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'Scowling Void of Pure Nothingness': Critics Destroy $75 Million Melania Trump Documentary
"It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality," said one critic.
Jan 31, 2026
Critics have weighed in on Amazon MGM Studios' documentary about first lady Melania Trump, and their verdicts are overwhelmingly negative.
According to review aggregation website Metacritic, Melania—which Amazon paid $40 million to acquire and $35 million to market—so far has received a collective score of just 6 out of 100 from critics, which indicates "overwhelming dislike."
Similarly, Melania scores a mere 6% on Rotten Tomatoes' "Tomameter," indicating that 94% of reviews for the movie so far have been negative.
One particularly brutal review came from Nick Hilton, film critic for the Independent, who said that the first lady came off in the film as "a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness" who leads a "vulgar, gilded lifestyle."
Hilton added that the film is so terrible that it fails even at being effective propaganda and is likely to be remembered as "a striking artifact... of a time when Americans willingly subordinated themselves to a political and economic oligopoly."
The Guardian's Xan Brooks delivered a similarly scathing assessment, declaring the film "dispiriting, deadly and unrevealing."
"It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality," Brooks elaborated. "I’m not even sure it qualifies as a documentary, exactly, so much as an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice-cold to the touch and proffered like a medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne."
Donald Clarke of the Irish Times also discussed the film's failure as a piece of propaganda, and he compared it unfavorably to the work of Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
"Melania... appears keener on inducing narcolepsy in its viewers than energizing them into massed marching," he wrote. "Triumph of the Dull, perhaps."
Variety's Owen Gleiberman argued that the Melania documentary is utterly devoid of anything approaching dramatic stakes, which results in the film suffering from "staggering inertia."
"Mostly it’s inert," Gleiberman wrote of the film. "It feels like it’s been stitched together out of the most innocuous outtakes from a reality show. There’s no drama to it. It should have been called 'Day of the Living Tradwife.'"
Frank Scheck of the Hollywood Reporter found that the movie mostly exposes Melania Trump is an empty vessel without a single original thought or insight, instead deploying "an endless number of inspirational phrases seemingly cribbed from self-help books."
Kevin Fallon of the Daily Beast described Melania as "an unbelievable abomination of filmmaking" that reaches "a level of insipid propaganda that almost resists review."
"It's so expected," Fallon added, "and utterly pointless."
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Replacing Bovino With Homan Won't Change ICE's Tactics in Minneapolis
Bovino’s departure changes nothing about ICE’s lawless behavior on the ground. If anything, the situation has become more volatile.
Jan 31, 2026
The recent firing of Greg Bovino, the face of Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, was clearly intended to serve as a pressure-release valve for a city at its breaking point. For weeks, we have watched federal agents transform our neighborhoods into a theater of intimidation, characterized by warrantless stops, the brutalization of peaceful protestors, and the killings of two constitutional observers, captured on video and now seen by the majority of Americans.
By replacing Bovino with Border Czar Tom Homan, the administration likely hopes to signal a new direction or a cooling of tensions. But no one should be fooled. Firing a commander is an empty act of appeasement when the machinery of the operation itself remains fully fueled and operational. Bovino’s departure changes nothing about ICE’s lawless behavior on the ground. If anything, the situation has become more volatile.
The timing of this leadership shuffle is particularly cynical when viewed alongside the latest developments in the federal judiciary. On Monday night, the Eighth Circuit granted the Department of Justice (DOJ) a full stay on the injunction previously secured by Judge Katherine Menendez. That injunction was the only thin line of defense protecting protesters from ICE violence and retaliation. With that stay in place, federal agents have been handed a blank check to target activists and constitutional observers in ways that Menendez had previously found unconstitutional.
Operation Metro Surge was never about public safety in the way most Minnesotans understand it. It is a display of federal power, designed to bypass local oversight and treat our state as an occupied zone because the current administration doesn’t like our social welfare policies. Bovino was a symptom of this strategy, not its sole architect.
Minneapolis does not need a new commander, it needs Operation Metro Surge to end.
The tactics of intimidation, unmarked vehicles, lack of clear identification, and the racial profiling of community members is baked into the Operation Metro Surge’s DNA. Changing a public-facing figure while maintaining the underlying tactics only creates a more dangerous environment. It allows the operation to continue under a veil of "reform" while ICE’s mandate continues to broaden, and the reality on the street remains one of fear and violence.
I believe we are now entering the most dangerous phase of ICE’s enforcement operations in Minnesota. The combination of a leadership changeup and a legal victory for the DOJ has created a perfect storm. History shows us that when law enforcement agencies feel vindicated by the courts and pressured by optics, they do not retreat, they push forward, and citizen vigilantes come to their defense.
The attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Tuesday was primed by years of dehumanizing rhetoric against her, prompted by ICE’s illegal actions in Minneapolis, and executed by a lone-wolf reactionary in an attempt to silence calls for abolition. When the administration labels “disrespect” as a capital offense, and has pushed the rule of law to its breaking point, we should not be surprised when citizens take it in their hands to “enforce” the new law.
Minneapolis does not need a new commander, it needs Operation Metro Surge to end. The replacement of Bovino is a tactical retreat, a cosmetic change meant to buy time. If we accept Homan’s takeover as "progress," we are consenting to the continued erosion of our civil liberties and political culture. A leadership shakeup doesn’t change anything; it’s just a convenient news cycle that the Trump administration would prefer for us to focus on. Don’t give them your attention. Keep watching the streets of Minneapolis and the actions of our federal courts.
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Leaked DHS Memo Reveals ICE Claiming Expansive New Warrantless Arrest Powers
"This memo bends over backwards to say that ICE agents have nothing but green lights to make an arrest without even a supervisor’s approval," said one former ICE official.
Jan 31, 2026
An internal legal memo obtained by the New York Times reveals that federal immigration enforcement agents are claiming broad new powers to carry out warrantless arrests.
The Times reported on Friday that the memo, which was signed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons, "expands the ability of lower-level ICE agents to carry out sweeps rounding up people they encounter and suspect are undocumented immigrants, rather than targeted enforcement operations in which they set out, warrant in hand, to arrest a specific person."
In the past, agents have been granted the power to carry out warrantless arrests only in situations where they believe a suspected undocumented immigrant is a "flight risk" who is unlikely to comply with obligations such as appearing at court hearings.
However, the memo declares this standard to be “unreasoned” and “incorrect,” saying that agents should feel free to carry out arrests so long as the suspect is "unlikely to be located at the scene of the encounter or another clearly identifiable location once an administrative warrant is obtained."
Scott Shuchart, former head of policy at ICE under President Joe Biden, told the Times that the memo appears to open the door to give the agency incredibly broad arrest powers.
"This memo bends over backwards," Shuchart said, "to say that ICE agents have nothing but green lights to make an arrest without even a supervisor’s approval."
Claire Trickler-McNulty, former senior adviser at ICE during the Biden administration, said the memo's language was so broad that "it would cover essentially anyone they want to arrest without a warrant, making the general premise of ever getting a warrant pointless."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted in a social media post that the memo appears to be a way for ICE to "get around an increasing number of court orders requiring [US Department of Homeland Security] to follow the plain words of the law which says administrative warrantless arrests are only for people 'likely to escape.'"
The memo broadens the terms, Reichlin-Melnick added, so that "anyone who refuses to wait for a warrant to be issued" is deemed "likely to escape."
Stanford University political scientist Tom Clark questioned the validity of the memo, which appears to directly conflict with the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which requires search warrants as a protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures."
"So, here’s how the law works," he wrote. "People on whom it imposes constraints don’t get to just write themselves a memo saying they don’t have to follow the law. Maybe I’ll write myself a memo saying that I don’t have to pay my taxes this year."
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As Trump Attacks the Republic, the Cowardly Democratic Party Still Won't Fight to Win
With few exceptions, the Democratic Party apparatus is coasting, playing “it safe,” and expecting that the Trumpsters will deliver the Congress to it in November.
Jan 31, 2026
“How’s the Democratic Party’s ground game in Pennsylvania?” I asked a friend several weeks before the 2024 presidential election. He replied optimistically that there were far more door knockers this year than in 2022.
It turned out these door knockers were just urging a vote for the Democrats without putting forth a compelling agenda attached to candidate commitments on issues that mean something to people where they live, work, and raise their families. There was no Democratic Party “Compact for the American People.” Then-President Joe Biden visited Pennsylvania, which went Republican, many times, with his most memorable message being that he grew up in Scranton.
Once again, the vacuous, feeble Democratic Party is relying on the Republicans and the cruel, lawless dictator Donald Trump to beat themselves to gain control of the Senate and the House.
Legendary reporter Seymour Hersh on Thursday made the case for the Republicans taking themselves down, to wit: “I have been told by an insider that the internal polling numbers are not good …” and that “anxiety in the White House that both the House and the Senate might fall to the Democrats is acute. Trump’s poll numbers are sliding… The public lying of cabinet members in defense of ICE has not helped the president or the party. Trump hasn’t delivered on the economy, except for the very rich, and he hasn’t made good on early promises to resolve the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine.”
