're doing these closed door scenarios to try to mock what it might look like and what the response should be. (...)06:26:52 a.m. EasternLEMIRE: John Heilemann, Ali makes a good point about the delicate balance the Democrats are trying to strike here, where they do have to put out these public warnings, and they do have to do some game planning, because it certainly seems as if some efforts may be underway. You know, and I think that you don't want to depress your voters about it.But at the same time, I think it's necessary to be out there and saying, “look, this is coming,” because President Trump is doing that! He had an oval office address last week with sort of ridiculous claims about 2020. But really, it's clear the goal of that was to sow doubt for 2026.JOHN HEILEMANN: Well, and to lay down a pretext for if the elections go the way the polls suggest they are going to go for Donald Trump, to be able to stand up and say: “see, remember that that you all made fun of that Oval Office address I gave back over the summer. But I told you that China could infiltrate our voting systems. And although we don't have evidence of that yet, we know there's a good chance- they're all very vulnerable, and they have all those voter files that you can publicly obtain. So we got to investigate it. This election is in doubt. We must- you know, we're not going to certify the results of this election.” I think, Jonathan, you know, you've been covering the big lie since the beginning, right? And one of the really consistent patterns of Donald Trump is that he obsessively, compulsively, delusionally does not want to accept the results of any election that he is seen as a loser in, or that he's actually lost, right? And everything he's done over the course since he came back into office has been telling people as clearly as he can through his actions, through his words, through his deeds, and through his history, that Democrats should be worried about this. And the message to voters that “we need to turn out in large numbers,” Democrats to their voters, “we need to turn out large numbers, make this too big to rig,” is a good message to try to keep people motivated. But until yesterday, what I had seen was a lot of Democrats talking about this problem rather than doing anything about getting ready for it. It's kind of like “we must come up with a really sophisticated policy on dealing with the economic impacts of A.I.” Well, what's your policy, senator? “Well, we haven't- we have to- we're-” talking about the thing without actually coming up with the thing you're talking about. Democrats have been warning about this now for the past 15, 16 months. This is the first time you've seen some kind of an actual “let's go to a war- let's get together and do a war-gamed out scenario of what we would actually have to do if specific things take place in November.” And I think if Democrats don't do a lot more of that, not necessarily on a big public stage, but behind closed doors as they did yesterday, they'd be nuts not to be taking this that seriously.LEMIRE: Yeah, we've heard some governors issue similar warnings. Also, I mean, you're right. I remember, I mean, the opening scene in my book titled The Big Lie was Donald Trump in an August rally in Ohio, warning that the general election could be rigged. That’s the first time we had ever heard a presidential candidate say something like that. He, of course, has been sort of repeating that theme for a decade now. And I mean, again, for his purposes, earlier this week, he got his single best headline on any topic in months when the state of New Jersey had to acknowledge-HEILEMANN: Yes, Yes.LEMIRE: -that a few hundred voters were noncitizens, were mistakenly added to the voting rolls, and some did. And it was a mix of Republican and independents-HEILEMANN: And statistically insignificant. Like not to diminish it and defend it, if anything it breaks the law, and we should be serious and vigilant about making sure that there's no voter fraud. But-LEMIRE: It was a mistake.HEILEMANN: -400 votes were cast in, you know, against, against- given the raw vote totals, it's a statistically insignificant number. And that's been the case, we've seen voter fraud in the history of America, but just not on a scale that's ever been enough to tip an election.LEMIRE: But for his campaign?HEILEMANN: Incredible! Incredible, especially in a blue state. And I'll just say, you know, Donald Trump doesn't throw every punch he telegraphs, but every punch he throws, he does telegraph. And he's been telegraphing this one for a pretty long time. So, you better get ready for it.LEMIRE: Yeah, this one's coming. Agree.

