STR/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesTrump Media & Technology Group, the company that owns Truth Social, on Monday posted an alarming loss and less than $1 million in revenue in its first quarter since going public. Trump Media, which began trading in March under the ticker symbol DJT, reported $770,500 in revenue—crediting its “nascent advertising initiative”—down from $1.1 million last year. However, it also reported a net loss of $327.6 million during the first three months of the year, as compared with a loss of $210,300 a year ago. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Evelyn HocksteinMonths after he was accused of overseeing a “boy’s club” workplace rife with misogyny and harassment, the FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said Wednesday he’s prepared to step down once a successor is confirmed. “In light of recent events, I am prepared to step down from my responsibilities once a successor is confirmed,” he said. “Until that time, I will continue to fulfill my responsibilities as Chairman of the FDIC, including the transformation of the FDIC’s workplace culture.”A Wall Street Journal report in November marked the beginning of Gruenberg’s downfall, with women at the FDIC claiming male employees got to keep their jobs despite sending colleagues pictures of their penises, inviting others to a strip club, and speaking openly about having sex with a subordinate. The agency was also accused of tolerating a messy drinking culture, with staffers having allegedly urinated off the roof and vomited in the elevator of a hotel where employees are housed for trainings.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Raymond Hall/GC ImagesThe fallout from the video showing Sean “Diddy” Combs assaulting his ex Cassie Ventura continues, as New York City Mayor Eric Adams is potentially reconsidering Diddy’s key to the city award, per PIX11.Adams presented the Harlem native the award in Times Square in 2023, for “his contributions to music, business, and philanthropy,” according to mayor’s office. The mayor was giddy to hand over the key, telling Diddy on stage, “The bad boy of entertainment is getting the key to the city from the bad boy of politics!” But the newly released video of Diddy violently attacking his ex-girlfriend at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 has raised questions about whether the rapper should still be in possession of that award—particularly as Adams has staked his political platform on combating domestic violence in the city.Read more at The Daily Beast.

John Lamparski/WireImageA server at The Ribbon restaurant on the Upper West Side is suing his place of employment and Paramount Pictures, the distributor of the 2024 musical film Mean Girls, for discrimination, because, the server says, he was prevented from working at a release party for the movie because of his weight. In his lawsuit, which was filed on Monday and has been reviewed by The Daily Beast, plaintiff Joseph Sacchi—described as “a young, talented singer trained in classical opera [who] supplements his income by working as a server”—claims that his employer, The Ribbon, “excluded him from working at the reception because representatives from Paramount Pictures, the distributors of Mean Girls, specifically asked that he be excluded, solely based on his appearance.”Saachi is 6’2” and weighs 360 pounds, his suit notes. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty/Rexburg Police DepartmentThe night before Tammy Daybell was found dead in her Idaho bedroom in October 2019, the doomsday novelist’s wife told her son that all she wanted was her favorite meal and some rest.“She said, ‘I don’t feel good today; I don't want to cook. Can you go get some McDonald’s for us?’” Garth Daybell testified on Monday at the trial of his father, Chad Daybell, who is accused of murdering Tammy and his lover’s two children.Garth Daybell said he made the McDonald’s run—making sure to get his mom a quarter-pounder with cheese—then left the house a few hours later for his night shift at a local haunted house.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Dia Dipasupil/Getty ImagesJen Psaki might not be President Joe Biden’s press secretary anymore, but there are some memories of the White House Press Briefing Room that you just can’t shake.Almost exactly two years after departing the position and taking up a gig at MSNBC, people are still asking her about her frostiest relationships with the room’s regulars. To this day, one name that constantly resurfaces is Peter Doocy, who proved one of the banes of Psaki’s tenure in his capacity as Fox News’ White House correspondent.His name was dropped once again at a recent forum hosted by The Ankler, where media executive Janice Min brought up the fact that Psaki discussed Doocy at length in her book, Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World, which hit shelves this month.Read more at The Daily Beast.

