Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is setting out on a new MAGA crusade: defunding the state of New York to avenge Donald Trump.

Greene, along with New York Representative Mike Lawler, has proposed cutting the Empire State off from federal funding in a bid to punish residents after 12 jurors  convicted  Trump on Thursday. The extremely unlikely initiative would cut off access to federal resources for education, housing, law enforcement, veterans’ benefits, and other social needs.

But that’s not Greene’s only Trump-saving effort. The Georgia Republican also wants Congress to step in to prevent special counsel Jack Smith from prosecuting Trump in the federal election interference case and the classified documents trial.

The first step: pressure House Speaker Mike Johnson—whom Greene tried and failed to force out of Congress just last month—to lead the charge.

“The speaker of the house is one of the most powerful people in the country,” Greene   said   last week. “We control the budget, we control the power of the purse. If Speaker Johnson supports Trump like he claims, he should stop the special counsel, Jack Smith, and he should be using the power of the purse to hold New York accountable for the sham convictions against President Trump. The entire thing is political, it’s outrageous, and our country has completely turned a corner.”

While Johnson is unlikely to be on board with defunding an entire state, he   has   made clear he disagrees with the ruling. Johnson called on the Supreme Court to intervene,   indicating   that he thought some of the justices were “deeply concerned” about the trial outcome.

“I think that the justices on the court—I know many of them personally—I think they are deeply concerned about that, as we are,” Johnson told   Fox & Friends   on Friday. “So I think they’ll set this straight.”

Trump has 30 days to appeal the conviction, according to New York penal law. Appealing the case would most likely turn into a referendum on the judge that oversaw it, Judge Juan Merchan, who endured Trump’s mud-slinging throughout the seven-week trial primarily over a gag order, which prevented Trump from attacking witnesses, jurors, and courtroom staff’s family—but did not prevent him from hurling vitriol at Merchan.

Trump could potentially  push  the state case to federal courts if he were reelected as president, but doing so would be incredibly unlikely unless he had already exhausted all other avenues via the appeals process, which could take years.

If you want an honest opinion, ask a kid. That lesson was on wide display Monday as the young son of Republican Representative John Rose stole the spotlight from his MAGA dad and made a bunch of silly faces to CSPAN’s camera—which even the normally buttoned-up CSPAN couldn’t resist highlighting.

Rose spoke from prepared remarks to the House decrying the  conviction  of Donald Trump, calling it a “terrible precedent set by our country” and a “politically-driven prosecution” before becoming background noise for his 6-year-old son’s devious performance.

“The charges brought against Donald Trump should gravely concern every member of this body as well as every American across our country,” said Rose as his 6-year-old son’s body became gravely concerned with the need to make silly faces.

The goof heard ‘round the world quickly gained popularity, with  gifs  and jokes about getting lost rewatching the clip, feeling  kinship  to the youngster’s informality amid continued conservative outrage at Trump’s felony conviction, and cheeky jokes that the rambunctious sprog was flagging the  Illuminati .

Guy’s performance even earned him a  job offer  from The Onion CEO Ben Collins.

“This is what I get for telling my son Guy to smile at the camera for his little brother,”  said  Rose with a shrug emoji on X (formerly Twitter), apparently also forgetting why he spoke on the House floor and reminding us all that no amount of performative outrage can outmatch a kid goofing off.

Dr. Anthony Fauci visited Capitol Hill on Monday to testify on the origins of Covid-19, but some Republican members on the House Oversight Committee had no intention of asking anything even remotely relevant to scientific inquiry.

The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was repeatedly grilled by GOP lawmakers who clearly had not done their homework before they tried to pin baseless allegations against him, in an apparent attempt to undermine his credibility as the medical leader of America’s pandemic response.

The hearing opened with committee Chair James Comer  refusing  to let Fauci actually answer any of his questions. The Kentucky Republican said it was because he had so many questions to get through.

In another embarrassing instance, New York Representative Nicole Malliotakis tried—and failed—to implicate the infectious diseases expert in a popular conspiracy theory, including that he had received royalties from pharmaceutical companies for coronavirus-related medications and vaccines.

“How much have you earned in royalties from pharmaceutical companies since the pandemic began in 2021?”  asked  Malliotakis.

“Zero,” replied Fauci.

The New York Republican then proceeded to read a headline in front of her, citing that an “NIH scientist had made $710 million from drugmakers.” “You’re saying that you did not receive any of the $710 million?” she pressed.

Fauci knew exactly how much he had made: just $122 for a somewhat unrelated monoclonal antibody that he had patented decades prior. But Malliotakis wasn’t satisfied with that. Instead, she attempted to corner Fauci on any royalties—not necessarily related to Covid—that he had received over the course of the pandemic, and whether any of the $710 million had gone to him.

“I think none,” Fauci said before fending off bubbling interruptions from the Trump ally. “No—I’m on the record, and I want to make sure that this is clear: that I developed a monoclonal antibody about 25 years ago that’s used as a diagnostic that has nothing to do with Covid, and I receive about $120 a year from that patent.”

Later, Arizona Representative Debbie Lesko attempted to  frame  Fauci for allegedly participating in a series of emails that discussed suppressing the “lab leak theory” for  Covid without realizing that the emails don’t actually exist.

“You said about four or five things, Congressman, that were just not true,” Fauci responded after Lesko laid out her theory.

“Well, we have emails to prove it,” Lesko said.

“But you don’t,” he said, before Maryland Representative Kweisi Mfume interjected to correct Lesko that “no, we don’t have it.”

“I get tired of hearing ‘We got it,’ and then when we ask for it, it’s not there. We do not have it,” Mfume said. “That’s just incorrect.”

And another mind-boggling line of questioning by Ohio Representative Jim Jordan   prompted   the medical expert to ask, “What does that have to do with me?”