RFK Jr. in a tight spot after Trump realized he doesn't need 'freaks' around: author

A former associate of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a recent podcast interview that his old pal seems to be in a tight spot as President Donald Trump appears to have realized that he doesn't need "freaks" like Kennedy around anymore.

Kurt Andersen, author of "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire," about conspiracy theories, argued during an interview on "The Daily Beast Podcast" with Joanna Coles that Trump's recent nomination of former surgeon general Dr. Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention marked a significant shift in thinking for the Trump administration.

For the first year of the second term, Trump seemed content to let Kennedy do what he wished at Health and Human Services. Now, Trump appears to be taking a more mainstream approach to public health policy, which Andersen, who met Kennedy at Harvard University, noted puts Kennedy in a tenuous position.

"He does have this anti-vaccine, anti-science part of the coalition that was important," Andersen said, adding that Trump "doesn't need that now."

"I believe it's because most people that Donald Trump knows and talks to, at Mar-A-Lago or wherever, think this is nuts," he added. "Things like the undermining of scientific research from the National Institutes of Health and all of that are crazy. So, I think he's finally gotten around to saying, 'Yeah, I have gotten what I'm going to get out of Bobby Kennedy, probably. So I don't need these freaks anymore.'"

Andersen's comments came after Kennedy faced contentious hearings on Capitol Hill about vaccines before the House Ways and Means Committee.

A Democratic political analyst was floored on Sunday after President Donald Trump's "lying" about negotiations to end the war in Iran seemed to come back to bite him.

Over the weekend, Trump said the White House was preparing to send another delegation to Pakistan to negotiate the end of the war in Iran. The deployment follows Vice President JD Vance's unsuccessful trip to the Middle East last week to secure a deal.

Trump's announcement seemed to catch the Iranian counterparts off-guard, as Iranian state media reported that Iranian officials were unaware that talks had been scheduled.

The news floored Adam Mockler, a Democratic analyst and founder of Mockler Media, who asked Trump in a new reaction video on YouTube, "How do you screw up this badly?"

"Iran wasn't privy to any more negotiations, yet Donald Trump announced that we're sending JD Vance and an entire delegation over to Pakistan for negotiations," Mockler said. "But the question is, negotiations with whom? Iran isn't even privy to any of this again. How do you screw up this badly on the global stage?"

Mockler added that Trump's "lying" was sending him down a path where he is losing credibility with world leaders. That could come back to bit him as he seeks a way to end the war in Iran.

"He is straight-up lying about negotiations that aren't taking place," Mockler said.

Eight children were killed, and the suspect is dead following a mass shooting Sunday morning that Shreveport police are describing as a domestic disturbance, KSLA-TV and KTBS-TV report. Two adult women and another teen were also injured in the incident that took place at two separate residences.

The victims who died range in age from 18 months to approximately 14 years old, according to Shreveport Police Department Cpl. Chris Bordelon. The eight child appeared to have tried escaping by jumping off a roof on the back of the house, he said.

The shootings occurred at two separate addresses about a quarter-mile apart in Shreveport’s Cedar Grove neighborhood, within 100 yards of the Caddo Magnet High School property.

Shreveport police pursued the suspect, 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, who reportedly carjacked the vehicle he used in his attempt to escape. He led police on a chase into Bossier City, where Bordelon said officers fired their weapons at Elkins. It was not immediately clear whether police killed Elkins or he took his own life.

Elkins is related to some of the children who were killed and was in a relationship with one of the survivors, according to police.

Louisiana State Police will conduct an investigation of the shooting involving the Shreveport Police and Elkins.

Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux called Sunday morning’s events “maybe the worst tragic situation we’ve ever had.”

This is the fifth mass shooting in Louisiana this year and one of 114 nationwide, according to the Gun Violence Archive. It counts a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are killed or injured. Mass shootings have killed 10 people and injured 17 more in Louisiana.

This is a developing story.

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President Donald Trump has dragged the U.S. into a "really dangerous" situation that he can't get out of, according to one analyst.

David Pakman, a liberal YouTuber and host of "The David Pakman Show," argued in a recent reaction video that Trump's efforts to reinstate the terms of the Obama administration's Iran Nuclear Deal, which Trump tore up in 2018, have put the U.S. in a bad situation. On the one hand, it has given Iran some leverage in the negotiations to end the war. On the other hand, it has also soured the relationship between the U.S. and its European allies, Pakman argued.

"We are now getting a president saying out loud, 'I'm trying to get us back to where we were,'" Pakman said. "He can barely speak now, in comparison, with fragmented sentences and all of it. And the reason I'm referring to the cognitive stuff is that Trump wasn't even coherent enough to realize in 2018 that this deal was not bad."

"Now with another seven and a half to eight years of decline behind us, it is even less likely that he is going to be able to put something together," he added.

"So, as Trump tries to dissolve the problems that he created and solve issues that are of his own doing, allies around the world are saying, 'That is not something we want to be a part of.' And that's a really dangerous thing," he continued.