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

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Trump’s Legal Goon Takes Revenge on Judges for Speaking Out

The top justice official claimed the federal judges had pandered to the press and violated judicial ethics.

Donald Trump has escalated his twin wars with the media and the judiciary, with Attorney General Todd Blanch filing a misconduct complaint against a group of judges who spoke to The New York Times about the administration’s immigration crackdown.

In an extraordinary move, Trump’s top justice official claimed that the federal judges from Minnesota’s district court bench had pandered to the press and violated judicial ethics by discussing pending cases with the newspaper.

He also demanded the judges recuse themselves from cases involving the Department of Homeland Security, declaring their conduct had “undermined confidence in an impartial judiciary.”

The complaint stems from a September 17 Times report about Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota earlier this year.

The surge, overseen by then Homeland Security Secretary Kristie Noem and her Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, was the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history, deploying up to 4,000 federal ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents, and culminating in the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens: Renee Goode and Alex Pretti.

Seven members of Minnesota’s federal bench spoke with the Times to raise their concerns, including former chief judge Patrick Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee and former clerk to conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

He told the Times that the government’s conduct had created a “grave threat to the rule of law,” noting that the operation had sent more than 1,000 habeas corpus petitions flooding into the courts.

Schiltz had also ruled in January that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had violated nearly 100 court orders during the crackdown, writing that “ICE is not a law unto itself.”

Speaking at a press conference alongside Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, Blanche argued that the judges crossed an ethical line by publicly discussing matters still before them.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter went even further in a statement, accusing the judges of “pandering to the press.”

“Seven federal judges in the District of Minnesota talked to the New York Times about cases, some of which are ongoing, in a manner that the Department of Justice views as a clear violation of their ethical duties,” Blanche said.

“Their conduct has undermined public confidence in an impartial judiciary in Minnesota.”

The complaint was filed against Schiltz, Judge John R. Tunheim, and several “anonymous District Judges”.

But it also lands in a much bigger battle over freedom of the press, which escalated last week when Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from accessing the White House because he didn’t like their coverage.

The president was ultimately humiliated when another judge, Timothy Kelly, blocked the ban, finding that the journalists were likely to succeed in arguing that the White House had violated their constitutional right to due process.

Meanwhile, Blanche’s own ethics have also come under question, after the former Trump attorney appeared on stage this month at a rally with the president in North Carolina, spoke at the GOP midterm convention, and praised the president during a press briefing in the White House rose garden.

Asked about this by a reporter on Wednesday, he replied: “I don’t agree with that. We are allowed to do things in our individual capacity.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-legal-goon-takes-revenge-on-judges-for-speaking-out/?

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Trump Voter Reveals Deep Regret as Wife Faces Deportation

“If I could go back... I’d go back and vote Kamala,” the Texas father said.

A father who voted for Donald Trump has said he wishes he could turn back the clock and vote Democrat as his Honduran wife faces possible deportation.

Patrick Keating and his parents backed Trump, believing his immigration crackdown would target criminals. But the conservative Texas family now faces the possibility that Keating’s wife, Anyi Hernandez-Escobar, will have to leave the U.S. and their Houston home.

“If I could go back, if my vote would somehow change everything, I’d go back and vote Kamala (Harris) just so we don’t have to deal with this,” Keating told the Houston Chronicle.

Hernandez-Escobar crossed into Texas from Honduras in 2018, eight months pregnant. She spent four days in detention before authorities granted her temporary parole to remain in the U.S.

She later married Keating, who helped raise her son Daniel, now 7, and the couple welcomed a daughter, Emma, in May 2025.

Hernandez-Escobar attended required immigration check-ins while pursuing a way to remain legally in the country. Her marriage to a U.S. citizen did not automatically grant her legal status.

The couple’s I-130 and I-130A petitions were approved in June after a nearly two-year wait. But a Houston immigration judge subsequently denied Hernandez-Escobar’s request to temporarily close her immigration case while she pursued lawful permanent residency.

The family’s immigration attorney, Jennifer Lopez, attributed the decision to a June agreement between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Trump administration that eliminated a Biden-era policy allowing judges to administratively close certain immigration cases.

“Originally, the judge had told her, when Biden was in, ‘Go ahead and file your I-130 (petition to apply for a visa), come back to me and I will administratively close your case,’” Lopez said. “They did that, but by the time they got back to him, Trump had been sworn in and they had changed all the rules.”

Lopez said Hernandez-Escobar would now have to return to Honduras and apply as a foreign filer after waiting at least a year. She would then face another wait of between three and nine months for a visa interview.

“She’s a model person. She doesn’t commit crimes, and she supports her family. It’s just sad,” Lopez said.

Her 7-year-old son Daniel might also have to remain in the U.S.

Keating has raised the boy since he was about 18 months old but has no custodial rights. The family said Daniel’s biological father, who lives in Maryland, has no contact with his son and refuses to give up his custodial rights.

“I’ve raised him basically since he was a year and a half, but I have no custodial rights over him,” Keating said. “Only (Anyi) and his biological father do. But both parents have to sign off on the passport.”

The family hired an attorney to pursue Keating’s adoption of Daniel and explored whether he could stay with Keating’s parents if the rest of the family moved to Honduras.

Hernandez-Escobar, who is not eligible to vote, said she had also supported Trump’s pledge to deport criminals.

“There was a lot of crime in the country. I thought it was good to deport the bad people,” she said. “Now, it doesn’t matter if you’re a good person or a bad person.”

Keating’s mother, Ingrid, said the family’s experience has been “very stressful.”

“Immigration has been such a mess for so many years, but of course it’s easy not to pay too much attention when it’s not your immediate family,” she said. “Now, all of a sudden, it really brings it home.”

When previously contacted for comment, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told the Daily Beast that “Americans sent President Trump back to the White House with a clear mandate to deport criminal illegal aliens.”

“Every single day the Trump Administration is delivering on his promise to the American people to remove murderers, pedophiles, rapists, and gang members from American communities,” she added. “Americans are grateful to the President for removing these criminals from their neighborhoods and for Making America Safe Again.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for additional comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-voter-reveals-deep-regret-as-wife-faces-deportation/?

ps:I could've told them that would happen! Kamala did tell us all what he would do!! And they voted for him anyway!!!

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Must-Win MAGA Senate Candidate Caught Secretly Trashing Trump

Audio of the embarrassing private comments has been leaked.

