James Talarico is hitting back at Texas Republicans who have tried to raise the Democratic Senate candidate’s masculinity as a central issue in his high-stakes election campaign against state Attorney General Ken Paxton, slamming politicians like Sen. Ted Cruz for “throwing cheesy nicknames” around instead of focusing on issues Texans care about.

In a recent campaign ad, Paxton branded his rival as “Radical Talarico: too low-T for Texas,” referring to the Democrat’s supposed testosterone level. And during an interview with Fox News, Cruz told Sean Hannity, “I gotta say, if you were making a list of 1,000 adjectives to describe this guy, ‘masculine’ would not be one of them.”

“There’s been a lot of talk in this race about what it means to be a real man,” Talarico told MS NOW’s Jen Psaki on Thursday. “A man takes responsibility. A man upholds his commitments to his family and his neighbors. A man does what’s right, even when no one is watching.”

The Democrat shared that his idea of masculinity was shaped by his father. “Every Saturday morning, Mark Talarico would mow our lawn, whether it was rain or shine, whether he wanted to or not,” he said. “And then, without anyone asking him to, he would go next door and mow our neighbor’s lawn, because our neighbor was elderly, she was a widow. And my dad never talked about it, he just did it, because that’s what a man does.”

“Real men serve others, weak men serve themselves,” Talarico said, contrasting his father’s behavior to that of Paxton and Cruz.

“I welcome this debate about what it means to be a man, and I don’t think Ken Paxton or Ted Cruz are in a position to tell anybody what a real man is,” he added.

The former public school teacher called the attacks on his masculinity a distraction and said his critics are “throwing embarrassing, cheap nicknames at their political opponents instead of focusing on improving Texans’ lives.”

“I travel all over the state, and I get to talk with Texans from all different backgrounds, from all across the political spectrum, and Texans are struggling right now in a way that we haven’t struggled before,” Talarico continued. “And again, it’s not to afford nice things, it’s to afford the basic things, the necessities: groceries and gas and insurance and childcare, prescription drugs, higher education, housing.” 

“To me, that’s everything that’s wrong with our politics, and it’s why people are so fed up with this broken system,” he said. “It’s because it doesn’t serve them, it doesn’t actually improve their lives.”

Talarico said that because of these personal attacks, politics has started to look “a lot more like professional wrestling,” adding, “You’ve got these old guys lathered up in their fake tan, throwing cheesy nicknames at each other, and those nicknames, they don’t lower the cost of groceries, they don’t lower the cost of gas or utilities or insurance. And so I’m going to keep talking about the things that Texans actually care about.”

You can watch Talarico’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.

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Thousands of Albanians have taken to the streets to voice their opposition to the development of a luxury resort linked to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law.

Plans for the sprawling project along the country’s Adriatic coast, including on the island of Sazan, are set to move forward despite concerns over possible corruption and the environmental impact. 

According to MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace, the demonstrations in Albania show that “the backlash to Javanka’s grifting has gone global.”

On Wednesday’s “Deadline: White House,” Wallace shared a clip of Ivanka Trump speaking about the origins of the project on a recent podcast. The president’s daughter said she and her husband came across Sazan while on a friend’s boat.

“We stopped for a swim — effectively, that’s how we found it,” she recalled. “We swam to the islands, we went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated, and it stayed with us ever since.”

Ivanka Trump said over several years, she and Kushner “developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it,” but she vowed that they planned to do so with “a lot of restraint and care, because the land is so beautiful.”

Wallace called Ivanka Trump’s vow to practice restraint “baloney,” adding that the island “is a part of the natural environment that the people of Albania value as it is.”

“That is a lie, or at least not anything that is accepted by the local Albanian people,” she continued.

The “Deadline: White House” host said the protesters are “sending a message, loud and clear, that for their part, people of Albania are drawing a line in the sand and will not stand for destroying their country’s natural environment to benefit the barefoot billionaires.”

You can watch Wallace’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.

The post Wallace: ‘Backlash to Javanka’s grifting has gone global’ amid massive Albanian protests appeared first on MS NOW.

MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle hit back at President Donald Trump after he downplayed Americans’ concerns over rising gas prices caused by the war with Iran.

Earlier this week, when Trump was asked about the cost of fuel and the toll it’s taking on the American people, he told reporters, “If you notice, the price is not very high, relatively speaking. I mean, it’s lower than during the Biden administration.”

While that statement is technically true, Ruhle said the president isn’t telling the full story. 

“Were prices high during the Biden administration? Sure. Specifically, when Russia invaded Ukraine in the summer of 2022, they were high,” the MS NOW host said. At their peak, gas prices under Joe Biden hit $5.07 per gallon, an all-time high.

