Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration. Here’s what he’s proposed

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White House Rages After Embarrassing Trump Story Exposed

The president hoped he would be praised for lowering food costs at America’s biggest retailer.

The White House has gone into full defense mode after Donald Trump was found taking credit for price cuts that had nothing to do with him.

On Monday, the 80-year-old president posted on Truth Social that Walmart would be “lowering prices, by a lot, at my Administration’s request,” including cutting the cost of beef by 15 percent as part of the country’s 250th birthday celebrations.

Trump took a victory lap, praising the announcement as a “huge deal” for millions of Americans suffering through a cost-of-living crisis. The president’s second term has been dogged by high food prices, despite Trump making lowering them a central pledge of his 2024 campaign.

However, a Walmart spokesperson told The Bulwark that the company’s price cuts had already been in place at its stores for a week before Trump tried to suggest he had convinced the country’s biggest retailer to implement them.

White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai then melted down on X while replying to Sam Stein, managing editor at The Bulwark and a former politics editor at the Daily Beast, who had shared an article by the site’s economics editor, Catherine Rampell.

“The President and Walmart’s announcement was that the sale is extending all summer long. This is a big win for Americans. The media’s obsessive need to try to undermine any good news when it affects President Trump is pathological.”

Desai also tried to suggest that the White House had something to do with Walmart’s discounts, writing in an earlier X post that the Trump administration “stays in close contact with retailers to ensure savings are getting passed on to American consumers, and results like this prove the strategy is working.”Shortly after Trump’s Truth Social boast, Walmart issued a statement detailing its signature Rollbacks and Sam’s Club offers, which the chain typically introduces during the summer. The statement mentioned price reductions on beef and other products but made no mention of Trump or the administration.

On July 7, one day after Trump’s Truth Social post, The Wall Street Journal reported that an Agriculture Department official had called some of the country’s largest grocers to urge them to lower their beef prices.

However, during a call with Walmart, the company told the USDA that it already planned to lower prices on a range of items, including beef, and that the reductions had been in place since June 29.

Walmart executives had also been discussing lowering prices for months to help consumers, as they expected billions of dollars in tariff refunds after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s sweeping import levies in February.

“We think the single best return that we can have on a dollar of capital right now is to invest in the customer and invest in price,” Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said on an earnings call in May, according to the Journal.

The Daily Beast has contacted Walmart for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-melts-down-after-trump-walmart-price-cut-humiliation/?

ps:It's obvious that trump doesn't go to the store and shop! The prices have been going up, up and up, and now they came down a little, but nothing to what they were before!!

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Trump Humiliated as Google Maps Busts His Big Brag

Historical images show that Trump’s win isn’t as grand as it seems.

President Donald Trump’s initiative to lower gas prices has been met with an embarrassing reality check by Google Maps.

A White House account bragged on Wednesday that one of its Philadelphia “Freedom Fuel Network” stations had provided much-needed financial relief to Americans struggling with high gas prices caused by Trump’s war with Iran.

The “Rapid Response” account shared a video segment from NBC Philadelphia that discussed how one former Karco K Shop gas station—now wrapped in “Freedom Fuel” signage—posted a price of $3.47 per gallon, which it said was around 40 cents below the state average.However, Google Street View images of the gas station at 3101 N. Broad Street show that the promotion was not quite as monumental as the White House portrayed.

In April 2025—three months into Trump’s second term—the gas station displayed a price of only $3.05 per gallon. Other historical images captured of the station show prices either similar to or lower than the $3.47 under the “Freedom Fuel” promotion.

Those images appeared to serve as a stark reminder that the price decrease touted by the White House was still effectively an increase over the prices seen before the war.

Trump, 80, had campaigned on bringing domestic gas prices below $2 a gallon. However, gas prices skyrocketed in the wake of his strikes on Iran over four months ago, leaving Americans to deal with the consequences at the pump.

The White House did not address questions emailed by the Daily Beast when reached for comment.