Ken Paxton, Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate in the crucial Texas Senate race, has been caught badmouthing the president.

The embattled Texas Attorney General was recorded saying Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas earlier this month damaged his election hopes.

“Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” a person could be heard asking Paxton in audio obtained by The New York Times.

“So to be honest with you, the numbers—when we did that convention—it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped,” Paxton replied. “Right now, yeah, not good.”

The audio was recorded at a private fundraising event in Washington, D.C. Someone who opposes scandal-hit Paxton’s Senate campaign recorded it and passed it to the Times.

Polls have frequently shown that Paxton is trailing Democratic candidate James Talarico in the crucial Texas Senate race. A Marist Poll published last week showed Talarico with a 6-point lead over Paxton (50 percentage points to 44) with the midterms just weeks away.

If Talarico pulls off a shock victory and flips the Texas Senate seat, long considered a red stronghold, it would go a long way toward Democrats seizing control of the upper chamber in the Nov. 3 elections.

Dozens of Republican lawmakers avoided attending Trump’s midterm convention, believing that distancing themselves from the deeply unpopular president would improve their election hopes.

Paxton, a staunch Trump supporter for years, did attend the flop event from Sept. 9-10, where Trump made the dubious vow to hand every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections.

Trump also bizarrely decided to mock Paxton on stage, saying he “may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen.”

Nick Maddux, a senior Paxton adviser, dismissed the Times’ reporting as “manipulated nonsense” to help “create a story that doesn’t exist.”

“Our latest poll from the last week has Ken Paxton leading by three points, and every serious pollster will tell you that our numbers have improved since early September,” Maddux said, referring to a Paxton-sponsored survey which showed the Republican ahead of Talarico by 48 percent to 45.

“Ken Paxton is going to win this race, and he looks forward to closing strong alongside President Trump, including when he comes to Texas this week.”

Multiple Republicans have expressed fears that Paxton will torpedo the GOP’s chances of retaining what is usually a solid-red Texas Senate seat in November.

Paxton won a bitter GOP Texas Senate primary after securing an endorsement from veteran incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, whom many establishment Republicans believe had a much better chance of winning the Nov. 3 race against Talarico.

Paxton was impeached by his own party in 2023 after being accused of a string of corruption, bribery, and obstruction-of-justice allegations. The Texas Senate acquitted Paxton on all 16 articles of impeachment.

Paxton continues to be dogged by numerous scandals, including even more corruption allegations, and his wife filing for divorce last year on “biblical grounds” after rumors of an affair surfaced.

Days after headlining the midterm convention, Trump suggested Paxton’s election chances had improved because the Texas attorney general appeared in Dallas.

“The fact that we had such a successful convention really helped Ken Paxton,” Trump said. “He was a big part of it…I hear that the convention helped Ken Paxton a lot.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/must-win-maga-senate-candidate-caught-on-hot-mic-trashing-trump/?

ps:He's not the only one!!!!!

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Pete Hegseth’s Secret Plot for Pentagon Purge Exposed

The defense secretary is eliminating leadership positions—except his own, of course.

Pete Hegseth is slashing a fifth of leadership positions across the Pentagon as his paranoia and deep distrust of leaders who could potentially undermine his own power deepen.

The defense secretary, who never reached a rank higher than major, will announce plans to cut positions reserved for generals and admirals across the armed forces by 20 percent during his State of the Forces address on Wednesday, a Defense Department official told the Daily Beast.

Hegseth’s cuts double the 10 percent reduction in leadership he ordered last year. It also follows his May 2025 order to slash four-star active-duty positions and general officer positions in the National Guard by 20 percent.

The former Fox & Friends Weekend host will order that the latest cuts are completed by Jan. 1, 2027, according to a report from Fox News.

In a September memo, Hegseth directed Pentagon officials to identify general and flag officer positions eligible for a downgrade, Fox News reported. Others will be eliminated along with their positions.

Since the start of Hegseth’s tenure, numerous former and current Pentagon officials have spoken out against the culture of fear that the seemingly insecure Hegseth has created inside the department, clashing with anyone who potentially commands more respect than he does.

All told, Hegseth has already fired or blocked promotions for some 80 of the nation’s top officers—roughly 10 percent of the U.S. military’s highest-ranking officers.

For example, his widely questioned ousting of “once-in-a-generation general” Christopher Donahue stemmed in part from the fact that Donahue was revered, respected, and admired—three attributes that reportedly, don’t exactly describe Hegseth within the halls of the Pentagon.

“I don’t care,” Hegseth told Joe Kasper, his chief of staff, after he handed him a card listing reasons to keep Donahue, according to The New York Times.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a close friend of JD Vance from Yale Law School, also attempted to orchestrate an intervention from the vice president to keep Donahue. But when Hegseth discovered that Driscoll had set up a meeting between Vance and Donahue, he canceled it, according to the report.

Soon after, Driscoll resigned.

Then there’s Hegseth’s so-called war on wokeness. During his tenure, the secretary has focused much of his enthusiasm on blocking promotions for women and minorities, as well as instituting his own version of MAHA: Making the Armed Forces Hot Again.

At his Wednesday address, for example, Hegseth is casting troops who fit specific “physical standards” to support him in the audience—asking top military brass to nominate service members who exhibit “impeccable grooming and uniform standards” and conform to certain body fat requirements to attend his speech, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The service members selected must pass the Army’s fitness test and meet its waist-to-height ratio requirement, the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper revealed, citing an email sent to Army commanders. Some of the chosen service members will also participate in a workout with Hegseth.

Additionally, Hegseth, who has faced scrutiny over his drinking and alleged affairs during and between his three marriages, has been repeatedly accused of eroding the separation of church and state.

Among other institutional changes, he has launched a monthly Christian worship series at the Pentagon, where he invited his self-described Christian nationalist pastor, Doug Wilson. The pastor, who has supported repealing women’s right to vote and criminalizing homosexuality, delivered a sermon in the Pentagon auditorium.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pete-hegseths-secret-plot-for-pentagon-purge-exposed/?

ps:Pathetic

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Trump TV ads paid for with $20M in Homeland Security funds, Dems find

President Donald Trump is tapping $20 million in Homeland Security funding to pay for TV ads that heavily feature him ahead of the midterm elections, Democrats said Tuesday as the promos critics call propaganda come under bipartisan attack.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/09/30/repub/trump-tv-ads-paid-for-with-20m-in-homeland-security-funds-dems-find/?

ps:Incredibly pathetic!!!!!!

