Category: News

Hurricane Nicole isn’t the only storm hitting Florida this week. Tiffany Trump is getting married to ambiguously rich guy Michael Boulos at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, which means the would-be pop star‘s dad will be in town — and he’s in one of his moods.

The former president has spent most of Friday morning fuming about the mid-term elections and Florida governor (and potential Republican rival in 2024) Ron DeSantis and god knows what else on his non-Twitter platform, Truth Social. A CNN report used “cranky” to describe Trump, a word commonly associated with children, not 76-year-old men. It also sounds like he’s going to make his daughter’s wedding all about him.

Three people familiar with the former president’s activities say he is not in the best of spirits. Many of the high-profile candidates he endorsed in the midterms failed to secure a win, and now some Republicans are whispering about his dwindling influence over the party. Trump is “cranky,” says one of the people.

At present, say those who are familiar, Trump is more focused on his “special announcement” on Tuesday, when he may – or may not – announce his planned third run for the presidency. His mind is consumed with the 2024 political landscape and where and how he will fit into it.

Trump (who is “on the outs” with his wife after reportedly blaming her for backing Dr. Oz) is “lying low” in the days leading up the wedding. But he “typically likes being the center of attention at his private club,” according to CNN (and everyone who has ever met the guy), so there’s at least a 47 percent chance that Trump turns his father of the bride speech into a campaign speech. It’s the next best thing to a new episode of Succession.

(Via CNN)

When 21 Savage and Drake first announced their new album Her Loss, part of the appeal was the contrast in their respective styles. As demonstrated on prior collaborations like “Knife Talk” and “Jimmy Cooks,” the pair shares a yin-and-yang chemistry that really highlights their strengths. Where 21 Savage brings a gritty edge with his monotonous murder bars, Drake’s appeal is in his casually ostentatious flexes and sassy subliminal disses — and fans have been having a field day with this dynamic, imaging Drake as a flouncy, foppish sidekick on the song “Rich Flex.”

Of course, although the two are both very keyed into internet trends — the cheeky rollout for Her Loss proves as much — they are a little outside the target demo for TikTok, where this meme mostly lives. However, when 21 Savage made an appearance on a Twitch live stream with sketch comedian Kai Cenat, his mind was blown by the creativity (and light disrespect) of the creators who imagined the in-studio scenario between the two rappers — especially when one fan modified a copy of their WWE Wrestlemania video game to feature them. (Seriously, check the kid’s page out, his mods are bonkers.)

21 did recently stand by Drake despite the heat his partner-in-rhyme has taken online over the past week. While some of Drake’s lines on the album have drawn criticism, Savage said, “Whatever he standing on, I’m standing on too.”

The 1975 just released Being Funny In A Foreign Language, and they’ve been promoting it on a much-discussed tour called At Their Very Best, where Matty Healy has been touching himself while smoking cigarettes and at times eating raw meat on his knees. Unfortunately, he did neither of those things on The 1975’s new performance of “I’m In Love With You” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, but it was still great.

The song is one of the most charismatic and buoyant on the album; it’s a whirlwind of color and wholesomeness, though it includes one of their silliest lines: “Don’t f*ck it, you muppet,” which Healy had to censor on this late-night stage. He still keeps up the energy, singing and moving with passion.

What also unexpectedly helped The 1975 promote their new record was when 25-year-old Democratic candidate Maxwell Alejandro Frost won a seat in the House Of Representatives. He’s the first Gen Z member of Congress, so, fittingly, he’s a 1975 fan. While posting excitedly about his victory, he finished a Twitter thread by declaring: “I’VE BEEN CAMPAIGNING FOR OVER A YEAR THIS IS WILD!! I’M GONNA SEE @the1975 ON THURSDAY TO CELEBRATE!!!”

Watch the band’s performance of “I’m In Love With You” above.

Prolific writer Stephen King is once again dragging Elon Musk for his disastrous management of Twitter, which has already pushed the platform into chaos in just under two weeks. On Thursday morning, King fired off his blunt thoughts about Twitter, and that was before the site turned into a brand-impersonating free-for-all thanks to Musk’s controversial new method of providing blue checks to anyone who bought an $8 subscription to Twitter Blue.

“I think I liked Twitter better in the pre-Musk days,” King wrote. “Less controversy, more fun.”

Despite the simplicity of his tweet, King became a trending topic on the platform that has largely turned on Musk. As of this writing, King’s missive has racked up just shy of 300,000 Likes as his replies filled with users agreeing that the Tesla owner has ruined the platform.

It didn’t help that Thursday included several humiliating moments for Musk. As several key executives abruptly quit the company after attempting to convince advertisers that their brands are safe, Musk told employees that bankruptcy is on the table, according to Reuters. But that wasn’t even the bad part.

As the day went on, several accounts now armed with easily obtained blue checks began impersonating major brands and firing off highly damaging tweets that emphasized how Musk’s approach to verified accounts is rife for abuse. Brand safety it is not. As of Friday morning, CNBC reports that Twitter Blue is no longer available as the company scrambles to retool its check mark system.