After an illegal alien from El Salvador was charged for Saturday’s fatal hit-and-run that killed three people in North Carolina, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) filed a detainer asking the state’s law enforcement not to release him.On Sunday, the deadly details of the previous night’s hit-and-run were released by the Salisbury, North Carolina Police Department:“On Saturday, July 18, 2026, at approximately 10:45 p.m., officers responded to the area of Mooresville Road (N.C. 150) near Town Court following a reported traffic collision. When officers arrived, they found one of the vehicles occupied by three individuals who had sustained critical injuries. Two occupants were pronounced deceased at the scene. A third occupant was airlifted for medical treatment but later died from injuries sustained in the collision.“With assistance from a Cabarrus County Sheriff's Office K-9 team, officers located the driver, who was transported to Novant Health Rowan Medical Center before being transferred to a Charlotte-area hospital for additional treatment.“Following the preliminary investigation, the driver of the second vehicle, Javiel Pena Sola (DOB: 05-14 -1984), has been charged with three counts of Felony Hit and Run Involving Serious Injury or Death.”Sola was arrested by Salisbury police on Tuesday when he was released from the hospital, prompting ICE to file its detainer request, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported in a statement. At the time, Pena Sola's bond was set at $1,000,000.But, during his first appearance in Rowan County District Court on Wednesday, the court modified his conditions of release to no bond, meaning that he cannot post bail and be released from police custody.This isn’t Sola’s first run-in with U.S. law enforcement - or even his first hit-and-run. However, after his 2016 conviction, the Obama Administration ordered that he be released from ICE custody, DHS explains:“This illegal alien was RELEASED into the country by the Obama Administration after law enforcement turned him over to ICE following his conviction for a prior hit-and-run.”….“Sola’s criminal history includes prior convictions for reckless endangerment, failure to stop after accident involving damage to attended vehicle, and driving without a license in Maryland in July 2015, and an arrest for escaping from custody. After his arrest in Maryland on the charge of escaping from custody, officials in Baltimore honored an ICE detainer and turned him over to ICE custody in March 2016. He was then RELEASED by the Obama Administration two months later in May.”“Although ICE had arrested him in 2016, the Obama Administration RELEASED him into American communities. These deaths were 100% preventable. Open borders and sanctuary policies have deadly consequences,” Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in the DHS statement.ICE’s detainer request will be honored, since the North Carolina Border Protection Act prohibits sanctuary cities and counties and compels law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration officials.The provision supporting federal immigration law enforcement was passed on June 24, 2026 when the state’s lawmakers succeeded in overriding a veto by North Carolina’s Democrat Governor Josh Stein.

POLL: What was the worst media quote of the week? (Vote below)  Watch the Worst Media Quotes from @abbydphillip, @MizzWelch, and Don Lemon pic.twitter.com/WhWhDMgo1S— Media Research Center (@theMRC) July 23, 2026  NOMINEES:  CNN’s Abby Phillip on Non-Citizens Voting in New Jersey: Is This Really “Fraud?”Abby Phillip: “They’re not voting because they’re trying to defraud the system. They might have cast a ballot because they just weren’t aware that they were incorrectly put on the voter rolls.”Scott Jennings: “They weren’t aware that they weren’t a citizen of the United States?...” Phillip: “Is this accurately described as fraud, when none of these people tried to register to vote?”— CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip, July 21. Jennifer Welch Attacks JD Vance’s “Homicidal Hypocrisy,” Won’t “Stand Up” For His Own Kids “I just want you to look at these beautiful children that JD Vance and Usha have, and I want you to remember the Kavanaugh rule. And what the Kavanaugh rule is, is it is a rule that the Supreme Court ruled on that ICE can pull somebody over that quote/unquote ‘looks suspicious.’ An ICE officer could see these little kids and think, ‘Oh, are they from Honduras? Are they from Bolivia? Are they from a shithole country? I think they look suspicious to me.’ So, that is the type of duplicity and homicidal hypocrisy that this administration stands for. These people will not stand up for their own kids.”— Podcaster Jennifer Welch on The I’ve Had It podcast, July 21. Don Lemon: MAGA Is the “Modern Version of the Nazi Party”“MAGA is the closest thing to the modern version of the Nazi Party. This is America’s version. It’s the closest thing, without the Holocaust and all that stuff. That sort of mindset. That’s what MAGA is….No matter how many facts and how much information you give them about this presidency, about the policies, they don’t change their minds because they’re really not voting for the price of eggs. They’re voting for White supremacy.” — Former CNN anchor Don Lemon on the Can’t Be Censored podcast, July 15.    Sponsored by James P. Jimirro

