By Rebekah Kuschmider, MPU Co-host

Every week we create a segment list for the podcast that includes the hottest trending news topics. Hard news topics, that is. We pull our subjects from the pages of esteemed publications like The Washington Post, The Economist, network news sites, and other media mainstays. We do not usually go to the likes of People Magazine for our pressing news coverage.

But maybe we should.

Pop culture is American culture and the happenings in the world of art and entertainment are no less interesting and impactful than the happenings on the Hill.

Also, I’m kind of shallow and like to read gossip magazines and talk about them. So, there’s that.

With all of that in mind, here’s a little round up of all the news that NOT fit to ‘cast!

Kanye: Yeezy’s been tweeting like Trump this week and he’s been tweeting about Trump, too. He praises the POTUS to the skies saying they both have “dragon energy” and he loves Trump the man. I don’t think anyone should really be surprised that Kanye is taken with the mogul turned politician. And I mean that from a policy perspective. Kanye is a brand just like Trump is a brand and Trump’s economic doctrine is one that protects brands above all else. Look at the Trump tax plan, for one. If you incorporate, you win. For another thing, Kanye, like many artists, has probably seen lost revenue due to Chinese intellectual property piracy. Trump’s China tariffs exist in some part due to kind of copyright theft and plenty of artists would benefit from having that illegitimate market clamped down. On a less wonky analysis let’s be gritty: Kanye is a starfucker and so is Trump. Like calls to like.

You don’t have to agree with trump but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

The Royal Baby: First, let us all take a moment to be grateful that Duchess Katherine and her new son are both healthy after the birth. Royal history is littered with the bodies of royal British wives who weren’t so lucky. But apparently royal history is also still in effect when it comes to the rules about announcing the birth of a child in line to the throne, because they dragged that poor woman outside a mere seven hours after delivering a real live baby so that people could gawp at her. FEMINISM NEEDS TO FIX THAT FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF ROYAL MAMAS! Listen, it’s all well and good to need evidence of the healthy of mother and baby in moments like that. I get it. But this is the age of the iPhone. Take a pic, time stamp it, and release it on the Royal Instagram account. They call childbirth labor for a reason. Let a mother rest after doing that kind of work.

Melania’s Hat: I don’t purport to be an expert on Melania Trump. In fact, I’m not sure I knew anything about Melania Trump before 2016. From what I have learned about her since then I have come to the conclusion that she is a person who really likes beautiful clothes. She’s been a model since she was a child. She’s famously well dressed as an adult. So it should surprise no one that she ramped up the glam for the State Visit from the President of France. She looked nice. Her outfits were nice. She wears clothes well. That white hat? It was gorgeous. But if anyone was looking for secret messages in the outfits Melania wore this week, I think you’re going to be disappointed. She picked clothes because they were beautiful. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s who she is and it’s what she loves. Probably more than she loves her husband if this awkward handing holding video is any gauge.

Sportsball: Finally, in the wide world of sports, Trump is not a high level draft pick. It’s been abundantly clear that athletes, particularly athletes of color, are not fans of the president. Remember his twitter beef with Steph Curry? Yeah. Well, he isn’t the only sports figure who isn’t White House bound these days. A bunch of Olympic athletes are declining the invitation to meet the president as well, including Adam Rippon, Lindsay Vonn and others. The women’s hockey team IS going but they made it clear that they really just want to see each other, not the First family. But Trump’s bigger problem is the fact that he’s lost the love of folks like NFL owners. In tape of an owners and players meeting last fall shared with the New York Times, it was clear that owners did not love the president haranguing about Collin Kapernick and other players kneeling during the anthem. Bob Kraft, owner of the Patriots and a Trump supporter even said “The problem we have is, we have a president who will use that as fodder to do his mission that I don’t feel is in the best interests of America. It’s divisive and it’s horrible.”  I don’t know much but I know that when white guys who are rich enough to literally buy and sell young men for the entertainment of the public are massing against you, you’ve got a problem. These guys should be Trump allies and he’s managing to drive even them away.

There’s been a lot going on in serious news this week, too, and the MPU gang and I will all be talking about that on the show. The official segment list interesting af – but you’ll have to tune in to the podcast to hear about it!