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/GETTYA cadre of MAGA loyalists who had gathered to show their support for Donald Trump during his hush-money trial was shouted down by a bevy of cowbell-clanging anti-Trump protesters on Monday when they tried to speak outside of a lower Manhattan courthouse.In what has become a familiar scene, several of the former president’s allies appeared in New York City on Monday to rail against Trump's prosecution and demonstrate to the 2024 White House hopeful their utter devotion to him. In recent days, a number of wannabe vice-presidential candidates and MAGA lawmakers have made the trek to curry favor with Trump and help him circumvent the judge’s gag order.The group that flanked the twice-impeached ex-president this time around included South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, former New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik, ex-Trump administration official Kash Patel, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller, and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA). All but Patel, meanwhile, were customarily decked out in Trump’s standard red tie and navy suit combo.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Getty ImagesIvan Boesky, the infamous inside trader who at least partially inspired the fictional character Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film Wall Street, died on Monday, his daughter confirmed. He was 87.Marianne Boesky told CNN her father died in his sleep, but did not share additional details about his cause of death. In an Instagram post, she called him a “dedicated and loving father above all else.”Boesky’s name became synonymous with financial greed in the 1980s, when, after making hundreds of millions by working on Wall Street, he told business school graduates University of California, Berkeley, that “greed is healthy.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Mongrel MediaOne of the scariest moments in a film this year will invariably belong to Jeremy Strong.Early into The Apprentice, the new film about Donald Trump’s rise that premiered Monday at the Cannes Film Festival, Strong, playing notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, takes Trump, played by Sebastian Stan, into the room where he secretly records phone calls. With darkness behind in his intense eyes, Strong, as Cohn, tells Trump about how he orchestrated the death penalty for Ethel Rosenberg, the convicted Soviet spy. He explains how while others argued that her life should be saved because she was a mother, he disagreed. “She betrayed our country and she has to die,” he says, with no remorse. It feels like evil incarnate leaping off the screen.Strong’s work is another master class from the Succession star, currently on his way to a Tony for An Enemy of the People on Broadway. It feels like one of the first performances of this year’s Cannes that has true Oscar potential. That is, if the entire prospect of this movie doesn't scare people away.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Steven Hirsch/Pool via ReutersThe judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan suddenly sealed his courtroom on Monday afternoon, kicking all reporters out so he could engage in a brawl with Robert Costello, a MAGA-friendly lawyer who played a key role in the attempted backchannel between Michael Cohen and the Trump White House in 2018.After Costello, a former prosecutor, was reprimanded for delivering outbursts in the court whenever he was interrupted or told not to answer a question that had been objected to and sustained, Costello began to stare down the judge.“Mr. Costello, I’d like to discuss proper decorum in my courtroom, OK?” Judge Juan Merchan said after ordering the jury out of the room.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Rick Kern/Getty Images for iHeartRadioOn Sunday, Sean “Diddy” Combs posted a video apology that followed CNN’s bombshell release of 2016 hotel surveillance footage in which the rapper and mogul could be seen throwing his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, to the ground and kicking her. Combs said he was “disgusted” by his behavior, for which he “sought out professional help.” And yet even The Breakfast Club co-host Charlamagne Tha God—who has in the past expressed displeasure over Diddy’s legacy being ruined—was, in this instance, unmoved. “Can’t believe anything that comes out of Diddy’s mouth,” Charlamagne began, after his co-host played a clip of Diddy’s apology. “He’s not sorry, he’s sorry he got caught. He’s sorry that the video leaked, OK? If that video hadn’t come out, he’d still be lying right now.” On Monday, Charlamagne also crowned Diddy the “donkey of the day.”In the past, Charlamagne has sung a slightly different tune. Just last month, in response to the news that Diddy’s homes were being raided, the host said on another podcast, “I don’t know, man, I just don’t like it. I don’t like it because it’s sad. How many peoples’ legacies have we watched burn to the ground? From Russell Simmons, Diddy… These guys fucking provided the soundtrack to our lives. They contributed to the culture in real ways before we knew any of this shit. You have feelings, you have mixed emotions.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyA famous 1980s anti-drug PSA features a son being confronted by his dad, who asks him: “Who taught you how to do this stuff?” The kid replies, “You, alright. I learned it by watching you!”Today’s right-wing leaders could be forgiven for having a similar answer for their toxic comportment. The only difference is that in this analogy, Donald Trump, their “daddy,” is proud of the behavior. Trumpism continues to trickle, and this past week shows examples of it having trickled down to members of the right in the U.S. Congress, state governments, and even the U.S. Supreme Court (or their spouses, at the very least).Let’s start small, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments at a committee meeting last Thursday night. “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you are reading” Greene said to Rep. Jasmine Crockett.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via GettyRobert F. Kennedy Jr., whose pitch to voters has centered around his relative youth and mental sharpness, made a gaffe of his own Sunday when he suggested that whoever wins the White House in November should be sitting down with a laundry list of authoritarian leaders from around the world—including former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has not held office in more than 10 years.