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Ruhle said Americans were very aware of fuel costs under Biden. “The American people were struggling, and they were angry,” she said. “They were angry about gas prices and grocery prices and healthcare prices.”

As she explained, that concern was a key reason many Americans chose to back Trump in the last election. “The cost of living is one of the reasons Joe Biden and subsequently Kamala Harris did not win the 2024 election, and what Donald Trump promised was to lower prices on Day 1,” she said.

Once inside the White House, however, Trump delivered exactly the opposite. According to AAA, the current national average for a gallon of gas is $4.15 — much higher than the $3.13 per gallon Americans were paying at the end of Biden’s term.

“As a direct result of some of his policies, whether we’re talking about mass deportations or tariffs, or now the war in Iran, we are seeing increased costs,” Ruhle said, adding that the American people’s anger toward the administration over rising costs is reflected by the president’s sinking approval ratings.

“Prices are high right now, and the American people are taking notice,” she said.

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Graham Platner overcame a wave of personal controversies Tuesday to secure the Democratic nomination in Maine’s U.S. Senate race. In an interview on “Morning Joe,” the oyster farmer and Marine veteran downplayed concerns that allegations about his past behavior could come back to haunt Democrats in the midterm elections as they seek to defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins and retake the Senate in November.

Platner told MS NOW that recent reports — which include accusations from former girlfriends of threatening behavior and allegations that he sent women sexually explicit text messages outside of his marriage — were “entirely blown out of proportion as to what the reality of the situation is.”

Platner has denied any allegations of physicality in his past relationships, while acknowledging that he and his wife, Amy, “had some struggles” early in their marriage.

“We worked through them because that’s what you do when you’re in love with somebody, and it made our marriage much stronger,” he said Wednesday morning.

“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski pressed Platner over whether his alleged behavior could affect his ability to fight on behalf of survivors and “call out those who have abused women,” such as Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. He told MS NOW that the two situations were very different.

“I engaged in consensual romantic activities with adults at an earlier part of my life; that seems like a fairly normal thing most people do,” he said. “Going to an island with billionaires to possibly assault children is a vastly, vastly different thing.”

When asked whether more stories about his past behavior could emerge before November’s election, the Democrat said, “There is nothing out there that will run counter to any of the stories that I’ve talked about openly this entire campaign.”

“I’ve been very open about the fact that I struggled, very open about the fact I had a long litany of failed relationships for years because I myself was not in a good place,” he said. “And then every now and again, we will have a media outlet or politically motivated attack come up and try to drag it all up, but it’s all very much within the exact same story that I’ve told this entire time.”

Platner has spoken at length about his struggles with PTSD, depression and alcohol abuse, which he attributes to his time in the U.S. military. The Marine and Army veteran served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

“I came out of the infantry in a time where we just didn’t really talk about the fact that we were all suffering,” he said. “It was this whole idea that we’re just going to be tough and get through it — and it was not an effective solution.”

Platner said it was not until he returned to Maine in 2016 that he sought help for his struggles and began treatment.

“Much like getting over any kind of trauma, there isn’t like one day where you’re not doing well and then one day you’re magically good again,” he said. “It’s a journey.”

Platner said the road to recovery is “continuous” and something he works on daily. “I wake up every single morning just trying to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than the way I was before,” he said.

You can watch Platner’s full interview on “Morning Joe” in the clip at the top of the page.

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Ali Velshi delivered an emotional goodbye to his eponymous show on Sunday as the MS NOW chief data reporter prepares to move to weeknights on June 15, when he will take the reins of “The 11th Hour.”

Velshi began his nearly 20-minute monologue by thanking his team for their contributions to the show since its launch in 2020. “For more than six years, our newsroom has been filled with journalists who chose this work at the exact moment in American history when it was most needed,” he said. “Producers and bookers, writers and researchers, people who spend their week fact-checking what the powerful said, so that you and I could hold those words up to the light on weekend mornings.”

The host reflected on the major news events that he and his team covered on “Velshi” over the years, including the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the killing of George Floyd.

“Journalism starts with bearing witness,” he said. “Journalism is the decision made every single day by people who could be doing something safer and more lucrative, to go to the place where something is happening, to look at it directly, to describe it as honestly as language allows, and to make sure the people who were not there, who cannot be there or who have deliberately kept away from there, know what happened.”

According to Velshi, that kind of journalism is perhaps more important now than ever before. He pointed to President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on the media and the recent scandal at CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” where several veteran reporters and producers have accused the network’s leadership of intervening to produce more favorable coverage of the president.

 “Some of the institutions that taught this country what bearing witness looks like are right now under pressure from, or perhaps in bed with, this administration,” he warned. “That is not a coincidence.”

