Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via GettyReaching for an example of her unflinching preparedness to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it needs to be done, Kristi Noem landed on a chilling example: the time she killed her pet dog, Cricket, in an execution-style gravel pit slaying.The South Dakota governor, whose unbreakable devotion to Donald Trump has propelled her to somewhere near the top of his list of his potential 2024 running mates, reportedly included her disturbing tale of canicide in a book set to be published next month. “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here,” Noem writes, according to The Guardian, which obtained a copy.According to the newspaper, Noem recounts the story of how she not only killed Cricket—a female “wirehair pointer, about 14 months old”—but then also proceeded to botch the killing of an unnamed goat that she owned to which she had taken a disliking. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Mark Peterson/AFP via GettyDavid Pecker, much like Arnold Schwarzenegger, will be back.On Friday, the former National Enquirer boss will take the stand for the fourth time this week in Donald Trump’s hush money trial to face a second grilling from the former president’s defense team. Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc (AMI), has already testified about his efforts to act as Trump’s “eyes and ears” ahead of the 2016 presidential election by buying up the exclusive rights to negative stories about the Republican as a way of burying them, a practice known as “catch and kill.”Pecker spoke Thursday about his role in silencing stories from two women who claimed to have had extramarital trysts with Trump (Trump denies the sexual encounters ever took place). One involved AMI paying $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she’d had an affair with Trump in 2006. The other was a payment of $130,000 that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels—which is at the center of the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records that prosecutors have brought against the former president.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastWelcome to Trail Mix, your 2024 election sanity guide. See something interesting on the trail? Email me at jake.lahut@thedailybeast.com. To get Trail Mix in your inbox, subscribe here for free.This week, an exploration of how much Trump can run afoul of MAGA and why he would do it. Plus, life after the 2024 primary, and more news from Michigan’s Senate race.NOT SO BASED DONRead more at The Daily Beast.

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastAbout the authors: James Roosevelt, Jr. is a grandson of President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Henry Scott Wallace’s grandfather, Henry A. Wallace, served President Franklin Roosevelt as Secretary of Agriculture, Vice President, and Secretary of Commerce.Pop quiz: Who said this?“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesDonald Trump is set to hold a “major donor retreat” next week in Florida, and it could signal the unofficial start of the presidential veepstakes.According to an invitation obtained by Politico, special guests include “Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina and J.D. Vance of Ohio, as well as Govs. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, and Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Byron Donalds (R-Fla.).” These, of course, are names frequently mentioned as being on Trump’s shortlist for a presidential running mate.Trump won’t have to announce his running mate until mid-July, when the Republican National Convention kicks off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But time is ticking, and this is a decision with both electoral and governing implications. What is more, Trump’s advanced age (77), coupled with his four impending criminal trial verdicts, may raise the stakes even higher than normal.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / GettyListen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.Republican operatives have been forced to rework their strategy to deal with Donald Trump’s absence from the campaign trail while he sits in court for his hush money trial in New York.With the former president only having weekends and Wednesdays off they have had to get creative about how best to utilize that time.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Disney/Hulu“We’re halfway there,” I said to myself at the two-and-a-half-hour mark of Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, a four-part early Christmas gift to hard-core Bon Jovi fans and a ludicrously detailed look at the pop-rock luminary’s career for everyone else.Like the anthemic songs the platinum-selling New Jersey-born singer is known for, it would take an extra step to actively dislike this very by-the-numbers Hulu documentary, but the excessive length and the overblown manner in which it tries to manufacture drama does get a bit irritating. Put bluntly, there just isn’t much going on in this sanctioned and manicured portrait, yet it still goes on forever.Jon Bon Jovi is, was, and always shall be an extremely handsome and charismatic fella. That smile! Those eyes! Even in the deepest archive footage, striking a pose in preposterous ’80s hair-band outfits, the guy still looked good. What’s more, you can tell, you can just tell, that he’s a nice guy. Have you ever heard anyone say anything nasty about Jon Bon Jovi? Think a minute. No. The answer is no.