Appeals court poised to allow contempt probe of DHS deportation flights to El Salvador

WASHINGTON — Most judges on a federal appeals court seemed inclined during oral arguments Tuesday to allow a federal judge to continue investigating Trump officials for possible criminal contempt-of-court charges for defying a judicial order by sending more than 100 Venezuelan men to a brutal Salvadoran prison last year.  

https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/09/30/repub/appeals-court-poised-to-allow-contempt-probe-of-dhs-deportation-flights-to-el-salvador/?

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Trump Explodes in Foul-Mouthed Meltdown Over Telling Question

The president went into full tantrum mode during an interview.

President Donald Trump launched into a foul-mouthed tirade over a question about Mitch McConnell.

TIME Magazine interviewed the president at the White House on Sept. 28. The topic of pardons came up before Senior Political Correspondent Eric Cortellessa and Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs moved on to questions about the Kentucky senator, who went AWOL for weeks before reemerging in a frail state.

The 80-year-old president was asked whether he’d seen footage of McConnell on Capitol Hill, and whether he thinks the longtime lawmaker should resign because of his health issues.

“It was a disappointment to a lot of Republicans,” Trump began to answer, before flipping back to the subject of pardons.

“So that’s just—well, Sleepy Joe gave pardons to everybody. He gave them to [Chief Medical Adviser to the President, 2021 to 2022, Anthony] Fauci. He gave them to this. But you mean I’m not allowed to give them, but Sleepy Joe’s allowed to give them?” he said, growing clearly irate.

Then his tantrum worsened, and he began to swear. According to a transcript of the interview, he said, “This ain’t gonna be much of a story. Here we are doing this. You haven’t asked me one f---ing positive question. All of this. What about this? What about that? What about that? What about this? All negative. Why are you devoting all this time to the White House?”

He then made a plea for more credit. “You know how I do, I do that out of my back pocket. I pay for a lot of it, but I fix it because the White House should look like that. It shouldn’t look like—if you would have stood in that balcony and looked at that wall, half the wall was falling. It’s actually dangerous.

“People are walking under, c--p was falling off it all the time. Every time it rained, it was leaking, horrible. Now it’s perfect, and I would say that I should be given credit for fixing the White House because I’m also doing very well with the war. I’m doing very well with another war that we already won, Venezuela. Do you notice you haven’t asked me a question about Venezuela?”

“We did earlier,” one journalist responded.

Trump snapped back, “No, no, I brought it up, and then you said—”

“You beat us to it. But yeah,” the journalist responded, prompting another Trump rant.

“No, but I’m just thinking to myself, fake news. But I have a lot of respect. I like the owner, good guy,” he said. The outlet is owned by billionaires Marc and Lynne Benioff.

“But I don’t understand. I’m sitting here. I’ve done all this stuff. Look, this is nothing compared to what I’ve done, but I took the White House and made it beautiful again,” he continued, before turning to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House last week.

“OK, and people look at it. People came up. President Xi looked at it two days ago. He said, ‘This is beautiful. Much better than I…’ He was here 25 years ago with [former president Barack...] Obama. Think Obama knows it? Obama would not. He doesn’t know if something’s dirty or clean.”

Xi was not in D.C. with Obama 25 years ago. Obama was an Illinois state senator in 2001.

The reporters changed the subject to Xi’s health, and Trump finally moved on.

However, not for long. When discussing what he’ll miss about the White House when his term ends, he returned to his chagrin about the press. He said he’d miss the Oval Office, then added, “Well, I hope I get a decent story. I don’t think—you know, it’s hard to get a good story. Every question’s a hit. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong.”

The easily rattled head of state has been on the warpath with the press and has lashed out at individual reporters lately, too.

He took his beef with the media to new heights last month when he declared that CNN, Politico, and MS NOW would be banned from the White House. However, a judge issued a temporary order allowing the publications to return.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that the outlets “constantly write or report fiction or lies” about his administration.

Just last week, Trump snapped at a reporter for asking him about his attacks on the press. In a tense exchange outside the White House Saturday morning, Trump loomed over MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner and lashed out in response to her question.

“Sir, do you only want outlets that support you to be a part of the press corps?” asked Gardner, who kept reporting from near the White House this week even after she was denied entry over Trump’s media ban.

“I want real news, not fake news like you,” Trump replied, jabbing his finger at her and at one point telling her, “Quiet!”

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at female reporters over questions he doesn’t like. He infamously said “quiet piggy” to Bloomberg News’ Catherine Lucey on Air Force One last year, and he has told others to be quiet and used his Truth Social platform to attack them by name.

CNN’s star reporter Kaitlan Collins is a frequent punching bag for Trump. In fact, he brought her up unprompted during the TIME interview.

He was asked about his White House ban on her employer, as well as Politico and MS NOW, and he moaned about being the target of their “fake news.”

“So at a certain point, you say, ‘What’s the purpose of like this crazy Kaitlan Collins?’ She’s a very average person. She’s the most unhappy young person I’ve ever seen. If I did something spectacular by any standard, and they would write about it, they will only write badly.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-explodes-in-foul-mouthed-meltdown-over-telling-question/?

ps:What a pathetic foulmouthed criminal-in-chief!!!!!

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Trump’s AI Goons Busted Committing Anti-American Blunder

A new AI federal government portal is anything but American, the Daily Beast has uncovered.

Donald Trump launched a new AI website on Tuesday intended to promote services provided by the federal government.

America.gov boasts that it will improve “the citizen experience” at the culmination of “250 years of American progress” with a “modern interface worthy of the American people.”

Americans, however, were apparently not worthy of featuring on the new website. A Daily Beast analysis of America.gov found that most of the photos on its home page actually depict families and individuals living happy lives in foreign countries.

The Beast analysis found that, in the carousel of 11 photos on the chatbot’s page, at least six, and possibly more, were shot abroad, including in countries Trump has publicly railed against, and in China, which he publicly said he wants to beat in the artificial intelligence race.

The America.gov site greets users with the words, “Hello, America. Whatever you need from government, start here.”

It was launched by JD Vance in Washington, D.C., at an AI conference, which was overshadowed by Trump’s own AI event at the White House. Vance credited the work of Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, who is now in charge of the White House’s “National Design Studio.” The vice president launched the website with a gaffe, saying that he had told Gebbia, “Don’t let it be a clusterf--- like America.gov.” He then had to explain that he actually meant the glitch-stricken Healthcare.gov, launched by President Barack Obama after the passage of Obamacare.

