The night she defeated 10-term Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley last year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) became an instant celebrity. "At first, it was really, really, really hard," she told Vanity Fair. "I felt like I was being physically ripped apart in those first two to three months." She started out as a star among young progressives, "but now, she's one of the most visible Democrats in the country, along with Nancy Pelosi," Vanity Fair's Abigail Tracy writes, "and she's eclipsing Pelosi, and even Hillary Clinton, as a Republican target."

Ocasio-Cortez considers the right's obsession with her a sign of her strength, she told Tracy in her unassuming Bronx apartment, and she doesn't expect it to abate anytime soon. "The whole goal is to dehumanize," Ocasio-Cortez said. Still, "it can be very empowering to say, 'Make fun of me. Do it. Draw the little insults on my face .... Do what you're gonna do. Act more and more childish. Just do it, because you're not gonna stop, you're just not gonna stop this movement.'"

And it's not just her ideology and star power conservatives are fixated on, Ocasio-Cortez suggested. "I think they saw a woman of color — Latina, no less — that came from a working-class and poor background, that ascended to federal office, and they said: 'We cannot allow this to have credibility, because if people saw that she did it, then maybe others will come — and we cannot let other people like her run for office. We need to make an example out of her.'"

Ocasio-Cortez said she feels the weight of Republicans waiting eagerly for her to slip up, but she also faces a larger, bipartisan problem. "It's really hard to communicate that I'm just a normal person doing her best," she told Tracy. "I'm not a superhero. I'm not a villain. I'm just a person that's trying." Read the entire interview at Vanity Fair. Peter Weber

Carson King thought the funny sign he made for the Iowa State and University of Iowa football game over the weekend might help him make some beer money, never dreaming that he would eventually accrue $100,000.

King, 24, ended up standing behind a commentator for ESPN's College GameDay, holding his sign that read "Busch Light supply needs replenished." Underneath his message, King added his Venmo name, and within an hour, he had $400 in donations from people who saw him on camera. By the time he had $600, King's thoughts turned to something other than beer, and he decided he would donate the money to charity.

After discussing the matter with family and friends, King decided to use a few dollars to buy a case of Busch Light, with the rest of the money going directly to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital. "They do so much," he told Today. "It's incredible." Word spread, and as donations continued to come in, Busch and Venmo both told King they'd like to match all the money he raises. As of Thursday, that's a hefty $100,000. King will keep the fundraiser going until Sept. 30, and is appreciative of all the donations he's received so far, from 25 cents to $300. "Anything is incredible," he said. Catherine Garcia

"Remember a couple of years ago, when [President] Trump first got into office, we were all so nervous that Donald Trump was some sort of sleeper agent who was going to sell America out to a foreign power behind our backs?" Stephen Colbert asked on Thursday's Late Show. "Well, it's Throwback Thursday!" He ran through the outline of the whistleblower complaint that over the summer, Trump made a very troubling "promise" to an unknown "foreign leader." Colbert saw the silver lining: "Thank God Trump never keeps his promises."

"Trump denies he did anything wrong," Colbert said, reading the tweet. "Very good point: What kind of moron would think you would make an inappropriate offer to a foreign country while you were being recorded?" He let Trump answer that, then played a game to try and figure out what Trump promised to which leader. But it turns out, according to The New York Times, that the complaint actually involves a "series of actions" Trump took. "Oh, a series?" Colbert said. "Great. Now we can binge-watch the end of America."

This story is "stunning," Late Night's Seth Meyers said. "Now, we don't know which foreign leader this is, and this is a complicated story, so just to help you follow along, we put together a helpful little mnemonic device. Remember: It's a [P]romise from the [U]nited States made by [T]rump to an [I]nternational leader, but we do not know their [N]ame. Could be anyone." (It actually appears to be somebody in Ukraine.)

Meyers also answered Trump's question about whether he would say something "inappropriate" to a foreign leader over the phone: "It's not that we're dumb enough to believe it, it's that we're smart enough to believe you're dumb enough to do it." Still, Trump "probably feels like he has impunity to do whatever he wants because so far he's face almost no consequences," he said, making his case for impeachment. Watch below. Peter Weber

Following a public outcry, the Trump administration reversed policy on Thursday and restored the medical deferred action program, which protects immigrants with life-threatening medical conditions from deportation as they receive treatment.

Last month, applicants received letters from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services saying that requests were no longer being accepted, and the sick migrants had to leave the United States within 33 days. Recipients who spoke to the media, like 16-year-old Jonathan Sanchez, said that if they went back to their original countries, they would die; Sanchez has cystic fibrosis, and said doctors in Honduras are not equipped to treat him.

