Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it grapples with almost $1 billion in debt.

The media company, best known for owning the Redbox movie rental kiosk brand, informed its employees of its filing on Saturday, which was done with a Delaware bankruptcy court. The filing states that the company owes $970 million, and lists multiple unsecured creditors, including Walmart, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, and Paramount Pictures, among others.

“Overnight we filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection,” a message to employees read. “In connection with the filing, we have applied for approval of a debtor in possession [DIP] loan. Upon court approval, we expect payroll to be funded early in the week and funding for this upcoming week’s payroll to also be secured. We also expect to have the funds to reinstate medical benefits back to May 14, 2024 and going forward. We will provide regular updates.”

Earlier this month, an SEC filing from the company stated that its net losses last year was $636.6 million, up drastically from 2022’s $111.2 million. The filing stated that unless funding for the company was secured, bankruptcy could be considered a possibility.

Besides Redbox, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment is also known as the parent company of Crackle and Popcornflix, both of which are ad-supported free streaming services.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment’s financial woes come after the company has made several acquisitions, including Redbox Entertainment in 2022 for $375 million. The iconic red kiosks were well-known for their locations inside stores like Walmart and Walgreens, and provided a means for people to rent physical DVD movies after movie rental Blockbuster went underwater in the early 2010s.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment is the latest media group to struggle financially, as Vice Media filed for bankruptcy in May last year before being acquired by Fortress Investment Group shortly after. Cineworld, the owner of the Regal Cinemas outlet, similarly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy before emerging from bankruptcy last year.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said he never considered resigning from his role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases despite backlash from his politics pertaining to COVID.

In addition to the backlash Fauci faced from President Donald Trump’s administration over his COVID policies, he also endured many death threats over the years. Despite this, Fauci said he saw it as his duty to remain in the role. 

“I just felt that we have to have somebody there who is actually getting the correct information to the American public,” Fauci told ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday.

“I have felt, and still do, a very strong responsibility to the American public, not to any administration or any person, but to the American public,” Fauci said.

Fauci held his role from 1984 to 2022 and guided the country through other disease outbreaks, including Zika, Ebola, and, most notably, COVID-19. He said he felt he had the duty to continue in the role.

Facui said he was “afraid that despite the pressures and all the somewhat unusual things that were going on, if I did walk away from it, there would be little opportunity to get the correct, potentially life-saving information to the American public.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Earlier this month, Fauci testified before the House for a hearing on COVID, during which he was criticized by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) for her discontent with Fauci’s handling of the pandemic. She refused to call him “doctor,” instead referring to him as “that man does not deserve to have a license.” Greene added to her criticism and stated that his license “should be revoked, and he belongs in jail.” 

When asked about Greene’s comments, Fauci said, “I mean, that’s bizarre, and that bizarreness leads to other crazies threatening and saying things that are also inappropriate.”

Steve Bannon, a former adviser to former President Donald Trump, previewed his expectations for a second Trump term, listing former officials he says need to be investigated.

Bannon’s comments come ahead of July 1, when the host of the right-wing War Room podcast is due to report to prison to serve a four-month sentence for defying Congress’s inquiry into him, and after the Supreme Court rejected his bid to delay his sentence on Friday.

In a pre-taped interview that was released Sunday, Bannon told ABC’s Jonathan Karl he had “no regrets” for defying subpoenas lobbed against him by the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee, saying it feels “great” to be a “political prisoner.”

Bannon, who vowed to continue appealing his conviction while he resides in a low-security prison in Danbury, Connecticut, predicted that Trump will win the November election by a “landslide.”

“We have a 100% certainty we could beat [President Joe] Biden and beat him big and take the Senate and pick up seats in the House,” Bannon said.

And if Trump wins, Bannon gave Karl a list of former senior intelligence agency and Justice Department officials he thinks should be investigated in the name of “justice,” such as former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who previously told CNN he and other ranking officials in the law enforcement and intelligence community about whether they should consider leaving the country if Trump is elected.