America.gov offers artificial intelligence answers to questions about the federal government.

Beneath the place to ask your questions is a sliding set of pictures which are supposed to match suggested questions, and apparently to show off the best of America. The only issue is that they show people living in Madrid, Warsaw, Beijing, Tallinn, and British Columbia.

All cities with wonderful sights, no doubt. But not America.

A photo of a young child in silhouette, with a case, looking plaintively at passengers boarding a plane could have been taken at one of the many airports across the United States. This one, however, is from Madrid, Spain.

There is a man checking his phone as he makes his way down an escalator. The photo could have been taken in any U.S. city, but instead Trump’s lackeys opted for one in Warsaw, Poland.Another shot shows a boy jumping off rocks while his friends watch, a scene from childhoods all over America. This scene was from Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada.A mother reads from a digital tablet to her daughter in a room lined with moving boxes. There’s a small chance they are moving to America, but the photo was definitely taken in Beijing.Of all the bicycle mechanics working in repair shops around the country, America.gov chose to picture one in Tallinn, Estonia.A young couple pictured inside a home could have come from anywhere. In fact, they were from Vigo, Spain.A beach scene of an elderly man with a metal detector looked remarkably like Wasaga Beach in Ontario, though we couldn’t be certain. Among those praised for the rollout of America.gov in Washington on Tuesday was Edward Coristine, 20, who was nicknamed “Big Balls” while working for Elon Musk’s DOGE during the early months of Trump’s second presidency.“The lead engineer, Ed Coristine, Ed, thank you,” the president said during the ceremony at the Mellon Auditorium.

Trump added that the AI team had been “working 20-hour days in government on behalf of our country, and we salute them.”

The president launched the National Design Studio, which employs Coristine and created America.gov, with an executive order in August, 2025.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

Even the purchase of the six stock images confirmed to be non-American is hardly America First. One might have thought a U.S. company would provide the homepage photos, but they are licensed through Stocksy, based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

The company is hardly MAGA. Stocksy’s CEO, South African-educated Trace Cohen, has served as a board member of Phluid Project, a non-binary fashion brand grounded in community and activism, and Defy Ventures, a non-profit providing entrepreneurial training for incarcerated populations to prepare them for post-release work.The company’s team, like the photos they provide, reflects the world’s diversity, saying online that they are from countries including Canada, the U.K., South Africa, and Romania.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-goons-busted-flooding-americagov-with-pictures-that-arent-america/?

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Concepts of a Plan (Evan Vucci / Pool / Reuters)

View in browser Pete Hegseth seems to imagine himself as a man of big ideas. Perhaps you’ve worked with someone like that: Every organization has “idea hamsters,” who spin in their wheels and toss out suggestions of wildly varying quality. Sometimes, such folks can be innovators—but more often, their scattershot enthusiasm and admiration of their own creativity result in half-baked proposals that create more work, less productivity, and distractions from the real problems. Hegseth had a lot of ideas during his State of the Force address to troops at the Marine Corps Base Quantico yesterday, and some of them, at least as a starting point for policies, had merit. Unfortunately, these few moments of sense were lost in a fog of clichés, culture-war resentments, and trademark Hegseth corniness. The secretary may have a point, for example, that the U.S. military has become top-heavy with generals and admirals. Hegseth is not the first person to notice this: Congress legislates the number of general and flag officers in the military, a cap that was set at 962 for years, until the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, written in Barack Obama’s last year as president, mandated it be 11 percent smaller by the end of 2022. Hegseth wants to reduce that number even more, by 20 percent, ostensibly to reduce the size of the Pentagon’s bureaucracy. So far, so good. But Hegseth’s message was less about seeking a more streamlined command structure than it was, as he put it, about keeping generals who “heard the message” and firing those who didn’t. (That “message” wasn’t clarified yesterday, but it likely includes classic Hegseth tropes such as “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”) Hegseth complained that the media—and he complained about the media a lot—called these reductions “a purge,” but he calls them “accountability.” Exactly what these fired officers did to trigger such “accountability” remains unclear. It’s one thing to get rid of an admiral because his or her office is just some bureaucratic zombie position left over from a previous program or initiative; it’s another to fire someone because the secretary thinks they’re disloyal to him. Unfortunately, Hegseth’s history—his statements, and his often-adolescent temperament—suggest that his efforts to downsize the senior ranks are about politics, not efficiency. Hegseth also announced that he intends to create a new command dedicated to autonomous warfare. He is right to want to direct more attention to these weapons; the wars in Ukraine and Iran have been bloody lessons in the power of asymmetrical warfare. But he gave no explanation for why these issues require an entire command, or how it might work. All he offered was a cool name—Autowarcom—that makes it sound like it’s meant to fight the Transformers. And for someone who has repeatedly declared himself “in a war of attrition” with the Pentagon’s bureaucracy, the secretary is more than willing to create a new command that would require more senior officers and civilians to staff it. (He also wants to establish an Office of Religious Affairs that reports directly to him; not only would this be more bureaucracy, but the last thing America needs is an office dedicated to religion that reports to a man who has made repeated efforts to imbue the military with his brand of Christian evangelicism.) Once Hegseth got rolling, the ideas got sillier. He announced Project Meridian, an effort to engage in creative thinking about the military of the future. This is not a new concept; the military regularly works on such issues with various groups, including think tanks, civilian defense firms, and academics. But then Hegseth announced the three wise men who would lead all this brainstorming about the future of warfare: Elon Musk, Newt Gingrich, and Palmer Luckey. Of the three, Luckey—who co-founded the defense firm Anduril Industries—seems a reasonable choice, but Musk has crackpot ideas on any number of issues, and Gingrich’s big plan for technological advancement when he ran for president in 2012 was to build a moon base. Fortunately, the damage this project could do will be somewhat limited because Hegseth has set a deadline of just 120 days for these men to report back. Then again, if Gingrich, Luckey, and Musk can’t redefine the future of national defense in four months, who can? It was a day for acronyms and project code names, but the best was FORTRESS America, meaning “Federal Operations for Resilience, Troop Resources, Energy, Supply, and Survivability.” The expensive idea behind this one is that every major military base should be self-sustaining, including producing its own energy—apparently, in case of attack within the United States. You can almost hear the meeting where someone said “Fortress America,” and then a committee had to figure out what the acronym would stand for. (I am reminded of the classic TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E., whose creators thought “U.N.C.L.E.” sounded cool and then had to find words to fill the letters.) Speaking of bases, Hegseth would like every governor to come to the Pentagon and pitch him, personally—and maybe even the president!—in a competition to win a brand new military base, a state-of-the-art facility with great housing and lethal capabilities. Does America need such a base? Would this effort draw money and time away from improvements to other military installations? None of that was spelled out, but Hegseth seemed excited about choosing the location in a military version of a reality-TV competition. And on it went, with Hegseth spinning one bad idea after another, and managing to insult any number of Americans in the process. He did his usual riff of wanting “no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals” in his macho military. (“The ideological clowns are out,” he said. “The patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top.”) He also denigrated the graduates of America’s ROTC programs by implying that today’s universities are producing unreliable and unpatriotic officers. He wants to establish new military programs at six colleges, including Liberty University, Louisiana State University, and Hillsdale College—institutions, according to the secretary, that understand “the faith of Jerusalem,” and the Greco-Roman “pillars of our republic.” Hegseth could not ignore ongoing problems such as the war in Iran, but rather than presenting a sober-minded and responsible discussion of the challenges to a military at war, the secretary instead leaned into his usual culture-war gripes. He also eagerly sowed division between the U.S. military and the society it serves: He told the assembled troops, repeatedly, that the media and higher education were their enemies, at one point saying that the American media were worse than Iran’s state media. Our press, he said, “intentionally smears the troops and the historic mission that they are undertaking,” actions that are “fundamentally anti-American. It’s sick. It’s a national betrayal. It’s treason.” Hegseth’s speech proved, yet again, that he is manifestly unfit for his job. America can endure a bloated Pentagon with some generals in make-work jobs. It can stand to trim the waste in expensive programs and root out incompetent bureaucrats. What a democracy cannot—and should not—tolerate is a secretary of defense who trucks in propaganda and wants the people who serve in America’s military to be the armed instrument of his own resentments and biases. Related: Pete Hegseth, cornball in chief Hegseth’s war on America’s military

