On Tuesday, the son of the president of the United States suggested that an alt-right blogger who promotes conspiracies like "white genocide" and PizzaGate should "win the Pulitzer."

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted his praise of the media personality Mike Cernovich after crediting Cernovich with "breaking" the story that former President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, asked intelligence agencies to "unmask" the names of Trump transition officials caught up in foreign surveillance. Cernovich further alleged Rice then sent the unmasked names to a handful of top intelligence officials.

Cernovich is widely criticized, having also promoted the beliefs that "date rape does not exist," "misogyny gets you laid," and black women should be "slut shame[d]" to prevent them from getting AIDS. Additionally, Rice's alleged actions appear to be legal, and an unidentified "person close to Rice" told CNN on Monday night that Rice never "improperly sought the identity of Americans," adding: "There is nothing unusual about making these requests when serving as a senior national security official, whether Democrat or Republican."

Observers have slammed the Trump White House for promoting Cernovich's "story," with Kellyanne Conway tweeting a Cernovich blog post Monday and calling his appearance on 60 Minutes a "must-see ratings bonanza." Read more about the White House's ties to Cernovich at Media Matters here. Jeva Lange

The Trump administration is considering requiring even short-term visitors to the U.S. to "disclose contacts on their mobile phones, social media passwords, and financial records, and to answer probing questions about their ideology," The Wall Street Journal reports. While the policy would be part of President Trump's ongoing promise of "extreme vetting," the changes could apply to visitors from around the world, including France, Germany, the U.K., Japan, and Australia.

"We want to say for instance, 'What [websites] do you visit? And give us your passwords,' so that we can see what they do on the internet," explained Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly in February. "If they don't want to give us that information then they don't come."

Trump's travel ban on six majority-Muslim countries has sparked outcry for potentially being unconstitutional, and civil liberties groups slammed Kelly's statement for being a "direct assault on fundamental rights," such as the freedom of expression. The Wall Street Journal notes that the groups additionally warned that the U.S.'s strict vetting could eventually spark foreign governments to treat American travelers in the same manner.

Many experts are unconvinced by the proposed approach. "The real bad guys will get rid of their phones. They'll show up with a clean phone," said Leon Rodriguez, the former head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Others say that by running phone contacts against databases, for instance, officials could potentially find ties to terrorist organizations.

President Trump has vowed that "those who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred, will not be admitted for immigration into the country."

Jeva Lange

Nearly 200 movie theaters across the world are screening the film 1984 on Tuesday in protest of President Trump, The Independent reports. "No one is suggesting that we're living in [George] Orwell's world," co-organizer Dylan Skolnick of the Cinema Arts Centre on Long Island, New York, told Al Jazeera. "But the road to that world is people just becoming disengaged and allowing their government to do whatever it wants."

The film is an adaptation of Orwell's book by the same name, and it was released in (you guessed it) 1984. At the time of its release, it was praised by Roger Ebert as "brilliant," earning three-and-a-half stars out of four.

April 4 was chosen as the date for the movie theater protest because "it's the day George Orwell's protagonist Winston Smith begins rebelling against his oppressive government by keeping a forbidden diary," the organizers write. Screenings are being held everywhere from Gold Town Theater in Juneau, Alaska, to locations across the U.S., U.K, Canada, Croatia, and Sweden. In New York City alone, the movie will be shown 12 separate times throughout the day.

The organizers say the screenings are particularly well-timed, as President Trump has proposed eliminating the budget for the National Endowment of the Arts. Many of the theaters participating plan to donate proceeds to community organizations, or are showing the film for free.

"This is really designed to get people to be talking and discussing and active in the political conversation that is happening in America right now — and throughout the world, it turns out," Skolnick said.

Find a participating theater near you here, and read more about revisiting 1984 in Trump's America here at The Week. Jeva Lange

A new Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday shows a majority of American voters are embarrassed to have President Trump leading the nation. Fifty-two percent of voters said they were embarrassed of Trump, including 85 percent of Democrats. Just 27 percent of voters said they were proud to have Trump as president.

The poll also found Trump losing ground with key segments of his supporter base, including men and white voters. Fifty-one percent of men disapproved of Trump, while 39 percent approved, and 48 percent of white voters disapproved with just 43 percent approving. Overall, Trump's net approval rating is -22 percent, with 35 percent of voters approving of his job as president and 57 percent disapproving.

Trump's Republican counterparts in Congress didn't fare much better, with 70 percent of voters saying they disapproved of the GOP's job performance on Capitol Hill, including 41 percent of Republican voters. Fifty-seven percent of voters disapproved of Democrats' work in Congress.

Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,171 voters across the U.S. over the phone from March 30-April 3. The poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points. See the full results here. Kimberly Alters

CNN network president Jeff Zucker likes sports. You can tell, because he has modeled his network's political coverage after it. "Zucker is a big sports fan and from the early days of the [presidential] campaign had spoken at editorial meetings about wanting to incorporate elements of ESPN's programming into CNN's election coverage," The New York Times Magazine writes, in an enlightening profile on CNN and how President Trump has inadvertently come to help it thrive.

"The idea that politics is sport is undeniable, and we understood that and approached it that way," Zucker explained to the magazine.

Throughout 2016, CNN used "pregame" sets outside debates and implemented on-air countdown clocks. Perhaps most noticeably, the network also embraced the underdog story that surrounded President Trump. But just like in sports, politics (and dramas) needs heroes and villains. Zucker found them, too:

As Zucker sees it, his pro-Trump panelists are not just spokespeople for a worldview; they are "characters in a drama," members of CNN's extended ensemble cast. "Everybody says, 'Oh, I can't believe you have Jeffrey Lord or Kayleigh McEnany,' but you know what?" Zucker told me with some satisfaction. "They know who Jeffrey Lord and Kayleigh McEnany are." [The New York Times Magazine]

Read more about how CNN has changed to fit a post-Trump world at The New York Times Magazine. Jeva Lange

Conservative columnist S.E. Cupp published a blistering op-ed in the New York Daily News on Tuesday that slammed the Trump administration for its back-burner approach to the "brutality" of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Cupp's piece comes on the heels of reports of a sarin gas attack in the province of Idlib in northwestern Syria, which is believed to have been ordered by the Assad regime. The Syrian medical relief group UOSSM reports that 100 people were killed and 400 others injured, including many children. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer dismissed Trump's responsibility, claiming in a statement that "these heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution."

But Cupp is not impressed:

Despite a continued holocaust in Assad's Syria, the Trump administration seems to have no clearer vision — practical or moral — for ending the Syrian slaughter.

While it's nearly doubled U.S. forces in northern Syria to fight ISIS, the administration has also said ousting Assad will no longer be a focus.

This is morally unconscionable and politically shortsighted. As long as Assad is killing his own people without international accountability, extremists will continue to exploit the chaos and power vacuum to their benefit. And when Syrian civilians have a choice between death by Russian air strikes and chlorine bombs or a well-paying job with ISIS, eventually terrorism will be the better option. [Daily News]

Cupp ends with a question that would get under the president's skin: "Is Trump man enough" to stop Assad? Read Cupp's full piece at the New York Daily News. Jeva Lange

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) took to the Senate floor Tuesday for a vicious 13-minute takedown of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch. "After meeting with Judge Gorsuch and having a long and pleasant conversation, after hearing his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, and after carefully reviewing his record, I have concluded that I cannot support a man with his views for a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court," Sanders said.

Sanders went on to cite some of those "views," explaining that the decisions reached by the Supreme Court justices, "even on a 5-4 vote, have a profound impact on all Americans, on our environment, and on our way of life." He ripped everything from Gorsuch's opinions on voting rights and campaign financing to his decisions on abortion rights, workers' rights, and corporate power. In one example, Sanders described a case involving TransAm Trucking, in which Gorsuch argued that "a trucker was properly fired by his employer for abandoning his cargo at the side of the road after his truck broke down and he nearly froze to death waiting for help."

"Judge Gorsuch literally believed this man should have had to choose between his life and his job, and by choosing his life, not freezing to death, he deserved to lose his job," Sanders said.

Sanders concluded that "at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when so many people working throughout this country feel powerless at the hands of the wealthy and the powerful and their employers, we need a Supreme Court justice who will protect workers' rights and not just worry about corporate profits. I fear very much that Judge Gorsuch is not that person." Watch below. Jeva Lange

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday addressed the deadly chemical attack in northwest Syria, which reportedly killed 100 people and injured hundreds more in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. "Today's chemical attack in Syria against innocent people, including women and children, is reprehensible and cannot be ignored by the civilized world," Spicer said, calling the incident "heinous."

Spicer pointed the finger at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, though it is not yet clear whether Syrian or Russian jets were responsible for the attack as both countries' forces have been battling rebels in the area. But Spicer also lay blame at the feet of former President Barack Obama, saying the attack was "a consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution." "President Obama said in 2012 he would establish a 'red line' against the use of chemical weapons and did nothing," Spicer said.

During a speech in 2012, Obama indicated the use of chemical weapons in Syria would warrant U.S. military intervention, saying: "We have been very clear to the Assad regime — but also to other players on the ground — that a red line for us is [if] we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus." A year later, more than 1,000 civilians were killed in a chemical weapons attack in Syria, but rather than use force, the Obama administration chose to deploy "coercive diplomacy" rather than order airsrikes.

The use of chemical weapons is explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Convention. Spicer on Tuesday declined to elaborate on any plans by President Trump to respond to the chemical attack, but did say he felt removing Assad from power would be "in the best interest of the Syrian people." Kimberly Alters