*By Madison Alworth*
[George Takei](https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/06/25/george-takei-trump-immigration-rhetoric-bts-rs.cnn) is an outspoken critic of President Trump.
And now the actor is taking his gripes to a new, augmented level, with the app House of Cats. The app launched this week and allows users to interact with animated characters "Trumpy Cat," "Meowlania," and "Vladdy Putin," to name a few.
"I'm a political animal, feline inclined" said Takei in an interview with Cheddar Thursday. "We love cats and we all love politics and to put them together is the House of Cats with a Trumpy Cat."
The satirical Trump can be superimposed onto any surface. Users then instruct him to recite dialogue of their own choosing or even any of the president's real tweets. Users can also record and share videos of themselves in conversation with Trumpy Cat and his band of feline followers.
The app, available on Apple products and Google Play, costs $0.99. As of now, there are no plans to develop costlier, subscription-only content. Takei will donate a certain percent of the profits to Refugees International, a charity for displaced people.
"We are going to counter \[Trump's]\ hostility with support," Takei said.
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/george-takei-launches-new-ar-mobile-game-house-of-cats)
The Energy Department is making a push to strengthen the U.S. battery supply chain, announcing up to $3.5 billion for companies that produce batteries and the critical minerals that go into them.
Ed Egilinsky, managing director and head of sales and distribution & alternatives with Direxion, joined Cheddar News to discuss how bond traders are reacting to the latest consumer price index data and how they're positioning portfolios ahead of next week's release of Nvidia's earnings. Egilinsky also discussed some of the other bigger-cap companies, including Alphabet, Amazon and Apple.
Facebook and Instagram will require political ads running on their platforms to disclose if they were created using artificial intelligence, their parent company announced on Wednesday.
Arturo Béjar testified before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday about social media and the teen mental health crisis, hoping to shed light on how Meta executives, including Zuckerberg, knew about the harms Instagram was causing but chose not to make meaningful changes to address them.
Uber missed analysts' projections for earnings per share and revenue this past quarter. Cheddar News takes a closer look at the numbers and explains what to expect for the rest of the fiscal year.