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Magnolia PicturesAn adult sex comedy that’s also the most amusingly unerotic film of the year, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, which hits theaters April 26, treads into explicit terrain in order to chart the disaffection and confusion of a thirtysomething Brooklynite in search of direction, fulfillment, and companionship. Written and directed by star Joanna Arnow, this bracingly awkward indie—which played at last year’s Cannes, Toronto, and New York film festivals—is a portrait of millennial estrangement and discontent that, despite suffering from sporadic redundancy, strikes a raw cringe-comedy nerve.In New York City’s trendiest borough, Ann (Arnow) lies nude in bed beside Allen (Scott Cohen), an older lover whose eyes stay closed as she begins humping his leg. “I love how you never care if I cum. And you don’t do anything for me,” she announces in a monotone come-hither manner. “It’s so disrespectful and misogynist.” When she gets no response, she drops her head to his chest and asks, “Do you think people can change?” Roused to actively engage with this, Allen merely sighs and states, “I don’t know.” This prompts Ann to resume her dry-humping routine and attendant dirty talk, declaring, “I like how you don’t care if I get off because it’s like I don’t even exist.” This may be true about Allen, but he mostly just comes across as exasperated by his partner’s shtick, staring at her and saying, “Can you not?”Ann tells Allen that he’s the only one she’s seeing but theirs is a decidedly uncommitted relationship, as well as a BDSM one in which she’s the “submissive” and he’s the “master.” During their encounters, Allen has Ann do things like repeatedly suck his nipples and then run to a bedroom wall, or walk over to a dresser, bend over, and spread her cheeks—an act that’s made all the more humiliating by the fact that this positions Ann’s face directly in front of photographs of turn-of-the-20th-century immigrant relatives, whose eyes stare back at her as if asking, “Is this what we struggled for?” Ann, however, is far from a victim in this scenario, since she eagerly seeks such treatment, and her later trysts with other men further reinforce the sense that her sexual proclivities are a means of attaining the power she doesn’t have in any other aspect of her life.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/MGMEvery once in a while—in spite of the inferno of lunacy, cruelty, and soul-crushing stress flaming all around—the world resembles one that I still want to live in, that reflects my deepest values and belief in a society that is fundamentally good.By some soul-affirming miracle that’s happening right now: People everywhere can’t wait to see Zendaya and two cute boys kiss. This is my America.I can’t remember the last time I’ve observed as much anticipation for a movie as I’ve seen these last few weeks for Challengers. The new film features Zendaya as a tennis superstar at the center of an erotically charged rivalry-turned-love triangle with her husband, Art (Mike Faist), and her former lover—and his former best friend—Patrick (Josh O’Connor).Read more at The Daily Beast.

Ben Blackall/Paramount+ with ShowtimeHow many little women is Count Alexander Rostov (Ewan McGregor) going to befriend in A Gentleman in Moscow? Alex’s habit of acquainting himself with little girls—this sounds odd, but he’s the one doing it over and over again—has returned in the fifth episode of the season. This man really needs to get some pals who are his own age.Alex has taken in Sofia (Billie Gadsdon), the tiny daughter of his old friend Nina (Leah Balmforth). Unlike Nina, who was full of childish whimsy and happiness, Sofia is a bratty thumbsucker. Sofia demands to sleep in the Count’s bed. Sofia only talks when she absolutely must. Sofia has messy hair and a messy life and Alex, somehow, still cares for her deeply. Every time he looks at her, he remembers young Nina. Nina is now somewhere off in Russia trying to find her husband, likely putting herself in danger.But at least Sofia is safe here with Marina (Leah Harvey) and Alex. Well…maybe. Alex is asked to come into questioning by the hotel manager Halecki (Rob Jarvis) and his right-hand man The Bishop (John Heffernan). While Halecki is keen on siding with Alex, the Bishop—a devoted follower of Stalin—firmly believes Sofia needs to be given away to an adoption agency. Alex has no rights over her, and she needs to get a proper education in the outside world. They table the discussion for later.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Comedy CentralThat Donald Trump has a tendency toward pettiness is hardly surprising to those who have been paying attention to the former president’s antics in recent years. (See Exhibits A, B, C, D, and E.) But a late-night outburst on Wednesday attacking Bill Barr has The Daily Show correspondent and this week’s co-host Jordan Klepper declaring the former president the official “King of Pettiness.”Though Trump spent most of Thursday in a New York City courtroom (again) for his hush money trial, Klepper’s co-host Ronny Chieng said that it wasn’t all bad news for the former president. “After months of calling him unfit for office, Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr said he’s voting for him anyway,” Chieng shared. “And Trump responded with as much grace as you’d expect.”Just after 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Trump posted the following message to Truth Social:Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Elijah NouvelageVideo taken by a witness and confirmed by local reporters captured the moment Noëlle McAfee, the chair of Emory University’s philosophy department, was dragged from a pro-Palestine campus protest in handcuffs Thursday evening—as she called on a student to let her peers know she’d been arrested. McAfee, who’s also the president-elect of the Emory University Senate, can be heard calling out to a stranger—who recorded the whole ordeal—and telling him she was merely observing the protest and was not participating.While McAfee spoke, she was drug in the opposite direction down a sidewalk by an officer who’d concealed his face with a balaclava. The onlooker recording repeatedly told her he was sorry as she was whisked away. Read more at The Daily Beast.