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Judge overturns Trump's decision to fire court-appointed US attorney in Seattle

A judge on Thursday overturned President Donald Trump's decision to fire the court-appointed top U.S. prosecutor in Seattle, the latest development in a legal tug-of-war over the administration’s efforts to control who occupies the powerful Justice Department posts. Read More.   Who will receive Trump’s $500 refund checks? The Affordable Care Act $500 refund checks are in the mail to nearly a million Americans, along with a letter from President Donald Trump touting his healthcare accomplishments and casting blame on his predecessor. More than 950,000 Obamacare enrollees across 30 states are receiving the one-time payments that began going out Wednesday. Trump says the recipients were “wrongly overcharged” during the Biden administration, though some experts dispute that characterization. The timing is notable: The rebates are landing just weeks before the midterm elections, as rising healthcare costs remain a major concern for voters. The president has also said he will send a much bigger payout — $5,000 to every American adult if Republicans retain control of Congress in November — though significant questions remain about how he would follow through on that promise. + Read more: Trump is sending $500 refund checks to nearly a million Americans + Plus: Takeaways from Trump’s TIME interview this week + Video: Trump vows $5,000 payments for US adults if GOP wins midterms ps:$500 rebate checks? Seriously? Pathetic!!!!!

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Third aircraft carrier and thousands of troops head to Mideast as Trump weighs new Iran strikes The U.S. military is dispatching roughly 9,000 troops aboard a group of ships to the Middle East, a U.S. official said Thursday. The troop movement, which includes a third aircraft carrier, underscores the rapidly evolving dynamic of President Donald Trump’s war against Iran as he ponders his next move. Read more.

Why this matters: Trump has threatened that a post-midterm election escalation — despite his initial promises to Americans of a campaign that would last a matter of weeks— remains a viable option. Further complicating matters, Trump told reporters Thursday that early indications suggest that Iran is linked to the FlyDubai co-pilot who stabbed his captain and tried to crash an Israel-bound flight on Wednesday. Trump added that if the link to Iran is established, the United States would retaliate.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Dual UK-Iranian national arrested over security incident at US-run air base in England Pete Hegseth creates a Pentagon Office of Religious Affairs reporting directly to him Supreme Court grants review of Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy for immigrants Trump administration says it has no plans for ICE officers at polls. Activists are preparing anyway DC judge permanently dismisses case charging ex-Olympian with vandalizing Reflecting Pool

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Trump’s shift from ‘Housing First’ is causing upheaval for homelessness programs and many they serve The Trump administration is shifting federal policy and dollars away from the “Housing First” approach, a model rooted in the belief that people need a stable place to live before addressing their other issues such as substance use disorder and job readiness. Across America, nearly 750,000 people were homeless last year, according to an estimate compiled by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Read more.

Why this matters: Many opponents of Housing First policies don't think services including addiction and mental health treatment should be optional. “Housing First has failed our most vulnerable and enabled addiction,” HUD said in an email.   Housing organizations across the U.S. that depend on federal funds are now reluctantly making changes to comply with new government policies that favor the “Treatment First” approach and short-term “transitional” housing which favors mandatory services for addiction and serious mental illness — changes they fear will push people with extreme health risks back on the street.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ WATCH: What Trump’s homelessness policy means for the most vulnerable FACT FOCUS: The poverty rate is at an all-time low, but there are other factors to consider Rural MAHA followers say Trump hasn’t improved health of their communities, an AP-KFF poll finds

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Kennedy Center Honors to be held at Capital One Arena amid fight over adding Trump’s name

This year’s Kennedy Center Honors will be held at Washington’s Capital One Arena, not the riverfront building that’s been at the center of a legal fight over adding President Donald Trump’s name to the building.

https://apnews.com/article/kennedy-center-capital-one-arena-be02720cea36924402c8ed0630c1ce9f?

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Natalie Harp Forced to Watch Trump Thirst Over Younger Aide

The president gushed about the “beautiful woman” from his rally stage.

Donald Trump’s devoted 35-year-old aide Natalie Harp was forced to watch the president gush over an even younger colleague at a campaign rally.

Trump, 80, plans to visit at least 17 states ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms as part of a MAGA blitz to keep Republican control of Congress.

