Category: News

Leaks were a major concern during Donald Trump‘s time in office thanks to a non-stop barrage of damaging stories coming out of the White House. Part of that is because Trump’s admin was a dumpster fire full of scandal, and another part is because Trump himself was the “biggest leaker,” according to a new book from former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

According to Esper, leaks were used frequently not just by White House underlings, but Trump himself to advance personal agendas ranging from both petty to political. “Nobody wanted to see their name in the morning news, especially when the words were so often twisted, misinterpreted, and taken out of context,” Esper wrote. “In the Trump administration, this could get you blacklisted or fired.” Via Business Insider:

“The individual motivations for the leaks ranged from advancing a preferred policy outcome to enhancing the leaker’s own role or credentials to currying favor with the president. It was a noxious behavior learned from the top. The president was the biggest leaker of all. It turned colleague against colleague, department against department, and it was generally bad for the administration and the country,” Esper wrote in “A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times.”

Esper’s claims jibes with an anecdote from Chris Christie’s book, Republican Rescue, where the former New Jersey governor revealed that Trump once bragged to him about leaking a story that Christie was being considered for White House Chief of Staff. After learning that Trump was the source of the leak, Christie took a pass on the position.

(Via Business Insider)

Jack Harlow just unveiled Come Home The Kids Miss You, a highly anticipated album with a Drake feature, a video with Anitta, and a song about Dua Lipa. He announced yesterday that he’ll be embarking on a tour to promote the LP. Last night, he took the stage at The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to perform one of his hits, “First Class.” Against screens displaying a blue sky, he raps slickly while the floor floods with white fog. His flow is uninterrupted and smooth, and the stage setup really brings the song to life.

When talking to Fallon, the “Nail Tech” rapper was asked about the viral video of him and Emma Chamberlain at the Met Gala in which he casually ends a conversation with “love ya,” which promptly makes Chamberlain almost freak out. About it, he said, “That’s like a piece of art because there’s so many ways to interpret that, you know what I mean? Everyone has a different take on what was going through her head, so I’ll leave it up to interpretation.” They also discussed the NBA video, with Harlow noting that after the clip of the refs aired during the game broadcast, his phone was flooded with messages.

Watch his performance of “First Class” on The Tonight Show above.

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

Jack Harlow is fresh off the release of his new album, Come Home The Kids Miss You. During the lead-up to the LP, the rapper fortuitously found himself the subject of multiple viral moments, like not being recognized by NBA referees while sitting courtside and his “I love you” interview with Emma Chamberlain at the Met Gala. Now he has taken the time to break down exactly what was going on in those situations.

Harlow’s explanations came while making his debut late-night talk show appearance on The Tonight Show yesterday, where Jimmy Fallon asked Harlow about the clips. Harlow said of the Met Gala video, “That’s like a piece of art because there’s so many ways to interpret that, you know what I mean? Everyone has a different take on what was going through her head, so I’ll leave it up to interpretation.”

They then got into the NBA video, with Harlow noting that after the clip of the refs aired during the game broadcast, his phone was flooded with messages. He then described getting Scott Foster’s (the ref who initiated the viral moment) attention during the game, saying, “It’s the fourth quarter and he’s over on the sideline. And he comes over and I’m like, ‘Yo!’ And I’m trying to get his attention, just to have a moment. He’s like, ‘My daughter already texted me.’”

Watch the full interview above. Elsewhere on the show, Harlow and Fallon also played virtual reality Pictionary with Black Thought and Rachel Brosnahan, so check that out below. Harlow also performed “First Class” on the show, so find that below, too.

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

Westworld hasn’t confused fans (through a live broadcast, anyway) in slightly over two years, but if you were missing that uniquely perplexed feeling, here’s some great news: the show shall return on June 26 to shake up your memories anew. And boy, there’s a lotta cobwebs to knock loose in these violent delights.

Here’s one mere example of this: a death obviously isn’t a death when it comes to this show, as we’ve seen over and over again with these hosts. Yet back when Season 3 ended, Variety spoke with co-creator Jonathan Nolan who seemingly non-clarified, “Let me clarify. Dolores is gone.” There seemed to be some finality in his declaration, even as he expressed hope that Evan Rachel Wood would not be departing the show. And in the above trailer, yup, there’s Evan Rachel Wood.

What this all means is anyone’s guess, although it’s worth noting that Dolores went all Joker in the last season finale, and this teaser arrives with the following tagline: “It doesn’t look like anything to me.” Perhaps it’s best, as always, not to think too hard because the show will shakeup any preconceived assumptions upon re-arrival.

According to HBO, the season’s landing as “a dark odyssey about the fate of sentient life on earth.” Clearly, Evan Rachel Wood has returned, as has Thandiwe Newton, Ed Harris, Tessa Thompson, Jeffrey Wright, and Aaron Paul.

Westworld returns on June 26.