When U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stopped the program on Aug. 7, the agency did so without alerting Congress or the public. Hearings were held on Capitol Hill, with immigrants sharing their stories about how the program helped them, and USCIS said it would reopen cases that were pending as of Aug. 7. In a letter to the House Oversight Committee sent Thursday, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said he had directed USCIS to start considering all applications again.

"It should not take an emergency hearing by Congress — and threats for more — to force the Trump administration to do the right thing," House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said in a statement. "Because of the secrecy and obstruction surrounding this policy, we will be taking additional steps to verify that these children and their families do not need to live in fear and uncertainty." Catherine Garcia

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), entrepreneur Andrew Yang, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, and other presidential candidates shared their climate change plans on Thursday during MSNBC's Climate Forum 2020.

The two-day event at Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service kicked off Thursday morning with a question-and-answer session between students and the candidates. Twelve presidential candidates are participating, with Thursday's lineup consisting of Sanders, Yang, Castro, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), author Marianne Williamson, former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.), and Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio).

Castro said his $10 trillion climate plan consists of a public-private partnership that will result in 10 million new jobs and the United States having net zero emission within the next 30 years. Ryan is calling for a forceful climate police that focuses on bringing manufacturing jobs back to hard hit rural and industrial areas. Delaney said he would re-enter the Paris climate agreement and promote global development of clean technologies.

Sanders declared that "unlike Trump, I do believe in science," and said one of his first acts as president would be to sign an executive order prohibiting fossil fuel extraction on public lands. Williamson said people need to push back against corporations and lawmakers who are tight with the fossil fuel industry.

Yang feels that action should have been taken two decades ago, and wants to see corporations taxed on their carbon production. Bennet said he would give lawmakers nine months to pass climate change legislation, and if they didn't do it he would turn to executive orders. He also discussed the importance of talking about the economy and jobs and how they tie in to climate change, so people don't fall for President Trump's scare tactics. "We can't lose an economic debate to a climate denier," he said. Catherine Garcia

During a chaotic interview Thursday night with CNN's Chris Cuomo, President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani was happy to accuse former Vice President Joe Biden of bribing Ukrainian politicians, but he grew enraged when asked about Trump's relationship with the country's leader.

Throughout the rambling, nearly 20-minute interview, Giuliani made it clear that he doesn't like Biden, whistleblowers, CNN, or using his inside voice. His appearance coincided with The Washington Post's report that a U.S. intelligence whistleblower filed an "urgent" complaint last month about President Trump's communications with someone in Ukraine. Giuliani didn't want to talk about that, though, instead telling Cuomo the real story is his allegation that Biden bribed the former president of Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating his son.

Giuliani also claimed that several Ukrainians tried to tell him that there was collusion between Ukrainian politicians, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee, but the U.S. ambassador blocked them. This has all the trappings of an "astounding scandal of major proportions," he said, but it's "being covered up by the news." Cuomo finally got a question in about the whistleblower, which Giuliani immediately shot down. "I'm here on television," Giuliani said, while "this guy is hiding somewhere, skulking around."

Cuomo reminded the former U.S. attorney that there are protections in place for whistleblowers. Giuliani said sure, but "some whistleblowers are liars." Giuliani went on to insult Cuomo and CNN several more times, accusing the network of favoring Democrats and covering up their scandals, and patted himself on the back for insulting Cuomo "directly to your face and not behind your back." Lower the volume on your computer, and watch the video below. Catherine Garcia

The whistleblower complaint filed Aug. 12 by a U.S. intelligence official involves Ukraine, two people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the Post reported that the complaint centers around Trump's communications with a foreign leader, and a "promise" he made. The intelligence official was so troubled by this that they notified Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who marked the complaint as being of "urgent concern" and passed it along to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire.

By law, Maguire was supposed to pass this complaint on to Congress, but he said he talked to Justice Department officials, who claimed it did not meet the definition of an urgent concern and was not under the DNI's jurisdiction. Maguire's refusal to notify lawmakers about the complaint has sparked a battle between Democratic lawmakers and the acting DNI. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Thursday that someone is "trying to manipulate the system to keep information about an urgent matter from the Congress. ... There certainly are a lot of indications that it was someone at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence."

Trump had a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky two-and-a-half weeks before the complaint was filed. Zelensky is an actor and comedian who was elected in May, and House Democrats are already investigating that call as part of a probe into whether Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani tried to manipulate the Ukrainian government into assisting with Trump's re-election campaign. Catherine Garcia