After a quick trip to Texas, Trump spoke in Oklahoma on Thursday evening at a rally for Republican gubernational candidate Mike Mazzei. His executive assistant Harp was once again part of his entourage, as was White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.However, while “Human Printer” Harp stood on the sidelines, Trump called up on stage his 31-year-old communications adviser, Margo Martin, praising her for almost two minutes and calling her a social media “sensation.”Martin regularly posts videos of Trump on her social media, and he once called her “the most beautiful photographer in the world.” Fox News has also previously mistaken Martin for first lady Melania Trump, and social media users have dubbed her “Fake Melania.”

Trump said Martin, who grew up in Ada, Oklahoma, “is known for a number of things,” then said, “I can’t mention one, because if I do, my political career will be over.”

The senior president went there anyway, saying, “You can never say that a woman is beautiful. If you say a woman is beautiful, that’s the end of your political career. But, I’ll say it anyway, she is a beautiful woman, inside and out.”

Trump previously made the same claim during a speech for Women’s History Month in March, where he complained he was no longer allowed to call women “beautiful.”

“Usually, it’s the end of your political career,” he said in March. “If you say a woman’s a beautiful woman, they say that’s the termination of his career.”

On Thursday, the president then insisted the “shy” Martin come to the stage, saying, “Look at this. Look at this. And I’m not allowed... I’m not allowed to say she’s beautiful. You believe that, she is beautiful. But she’s beautiful inside and out, and she’s been so loyal.”

Trump then gave Martin’s parents a shout-out, saying, “I see why she’s good-looking, actually. You know, I believe in the racehorse theory. Fast horses, right? Great mom and dad. Thank you very much. Great job, Margo.”

The president has invoked his racehorse theory before, saying that humans are like racehorses and genetics dictates who succeeds, so fast horses produce fast horses.

When Trump raised the theory in 2020, Jewish leaders pointed out it had links to the concept that selective breeding can improve a country’s performance, which Nazis used to foster goals of racial purity.

“You have good genes, you know that, right?” Trump told a mostly white crowd of supporters in 2020. “You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it? Don’t you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”

At the time, Rabbi Mark Diamond, a senior lecturer on Jewish studies at Loyola Marymount University, said Trump’s remarks were “beyond reprehensible,” and said the selective breeding theory was “at the heart of Nazi ideology.

This week, the president’s niece Mary called out his “creepy” relationship with females aides less than half his age, such as Harp and Martin.

“One thing that constantly mystifies me is the extent to which people on the right overlook just how creepy all of this is,” Mary Trump wrote on her Substack. “I mean, his relationships with younger women, very young women. Why is that okay with people? It’s dysfunctional to the point of deviance.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/natalie-harp-forced-to-watch-trump-thirst-over-younger-aide-margo-martin/?

ps:How pathetic!!

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Kushner Busted as Secret Dealings Come to Light

Trump’s son-in-law’s company is profiting from one of the wars the president has sent him to help mediate.

Jared Kushner has been helping broker an end to the war in Gaza while his company sits on a billion-dollar stake in a group investing in Israeli military suppliers.

Kushner’s private equity group, Affinity Partners, has emerged as the largest shareholder in Phoenix Financial, a Tel Aviv group that has invested at least $456 million in nine companies that provide weapons and equipment to Israeli forces, CNN reports.

Affinity, owned solely by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, does not directly hold stock in those nine firms, and the network said it found no evidence that Kushner’s diplomatic work for the Trump administration had affected Phoenix’s investment decisions.

But the overlap has renewed questions about the potential for conflicts of interest in Kushner’s dual role as both a private investor and an unofficial White House representative in one of the world’s most sensitive and long-running conflicts.

Affinity first bought a 4.95 percent stake in Phoenix for $128.5 million in July 2024. It roughly doubled that position less than a week before Trump, 80, returned to office in January 2025.

The bet paid off handsomely after Affinity sold about a quarter of its Phoenix holdings in July for $340 million, a fivefold return on what it originally paid for those shares, according to CNN. It still owns a 7.4 percent stake in Phoenix, which was worth more than $1 billion at the time of the sale.

Phoenix’s military-linked holdings include at least $265 million in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer. It also holds more than $68 million in drone-camera maker Next Vision, roughly $56 million in military-engine producer Bet Shemesh Engines, and at least $40 million in Reshef Technologies, which makes electronic fuses for artillery shells.

Kushner has become one of Trump’s central Middle East intermediaries during the president’s second term, helping to negotiate the October 2025 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as well as working on Trump’s plans for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

The president’s son-in-law has also joined Trump envoy Steve Witkoff in negotiations aimed at ending Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as well as the U.S. war with Iran. He held no formal role in the White House before Trump named him a Special Envoy for Peace in February.

Before then, he was not subject to the same financial-disclosure and transparency requirements imposed on officials. His new title does not make him a government employee, and it is unclear which federal ethics rules now apply to him.

Kushner worked as an official senior adviser to the president during the first Trump administration. At the time, he resigned from the family real-estate business and agreed to shed foreign investments, stocks, and other assets to avoid conflicts of interest.

His lawyer told CNN that he has “never participated in or directed Phoenix’s decisions” about its investments and had “no involvement in the decision to purchase, hold, or sell any of the nine companies” the network identified.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House, Kushner’s representatives, and Affinity for comment on this story.

Democrats have already signaled that Kushner could face congressional scrutiny if the party takes control of the House after November’s midterms, ahead of which they hold an almost 9-point lead over the GOP.

Rep. Jamie Raskin told Reuters last month that Kushner “is a corporate executive that we absolutely will need to talk to” if those polls go his party’s way. He added that Kushner had already failed to answer two letters about Affinity’s dealings with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates while he has worked on diplomacy for the administration.

He has also set his sights on other members of the first family, including the president himself, who have faced separate conflict-of-interest accusations as their wealth has ballooned since Trump returned to the White House last year.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-son-in-law-jared-kushner-busted-as-secret-dealings-in-israel-come-to-light/?

ps:This is even more Pathetic!!

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💵 Exclusive: Bessent compares Trump Accounts to GI Bill

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Mike Allen on "The Axios Show" that Trump Accounts will be the "most important benefit for young people since the GI Bill," Axios' Courtenay Brown reports.

🧒 Treasury this week automatically created Trump Accounts for more than 60 million children.

• Bessent said in the interview at the Treasury Building that about 8 million people already created accounts before automatic enrollment.

