NBC's Chuck Todd had Breitbart News editor Joel Pollak on Wednesday's Meet the Press Daily, and they discussed President Trump's victory and why the president is supporting the unpopular House Republican health-care bill — "Trump has allowed Congress just enough rope to hang itself," Pollak theorized. "He kind of, I think, anticipates that this is going to run into problems and that then the stakeholders will come back to him for his own version of the solution."

Near the end of the interview, Todd asked Pollak about the article he wrote at Breitbart that is believed to have inspired Trump to tweet that former President Barack Obama had tapped his Trump Tower phones during the election — tweets that are still causing the White House headaches. "Did you over-write that?" Todd asked.

"The story about how this article was written is very simple," Pollak said: "It was late at night and I was washing dishes, listening to Mark Levin's show from earlier in the day, and I thought, 'Wow, that's amazing.' I had seen all these articles, but nobody had actually put the case together the way Levin had. And so I reported the way he put it together and I added some of the historical events that happened in between, to basically show that the government under the Obama administration had done some surveillance of individuals close to Trump or a computer server in Trump Tower."

Pollak and Todd argued for a bit over whether any of those stories of government surveillance had ever been confirmed, then Todd returned to Trump's reaction. "Should your article have been interpreted by the president as fact-based, or you were basically laying out a potential scenario?" he asked. Pollak replied that it was a scenario. "It's a set of facts lined up to make an argument about what happened, which is how many legal arguments are crafted," he said. "And the sources, in this sense, were unimpeachable because they were from the mainstream media — it wasn't, you know, a conspiracy website here or there." You can watch the discussion about the tweet-sparking article starting at the 7:50 mark. Peter Weber

House Speaker Paul Ryan confirmed Thursday that former President Barack Obama did not wiretap Donald Trump when Trump he was running for president. "The intelligence committees, in their continuing, widening, ongoing investigations of all things Russia, got to the bottom — at least so far with respect to our intelligence community — that no such wiretap existed," Ryan said.

Many people had wondered about President Trump's claim from the get-go as, being president, he could theoretically just pick up a phone and ask the intelligence community to confirm the information to be true or not. House and Senate intelligence committee members had denied there was any evidence to confirm Trump's claims.

On Wednesday, Trump told Fox News that "when I say wiretapping, those words were in quotes. That really covers — because wiretapping is pretty old-fashioned stuff — but that really covers surveillance and many other things. And nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes, but that's a very important thing." Jeva Lange

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday deemed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) a "little bit unhinged" following McCain's recent claim that Paul is "working for" Russian President Vladimir Putin. McCain lobbed the accusation at Paul on the Senate floor Wednesday after Paul left the room in an apparent display of opposition to McCain's request for the Senate's unanimous support of Montenegro's bid to join NATO. Paul has a record of taking a stand against interventionist foreign policy. "He has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians," McCain said. "So, I repeat again, the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin."

During an appearance Thursday morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Paul was asked for "a little context around that." "What's your reaction to Sen. McCain's characterization of your objection?" Morning Joe co-host Willie Geist asked Paul. "Well you know, I think he makes a really, really strong case, you know, for term limits," Paul said. "I think maybe he's past his prime, I think maybe he's gotten a little bit unhinged."

Watch the segment below. Becca Stanek

Sebastian Gorka is President Trump's top terrorism adviser, but before coming to the United States from Hungary he allegedly took an oath of loyalty to an elite group that the State Department lists as having been "under the direction of the Nazi government of Germany," leaders of the order told the Forward.

The order, known as Vitézi Rend, collaborated with Hitler during World War II and deported thousands of Jews to the Nazis. While it is no longer known to commit violence, "this is a group that advocates racialist nativism," retired immigration judge Bruce Einhorn said. If Gorka actually did take an oath to the group, he would have been required to disclose it on his U.S. immigration application; he became a naturalized citizen in 2012, but members of Vitézi Rend are "'presumed to be inadmissible' to the country under the Immigration and Nationality Act," the Forward writes.

Suspicions about Gorka arose after Trump's inauguration, where he apparently wore a Vitézi Rend medal on his lapel; Gorka said it was his father's, and was intended to honor his legacy. Vitézi Rend leader Kornél Pintér claims Gorka took the oath to the organization, having been introduced by his father. Gyula Soltész, another high-ranking member, confirmed Gorka's allegiance to the group.

Gorka himself has used the name "Sebastian L. v. Gorka" in academic papers and even when testifying before the House Armed Services Committee. Vitézi Rend members identify themselves with the "v" initial only after having taken the oath.