Tucker Carlson is the host of TV’s most popular cable news show (let that sink in… then take an hour-long bath in scalding hot water to feel clean again), but he’s not making a lot of friends this week. Dinesh D’Souza, the batsh*t director of 2000 Mules, a supposed “documentary” on “the alleged criminal voter fraud and ballot stuffing during the 2020 presidential election,” accused Carlson of intentionally not promoting his movie. “I’m sorry to say Tucker Carlson and his team specifically instructed Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote NOT to mention the movie,” he tweeted (Engelbrecht, the founder of an anti-voter fraud group, worked with D’Souza on the Trump-backed film).

Carlson was also on the receiving end of a middle finger during Monday’s episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight. He spouts Russian propaganda and preaches the benefits of testicle tanning like there’s no tomorrow, but a peaceful protestor flipping the bird? That was too much for Carlson, who look scandalized by the perfectly timed middle finger.

On Monday, viewers of Carlson’s show were shown a protest from outside the Alexandria, Virginia, home of Justice Samuel Alito, a reliably conservative vote on the court who wrote the draft majority opinion overturning the 1973 abortion ruling. The scene, in Carlson’s words, is “what it looks like when you write an opinion the mob doesn’t like.”

Within seconds of finishing his sentence, a protestor with a bullhorn raised her middle finger. “Ah, so let’s turn that off. Too much,” he said, adding, “It pains me to even put stuff like that on television, but people should see, you know, what this actually looks like.” It’s unclear if the woman knew she was on Fox News when she gave Carlson the one-finger salute, but either way, she speaks for everyone who’s sick of the “whitest d*ck ever.”

A couple weeks ago, Britney Spears went on a brief social media hiatus and since her return, she’s been firing on all cylinders. She revealed hundreds of poems she wrote mysteriously disappeared, she declared her memoir is coming out this year, and she got naked for a photoshoot with her dog. Spears regularly shares risqué photos of herself, but her latest are her most revealing yet.

Last night, over the course of three posts spread out over a few hours, Spears shared 12 photos all of the same pose (with minor variations in her stance): a fully naked Spears standing, facing the camera, with her hands covering her breasts. She uses heart emoji overlays, seemingly made as small as Spears was able to make them, to conceal herself below the waist. The pictures are similar to the nude beach photos she shared in February, but while those ones don’t show anything below the hips, these ones feature her whole body.

In the first of the posts, Spears wrote, “Photo dump of the last time I was in Mexico BEFORE there was a baby inside me … why the heck do I look 10 years younger on vacation ???” She added in the second post, “Don’t underestimate the power of doing it myself and shooting with a selfie stick !!! Photo dump before there was a child inside me !!!”

Find Spears’ posts below.

Regardless of political affiliation, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t agree that Rudy Giuliani is a very odd man. But Seth Meyers has now thrown down the gauntlet and declared the former New York City mayor “the weirdest man in the history of politics” and, well, you’d probably have a difficult time finding anyone to dispute the claim, too.

On Monday night, Meyers reported on Rudy’s most recent shenanigans, which surprisingly involved neither a bottle of scotch nor Giuliani just “tucking his shirt in.” No, in this case Giuliani reneged on an already scheduled appearance to be interviewed by the January 6th committee about the Capitol insurrection. According to one report, a spokesperson for the panel said that Giuliani is now refusing to sit down with the panel unless he can record the interview himself, which has Meyers utterly confused.

Why does he want to record the interview? Is he worried they’re going to cut it together to make it sound bad? That’s what his brain already does to his mouth.

Why do guys like Rudy always have some weird angle, like, thinking they’re a genius chess master calling their bluff by asking to record the meeting. But any time Rudy has ever been recorded it’s always been bad for him. He was recorded calling a senator on the day of the insurrection to get him to overturn the results. He was recorded butt-dialing a reporter and talking about he needs cash as part of some mysterious plan, and he was recorded by a world-renowned investigative reporter, better known as Borat.

Rudy records himself saying incriminating things all the time. Before he talks to anyone, he should pat himself down to make sure he’s not wearing a wire.

Giuliani went on Steve Bannon’s podcast to discuss his decision to pull out of his interview. When Bannon asked whether Rudy was afraid that the committee might doctor a tape of him being questioned, the former right-hand man to Donald Trump just laughed. “You’ve got a bunch of people on that committee who tried to frame a sitting President of the United States, and I’m going to trust them?,” Giuliani asked. “Do I look like a fool?”

While the latter question was meant rhetorically, Meyers had a definitive answer for it anyway: Yes, you most definitely do. To further entice Giuliani that cooperating with the January 6 panel would be in the former mayor’s best interest, Meyers reminded him that they “don’t have jumpsuits in your size, because that’s not a size.”

You can watch the full clip above.

Charles Barkley has never shied away from the fact that his time spent at Auburn was far less about furthering his education and more about getting himself to the NBA, which has always been to the delight of Shaquille O’Neal.

On Monday night, this once again came up and Ernie Johnson decided he actually didn’t know what Chuck’s “major” was when he was at Auburn, which prompted an incredible response from Barkley in which he described the rigorous coursework of his music appreciation class.