“We need to be sitting down with other world leaders, with people like President Xi and President Putin and President Ahmadinejad, the prime minister, all the people—we can’t afford to be at war anymore,” Kennedy said during a speech focusing on artificial intelligence technology.The timing of RFK Jr.’s gaffe was also unfortunate—coming just hours after news that the current president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, was involved in a helicopter crash near the country’s border with Azerbaijan. It was later reported that Raisi died in the incident.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Luke Hales/Getty, Gilbert Flores/GettyThis past weekend, as Pearl Jam performed at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, frontman Eddie Vedder sounded off on Kansas City Chiefs player Harrison Butker’s controversial commencement speech. Butker has gotten heaps of backlash over his virulent address at Benedictine College last weekend, in which he shared his belief that women belong in the kitchen. In response, Vedder called the NFL kicker a “fucking pussy,” according to Variety.As he introduced Pearl Jam’s gender-inclusive opening act, Deep Sea Diver, Vedder told the crowd, “The singer, Jessica, and the keyboard player, Patti, they must not have believed that ‘diabolical lie’ that women should take pride in taking a back seat to their man.” “The irony was that when he was saying that, he looked like such a fucking pussy,” Vedder added.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Patrick GorskiSimone Biles has had enough with the jokes suggesting her husband, the Chicago Bears defensive back Jonathan Owens, is a nobody compared to her.She snapped in a fiery Instagram story Sunday night, writing over a pastel background that those continuing to slight Owens were being “disrespectful to my relationship and my husband.”“Respectfully, fuck off,” she added.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Cannes Film FestivalEarly on into the three hours of viewing Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 I thought back to last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where I saw Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon for the first time. That brilliant movie is a full throated condemnation of the genocide of Native Americans by white people who claim the U.S. as their own. Horizon is not that.Instead, one of the inciting incidents in the unwieldy film that Costner directs is a violent Apache assault on a settlement. The mostly white settlers are portrayed as terrified innocents. Sienna Miller’s Frances hides underneath her house with her similarly blonde daughter (Georgia MacPhail) while her husband and son are murdered. They are shot in beatific fashion, meanwhile, the Native American assailants are shadowy figures who attack unprovoked. There are nods to nuance that come later, but far too little in the first part of Costner's passion project, which debuted at the festival.Everything about Horizon is retrograde. Men are noble heroes (like Hayes Ellison, the drifter played by Costner) or brutes who toss around the women, themselves either saintly like Miller or frivolous and nagging. Even the score from John Debney, with its sweeping strings, feels like it was piped in the ’90s. But Costner was better in that era—there’s more nuance in Dances with Wolves than there is here.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesDemi Moore’s graphic body horror movie The Substance has made a huge splash at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Winning a reportedly raucous 11-minute standing ovation and plenty of raves from critics—as well as a handful of winces from queasier audiences—The Substance has been called an “instant classic.” A good handful of that talk has been about the film’s explosive full-frontal nudity, which Moore spoke more about at the film’s post-premiere press conference.Revenge director Coralie Fargeat’s new film follows Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore), a washed-up actress who gets fired from a TV network after being deemed “too old.” Following her firing, Elisabeth is invited to a new program called “The Substance,” which allows aging actresses to become their younger selves again. Moore’s figure transforms into that of Margaret Qualley—although she must frequently hibernate to keep her young body available for movie shoots.There’s plenty of shock value in The Substance, early viewers have reported. For example: One of the first-look stills from the film features a woman’s back being stapled together. Described by Variety as Cronenbergian, The Substance also features Moore and co-star Qualley nude, which became an important topic at Monday’s press conference about the film.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Comedy Central/screengrabFor his latest “Fingers the Pulse” special on Comedy Central, airing Monday, May 20 at 11:30 p.m. ET, The Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper turns his eye toward Russia. But instead of traveling to Moscow, Klepper focuses on the “Moscow Tools” here in America who—wittingly or not—have been doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding.To gain insight into what has drawn the MAGA faithful, including Donald Trump himself, to Putin, Klepper sits down with former Trump administration National Security Advisor John Bolton. And, as can be seen in the exclusive clip below, Klepper gets some surprisingly frank answers.Klepper explained to The Daily Beast that he “wanted to wrap my head around Reagan’s GOP newfound embrace of Putin,” so he decided to sit down with the “most Republican” person he could find.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Elizabeth Frantz/ReutersPresident Joe Biden erroneously claimed on Sunday he was still serving as vice president during the COVID-19 pandemic.Speaking at a dinner for the NAACP in Detroit, Michigan, Biden went on a tangent proclaiming he was on the ground in the state to help out as the virus raged on, at the request of former President Barack Obama.“And when I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic,” Biden said. “And what happened was, Barack said to me, ‘Go to Detroit, and help fix it.’ Well the poor mayor, he spent more time with me than he thought he was ever going to have to. God love you.