💸 Bessent said the accounts could bring millions of new families into the financial markets.

• He compared the lack of access to a "food desert," saying that families struggling to cover an unexpected expense are unlikely to open a brokerage account and start investing.
• "By creating these accounts, we are opening this up."

🪖 Bessent's GI Bill comparison sets a high bar.

• That program helped millions of World War II veterans pay for education and training and buy homes.

Go deeper ...

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Blaming the messenger

President Donald Trump has locked on to a new excuse for the GOP’s impending 2026 midterm losses. And he’s right — to an extent. CNN’s Aaron Blake breaks it down for us.

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The “Brad” Brouhaha

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If you want a snapshot of how the right has changed over the past decade, here’s one data point: MAGA activists think Sarah Huckabee Sanders is too woke now.

That’s the same Sarah Huckabee Sanders who is the daughter of the GOP fixture Mike Huckabee and a former White House press secretary for President Trump. Now governor of Arkansas, she’s facing criticism from right-wing influencers over an ad boosting the state’s imposition of work requirements for recipients of the state’s Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. These requirements are a long-standing Republican priority, but my colleague Annie Lowrey wrote last year that they are “a terrible idea”: The requirement creates new taxpayer costs and red tape without really solving any problem, because most Medicaid recipients who are physically able to work already do.

That’s not why the activists are mad, though. They’re upset because the face of loafing in Sanders’s ad is a cheese-ball-snarfing couch potato named Brad who is a young white man. The “Pizzagate” influencer Jack Posobiec labels it “Antiwhite.” Sean Davis of The Federalist calls it part of decades-long, systematic discrimination against white men. The openly bigoted investor James Fishback, fresh off getting trounced in a GOP primary for governor of Florida, traveled to Little Rock this week to rail against the “false and disgraceful ad.”

Assessing the accuracy of a fictional character in an ad feels a little absurd, but for the record: More than 60 percent of Medicaid-expansion enrollees in Arkansas are white, and 18 percent are Black, according to The New York Times. (The state overall is about 75 percent white and 15 percent Black.) A little more than half are women. Sanders rebuffed criticism, writing, “Next thing you know they’ll say I should have used cookies instead of cheese balls.”

The immediate and obsessive focus on a throwaway character in a 30-second ad is a lurid reminder of how identitarianism has become influential in segments of the American right, particularly young voters. This is a matter of how members of the movement understand politics, as well as how they attempt to communicate to the American public.

For decades, the right—as well as some centrist Democrats, such as Bill Clinton—criticized progressives for embracing identity politics. They argued that a focus on demographic segments was divisive and unhelpful. Ronald Reagan preached that “a rising tide lifts all boats” (though in practice this often meant support for trickle-down policies that helped mostly the already-thriving) and called for “color-blind” policies (which also tended to result in worse outcomes for people of color). This impulse persists in some segments of the Republican Party, most notably in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, led by the former Reagan aide John Roberts.

This didn’t mean that people on the right hesitated to use race as a political wedge. They just did it elliptically. The avatar of this strategy was Lee Atwater, an adviser to Reagan and George H. W. Bush, whose 1981 explanation was as vulgar as the impulses he courted. “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’” he explained. “By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, ‘forced busing,’ ‘states’ rights,’ and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a by-product of them is, Blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

In 1980, for example, Reagan delivered a controversial speech at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, not far from where the civil-rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered in 1964, and spoke about “states’ rights,” a phrase that segregationists had adopted. In 1988, a pro-Bush group aired a commercial that attacked his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, for allowing a convicted criminal named Wlliam Horton furlough from prison, during which he nearly killed someone. The ad didn’t mention Horton’s race and didn’t need to; it included his mugshot and called him “Willie,” which Horton (among others) interpreted as a dog whistle. “It was created to play on racial stereotypes: big, ugly, dumb, violent, Black—‘Willie,’” he said later.

And, perhaps most relevant to the “Brad” brouhaha, Reagan often spoke about someone who became known as the “welfare queen.” As the journalist Josh Levin has written, this referred to a real individual, a woman in Chicago named Linda Taylor. Reagan never talked about her race, yet “welfare queen” became entrenched as a trope of lazy Black women grifting off the welfare system.

This may explain why people such as Posobiec and Fishback are so agitated about the Arkansas ad: They understand how powerful a political weapon racial associations can be in shaping policy. But they don’t have Atwater’s finesse or plausible deniability. The right has gone from insisting that its rhetoric about entitlements was color-blind to demanding that it include racial signifiers. And though the number of Americans willing to tolerate or embrace gutter racism in politics appears to be growing, it remains a marginal group. The hardest-core activists, hyping one another up in group chats and on Discord servers, may have lost sight of that, failing to recognize how bizarre they look freaking out over a forgettable advertisement.

If these identitarians looked around, they could see cautionary tales about the wholesale embrace of identity politics, such as the impression among many voters that the Democratic Party is more interested in niche groups than in ordinary people. They could learn from the first wave of the MAGA movement, which was willing to accommodate racism and bigotry for electoral gain but apparently believed that they could be contained and channeled. The commentator Erick Erickson, for example, has spent years tolerating Trumpism but now reacts with horror at neo-Nazis in the movement. Or they could consider the plight of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who defended Trump’s every move from the White House lectern and now finds herself accused of treachery by his zealous followers.

Related:

• James Fishback is an unsettling glimpse into the GOP’s future.
• The cynical Republican plan to cut Medicaid

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New Trump child care plan would strip resources from low-income working families

Reporting in The New York Times describes an upcoming proposal from the Trump administration to use funds from the Child Care and Development Fund to provide “parent-based child care” in which a married parent could receive financial assistance to stay home to care for their children, while the other parent works. Providing additional income to support economically struggling families, including support for family members who want to be full-time caregivers for children, is a great idea. Pulling the funds to do so from the Child Care and Development Fund is not. 

https://www.epi.org/blog/new-trump-child-care-plan-would-strip-resources-from-low-income-working-families-a-better-solution-is-to-fully-fund-the-child-care-and-development-fund-instead-of-redirecting-resources-away-from-work/?

ps:Just incredible!!

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Trump Makes Desperate Plea to Deep-Red State Voters

The president is sounding increasingly panicked.

President Donald Trump amped up his pleas to his supporters ahead of the midterms, calling on them to “promise” to pretend he is on the ballot.