Gorka has not responded to media requests for comment. "Gorka is part of an administration issuing travel bans against countries and people as a whole,” said Einhorn. "For someone who is part of this effort to not answer your question [about his membership] and yet support what's going on in the West Wing where he works is the height of hypocrisy."

Additionally, experts on terrorism have raised questions about Gorka's credentials for being Trump's adviser on the topic. "His doctoral dissertation has been dissected by various academics who say he is not an expert in their field, has never lived in a Muslim-majority country, does not speak Arabic, and has avoided publishing any serious, peer-reviewed academic research," the Forward writes. "Gorka's doctoral superviser in Hungary, András Lánczi, is an expert on political philosophy and Hungarian politics, but has never worked on terrorism, counter-terror, or Islam-related research." Read the entire report at the Forward. Jeva Lange

A discussion on President Trump's controversial immigration executive order quickly turned into a yelling match on Wednesday's episode of CNN Tonight. The debate started to go off the rails within the first minute, when former federal prosecutor John Flannery claimed a fellow panelist, Harvard Law School's Alan Dershowitz, supported Trump's travel ban because he thought it would benefit Israel. "Our dear colleague, Alan Dershowitz, I think, hopes that this may secure Israel," Flannery said, referring to Trump's revised executive order that temporarily bans people from six predominantly Muslim countries from traveling to the U.S.

Dershowitz quickly interrupted Flannery, demanding to know what he was "talking about." "You're lying through your teeth," Dershowitz told Flannery. "I never said a word about Israel. You know, when you focus on everything I say about Israel it really raises questions about your own bigotry and bias, so let's get to the point and just keep your mouth shut."

Flannery insisted the ban is "transparently against Muslims," a reason similar to what a federal judge in Hawaii cited Wednesday when he blocked Trump's order, deeming the ban an attempt to "disfavor a particular religion." Dershowitz, a constitutional analyst, argued his belief that the ban is constitutional — though still "bad policy" — had nothing to do with his stances on other issues. "You can't believe anything I say because I'm a Jew and a Zionist?" Dershowitz said. "For shame on you sir. I never want to be on the show with this bigot again."

Watch the explosive debate below. Becca Stanek

A group of protesters demonstrating against President Trump's then-forthcoming speech in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday dealt with a pro-Trump counter-protester in their midst with classic Southern hospitality. As the man wearing a "Make America Great Again" cap began shouting into the crowd, they responded with a hearty chant of "Bless your heart!"

For those unfamiliar with the subtle and varied nuances of "bless your heart," it is a "tremendously flexible phrase" whose meaning can range from sincere sympathy to cutting dismissal. In this case, its usage as "a passive-aggressive way to call you an idiot" is probably about on the mark. Bonnie Kristian

Once kept far from the public eye, formerly classified footage of U.S. nuclear tests made in the 1950s and 1960s is now available on YouTube via the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. There are about 60 clips already published as of this writing, many of them less than a minute long, and thousands more to come.

The films were originally used by nuclear scientists, who analyzed them one frame at a time to create nuclear prediction models that remain in use half a century later. Back then, researchers "actually had to eyeball what the answer was or what the measurement was," said Greg Spriggs, who is directing a project to reanalyze the footage using far more accurate computer technology at the Lawrence Livermore facilities.

Spriggs said the films should be public to remind people "of the immense energy that's produced with a nuclear detonation, and hopefully ... nobody will ever want to use these things or attack the United States." Watch that energy in action during a test called Operation Hardtack, below. Bonnie Kristian

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell became the unlikely source of an anti-Trump feminist rallying cry when he shut down Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) with the highly quotable (and tattooable) line "nevertheless, she persisted." In a move that, in retrospect, was probably inevitable, Entertainment Weekly reports Chelsea Clinton is now writing a children's book about "inspirational women in American history" titled — you guessed it — She Persisted.

"I wrote this book for everyone who's ever wanted to speak up but has been told to quiet down, for everyone who's ever been made to feel less than," said Clinton. She Persisted includes the stories of 13 women, such as Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, Sally Ride, Oprah Winfrey, and "a cameo by another important female figure." Wonder who that might be.

Clinton added, “The 13 women in She Persisted all overcame adversity to help shape our country — sometimes through speaking out, sometimes by staying seated, sometimes by captivating an audience. With this book, I want to send a message to young readers around the country — and the world — that persistence is power."

It was only a matter of time. Check out the cover, illustrated by Alexandra Boiger, below. Jeva Lange