As it turns out, Barkley didn’t actually have a major, choosing to be “undeclared” while he saw if the basketball thing would work out. That certainly was the right choice, but it won’t stop Shaq and the fellas from having some fun with Chuck’s Auburn education on air, which led to a rather hilarious exchange later in the postgame show in which Barkley called Tuesday’s Game 5’s “monumental.” Shaq was in disbelief at Chuck breaking out the SAT words, so he challenged him to spell it right then and there on air, which predictably led to hilarity on set.

Barkley eventually got to the right spelling as he wrote it down, but it was quite the journey to get there, with a lot of n’s being inserted into random places before reaching his destination. Shaq and Kenny were in hysterics, but Ernie’s reaction was the best, as he could only put his head in his hands watching his longtime colleague working out the phonetics on air.

Game 4 between the Warriors and Grizzlies was not exactly what you’d call beautiful basketball, as the two teams failed to crack the 25 percent mark from three-point range on 71 combined attempts.

The Warriors missed their first 15 three-pointers, as they came out flat against a Memphis team playing without Ja Morant, looking to prove their 20-5 record during the regular season without their All-Star guard was no fluke. They certainly proved their mettle on the defensive end with an incredible effort (and some help from the Warriors lackluster shooting), holding Golden State to 40 percent shooting (24.3 percent from deep), and forcing 16 turnovers which fueled their early run to the lead.

Jaren Jackson Jr. led the charge on both ends of the floor, with 21 points and five blocked shots, as he had the Warriors shook in the paint with his help at the rim.

Despite Memphis’ swarming defensive start, they couldn’t ever pull away from Golden State, who played a terrific defensive game themselves. The Grizzlies shot 41.1 percent from the field and 23.5 percent from three, as only Steven Adams (5-of-9 for 10 points) and Kyle Anderson (7-of-8 for 17 points) were able to cross 50 percent shooting. A big reason for Memphis’ offensive woes was Dillon Brooks, who was making his return from a Game 3 suspension and seemed overly desperate to make an impact on the Morant-less offense, scoring just 12 points on 5-of-19 shooting (1-of-8 from three), including some woeful shot choices down the stretch.

The best run of the night for Memphis came in the fourth quarter, when Jackson and Tyus Jones, who had 19 points as he took over the starting point guard role, led them to a double-digit advantage and, briefly, it seemed they had taken control of the game.

However, from that point, the Memphis offense went cold and the Warriors started to finally find some life from three-point range, with Otto Porter doing the job in the third to keep them intact and then Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson hit timely shots in the fourth to cut the lead to one.

The Memphis lead would stay in the one possession range for the final few minutes until, finally, the Warriors broke through to take a one-point advantage on a pair of Stephen Curry free throws with 45 seconds to play. From there, Jackson Jr. missed a pretty good look at a floater and Curry sold some contact from Desmond Bane on the putback to earn two more free throws to put Golden State up three. After a quick two from Brooks, Curry hit two more free throws to go back up three and the Grizzlies chose not to call their timeout to draw up a game-tying play. The result was rather disastrous, as Jackson Jr. rushed a three in traffic and got blocked by Draymond Green.

From there, it was more Curry free throws and, rather hilariously, a banked in Brooks three at the buzzer to make the final score 101-98. Curry finished with 32 points but needed 25 shots to get there, going just 4-of-14 from three. Klay Thompson likewise struggled from deep, going 0-for-7, as he had 14 points on 20 shots, but the lift off the bench from Otto Porter Jr. (12 points) and Andrew Wiggins putting up 17 points proved big for the Warriors on what Curry called a “historically bad shooting night.”

The Grizzlies will have to feel deflated having lost this game given the tremendous defensive effort they put forth to control the game for 47 minutes, but their inability to create good looks on offense proved too costly, headlined by Brooks’ awful night. They’ll now head back to Memphis for a must-win Game 5, with Morant’s status still in the air, and the Warriors feeling like they dodged a bullet (and likely getting jolted awake in the process).

Kendrick Lamar shook the rap world on Sunday night with the release of “The Heart Part 5.” The track stood as the rapper’s first release as a lead artist in four years and it’s one that arrives as he prepares to release his long-awaited fifth album, Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers. He released a music video with the track, and in it, Kendrick uses deep fake technology to morph into several faces that included OJ Simpson, Kanye West, Jussie Smollet, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hussle. Kendrick also raps from Nipsey Hussle’s perspective on the song’s final verse.

In the song’s final bars, Kendrick addresses Blacc Sam, Nipsey’s older brother, directly in a string of bars. “And Sam, I be watchin’ over you / Make sure my kids watch all my interviews / Make sure you live out our dreams we produced,” Kendrick raps. “Keep that genius in your brain on the move / And to my neighborhood, let the good prevail / Make sure them babies and the leaders outta jail / Look for salvation when troubles get real / ‘Cause you can’t help the world until you help yourself.” The verse has been approved and supported by many, including Lauren London who was Nipsey’s longtime partner prior to his death.

London posted a clip of Kendrick’s “The Heart Part 5” video with the message, “Powerful art,” attached to it.

You can view London’s message in the screenshot above.

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