The president announced the “Freedom Fuel Network” in a Truth Social post on July 1, saying that 25 gas stations across the greater Philadelphia area would be lowering their prices ahead of the nation’s semiquincentennial.

“This Retailer is taking the lead, and others should follow. They are doing this because they love the U.S.A.,” the president wrote. “America has never been stronger than it is now, and Gas Prices will soon be back to the Record Low Prices Americans enjoyed at the pump before our very successful ‘excursion’ in Iran.”

The administration has not shared any details about how the selected gas stations can sell gas at prices well below market.

The national average price for a gallon of gas reached as high as $4.56 in May, but has since dropped to around $3.85, according to AAA. However, renewed airstrikes between the U.S. and Iran this week threaten to send prices soaring again.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-humiliated-as-google-maps-busts-his-big-gas-prices-brag/?

ps:Notice that he didn't call for Mobil, Shell, etc. to lower the prices that they sell gas to the stations, but asks the gas stations that barely make any money to lower there prices!!!

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Murdoch Paper Goes Scorched Earth on Trump for ‘Destroying’ Jobs

Trump’s favorite policy has done little to promote economic growth, argued the paper’s editorial board.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal eviscerated President Donald Trump over the reality of his beloved tariffs.

The newspaper’s editorial board published a scathing piece on Thursday evening, ripping the 80-year-old president over one of his signature policies as he seeks to “rescue his underwater job rating.”

Following Trump’s Truth Social brag on Tuesday, in which he took credit for Toyota’s announcement about a $3.6 billion expansion in Texas, the Journal asserted that the president likely had nothing to do with the decision.

The company shifted production of its Tacoma truck from Mexico to a manufacturing facility in San Antonio, and as the newspaper pointed out, only made reference to the state’s pro-business milieu and local political leaders. Neither Trump nor his Senate endorsee, Ken Paxton, were mentioned in Toyota’s press release.

“But the President is right that his tariffs are at work—in destroying U.S. jobs and raising prices,” the Journal wrote.

The editorial board highlighted how the U.S. has lost around 75,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump took office in January 2025, over a third of which were in motor vehicle and auto part production.

The paper cited rising vehicle costs due to Trump’s tariffs as one possible explanation for the job losses, as dwindling sales correlate with a lower need for workers.

Additionally, the newspaper emphasized that Trump’s tariffs have actually hurt Americans rather than helped, noting that foreign retaliation has affected U.S. farmers and raised costs for domestic manufacturers.

“Mr. Trump’s Section 232 national security tariffs on autos and parts have cost $35.2 billion through April of this year, and his steel and aluminum tariffs another $17.5 billion, according to U.S. government data,” the board wrote. “Mr. Trump and his advisers claim that foreigners pay his border taxes, but the evidence shows that U.S. companies, workers and consumers are picking up most of the tab.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on the Journal’s editorial.

The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision in February that Trump’s sweeping global tariffs were unlawful, upholding the principle that only Congress may exercise the power to tax.

Despite the illegality of his initiative, Trump has continued to boast about the supposed economic benefits of his policy, even as Americans bear the brunt of higher prices.

The nation’s inflation rate has risen drastically month to month since February, when Trump launched his war on Iran.

It has risen by nearly two percentage points, from 2.4 percent in February to 4.2 percent in May. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to publish its June report on Tuesday.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/murdoch-paper-wall-street-journal-goes-scorched-earth-on-trump-for-destroying-jobs/?

ps:Again more foot n mouth disease for this pathetic little man!!!!!

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Trump Purges Election Officials in Midterm Power Grab

The president has fired the remaining members of an independent election agency.

President Donald Trump has fired the last three members of the Election Assistance Commission just months before the midterm elections.

The Commission is an independent government agency set up under President George W. Bush to help officials across the country administer elections.

One of the commissioners, a Republican appointee, was allowed to resign, while the other two, both Democratic appointees, were informed of their termination via email from the White House presidential personnel office, according to VoteBeat. The fourth commissioner previously left their role in April.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, which has been seen by Reuters, said.