Of course, all of this could’ve been avoided had Musk listened to Stephen King from the start. The author warned Twitter’s new owner about messing with the verification process, and here we are.

(Via Stephen King on Twitter)

Well, it is about damn time singer Lizzo crossed paths with interviewer Nardwuar!

Adored by musicians for his quirky nature, the Canadian media personality’s interviews are filled with fun, often forgotten facts about his celebrity guests. When the Emmy-winner’s Special tour stopped in Vancouver, it was Lizzo’s turn to take that trip down memory lane.

The interview, in typical Nardwuar fashion, started with a sentimental gift. Backstage at the Rogers Arena, Nardwuar gives the “Good As Hell” singer a fuzz pedal for flute. This is no ordinary fuzz petal, as it was made from a 1967 Porsche transistor. He describes the tool as being “designed to be played through a mic,” which grants Lizzo more creative freedom with the instrument.

Filled with joy, Lizzo shares how thoughtful the gift was as she has always wanted “to do some experimental sh*t” with her famed flute on stage. After turning the device over, Lizzo revealed a unique engraving from Adam Grimm (owner of Satellite Amplifiers) that read, “inspired by the awesomeness of Lizzo and all that she does.”

Immediately after, Nardwuar handed Lizzo a framed picture of a scene from the 2004 film Friday Night Lights. Lizzo then confessed that she made a brief appearance in the film as the opposing school’s musical support alongside her Alief Elsik High School marching band peers. However, that wasn’t the only time her high school’s marching band led her to a significant opportunity as she revealed, “we were also in the Super Bowl, too.”

Known for her unwavering advocacy for body positivity, toward the end of the interview, the Houston native took a moment to thank rapper-turned-mogul Queen Latifah for blazing the trail for her. As Nardwuar presents her with a vintage 1990 12-inch vinyl and 1991 cassette tape from the Equalizer actress, Lizzo declared, “Queen Latifah is the first person that I saw in media that looked like me.”

Lizzo continued, “It was very important to see someone like her be a mogul, rapper, singer, actress, TV host, clothing line, all of it.”

Just when you thought you knew everything about the Houston native, it is clear we’ve only scratched the surface. Watch the full interview above.

Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

A lot’s been going on in indie music lately. The 1975’s Matty Healy — yes, we’re talking about The 1975 again — has been pulling some very strange on stage antics involving raw meat, Bruce Springsteen dropped a soul covers album, and last weeks’ Indiecast prediction about When We Were Young Festival becoming the nostalgia festival blueprint came true with the nu metal-themed Sick New World fest. So on this week’s Indiecast episode, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen are forgoing the meat of the episode to talk indie news and dive into some mailbag questions from listeners, including questions about Muse‘s The 2nd Law, modern-day indie aesthetics, and the next indie comeback.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian tells listeners to check out Smidley’s new album Here Comes The Devil. It’s the solo project from Foxing’s lead singer and leans more psych-rock/late-aughts indie than his 2017 debut. Meanwhile, Steven shouts out Gold Dust, the project of Massachusetts singer-songwriter Stephen Pierce, who references The Grateful Dead and My Bloody Valentine on his shoegaze-y project The Late Great Gold Dust.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 114 here or below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

We still don’t know whether rootin’ tootin’ Lauren Boebert lost or won her reelection bid. By the wee hours following Election Day, people were mercilessly trolling her previous too-soon tweet about “losers.” As the week has continued, a tight race continued to throw up obstacles to a definitive call. Currently, Boebert is barely leading (with 50.2% of the vote, as the AP continues to monitor) against the relatively unknown Adam Frisch (with 49.8%), who essentially ran on the “Not Lauren Boebert” platform. Pueblo County is understood to lean Frisch’s way, so those outstanding votes could prove vital to the outcome of this race.

Given that the back-and-forth margin has been razor thin all along, we are probably looking at a recount situation no matter what. None of this stopped Boebert from emerging on Thursday with a “Winning!” proclamation.

It’s odd that anyone would consider a minuscule lead to be “winning,” but here we are. And who knows when we’ll actually see more definitive results? The opponents had already bumped into a statistical tie over a month ago in the polls, and Boebert had trucked out an unintentional imitation of a The Daily Show correspondent in response to press coverage. Quickly on election night, it grew apparent that a so-called “red wave” didn’t exist, and Boebert’s race certainly remains too close to call. For that reason, people are listing all of the “problems” that they believe still burden Boebert, whether she wins or loses.

Talk of pronouns and her husband’s arrest for public indecency prevail, along with Russia/China jokes. People also find it ironic that Boebert allegedly had something to do with or at least spurred on the insurrection, and now, she’s got her own election debacle in the works.

And we continue to wait to see who will represent Colorado’s third congressional district.

Jimmy Kimmel has never made a secret of his utter disdain for Ted Cruz and every sniveling thing he stands for. But Kimmel is far from alone in being skeeved out by the Texas senator in every possible way. In fact, as the late night host explained on Thursday, there almost seems to be a universal loathing for Cancun Ted — which Kimmel finds utterly fascinating, and hilarious.