“That’s why bearing witness has never mattered more than it does right now, and you don’t have to be a journalist to bear witness,” Velshi continued, stressing that real power in America comes from the people themselves: 

I’ve interviewed princes and presidents and potentates and prime ministers, some of the most powerful people on the face of the earth, but it was never from them that I learned what democracy is made of or where it draws its strength. It was on the road meeting the people whose names will never appear in a headline: the ones who run for the school board, who show up to the meeting that no one else attends, who refuse stubbornly and beautifully and at real cost to be exhausted into indifference. That is where I learned the thing I now believe most deeply, that in a democracy power does not flow down from the powerful, it rises from you, the authors of this democracy.

You can watch Velshi’s full remarks in the clip at the top of the page.

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New Yorkers are not being shy about sharing their opinions on Donald Trump’s planned appearance at Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, with one Knicks fan predicting the president may not receive a warm reception in his hometown.

MS NOW caught up with fans outside the Garden ahead of the Knicks’ first NBA Finals home game against the San Antonio Spurs on Monday, as the franchise seeks its first championship since 1973 while holding a 2-0 series lead.

“New York’s been suffering long enough without a championship,” one fan told MS NOW. “[Trump] could stay out and we can maybe get through this one without any bad luck.”

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Last week, the president told reporters he was a “big fan” of the team and had been invited to attend by owner James Dolan. 

Trump’s visit means enhanced security measures will be in place at the Garden and the surrounding area. Officials announced that plans for a watch party outside the venue were not allowed to move forward, a decision the NYPD says it made in coordination with the Secret Service.

The New York City police commissioner said the traditional watch parties at the team’s home court will resume Wednesday for Game 4.

One Knicks supporter told MS NOW that he thought Trump’s visit would cause a “distraction” from the game. “We want the win. We’re focused on basketball and nothing more,” he said.

Another questioned why the president, who has frequently criticized New York City and its leadership, would want to return to his hometown, telling MS NOW, “New York is filled with such diversity, and a lot of the stuff that he doesn’t stand for is here. So, why is he coming here?”

“The energy is just really happy, lively. New York is alive,” she said. “And I just feel like if he comes, it’s going to be really strange, like it’s going to be a big downer.”

One fan said the president should be prepared for those unhappy with his visit to make their feelings heard during the game. “Hey, let him come. We’re gonna boo the f— up out of you, bro,” he said.  

However, the reaction was not all negative. At least one fan who spoke to MS NOW said he was looking forward to the president’s visit. “Honestly, that gets me very excited,” the fan said. “I think that President Trump attending one of the games is huge for New York and United States as a whole.”

Another fan said he did not view Trump’s visit as “positive or negative” but thought it would definitely cause a reaction. “I think it’d be pretty funny — think we get a lot of laughs out of people,” he said. 

You can watch the fans share their opinion on Trump’s planned visit in the video below.

The post New York Knicks fans sound off on Trump appearance ahead of NBA finals game: ‘Bad luck’ appeared first on MS NOW.

A fourth-generation Louisiana farmer blamed President Donald Trump for his failure to deliver on his repeated promises to help the U.S. agricultural community. Willis Nelson joined MS NOW’s “The Weekend: Primetime” on Saturday to discuss the impact the president’s tariffs and war with Iran have had on his family’s farm and his concerns about its future.

“The last year has been really very tough for my farm and my brother’s,” Nelson said. “Input prices keep going up.”

The row crop farmer said rising fuel and fertilizer prices have already done irreversible damage, telling MS NOW it was “too late” for the administration to help with this season.

“We didn’t do our planting season … so we already took a hit on that,” he said. “Fuel prices are still high — very high. I think it’s pretty much doubled from the last time we bought a tank load.”

“Our expenses are way higher and bringing our profit margin even lower,” he explained. 

Nelson said Trump promised to give farmers a “fair trade for our crops” and get them a “fair price on what we grow and sell,” but he has not made good on those pledges as president. 

“We’ve been told a lot of promises, but the promises haven’t been delivered on,” the farmer told MS NOW. Instead, Trump’s policies have caused the farming community more pain. Nelson said Trump’s tariffs likely have caused his farm to lose 30% of its profits on some crops. He also called the president’s Iran war a “manmade problem that could have been avoided.”

Nelson said he and his fellow farmers are not looking for a bailout from the government but simply want the president to reaffirm his commitment to rural America and stop pursuing policies that harm an already vulnerable community.

“People in the public opinion, they look at farmers as taking handouts from the government. We never want that,” he said. “If we could just get a fair price on what we’re growing and what we sell it for, we as farmers could be able to stand on our own. That’s the main thing.”

You can watch Nelson’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.

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