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Cannes Film FestivalWhen I say The Substance, the Demi Moore-starring movie that rocked Cannes, is bloody that’s an understatement. Take the amount of blood you think could be in this movie and double it. No, triple it. At one point during the runtime you will think you have seen the bloodiest part, but just you wait. It gets bloodier.And yet the blood isn’t even the part of this wonderfully batshit body horror spectacular that had me almost throwing up. It’s a symphony of lurching flesh that might have you both gagging and cheering. The audience at my press screening of Cannes certainly did. We whooped, we gasped, and we clapped. It’s the grossest thing you will see all year.Directed by Coralie Fargeat, of the also bloody Revenge, the film is at its core pretty simple. Moore, who is locked in to her role, is Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading star with a workout empire called Sparkle Your Life, where she sways her booty like Jane Fonda back in the day. But she is also miserable. Hollywood—or the fake version of Hollywood with ’80s flourishes that Fargeat has created—is casting her out. An executive not inconsequentially named Harvey and played with disgusting gusto by Dennis Quaid wants to replace her. (An early nasty moment involves Quaid eating shrimp with a close up on his mouth.)Read more at The Daily Beast.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s OfficeCalifornia police say there’s “concern” for the well-being of Princess Tatiana of Greece and Denmark’s stepbrother, who mysteriously disappeared from the posh coastal community of Malibu over the weekend.A barefoot Attilio Brillembourg, 53, vanished without a trace at around 1 a.m. Saturday near the 6000 block of Murphy Way, police said. Maps show the area he went missing from is rural by Los Angeles County standards, with a single road traversing a steep hillside with no street lights. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office deemed Brillembourg a missing person on Sunday but has released few other details about the circumstances of his disappearance. It has not indicated if it believes foul play is a factor and did not immediately respond to a request for additional information by The Daily Beast.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Azin Haghighi/Anadolu via Getty ImagesAn Israeli official has gone on the record to deny their country was behind the helicopter crash which claimed the lives of Iran’s president, foreign minister, and others Sunday.President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, and the six other passengers on board the chopper that went down in poor weather conditions were all confirmed dead Monday by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. An anonymous Israeli official told Reuters that Israel was not responsible for the incident, simply saying: “It wasn’t us.”The wreckage of the crash was found early Monday in a mountainous area following a massive search and rescue operation that ran through the night. Reports had emerged a day earlier that the helicopter had suffered a “hard landing” as Raisi was traveling from the Iran-Azerbaijan border—where he’d been inaugurating a dam—on the way to the Iranian city of Tabriz.Read more at The Daily Beast.

NBC/screengrabDrake Bell is once again discussing his decision to participate in the ID docuseries Quiet On Set, in which he shared his story of being sexually abused by dialogue coach Brian Peck.In an interview with Today that aired on Monday, the Nickelodeon alum was asked why he wanted to share his story for the first time in the doc after so many years.“Things were spiraling out of control emotionally and mentally,” he said, “and I thought maybe this could help in the healing process and also help others who have gone through the same situations or similar situations.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Andrea Renault/Star Max/GC Images/GettyMichael Cohen isn’t just a convicted liar and disbarred attorney. He’s also an admitted thief.The testimony from the Manhattan district attorney’s lead witness against Donald Trump took a dive Monday morning, when the ex-president’s former consigliere got cornered during cross-examination and forced to acknowledge that he overbilled the Trump Organization by $30,000.In a heated exchange, defense lawyer Todd Blanche flipped a switch and went back to his days as a federal prosecutor—grilling Cohen on the way he’d gotten away with a crime.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Hollie Adams/ReutersA London court on Monday ruled that Julian Assange can appeal against his extradition to the United States, a decision which will be welcomed as a significant victory by his supporters but one which is also likely to extend his lengthy legal battle in Britain.The ruling comes after two High Court judges in March deferred a decision about whether the WikiLeaks founder could launch a new appeal against an order from the U.K. government for him to be sent to the U.S. to face trial on espionage charges. The justices said at the time that Assange would be granted leave to appeal unless the American government could provide “satisfactory” assurances about the rights that Assange would have during a prospective trial.The U.S. Embassy in London in April made assurances that the Australian journalist would not be “prejudiced by reason of his nationality” and said that he would be able to seek First Amendment rights. American officials also said he would not face the death penalty in his case.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Carlos Barria/ReutersDonald Trump came out swinging Monday morning, pushing back on claims that he froze up during a speech over the weekend and asserting that an apparent mishap involving a wobbly podium was, in fact, a stunning feat of his physical talents.On his Truth Social platform, the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee first took issue with the way his lengthy mid-speech pause at the National Rifle Association convention Saturday had been made out to be an unintentional gaffe. He said it was actually a “standard” part of his speeches and blamed President Joe Biden’s campaign for the supposed misinterpretation of what happened.“My Speech in Dallas this weekend at the NRA’s ‘Endorsement of President Donald J. Trump,’ was attended by a Record Crowd of very enthusiastic Patriots,” he wrote. “The Biden Campaign, however, put out a Fake Story that I ‘froze’ for 30 seconds, going into the ‘Musical Interlude’ section, when in actuality, the 30 to 60 second period of silence is standard in every one of my Speeches where we use the Music.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Gil Cohen-Magen/ReutersThe International Criminal Court’s prosecutor on Monday said that he has requested a warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders.More to follow...Read more at The Daily Beast.