The terminations were made possible by a Supreme Court decision late last month which upheld the president’s firing of a Democratic Federal Trade Commission member and expanded his powers over regulatory agencies.

The White House confirmed the firings to Reuters, citing the Supreme Court decision as precedent and saying in a statement, “The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.”

The White House official also said that the government has been “working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain ‌that mission, especially in the midterm elections.”

The Election Assistance Commission is an independent, bipartisan commission that works to “help election officials improve the administration of elections and help Americans participate in the voting process,” according to its website. It also manages the national mail voter registration form, which Trump sought to change last year to require proof of citizenship, a move blocked by a federal judge. Republicans are now seeking to push the president’s SAVE America Act through Congress, which would require voters to show proof of citizenship before they can cast their votes.

Commissioner Benjamin W. Hovland was sworn in in February 2019 after being nominated by Trump during his first term. Commissioners Thomas Hicks and Christy McCormick were sworn in in January 2015 after being nominated by then-President Barack Obama. Donald Palmer, another Trump appointee, left in April.

The departures come only a few months before November’s crucial midterm elections, which have both sides of the aisle scrambling as Democrats work to flip Republican districts and Republicans try to maintain control of Congress.

The Trump administration has sought to intervene in the electoral process ahead of the elections by supporting controversial redistricting pushes in red states, designed to increase the number of GOP-majority districts, prompting Democrats in blue states to respond with redrawn maps of their own.

The president has also advocated for a crackdown on mail-in voting, despite both his wife Melania and son Barron making use of it to vote in a recent Florida election.

Trump, 80, has also doggedly pursued the same debunked claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him that prompted his supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

His persistence has resulted in the FBI raiding election facilities in order to seize boxes of ballots and computers related to the election in an attempt to find proof of voter fraud. No such proof has yet to be produced.

It is unclear what the Commission’s future will look like, particularly since the commissioner roles must be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats and confirmed by the Senate.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said in a Thursday social media post that the firings should concern all Americans, regardless of their political affiliation.

“Removing every remaining commissioner just months before the 2026 midterm elections is an extraordinary step that demands an immediate explanation from the administration and raises profound concerns about political interference in the institutions that support our elections.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-purges-election-officials-in-midterm-power-grab/?

ps:Tell me this isn't a tell all sign what he's trying to do!!!!!!!!!!

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• 🏡 President Trump will allow a housing bill to become law after canceling its signing ceremony more than two weeks ago — a mostly symbolic gesture, as the bill will become law at midnight with or without Trump's signature. Go deeper.
• 🇮🇷 President Trump said today that the U.S. agreed to continue talks with Iran, but it will not adhere to the ceasefire anymore, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

A US license could let Ukraine produce Patriot missiles, but it won’t be simple or quick

U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to give Ukraine a license to produce Patriot air-defense systems could mark a major breakthrough for Kyiv, but experts and Ukrainian officials warn that turning the idea into real weapons would likely take years. Read More. ps:Well ain't that nice of him!! He wants to look like he's actually doing something for Ukraine, but just keeps them in check so they can't really do much for a while!! Just pathetic help is all it comes down to!!!!!!!!!!

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A Symbol of Power (Samuel Corum / Sipa USA / Reuters)