Trump, 80, spoke in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday night, even though there are no competitive races of note in that state in November. He was there, he said, as a “sign of respect.” He will return next weekend for the college football game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Georgia Bulldogs in Tuscaloosa.

Trump, whose party faces projected losses in the House as voters express dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy, begged viewers to treat the election as if it were not just a midterm.

“This election, I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot,” he said. “Here’s what happens: when I’m not on the ballot, we don’t do well. We have 44 percent or 48 percent less people. When I’m on the ballot, we get everybody. So, just close your eyes and pretend I’m on the ballot.”

Later in his speech—with rows of empty seats visible in the upper levels of the University of South Alabama’s Mitchell Center—Trump circled back to his ask.

“Think of it: I don’t need the votes. I’m doing this, you know, I’m doing this and I’m not running for anything,” he said, sounding exasperated. “But you’re going to think of me as on the ballot, right? Everybody promise?”

Trump’s request came three weeks after he essentially offered a bribe to voters amid signs of a blue wave reminiscent of 2018: $5,000 to every adult if Republicans held onto both the House and Senate. Paying that out would cost around $1.35 trillion—and would require congressional approval. Yet Trump reiterated the offer on Friday.

“If the Democrats win, you will have an economic depression, in my opinion, the likes of 1929. Not a good time,” he claimed. “If the Republicans win, you’ll each have $5,000 in your pocket and economic success for your country like we have never seen before.”

Yet Trump simultaneously continues to downplay Americans’ concerns about the cost of living—an issue that he largely campaigned on in 2024.

“They keep talking about affordability, you know? It’s a f— it’s a word that the Democrats gave. They created a tremendous problem,” he said.

“We’ve done nothing but bring prices way down,” he said later, even though gasoline and diesel prices are higher now than before the Iran war. “And when the war with Iran is over, which is going to be very soon… oil prices will come tumbling down.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-makes-desperate-plea-to-deep-red-state-voters/?

ps:What's he panicking about?

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Trump Cranks Up His Propaganda Ad Blitz

The White House calls them “public service announcements,” but the spots praise Trump’s record—and have drawn criticism from both parties.

Donald Trump’s White House has made 13 taxpayer-funded ads glorifying the president, including one that solemnly declares: “God made Trump.”

CNN has obtained 12 of the spots, revealing a government-funded ad blitz featuring Trump touting his record, posing with fighter jets and Marine One, promoting his military actions in Iran and efforts to arrest Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, and even celebrating the UFC spectacle he hosted on the White House lawn.

The administration calls the spots “public service announcements,” but they all feature Trump and tout his record as Republicans campaign for the November midterms. The White House has transferred $20 million from Homeland Security to fund the advertising, with at least $2.5 million already spent on airtime.

The ads have drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, with lawmakers questioning whether taxpayer money can legally be used to promote the president and his political message.

The 15-second-to-three-minute spots range from chest-thumping paeans to Trump’s strength and “resilience” to videos touting his tariffs. Their titles include “Resilience,” “King of the Jungle,” and “Military Hype.” Two have already aired, and all end with the message: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

CNN obtained the spots from a Dropbox belonging to LMD, the agency awarded the government contract to buy advertising space. A 13th ad, “Final Battle,” which CNN did not obtain, has also aired.

The “God Made Trump” ad was broadcast at Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas last month.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle the deep state,” says the commanding voiceover in the ad. “So God made Trump.”

Former Trump White House communications director Mike Dubke suggested in an interview that Trump’s team may have allowed CNN access to the ads, believing the network would air at least part of one to illustrate its scoop—getting the president’s message on television for free.

Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy sharply criticized the ads. “I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” Kennedy said last week on Face the Nation.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on X that the ads “may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes.”

Republicans John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have also criticized the ads as an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

The administration responded to CNN’s queries by pointing to a video compilation of the president attacking the network.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-cranks-up-his-propaganda-ad-blitz/?

ps:Pathetic!!!!!

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Keystone Kash Busted Admitting He’s Trump Goon’s Errand Boy

The FBI director is reportedly taking marching orders from Stephen Miller.

FBI Director Kash Patel is scurrying around trying to help President Donald Trump, a new bombshell report shows, but he’s also taking direct orders from another top official: Stephen Miller.

The top law enforcement official has been taking an unusual number of calls from the White House, according to many current and former officials, The Atlantic reported.

It said Patel receives calls throughout the day requesting FBI activity and updates, and Patel has even admitted to officials that he has little independence.

Instead, he has to do the bidding of the president, Miller, who is the White House deputy chief of staff, and other Trump staffers.

One former FBI official told The Atlantic: “I’ve personally heard him say, ‘I have to do this for the White House.’”

The White House did not deny that Miller gives the FBI directions, and sent the Daily Beast the same response it gave The Atlantic that said Miller, as homeland security adviser, “interacts with all law-enforcement agencies on a regular basis.”

Meanwhile, the FBI Operations Director Joe Perez said in a statement to The Atlantic that the FBI “receives referrals from a variety of places, assesses the facts of the allegation, documents the referral, and we make the decision whether or not to proceed accordingly under an authorized purpose as we have always done.”

The Atlantic spoke with more than 40 people for its report, including current and former administration officials, FBI employees, and members of Congress and their staff.

It detailed how Patel has been desperately scrambling to help the Justice Department bring charges and create headlines that will please the president.

Officials told The Atlantic Patel has been briefed on “election integrity” probes in multiple states, including Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, and Ohio, and that the requests for investigations came directly from the White House.

But despite Patel’s attempts and the prioritization by the administration, the FBI director has had few results to show for his efforts.

When asked by the Daily Beast about Patel taking orders from the president and Miller, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis responded with a statement that instead focused on voter fraud.

“The real story is—despite the media and Democrats denying it for decades—evidence of voter fraud continues to pile up,” Bis said.

Her response included a list of announcements where just over two dozen individuals faced illegal voting charges largely related to 2022 and 2024, a far cry from ample evidence to back the president’s repeated claims of widespread voter fraud or that the 2020 election was stolen.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kash-patel-busted-admitting-hes-trump-goon-stephen-millers-errand-boy/?

ps:I hope no one is really surprised? Every single person that has been appointed to any position does not run that position, they are puppets doing exactly what they are told to do!!!! Period!! Funny but the outrage about the previous administration telling people what to do was so loud, but this admin gets a free pass?? Not one once of evidence has been brought up, yet this admin has been found doing just that without a peep of outrage!!!!!!!!!!