Trump makes rare Epstein comment as Obama mocks Cheesecake Factory drama in dueling midterm rallies: live updates

House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared irked when asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power, dismissing concerns that Republicans might challenge Democrats’ victories in the midterm elections as “absurd.”

“I want to ask you: Are you committed to a peaceful transfer of power in January, regardless of the results? » a reporter asked Johnson.

“It’s a little stupid to have to ask the question,” replied the Louisiana Republican. “Of course we will have a peaceful transfer of power, but there will be no transfer, because we will retain the majority, and I will be the Speaker of the House, and I will keep my hands steady at the wheel.”

In a rare remark about Epstein, who ran in the same social circles as Trump decades ago, the president said Wednesday night that he had thrown him “to the brink of Mar-a-Lago hell.”

Barack Obama mocked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for trying to harshly reform the military, while reminding the crowd that he had seriously suggested the actual execution of Nidal M. Hasan.

President Donald Trump finally put a stop to that.

“These are not serious people,” the former president said in Georgia.

Barack Obama made sure to mention the Cheesecake Factory drama… saying he loved it there – and found it funny that the White House had NO problem with his argument about rising prices and was instead complaining about his comparison.

At an earlier rally in Ohio, Obama trashed President Donald Trump’s White House renovations, saying, “He makes the White House look like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory.” »

The MAGA base blasted the former president for his “elitist” comments, even as Trump later joked that many Americans couldn’t afford to eat at his Mar-a-Lago club.

“The whole thing was crazy. They mobilized an entire government to respond to this joke – not inflation – but this joke,” the former president said in Georgia on Wednesday evening.

Barack Obama criticized Donald Trump and his empty campaign promises — without using the president’s name — while asking a Georgia audience to examine the facts.

Noting that the Trump administration made a “series of bad decisions” punctuated by the war in Iran, the former president said the nation’s suffering and difficult times were a direct result of Trump.

“You’re not going to get any relief anytime soon,” Obama said.

The president began Wednesday night’s rally in Ohio by gushing over the body of Republican Sen. Jon Husted.

Then a protester in the crowd yelled about Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender who ran in the same social circles as Trump decades ago.

“I kicked Epstein out of a club 20 years ago because I thought he was a weirdo,” Trump responded.

He called the hecklers who constantly interrupted his rally speeches “sick and weak people.”

Republican Sen. Jon Husted and former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown are neck and neck in the U.S. Senate race in Ohio.

Husted and Brown were tied at 47 percent in a new NetChoice/Echelon Insights poll. Another Suffolk University poll gave Brown a 3-point lead, 47 to 44 percent. Brown also led Husted by 3 points in an InsiderAdvantage poll, 47 to 44 percent.

President Donald Trump visited the Buckeye State for the third time to boost Husted’s chances.

As President Donald Trump’s war in Iran remained in the background as the midterm elections approached, a defense official said the United States was prepared to resume military operations after Election Day.

“The United States is prepared to resume military operations in Iran after the midterms, but no final decision has been made, a defense official told me,” NewsNation White House correspondent Kellie Meyer wrote on X.