View in browser Donald Trump summoned the National Guard to Washington, D.C., last August in an attempt to “rescue” the city from “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.” Since then, the number of soldiers in the capital has ebbed and flowed as states have lent their own Guardsmen to the cause. A month ago, there were just under 3,000 members of the National Guard in the area; now there are more than 5,000. Officially, this “summer surge” was framed as a way to address an anticipated spike in visitors and activity around the capital for America’s ongoing 250th-birthday celebrations. But the National Guard is also involved in a much broader project known as the Safe and Beautiful mission—a federal initiative to clean up the city that Trump once described as a “rat-infested, graffiti-infested shithole.” Troops from across the country are currently stationed in the city, but their remit is not entirely clear, and their effect on violent crime remains limited. Eleven months into Trump’s experiment, they remain an ever-present symbol of the administration’s power. Last year, Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the city. Crime is a real problem in D.C., as it is in all cities. But the president’s framing of the situation as an emergency meriting the immediate assistance of outside forces (which are usually called in for dramatic upticks in civic unrest) doesn’t align with the numbers: Around the time when Trump first sent in the National Guard, violent crime in D.C. was hitting 30-year lows, in line with a national trend. The precise tasks involved in keeping D.C. “safe and beautiful” have so far been ill-defined; troops have spent time directing traffic, clearing out homeless encampments, raking leaves, and mulching flower beds. Their presence has had mixed results on crime in the city. In May, the Niskanen Center released data showing that the deployment seemed to have decreased opportunistic property crime, such as theft, by 24 percent—a notable downturn. The data also showed that the deployment had had no measurable effect on violent crime, which had already been declining when the National Guard arrived. (The Guardsmen whom Trump deployed to D.C. are not authorized to make arrests, but they can detain individuals.) The advantage of the National Guard is its flexibility, Richard Hahn, one of the study’s co-authors, told me. D.C. police have been “struggling to hire police officers for 10 years,” he said, but with the Guard, “you can command these soldiers to go to the city and police it.” Trump’s decision to deploy these soldiers has thoroughly spooked a populace that already distrusts the president. Roughly 80 percent of D.C. residents opposed the arrival of Guardsmen last year, according to one survey. The fear, as my colleagues Ashley Parker and Nancy A. Youssef put it at the time, is that “Washington is being used as a test case—the blueprint for Trump to deploy the National Guard across the country as a paramilitary police force—and that Americans are being conditioned to accept authoritarianism.” In February, a report from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security indicated that the National Guard was using a variety of advanced data-collection tools (including the Defense Department’s AI-enabled Maven Smart System) in support of its duties, raising “potential privacy and civil liberties concerns.” Ever since the National Guard arrived in D.C., troops have been criticized for seeming to spend a lot of time just standing around. Just standing around can be a component of law enforcement—being a visible presence on the street is one way to deter opportunistic crime—but it also generates unease. Jeffrey Butts, the director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told me that the fear this deployment has created is likely part of the point. “This is not about crime, and it’s not about policing,” he argued. “It’s politics and demonstrations of state power.” Many Republican-led states have dispatched their Guardsmen to the capital, but a few states with Democratic governors have also quietly lent their support. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer sent approximately 170 of her state’s Guardsmen to D.C. as part of the summer surge. This week, a coalition of watchdogs and observers signed a letter urging her to withdraw the state’s troops and expressing concern that Guardsmen are carrying out operations unrelated to the July 4th celebrations. “When the governors put their Guard forces in the hands of the Trump administration, they are trusting the Trump administration not to misuse their Guard forces,” Elizabeth Goitein, a contributor to The Atlantic and a senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice—an organization that signed the letter—told me. “The administration, to put it mildly, has not earned that trust.” Whitmer herself has expressed some skepticism about the administration’s plans for the troops. About two weeks ago, she wrote her own letter to the head of the Michigan National Guard warning him to “take all necessary measures” to keep the state’s troops focused on bolstering security for the festivities—and to keep them away from the more nebulous Safe and Beautiful mission. She added that if Michigan National Guard leadership is unwilling or unable to keep them focused solely on security for the anniversary festivities, she plans to withdraw the troops altogether. Another blue-state governor, Tim Walz, recently made the decision to pull Minnesota’s Guardsmen from D.C. earlier than expected, although a spokesperson for the state’s National Guard told the AP that the decision was due to “the successful conclusion of festivities.” The AP also reported this week that the one member of the Kentucky Guard who’d been sent to D.C. had been diverted away from the 250th-anniversary celebrations “without the knowledge or consent” of the state’s governor or its Guard command, per a spokesperson for the Democratic governor. The Guardsman returned to Kentucky before the main events began. Hawaii’s adjutant general, Major General Stephen F. Logan, confirmed to me that the state’s troops, who began their duties in D.C. on Monday, will not be supporting the Safe and Beautiful mission either. The longer these troops remain in the city, the more fear and anger they may inspire. The tension between the people and the troops has already exploded into violence; in November, two Guardsmen were shot and seriously injured. The deployment may have reduced some kinds of crime, but there’s more than one way to measure its effect on the city. Related: A terrible and avoidable tragedy in D.C. Why is the National Guard in D.C.? Even they don’t know. (From 2025)