Actor John Leguizamo continued his media tour that is supposed to be about The Odyssey, but is really just an excuse for him to push his race-based identity politics on Wednesday when he joined NBC’s Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. In addition to The Odyssey, Fallon helped Leguizamo promote his children’s book that purports to help Latin children see themselves in such a book, but what both men left out is that multiple role models mentioned in the book are communists.Fallon set things up wondering, “Can you talk about what it is and how did it get started?”Leguizamo claimed the project began with a lament, “Well, Jimmy, so, the scholastic Michael Hagen told me, he said, ‘You know, Latin children are the least represented in children's picture books. Less than five percent of children's books are about Latin kids. You're more likely to see the face of an animal than a Latin child.’ And we're 30 percent of the U.S. population in public schools. So, what does that do to a child's self-worth and self-validation?” Actor John Leguizamo hypes his children's book with Jimmy Fallon, "the scholastic Michael Hagen told me, he said, 'You know, Latin children are the least represented in children's picture books. Less than five percent of children's books are about Latin kids. You're more likely… pic.twitter.com/Kxlwp168a7— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 23, 2026 That led “me and my friend from high school, ‘Crash’ John Matos, one of the great graffiti artists in the world” to put the book together.Fallon congratulated Leguizamo on the publication, “Wow. Good for you for doing that.”After some quips about what it is like to write a children’s picture book, Fallon quoted the book, “You crushed it. But I just want to say, I like this, the dedication that you put here. You said, ‘To all the kids who felt unseen, unheard, and ostracized and who have to make themselves small, this book is for you, hoping it undoes some of the invisibility and lets you feel large and concrete.’”On the Amazon page for the book, there are a couple of free previews of what is inside. One features a kid claiming far-left capitalism hater and terrorist sympathizer Greta Thunberg is one of her role models.A second picture in the preview shows several portraits on a brick wall. For example, Remedios Varo, married a Trotskyite. Diego Rivera was a communist. Frida Kahlo was not only a communist but also had an affair with Leon Trotsky. Gabriel Garcia Marquez was friends with Fidel Castro. Even among those who were not necessarily communists, there are those such as Jose Clemente Orozco, who was still an anti-religion radical.Leguizamo’s thesis that Latin children need to see a Latin character in a picture book to feel included in America is highly questionable, especially considering it is coming from a man who is doing a media tour to promote his role in an adaptation of a Greek story despite being originally from Colombia. What is certain is that, even if one were to be charitable and grant Leguizamo the point that Latin children need Latin heroes, communists are not heroes.Here is a transcript for the July 22-taped show:NBC The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon7/23/202612:18 AM ETJIMMY FALLON: Let's talk about your children's book here, by the way. Congratulations on this. This is "Kiki—JOHN LEGUIZAMO: Oh, I'm so proud of this book.FALLON: — Kiki and the Can.LEGUIZAMO: Yeah.FALLON: Can you talk about what it is and how did it get started?LEGUIZAMO: Well, Jimmy, so, the scholastic Michael Hagen told me, he said, “You know, Latin children are the least represented in children's picture books. Less than five percent of children's books are about Latin kids. You're more likely to see the face of an animal than a Latin child.”FALLON: Wow.LEGUIZAMO: And we're 30 percent of the U.S. population in public schools. So, what does that do to a child's self-worth and self-validation? So, me and my friend from high school, "Crash" John Matos, one of the great graffiti artists in the world—FALLON: Yeah.LEGUIZAMO: — Who was the first to take graffiti and put it on canvas. He and I put this book together.FALLON: Wow. Good for you for doing that. Was it harder than you'd think?LEGUIZAMO: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was ridiculous. Five years to write 26 pages.FALLON: Is that right? It's tricky, right?LEGUIZAMO: Way tricky. It's not that I'm reading — you know, that I'm reading disabled, but it was difficult.FALLON: No. Well, you have to tell a story in a short—LEGUIZAMO: It's short, like a haiku. Like, you have to compress entertainment, fun, storytelling and all that in, like, one sentence.FALLON: And you did do it. Congratulations.LEGUIZAMO: I think I did. I mean, I hope.FALLON: You did. You crushed it. But I just want to say, I like this, the dedication that you put here. You said, "To all the kids who felt unseen, unheard, and ostracized and who have to make themselves small, this book is for you, hoping it undoes some of the invisibility and lets you feel large and concrete."LEGUIZAMO: Oh, beautiful. Oh, thank you. Thank you.