“He ought to be very worried,” Bannon said, adding, “He’s definitely going to be investigated” along with Former FBI Director James Comey, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and former Attorney General Bill Barr.

Karl said what Bannon was suggesting sounded like “retribution,” to which Bannon pushed back. Trump has told his supporters “I am your retribution” during campaign rallies, but Bannon claimed what the former president meant is to have a “very successful, more successful second term.”

“What we’re saying is we want justice. We want to have full investigations, and then if criminal charges come up, then criminal charges come up,” Bannon said.

Bannon also outlined “three verticals” he predicted that a second Trump term would address.

“First vertical is seal the border and the mass deportations,” Bannon said. “The second vertical is about the finances. So Trump’s going to have to deal with a budget of $2 trillion of deficits. He’s going to have to look at the — getting the tax cuts back. And the third is to stop these endless forever wars.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Despite the political strategist’s prison sentence at the height of the 2024 election, Bannon has said his show, which he runs from the basement of his Washington, D.C., home, will continue to run with the help of his employees and guest appearances.

“I’m serving my country right now as a political prisoner,” Bannon said, adding that the sentence will not “suppress my voice.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) reflected upon his own lackluster debate performance in 2022 to dismiss calls for President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race following his poor debate performance. 

Some Democrats are expressing concern about Biden being the nominee after he performed poorly in Thursday night’s presidential debate against former President Donald Trump. Fetterman pointed to his own poor debate performance when he ran for Senate in 2022 against Mehmet Oz, a race Fetterman ultimately won, as a sign that the Biden campaign can recover from the backlash.

“We had a difficult debate, and yet we still managed to go on to win. Now, everybody was calling that that was the end of my career, that was the end of this race, and everyone was predicting that I was going to lose actually by 2 points or more. And I smoked Oz by 5 points,” Fetterman said in an interview with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday.

 “And that’s what I’m saying. It — it’s like one debate is not a career,” He continued.

When Fetterman debated Oz in 2022, it was largely seen as a poor performance by Fetterman, who had just suffered a stroke. One Democratic lawmaker told Axios at the time, “Why the hell did Fetterman agree to this?” 

Some Democrats are asking similar questions as to why the Biden campaign agreed to a debate after Biden often stumbled through questions and appeared lost during the debate. Fetterman, still, dismissed those concerns from Democrats.

“That whole abandoned Biden thing — that’s the dumbest s*** I’ve ever heard,” Fetterman said.  “I mean, if you are more inclined to vote for a Democrat or be a Democrat, if you’re willing to walk away from Joe Biden — you’re by defecting, helping Trump.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

He said voters should consider the contrasts between both the Trump and Biden presidencies when making their choice in November. 

“This is a very stark choice. What kind of president do you want for the next four years?” Fetterman said. “Donald Trump, who is obsessed with revenge and has been very clear he is here to be retribution. I don’t believe that the president office should ever be weaponized against the people in this America that disagree with you.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a stalwart supporter of President Joe Biden, admitted Sunday that there are talks among Democrats on “whether he’s the candidate or whether he isn’t the candidate” after a poor performance against former President Donald Trump in the first presidential debate.

Raskin’s comments are a major departure from what most ranking Democratic lawmakers have said publicly in defense of the president, as most have at least acknowledged Biden had a “bad” debate, while stopping short of calling him to drop out of the presidential race.

“We’re having a serious conversation about what to do,” Raskin said in an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velsh.

“One thing I can tell you is that regardless of what President Biden decides, our party is going to be unified, and our party also needs him at the very center of our deliberations in our campaign, and so whether he’s the candidate or someone else is the candidate,” Raskin added.

Earlier this year, the Maryland representative talked down against Biden’s naysayers who raised questions about his mental acuity when special counsel Robert Hur’s nearly 400-page report regarding his decision not to prosecute Biden criminally described him as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”

“All these age-based cheap shots at President Biden show you how desperate they are, while Donald Trump is fumbling around every day,” Raskin said back in February.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told MSNBC on Sunday that he believed in Biden’s commitment to have a “comeback” after the poor debate performance.