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Trump is enabling Musk and DOGE to flout conflicts of interest

What is the potential cost to U.S. families?

https://www.epi.org/publication/trump-is-enabling-musk-and-doge-to-flout-conflicts-of-interest-what-is-the-potential-cost-to-u-s-families/?

The right wing has always had an asymmetric power to destroy—DOGE makes it much worse

In parliamentary systems, winning an election gives one party control of both legislative and executive powers. This means there are big policy swings after elections when parties switch. In the United States presidential system, the separation of powers combined with legislative chokepoints—like the Senate filibuster—means that opportunities for very large policy swings are much less common.

https://www.epi.org/blog/doge-power-to-destroy/?

At least 26 states have launched their own version of DOGE

The Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has wrought havoc on the federal government, diminishing its ability to perform essential work—like administering Social Security benefits for retirees, weather forecasting to predict tornadoes, and environmental pollution cleanup—while creating new inefficiencies and increased public costs. Now, many Republican governors and state lawmakers are demonstrating their loyalty to the Trump administration by setting up state-level versions of DOGE.

https://www.epi.org/blog/at-least-26-states-have-launched-their-own-version-of-doge-these-states-are-simply-rebranding-longstanding-efforts-to-undermine-government-in-service-of-the-wealthy/?

What is DOGE doing to Social Security?

Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) attacks on Social Security aren’t about efficiency. The word “efficiency” may be in the name of his initiative to reduce the size of the federal government, but a more accurate description of what President Trump’s advisor is doing to Social Security is sabotage.

https://www.epi.org/blog/what-is-doge-doing-to-social-security/?

ps:These are a little more than a year ago, but still relevant!!

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Trump Lays Out His Own Assassination Revenge Fantasy

The president explained the “instructions” to be acted upon should he fall victim to an Iranian plot.

President Donald Trump delved into the “instructions” he has left behind in case Iran assassinates him, and they sound like one of his furious Truth Social posts.

Trump, 80, spoke about his plans for posthumous revenge in an interview with The New York Post, as his war with Iran stretches into its fifth month and after he called a tenuous peace agreement “over” due to the resumption of hostilities.

“I’ve been on their list for a long time. That’s what we’re dealing with,” Trump said, echoing comments he made this week in Ankara, Turkey, at a NATO summit.

“…The only thing is, I’ve left instructions—if anything happens, to just literally bomb them at levels that they’ve never seen before,” he continued.

There have been Iran-linked threats to Trump dating back to at least 2020, when a U.S. drone strike killed one of the country’s top generals, Qasem Soleimani.

When Trump was in Turkey this week, according to CNN, Israeli intelligence informed U.S. officials of an Iranian plot to assassinate him. Trump hurriedly left the country on a different plane than the one he flew in on, telling reporters later that they were still on a “dangerous” flight “because of the sleazebags that we have to deal with.”

At least one version of Trump’s instructions to hit back in the event of his death in an Iranian attack has been around since shortly after he took office for a second time in January 2025.“If they did that, they would be obliterated,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office then. “That would be the end. I’ve left instructions.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether any details in Trump’s instructions have changed since the war began.

Some of Trump’s social media posts about an elusive peace deal have been just as dramatic as his instructions to his successor.

In early April, he warned that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”—unless a deal was reached.

Chief negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, have been criticized for failing to bring an end to the conflict.

“They’re business guys. They have not been effective in Ukraine, not been effective in Gaza. They have not been effective in this,” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade said this week. “They can’t have three portfolios to begin with. We have a State Department for a reason.”

The duo could continue trying to negotiate with Iran, Trump said, but it’s “just a waste of time dealing with them.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-lays-out-his-own-assassination-revenge-fantasy/?