NBC NewsAs the Supreme Court weighs whether Donald Trump is shielded from prosecution for acts committed while president, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he opposes Trump’s view of absolute immunity.McConnell spoke with Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker Thursday for a pre-recorded interview set to air Sunday.During their talk, Welker inquired whether McConnell stood by his February 2021 comment—made just after he voted to acquit “shameful” Trump during his Jan. 6-related impeachment trial—that former presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution.Read more at The Daily Beast.

GoFundMeThe search for a missing Iowa trucker came to a tragic end Wednesday, with loved ones revealing David Schultz’ body was found lying in a field, his cowboy boots still on and his keys in his pocket—details police used to identify him.Schultz, 53, disappeared without a trace on Nov. 21 in Sac City, Iowa, where his truck was left abandoned, loaded with hogs he was set to deliver to a farm 10 miles down the road. His keys and phone were left in his rig, and his jacket was found in a nearby ditch, police said.A months-long search ensued, with his wife, Sarah Schultz, pleading for authorities to pursue answers about her husband’s whereabouts. She told the Sioux City Journal she now feels equal relief and sorrow—glad her family has some answers, but grief-stricken by the outcome. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Joan MarcusLet us be clear: it is mesmerizing, a delicious treat, a little surreal, and utterly thrilling to watch Jessica Lange act on stage in Paula Vogel’s Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions (2nd Stage, to June 16). In this Broadway play, she plays Phyllis, the louche, erratic, loving, and extremely not-loving mother of Carl (Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger). The play, set in various apartments inside and outside the Beltway of Washington D.C., spans 1964 to the 21st century, and Martha in various stages of detachment from her children and the world around her.The one constant is this season’s most skin-crawling special effect: Shawn Duan’s projections of cockroaches, who—in the five evictions the title mentions—range freely over refrigerators, and even march in relentless unison all over the walls. You may go home and look up the number of an exterminator.Those evictions seem a strangely inert dramatic device. Rather like the relationships between mother and son, and mother and daughter, they flare into life and flare down. The characters are also types, who we don’t really get to know, except in relation to Phyllis; here Parsons plays a gay son, who wants acceptance, and who will forgive his mother her ugly homophobia out of a deeply felt devotion. Martha, who also comes out, is less forgiving, especially as Phyllis seems far more judgmental and sniping towards her. Carl is warm and fluttering, impervious to Phyllis’ viciousness, while Martha remains a block of suspicion and disbelief at their mother’s words, deeds, and blithe lack of care.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jim Watson/AFP via Getty ImagesDonald Trump’s claim that the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 was less hateful than pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses lately was “repugnant and divisive,” the White House shot back Thursday night.After proceedings in his criminal trial in New York concluded for the day, Trump said the torch-lit rally on the campus of the University of Virginia—in which participants chanted “Jews will not replace us” and a Neo-Nazi murdered a counter-protester with his car and injured thirty others—was “a little peanut” compared to the largely peaceful encampments springing up on college campuses in recent weeks.“It was nothing compared, and the hate wasn’t the kind of hate you have here. This is tremendous hate,” Trump claimed.Read more at The Daily Beast.