“I’ve been very clear that it was an underwhelming performance on Thursday, during the debate, as President Biden and his campaign have acknowledged. It certainly was a setback. But of course, I believe a setback is nothing more than a setup for a comeback,” Jeffries said.

France‘s right-wing National Rally party has a strong lead in the first round of voting in the country’s legislative elections Sunday, projections show.

President Emmanuel Macron called for snap elections after France’s right-wing dominated elections three weeks ago during the European Union’s election. Early projections show the right-wing party leading, though early official results are expected later Sunday.

Polling suggests the National Rally has a good chance of winning the majority of the lower house of the French parliament, garnering about a third of the support. It would be an increase from their 18% win of the chamber in 2022.

The second round of voting is set to begin July 7. If the National Rally party win, it would be the first time the right-wing has been in power since Nazi Germany took over France during World War II.

The three main groups that are competing for control are the National Rally, Macron’s centrist political alliance, and the New Popular Front coalition which includes center-left, greens and hard-left forces.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

If the National Rally wins, Macron would be expected to name 28-year-old National Rally President Jordan Bardella as prime minister, where both Macron and Bardella would be in “cohabitation,” of French political power.

Macron called the election in hopes it would prevent the rise of the right-wing in France to keep them winning the presidency in 2027, when Macron’s second and final term is set to end.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki contended that Democrats swapping out President Joe Biden with a different candidate would be a difficult process, noting how many voters are already attached to Biden.

Psaki’s assessment on replacing Biden comes after he debated former President Donald Trump on Thursday, during which the president gave a “very bad” performance. Psaki was especially critical of Biden’s performance during the first 30 minutes of the debate, as well as how he failed to make the case for what he would do in a second term, such as securing abortion access or improving the economy.

“But there is no question the next few weeks are going to be rocky for the Biden campaign,” Psaki wrote. “There will be ongoing discussions about the possibility of an open convention, and about replacing Biden on the ticket. While that may sound like a good idea on editorial pages, it would be quite challenging to pull off. The public has already chosen Biden, and a brokered convention means party delegates — and not the public — pick the nominee (from a large field of ambitious and talented people) in what would also be a messy and divisive process.”

Going forward, Psaki encouraged the Biden campaign to work harder on winning over voters, including the mobilization of Democratic governors. Among those listed were Govs. Gavin Newsom (CA), Wes Moore (MD), and Josh Shapiro (PA) — all of whom have been floated as possible replacements for Biden in the 2024 election.

Psaki also suggested that Biden take his underperformance at the debate and use it as motivation to prove his naysayers wrong, suggesting that voters still prefer him over “creepy convict Don.” However, she stressed the need to recognize that the incumbent president is currently “the underdog.”

The idea of replacing Biden with a different candidate has been floated for some time now, though such suggestions have been largely turned down, even after the debate. Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Rob Flaherty, argued in an email that the president would remain the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee and slammed “the bedwetting brigade” asking for Biden to drop out.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Among the Democrats who have backed Biden after Thursday’s debate is Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) who argued that the president’s performance reminded him of himself when he wished he had delivered a better sermon. However, he did not give a direct answer when asked if Biden ought to take a cognitive test.

Former United Nations ambassador and former 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley has cautioned her fellow Republicans that any candidate replacing Biden would likely be someone younger, putting Democrats in a better position to beat Trump. She also predicted down-ballot lowered enthusiasm among Democrats if Biden is kept at the top of the ticket.

A new poll conducted in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance shows a majority of voters do not believe Biden has the cognitive ability to serve as president.

A CBS News/YouGov poll conducted after the debate found 72% of respondents did not believe Biden had the mental and cognitive health to serve. The number is up from the 65% of voters who believed he did not have the mental ability to serve as president before the debate. 

Former President Donald Trump on the other hand also does not fare particularly well with the general electorate with his mental capabilities to run the country again. Of those polled, 49% believe Trump does not have the mental capability to be president.