While discussing the upcoming Georgia runoff between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker on Thursday night, which could ultimately determine control of the Senate, Kimmel noted how Republicans are bringing in the “big guns” in order to help Walker triumph. At the moment, that “big gun” in question is Cruz. “And you know your campaign’s in trouble when somebody picks up the phone and says, ‘Get us Ted Cruz right away,’” Kimmel said — really only half-jokingly. Because as Kimmel noted, quite rightly, “Nobody likes Ted Cruz.”

Earlier this week, Cruz was in his Houston, his hometown, to celebrate with the Astros at the World Series Parade — and was LOUDLY booed. “No one has ever been booed at a World Series Parade before,” Kimmel said. “It’s historic.”

But the Ted Hate extends far beyond strangers. “Even Ted Cruz’s daughter wants no part of him,” noted Kimmel, referencing a now-infamous video in which the senator creepily tries to kiss his young daughter, who aggressively avoids being touched by her oozing father. (She also has been known to trash him on TikTok.)

“Nobody likes Ted Cruz, and yet he’s still out there doing his thing,” Kimmel marveled. “He’s like the senator version of Nickelback. It’s inexplicable.”

You can watch the full clip above.

When Mike Lindell first showed up on your television screens more than a decade ago, no one likely anticipated that the MyPillow pitchman would one day be trying to sell you on election conspiracies. Yet here we are.

For what seems like centuries, but has only been a couple of years, Lindell has tried to position himself as some sort of cyber crime expert — despite the fact that the various cyber “symposiums” and other tech-forward events he has attempted to mount have all failed… due to technical problems. But Seth Meyers doesn’t care about any of that. On Thursday night, the Late Night host mockingly stated that the only reason he could rest easy going into the midterms was because he knew that “patriots” like Lindell were out there with their “cyber guys” ensuring the safety of our democracy.

On Monday, Lindell issued a warning to “all the bad guys out there” that he and his “Crime Desk” would be “tracking every race by cyber” and he was “putting them on notice.” Which amused the hell out of Meyers:

Hear that, bad guys? You are on notice! Mike Lindell is tracking every race by ‘cyber.’ Why is all of his computer lingo 30 years old? ‘We’re tracking the bad guys by cyber and using AOL Instant Messenger to find out their Age/Sex/Location!’

Despite the fact that Lindell’s ‘Crime Desk’ ended up dealing with some technical issues of its own, on Wednesday the Pillow Man was still ready to talk about irregularities he detected on Election Night and he even (sort of) brought receipts. Or, as Meyers put it: “Lindell let the world know he had found the bad guys who did all the fraud and stuff.” The below graphic, which looks like it was pulled from a school report Lindell himself wrote when he was 8 — or still heavy into his crack phase — really sort of says it all.

(If you’re wondering what that is, Lindell doesn’t seem so sure either. Though he notes that it’s something to do with Herschel Walker and “crime spikes.”)

Describing Lindell as “like McGruff, if someone put meth in his kibble,” Meyers pointed out that the pillow magnate is actually useful as a kind of Democratic barometer: “The better the night [Democrats] have, the more incoherent Mike Lindell gets. In 2020, Lindell was like: ‘There’s fraud in the machines.’ Very simple. Now the Republicans, and specifically Trump, have gotten crushed again. [And] he’s spitting out and vomiting a bunch of meaningless nonsense at lightning speed like an Amazon Echo that got dropped in the toilet.”

You can watch the full segment above.

Vladimir Putin‘s forces are being trolled after the Russian army has reportedly abandoned several towns in Ukraine. Adding insult to injury, one of those towns is the key city of Kherson which was the only capital captured by Russia during the entire invasion. Andriy Yermak, the Chief of Staff for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky wasted no time mocking Russia for the humiliating retreat.

“The Russian army leaves the battlefield in triathlon mode: running with obstacles, long jumps, swimming,” Yermak tweeted, according to The Daily Beast.

On Wednesday, Russian forces were ordered to abandon the area along the Dnipro River. While Kremlin mouthpieces attempted to say the retreat was executed without losing a single Russian soldier, Ukrainian sources claimed invading soldiers drowned trying to escape the region where local residents cheered during a “chaotic retreat.”

Via Reuters:

Video footage circulating on the internet showed dozens of Ukrainians cheering and chanting victory slogans in Kherson’s central square, where the apparent first Ukrainian troops to arrive snapped selfies in the crowd. Two men lifted a female soldier on their shoulders and tossed her into the air. Some residents wrapped themselves in Ukrainian flags. One man was weeping with joy.

The Kherson retreat is the latest defeat in a long line of blunders for Putin, who is reportedly facing a potential civil war in Russia if not a full-on assassination for the failed invasion. Even his allies in the Kremlin have turned on him and there’s talk of how his presidency can only end one way: with a hammer to the head.

(Via Daily Beast, Reuters)