KRON-TVA passerby interrupted a local television interview Tuesday with San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan to start a fight with one of Mahan’s security personnel, leading to an arrest for felony battery on a police officer, among other charges, local media reported.During an interview with KRON, which captured video of the altercation, Mahan was speaking on camera when a man, who police have identified as 35-year-old Wesley Pollard, approached the security detail from behind Mahan and began swearing.After Pollard got into frame beside Mahan, the mayor told him, “Sorry, we’re doing an interview, sir.” Pollard soon spoke to Mahan’s security guard, who is an officer of the San Jose Police Department. “I’m talking on the phone. You got a problem?”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty The extraordinary claim by Rebel Wilson that she was invited to a drug-fueled orgy by a minor royal at an LA party was greeted with wry amusement by friends of some hard-partying members of the aristocracy and minor royals this week.Dubbed the “narco-toffs” by their peers, there has always been a section of the upper class that has incorporated copious drug taking alongside the more traditional society pursuits of hunting, shooting and fishing.Take the famously dissolute John Hervey, the 7th Marquess of Bristol who inherited a vast fortune but died penniless from drug addiction in 1999. The writer Anthony Haden-Guest described his parties as places where “cocaine and heroin were catered like flowers.” Hervey kept a helicopter at his country estate, and would famously steer by a road map on his knees, while snorting cocaine off it. He died in agony of multiple organ failure brought on by drug use.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Prince Williams/WireImageFollowing news that Emilio Garcia, a former cameraman for rap star Megan Thee Stallion, is suing the rapper for withholding wages and creating a “hostile work environment,” including forcing him to watch her have sex in a car, another former employee of the rapper has come forward to corroborate some of his claims.Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete, denied Garcia’s allegations soon after they were made, with her attorney, Alex Spiro, telling The Daily Beast, “This is an employment claim for money—with no sexual harassment claim filed and with salacious accusations to attempt to embarrass her. We will deal with this in court.”Garcia’s suit, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, mentions that he confided in a former makeup artist for Megan Thee Stallion about what he was experiencing while working for her, and makeup artist Akil McCoy has come forward as the likely confidante in question. McCoy tells The Daily Beast that he was very familiar with what happened between Garcia and the rap star. “What I witnessed from Megan was acts of selfishness, lack of integrity and accountability when it came to me, Emilio, and others,” McCoy says via email.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Wikimedia CommonsA Maryland high school athletic director was arrested Thursday after police said he used artificial intelligence to generate a fake audio clip of a principal making racist and antisemitic remarks—an alleged frame-job believed to have been in retaliation after the school official opened a probe into him. Dazhon Darien was arrested at Baltimore’s international airport on Thursday, three months after the fake voice recording of Pikesville High School Principal Eric Eiswert circulated far and wide, announced Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough.Eiswert’s voice, which McCullough and AI experts believe was simulated, made disparaging comments about Black students, which make up 50 percent of the student body, and the Jewish community. The clip caused a firestorm in the Baltimore suburb of Pikesville, with students reportedly calling for Eiswert’s ouster while many staff members spoke out to defend his character. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyOnce upon a time Fox News gleefully mocked its cable-news rivals for their breathless promotion of disgraced former Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti, who was once hyped as Donald Trump’s “worst nightmare” and even floated as a possible presidential candidate.Now that the convicted felon is defending the ex-president as a “victim of the system” in the hush money case, begging to testify on Trump’s behalf and trashing Daniels, his former client, as an unstable liar, the tables have turned: Avenatti is now a commodity in the Fox News universe, scoring primetime interviews from prison, where he is serving 19 combined years for embezzlement, extortion, and fraud.The conservative cable giant isn’t exactly running wall-to-wall coverage of the ex-lawyer like MSNBC and CNN did back in the Trump administration. Still, it is striking to see Fox, which famously labeled Avenatti the “Creepy Porn Lawyer,” give him a largely sympathetic platform now that he’s peddling a pro-Trump message.Read more at The Daily Beast.