Carlos Barria/ReutersDonald Trump’s hush-money trial will resume Monday with more cross-examination of Michael Cohen, the former president’s one-time lawyer and fixer who is at the epicenter of the historic case.It will probably be Cohen’s final day on the stand after already delivering explosive testimony about his old boss’ alleged involvement in the $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about a sexual liaison with Trump. Trump’s defense attorneys will likely continue with questioning designed to chip away at the credibility of Cohen—the last prosecution witness in the trial.Prosecutors claim Trump broke the law by falsifying business records to conceal the hush-money payment to Daniels. He did so, they claim, to protect his 2016 presidential campaign from Daniels’ potentially damaging story of an extramarital one-night stand coming to light. Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges in the case and has denied having sex with Daniels.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Paramount+During its trailblazing heyday, Lollapalooza provided an unparalleled platform for the alternative. The problem was that by doing so it made the alternative mainstream, which ultimately caused the summer music festival to betray its roots—an inevitable evolution that stands as the most fascinating aspect of Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza, a nostalgia-fest which understands that all good underground things must either die or become the very thing against which they rebel.Ironically, Michael John Warren’s three-part Paramount+ docuseries (May 21) is somewhat undercut by a similar dynamic, given that its own desire to end on a happy note means that it must ignore the fact that there’s no going home again to recapture the magic that made a sensation truly sensational in the first place. As a result, it’s ultimately more promotion than critique.Lollapalooza launched in 1991 as the brainchild of Perry Farrell, frontman for the paradigm-shifting band Jane’s Addiction, who—along with cofounders Ted Gardner, Don Muller, and Marc Geiger—viewed it a way to channel the spirit of England’s Reading Festival (and its ilk) by bringing together an assorted line-up of artists on a single stage. Designed as a farewell for Jane’s Addiction, which planned to disband once this run of shows was completed, it quickly blossomed into an invigorating new take on an old format. Attendees were offered not just one great performance after another, but a common area filled with local avant-garde artists, social activist booths that sought to raise awareness about guns, the environment, and voting, and additional attractions that made it an immersive day-long experience directly attuned to the era’s youth culture.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyKHARKIV, Ukraine—Fighting on the front lines has taken a disastrous turn for the worse after Russia broke through Kharkiv’s line of defense on May 10. Throughout Eastern Ukraine, the brutal repercussions of the six-month-long pause in new U.S. aid led to massive losses on the battlefield. Ukrainian soldiers risking their lives for their country are suffering from physical and psychological trauma. With few ways to decompress from the all-encompassing effects of war, many are turning to drugs and alcohol as a way to cope, which has plunged the military even deeper into darkness.Alcohol is banned in Donbas, the region that has been the epicenter of the war, and all stores and restaurants are forbidden from selling it, but still it makes its way to the front lines via off-rotation soldiers, volunteers, smugglers who charge outlandish prices, or journalists, who bring it in as a peace offering before they begin their interviews.Multiple soldiers who spoke to The Daily Beast claim that some of those defending Ukraine are also abusing illegal substances that they buy through shady online businesses run by the country’s mafia. Some, they say, are drunk at military positions. The men claim that some of their comrades have been so drunk or high that they have killed civilians, soldiers, and animals in a blind rage or while driving under the influence.Read more at The Daily Beast.