| Fauci, Fauci, Fauci Dr. Anthony Fauci has become a trusted voice of reason during the coronavirus pandemic, and that has occasionally put him at odds with President Donald Trump and his re-election bid.
At times, Fauci has directly contradicted comments by Trump, drawing the ire of the president and some of his most ardent supporters.
“I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things,” Fauci told the Financial Times over a Zoom lunch. “And that may be one of the reasons why I haven’t been on television very much lately.”
He had more doom and gloom in an interview with FiveThirtyEight, saying "as a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump has not appreciated Fauci's candid chats with the media, attempting to shift blame to Fauci, complaining to Sean Hannity that Fauci had "made a lot of mistakes."
"I Have a Very Good Brain"
The president who has told us he is a "stable genius" with a "very good brain" was bragging about the results of a cognitive test he took this week, telling Hannity that doctors were "surprised" that he had "aced" the test.
Trump's comments drew swift mockery, especially when people learned what exactly was on that cognitive test. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA) test is designed to screen for early or mild signs of cognitive issues, and includes questions like asking the patient to draw a cube and correctly identify a picture of a camel. Being able to pass the MOCA is pretty much the bare minimum we might expect for a president's mental capacity, so it isn't really a reason to brag. Ouch.
A new poll shows that Trump's approval ratings for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic have cratered to their lowest point yet -- 33 percent.
That's a seven-point drop since last month, when 41 percent of Americans said they approved of how he was handling the pandemic.
I Like Big Trucks and I Cannot Lie... It's not all bad news for Trump, however. He still has an inner circle of aides who care deeply about his well-being, who care so much they're willing to bring him cool toys.
Reportedly feeling a significant amount of stress and despair as protests sparked by George Floyd's death swept across the country, this pesky pandemic refuses to go away, and the economy -- which he had planned to be his central argument for re-election -- continues to struggle, Trump needed cheering up.
So his advisers brought in some big trucks for him to play with: a fleet of 18-wheelers were brought to the White House for an event celebrating America's Truckers and the president got to sit in the driver's seat.
What every person who ever took a family road trip as a kid wants to know: did he get to blast the horn?
Speaking of Approval Ratings...
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's approval ratings are at an all time high... despite his state leading the country and much of the world with the highest tally of coronavirus deaths. Mediaite's Rudy Takala has more...
No Bueno
Hispanic food maker Goya Foods is facing an intense backlash after its CEO Robert Unanue sang Trump's praises at a recent White House event.
No Bueno
Hispanic food maker Goya Foods is facing an intense backlash after its CEO Robert Unanue sang Trump's praises at a recent White House event.
"We're all truly blessed" to have a leader like Trump, said Unanue, and soon thereafter, #BoycottGoya and were trending on Twitter. Many users vowed to stop buying the company's products, and shared suggestions for competitor's products and recipes that mimicked some of Goya's more popular offerings.
Please Don't Go The New York Police Department is desperately trying to stem the exodus of its officers into retirement, as a surge of applications were submitted in the past week — more than quadrupling the number submitted during the same period last year.
The city recently cut a whopping $1 billion from the NYPD budget, leading to an immediate slashing of overtime. The result? More cops deciding now is a good time to retire, but fewer administrative staff available to process their retirement documents -- their overtime was cut too.
There has been a line of cops out the door at the NYPD headquarters where the paperwork is processed and the department has been asking cops to hold off on submitting any more retirement applications for at least another month.
This Joe, Not That Joe
The coming tell-all book by Mary Trump, the president's niece, is reportedly full of shocking accusations, including that Trump paid a friend named Joe Shapiro to take the SAT for him.
One man named Joe Shapiro who was known to be college friends with Trump passed away over two decades ago, and his widow has been adamant that he did not know Trump when he would have taken the SAT and, moreover, would never have helped someone cheat.
That would seem to toss a big ol' bucket of cold water on Mary's allegation, but wait -- there's apparently more than one Joe Shapiro in Trump's history.
Mary's friend Alice Hafter-Frankston appeared on CNN -- speaking on Mary's behalf while a court's gag order restricts her from talking publicly about the book -- and told Erin Burnett it was an entirely different Joe who took the test for Trump.
Open, Or Else!
Trump has continued to insist that schools need to reopen in the fall -- in some areas of the country that would mean barely more than a month from now -- and has started threatening that the federal government should withhold funding from schools that refuse to open their doors. 6.5.0 | 
