Politics

Michael M. Santiago/AFP via Getty ImagesThe lawyers defending Donald Trump in his hush money trial will look to turn up the heat on Michael Cohen Thursday as the former president’s onetime attorney and personal fixer returns to the witness stand for what is likely to be a day of brutal cross-examination aiming to undermine his credibility.Cohen, who once said he’d take a bullet for his old boss, has already given hours of testimony earlier this week shooting down Trump’s denials in the case, alleging that Trump directed him to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels to stop her from speaking about claims of an affair in order to protect his 2016 presidential campaign.Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from the alleged attempt to hide reimbursements to Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment made to Daniels. Trump also denies ever having sex with the adult film star.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyOne would be forgiven for wondering what world Jerry Seinfeld is living in where the “extreme left,” as he claimed in a recent interview with The New Yorker, has purged American television of good comedy. For all the left’s mighty powers, it couldn’t quite manage to halt production of biting network comedies like Abbott Elementary, Superstore, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, or The Good Place. Nor did it manage to stave off dark, even transgressive cable fare like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Righteous Gemstones, Atlanta, or PEN15.The Democratic Socialists of America certainly didn’t stop Seinfeld’s erstwhile collaborators, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Larry David, from making Veep and Curb Your Enthusiasm, respectively, the latter of which just ended a critically acclaimed final season.And as Seinfeld himself acknowledged, the left’s path of destruction has yet to temper the spread of deliberately offensive stand-up comedy, a field that includes many proud right-wingers who consider it their business to make comedy racist, sexist, and transphobic again. So what, exactly, is the creator and star of one of the greatest sitcoms of all time complaining about?Read more at The Daily Beast.

Animation by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyWhether or not his campaign admits it, President Joe Biden has a Sun Belt problem.Biden is holding up just fine in expectedly tight races with Donald Trump in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Yet in the Sun Belt—the stretch of states from North Carolina and Georgia to Nevada and Arizona—Trump is giving Biden a shellacking with hefty leads, particularly in those two key desert states, according to a new New York Times/Siena College/Philadelphia Inquirer poll.“I am fascinated by how quickly his base is abandoning him,” Dave Smith, chairman of Arizona’s Pima County GOP, said of Biden in an interview with The Daily Beast. On the ground, Smith said he’s seen a notable influx of volunteers and a boost in party registration, which he attributed to voter concerns about migrant border crossings, as well as the cost of housing.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/CBSSomebody, please give Annie Potts a job.And not just any role. Potts–the unflappable receptionist in Ghostbusters, one of the steel magnolias in Designing Women, and most recently the wise, albeit felonious grandma in Young Sheldon– deserves fabulous parts.She wants one, now.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesAttending the Met Gala now has a brutal consequence: You’ll be blocked by 100 strangers on the internet.The horror! Zendaya is quaking in fear over the fact that she’ll never be able to see a man she’s never met posting about his dog. Camila Cabello is crying over the fact that she lost a couple hundred followers on Instagram, bumping her 66 million followers down to… 66 million. Nicholas Galitzine is worried that The Idea of You will earn a few less streams, although the movie is already one of the biggest on streaming in the country.If you can’t tell, I’m being sarcastic here. I find this new trend of creating celebrity block lists to be appalling. It’s a new movement happening on TikTok and other social media platforms. Everyday people are fed up with celebs staying silent about the state of the world, particularly the war in Gaza. So, following a tasteless night of opulence at the Met Gala last week, social media users around the world decided to start blocking handfuls of celebrities in an act of defiance against them, including Gigi Hadid, Taylor Swift, and Billie Eilish. These names, while seemingly picked out of a hat, mostly comprise Met Gala attendees—although any other big celebrities who have been silent on the matter will be added as well. The goal? They’ll be compelled to speak up.Read more at The Daily Beast.