When asked if Biden should even be running for president again, 72% of those polled said he should not be running, which is up from the 63% of people who said he should not be running in February this year. Amongst Democratic voters, that percentage shrinks with 46% saying he should not run, but is still up compared to the 36% who said he should not run in February. 

When breaking down why exactly Biden should not be running, 86% said it was because of his age, 71% pointed to decisions he may make in office, 66% said his record as president, and 59% said it was his ability to campaign effectively. 

In contrast, the majority of Republican voters said that Trump should be running.

Trump also picked up support for many qualities in the debate with 47% saying Trump was the one who most clearly explained his ideas, 46% of those polled saying Trump seemed more presidential over Biden, and 44% saying Trump inspired confidence. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Biden scored points with voters in terms of truthfulness, with 40% of those polled saying Biden told the truth compared to 32% who said Trump did.

The debate also brought the presidential race more in the forefront of the minds of voters ahead of November with 59% of those polled saying they are now thinking a lot about the presidential race compared to the 48% of those polled who said the same before the debate.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum on Sunday dodged questions about Donald Trump’s vice presidential short list, saying any conversations on that matter are between him and the former president.

“That would be between the president and I,” Burgum said on NBC News’s Meet the Press when asked “yes or no” whether he’s had any conversations with Trump about being his pick for vice president. Host Kristen Welker was quick to pounce on his response, saying, “That’s not a no” from the North Dakota governor.

Burgum pointed out that Trump has a short list of numerous quality candidates that could also make the eventual cut, and emphasized everything about the selection process is “between the campaign and those that might be being considered.”

“He can probably win the election without a vice president … but I think he’ll make a decision,” Burgum said, noting Trump’s recent “strong debate performance” with President Joe Biden on Thursday and the positive polling position Trump has found himself in even before the Thursday night debate.

The North Dakota governor also defended Trump against the most common criticism the former president has received since the debate, which involved the veracity of his statements. Trump “made more than 30 false claims,” according to CNN, though Biden’s gaffes and concerns about his mental acuity largely turned Trump’s statements into an afterthought for commentators and their post-debate conversations.

“The whole manufactured thing this morning that Donald Trump has said something that he hasn’t said before, I mean everything that he said on Thursday night he’s been saying before it so this is not news,” Burgum said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Trump’s vice presidential short list also includes notable Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tim Scott (R-SC), and J.D. Vance (R-OH), as well as prominent allies such as Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Byron Donalds (R-FL), among others.

The former president has suggested he will announce his vice presidential pick at the Republican National Convention, which begins July 15.

Reigning U.S. Open Champion Bryson DeChambeau wants to settle the debate over the golf game of President Biden and former President Trump by hosting a golf match between the two.

Trump and Biden clashed over their respective gold handicaps after the former president questioned Biden’s cognitive ability. Trump — an avid golfer and owner of multiple courses — bragged that he recently won two club championships at the age of 78. “To do that, you have to be quite smart, and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way, and I do it,” he continued. “He doesn’t do it. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match—he can’t hit a ball 50 yards.” 

Biden then pointed to his golf handicap while serving as vice president and added that he would be happy to settle the discussion with a driving contest.

(Trump Sounds The Alarm On The US Currency – PREPARE NOW)

The back-and-forth went viral on social media and emerged as one of the highlights of the 90-minute debate. DeChambeau — who has become one of golf’s biggest stars thanks in part to his wildly popular YouTube channel — was kick to offer to settle the debate once and for all.

“Let’s settle this whole handicap debate, I’ll host the golf match on my YouTube,” DeChambeau wrote in an X post while tagging both candidates.

The LIV golf star — who won his second U.S. Open earlier this month after out-dueling Rory McIlroy — has golfed with Trump on multiple occasions.

After winning his second major championship at Pinehurst over Father’s Day weekend, DeChambeau celebrated the victory with the former president’s son Eric and his wife, RNC co-chair Lara Trump.

The multi-time PGA and LIV winner has been on an incredible run in 2024. He tied for sixth in the Masters and finished runner-up at the PGA Championship.