JP Yim/GettyThe Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is calling for MSNBC to ban Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt from its airwaves over recent comments he made about college students protesting against the war in Gaza.During an appearance last Friday on Morning Joe, Greenblatt railed against the pro-Palestinian protests raging at Columbia University and other college campuses, describing them as antisemitic and threatening to Jewish students. He also took a shot at the two main organizations behind the demonstrations—the Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.“Iran has their military proxies like Hezbollah, and Iran has their campus proxies like these groups like SJP and JVP,” he declared.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Anthony DelMundo/NY Daily News via GettyThe news that Harvey Weinstein’s New York rape conviction was overturned left his victims and #MeToo advocates reeling in disgust. But the disgraced Hollywood mogul was so happy he cried tears of joy.And now the 72-year-old, who has a host of medical problems that go far beyond his infamously deformed genitalia, is looking forward to being transferred from a bleak upstate prison to a lockup in his old stomping grounds of New York City.“Today is a big deal for him. He wants to get the hell out of there,” his lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said of Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, New York, where Weinstein has spent the last year.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesA professor at Columbia University said he was the victim of targeted harassment from campus security officers after the school beefed-up safety protocols in response to the ongoing pro-Palestinian encampment.Dr. Carl Hart, a psychology professor at Columbia University, spoke to The Daily Beast about an “explosive interaction” he had with security personnel on Thursday, which he also briefly described on X.Hart and his wife were entering campus on Thursday afternoon, when a security guard chased him down, claiming he hadn’t properly checked in. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Wally Skalij/Getty ImagesFirst it canceled a valedictorian’s speech. Then it removed all non-university-affiliated speakers from the lineup. Now, in the latest axe to fall on the University of Southern California’s graduation festivities, the school will no longer hold its main commencement ceremony for the thousands of graduates and guests it had promised to host. In an announcement made Thursday, USC blamed logistical problems related to increased security protocols. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Nordin Catic/GettyMaking a deal with a porn star who said she slept with Donald Trump was a step too far even for tabloid king David Pecker, he testified on Thursday. The American Media Inc. (AMI) chief told jurors he had grave concerns that buying her story in a “catch-and-kill” scheme to protect the future president could potentially sully the National Enquirer’s reputation.Pecker was out to dinner with his wife when then-Enquirer Editor-in-Chief Dylan Howard contacted him and said two of his “best sources” had gotten in touch and said an adult film actress named Stormy Daniels was “trying to sell a story that she had a sexual relationship with Donald Trump.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Brendan McDermidA federal judge in New York upheld a defamation verdict against Donald Trump, keeping him on the hook for the $83 million he owes E. Jean Carroll, the writer who accused him of sexual assault.Trump had motioned to receive a new trial, but Judge Lewis Kaplan rebuffed that effort, determining nothing was wrong with the first one that ruled against him.The decision affirms that Carroll suffered harm from Trump publicly railing against her in 2019, as she went public with her more than decade-old sexual assault allegations against Trump.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyAfter an astonishing oral argument session before the Supreme Court, it seems highly likely that there is at least some support for the former president’s position that a president can commit crimes while in office, even ones designed to help them remain in office. And what is the reasoning for this position, at least according to what we can tell from some of the questions posed by several of the justices?The reason at least some justices seem to suggest that we cannot hold former president Trump accountable for his actual effort to spur an insurrection to remain in office is that—get this—some imagined future president might be encouraged to remain in office for fear that they might be prosecuted once they leave office.Wait, what?Read more at The Daily Beast.

ReutersHarvey Weinstein has been “dying to tell his story” for years—and he wants to do it on the witness stand.Hours after the New York Court of Appeals issued a bombshell ruling overturning Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, his defense lawyers took a victory lap outside of Manhattan Criminal Court to praise the decision that marks “a great day for America.” In front of a sea of reporters, defense attorney Arthur Aidala relayed that Weinstein is eager for a retrial—and this time intends to tell the court his version of events without “so much baggage.”“Harvey will, under this ruling, be able to take the stand. He will be able to tell his side of his story,” Aidala said. “He’s been dying to tell his story from Day 1.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

NetflixMainstream animation from the U.S. and Japan may be far apart in sensibility, style, and intended audience, but cartoons from both countries do share one major piece of common ground: the vast difficulty of translating them into live action. Whether softening the artistry of Disney classics for ill-advised blockbuster remakes or attempting to maintain the quirks of a long-running manga adaptation like One Piece for Netflix, there’s an even-when-they-win-they-lose quality to the most notable successes. The would-be franchise-starter City Hunter, Netflix’s latest crack at fleshing out an animated phenom, shares that quixotic feeling, even if it isn’t an awkward Americanization like the streamer's Cowboy Bebop redo.Technically, City Hunter—like a lot of famous anime properties—originates from a manga, and the source material seems pretty flexible, having inspired multiple anime series, several animated features, a live-action adaptation from Hong Kong starring Jackie Chan, and a live-action TV drama from Korea, among others. But the movie is, in its soul, a cartoon brought to life, for better or worse.That’s evident from the jump, as its extended pre-credits opening follows private detective Ryo Saeba (Ryohei Suzuki) and his partner Hideyuki Makimur (Masanobu Andô) chasing a young woman through the streets of Tokyo, attempting to save her. Director Yūichi Satō gives this chase sequence a weightless quality even before the woman’s face bulges with alien-looking veins and she leaps away like a superhuman. None of the action is especially convincing, but it is pleasingly breezy, and the cartooniness extends to the trench-coated characters: Hideyuki is positioned as the straight man, while Ryo maintains nearly wolf-whistling levels of libido.Read more at The Daily Beast.