Their aversion to building their own momentum to answer the basic questions “Whose side are you on?” and “What does the Democratic Party stand for?” remains as pathetic as it was in 2022 and 2024.
GOP operatives are assuming the Democrats will take back the House by a comfortable number and now think the Senate, where the GOP holds a three-seat majority. There are six seats in play. The GOP’s biggest fear is that their negatives continue to increase, propelled by a pile of unpopular Trumpian actions, ugly behavior, and corruption. The combination of all these things could create a critical mass and produce a landslide comparable to the Reagan-led victory in 1980. In this election, the Republicans defeated seemingly unbeatable Senate veterans like Sen. Warren Magnuson (D-Wash.), Sen. Gayord Nelson (D-Wis.), and Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho), and gave the GOP control of the Senate.
So, what is the Democratic Party doing during this GOP slump? It is Déjà vu all over again. The Dems are furiously raising money from commercial special interests and relying on vacuous television and social media ads. They are not engaging people with enough personal events, and they are not returning calls or reaching out to their historical base—progressive labor and citizen leaders. Most importantly, they are not presenting voters with a COMPACT FOR AMERICAN WORKERS. Such a compact would spark voter excitement and attract significant media coverage.
Their aversion to building their own momentum to answer the basic questions “Whose side are you on?” and “What does the Democratic Party stand for?” remains as pathetic as it was in 2022 and 2024. Ken Martin, head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), recently quashed a detailed report he commissioned about why the Democrats lost in 2024. He has refused to meet with leaders of progressive citizen organizations. We visited the DNC headquarters and could not even get anyone to take our materials on winning issues and tactics. We offered the compiled presentations of two dozen progressive civic leaders on how to landslide the GOP in 2022. This material is still relevant and offers a letter-perfect blueprint for how Democrats could win in 2026. (See winningamerica.net). (The DNC offices are like a mausoleum, except for visits by members of Congress entering to dial for dollars.)
Imagine a mere switch of 240,000 votes in three states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin) would have defeated Trump in 2024. That margin would have been easily accomplished had the Democratic Party supported the efforts of AFL-CIO and progressive union leaders who wanted the Dems to champion a “Compact for Workers” on Labor Day, with events throughout the country. (See letter sent to Liz Shuler, President of AFL-CIO, on August 27, 2024).
The compact would have emphasized: raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour, benefiting 25 million workers, and increasing Social Security benefits frozen for over 45 years, which could have benefited over 60 million elderly, paid for by higher Social Security taxes on the wealthy classes. The compact would also include: a genuine child tax credit that would help over 60 million children, cutting child poverty in half; repeal of Trump’s massive tax cuts for the super rich and giant corporations (which would pay for thousands of public works groups in communities around the nation); and Full Medicare for All (which is far more efficient and lifesaving than the corporate-controlled nightmare of gouges, inscrutable billing fraud, and arbitrary denial of benefits).
Droves of conservative and liberal voters would attend events showcasing winning politics, authentically presented, as envisioned for the grassroots Labor Day gatherings, suicidally blocked by the smug, siloed leaders of the Democratic Party in 2022 and 2024.
Clearly, this is a party that thinks it can win on the agenda of Wall Street and the military-industrial complexes. (See Norman Solomon’s book The Blue Road to Trump Hell: How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy. It can be downloaded for free at BlueRoad.info.) The Democratic Party scapegoats the tiny Green Party for its losses again and again at the federal and state levels to the worst Republican Party in history—BY FAR.
It is fair to say that, with few exceptions, the Democratic Party apparatus is coasting, playing “it safe,” and expecting that the Trumpsters will deliver the Congress to it in November.
The exceptions are warning about this hazardous complacency, such as adopting James Carville’s ridiculous advice just to let the GOP self-destruct (though recently he also has urged a progressive economic agenda). There are progressive young Democrats challenging incumbent corporate Democrats in the House. They are not waiting for a turnover in the party’s aging leadership. They believe the country can’t wait for such a transformation. Our Republic has been invaded by the Trumpsters, who are taking down its institutional pillars, its safety nets, and its rule of law. Our democracy is crumbling by the day.
As for the nonvoters, disgusted with politics, just go vote for a raise, vote for health insurance, vote for a crackdown on corporate crooks seizing your consumer dollars and savings, and vote for taxing the rich. That’s what your vote should demand, and these are the issues that should be conveyed to the candidates campaigning in your communities.
Tell the candidates you want a shakeup, not a handshake. (See, the primer for victory, “Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country that Works for the People” 2024).
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