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

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Susie Wiles Busts Trump on One of His Favorite Lies

Trump’s chief of staff pushed back on his claims about Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles called out one of President Donald Trump’s repeated claims about the Jeffrey Epstein case.

As Trump faced escalating scrutiny over his relationship with the convicted sex offender over the summer, the president instead pointed fingers at other Epstein associates, including former President Bill Clinton.

Trump argued the focus should instead be on the former president, but Wiles said Trump did not have evidence to back his own claims about Clinton’s relationship with Epstein.

“You ought to be speaking about Bill Clinton, who went to the island 28 times,” Trump told reporters over the summer. “I never went to the island.”

The president repeated his accusation in a Truth Social post last month when he called on the attorney general to investigate Clinton and others for their relationships with Epstein.

“Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island,’” Trump wrote on November 14.

But Wiles told Vanity Fair in a wide-ranging feature that Trump did not have proof to back his Clinton claim.

“There is no evidence,” she told the magazine about Clinton’s alleged visits to the private island.

She also indicated there wasn’t anything incriminating about Clinton in the files.

“The president was wrong about that,” she said.

Wiles told Vanity Fair that she read the Epstein files, and she said Trump is in the files. But she claimed, “he’s not in the file doing anything awful.”

She also acknowledged that Trump was on Epstein’s plane. Both he and Clinton have shown up on the manifest, but not for trips to the disgraced financier’s private island.

The comments from Wiles were released less than a week after Democrats dropped tens of thousands of photos from the Epstein estate that included images of both Trump and Clinton.

It comes as Republicans this week are demanding that the former president, as well as Hillary Clinton, appear for depositions with the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors as part of their investigation, but the Clintons have pushed back.

They have offered to give sworn statements to the committee as others who had been subpoenaed have done, but Republican Party Chairman James Comer has threatened to begin contempt proceedings if they do not appear in person.

While Republicans on the committee have pushed to speak with the Clintons about Epstein, Trump has not been asked to go before the committee to discuss his own relationship with the convicted sex offender.

However, Wiles indicated Trump may have to be deposed separately about Epstein at some point.

The president sued The Wall Street Journal after it reported on a lewd letter that it appeared Trump gave to Epstein for his 50th birthday. Trump denies he wrote the letter and filed a $20 billion defamation lawsuit.

Wiles insisted that the letter, which included a doodle of a naked woman’s torso, did not come from Trump, but she said they would get some answers with discovery after suing.

Asked if Trump would sit for a deposition as part of the process, Wiles responded: “I mean, if he had to.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/susie-wiles-busts-trump-on-one-of-his-favorite-lies/?

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How Reiner’s Truth-Telling Sent Trump Deranged

When the Reiner family troubles erupted into horror on Sunday night, Trump made it all about him.

The most extreme victim of Trump Derangement Syndrome is President Donald J. Trump himself.

And that has never been more apparent than in Trump’s post on Truth Social on Monday, after the younger son of director Rob Reiner and his wife was arrested as the prime suspect in their murder over the weekend.

Rob Reiner happened to have detected the root cause of Trump’s derangement at his first encounter with The Donald back in June of 1988. Reiner had been in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with Billy Crystal for the Mike Tyson vs. Michael Spinks fight when they encountered the man who is now our president.

“We just met him prior to the fight,” Reiner would recall in a 2017 Politico podcast. “We talked with him for a while.”

Reiner would not be able to recall what exactly they talked about. He would only remember the subject to which Trump repeatedly returned.

“I have worked with people who have the biggest egos in the world, you know, actors,” Reiner—himself an actor and a director of hit movies—said. “They have huge egos, and, you know, politicians have egos too. You wouldn’t go into that profession, whether it’s an actor or a politician, unless you had a need to be liked.”

But Trump was singular when it came to obsessive self-regard and involvement. “I’ve never met somebody with as big an ego. I couldn’t believe it,” Reiner remembered. “He’s meeting Billy… He’s meeting me, and yet it’s only about him. And so I thought, ‘Wow, that’s interesting.’ Everything that we talked about came back to him. It always came back to him,... Doesn’t matter what we talked about, [it] came right back to him.”

Reiner also recalled on the podcast that his wife, the photographer Michele Singer Reiner, had taken the jacket photo for Trump’s book The Art of the Deal. Singer Reiner had been about to take a picture of him up on a high-rise under construction overlooking Central Park.

“The wind was blowing, and he said, ‘I got to get this hairspray, you know, I need this special hairspray,’” Reiner recounted. “So they went downstairs to get it, and when they walked down the street, people [were] going, ‘Hey, Donald! Donald!’ He was always larger than life, and he was always attractive in that, you know, charismatic celebrity way.”

Reiner was telling his tale in the second year of Trump’s first term, but he remained charitable as he continued.

“So, you know, I think that it matters, all that stuff matters,” Reiner said. “There’s a reason why Kennedy beat Nixon, you know, people heard that debate, they think Nixon won the debate. People saw the debate: Kennedy won that debate.”

Reiner had become less kind with regard to Trump’s politics. He shared the views his father, Carl Reiner—comedian and the creator of TV’s The Dick Van Dyke Show—expressed in a 2018 post on what was then still Twitter.

“Hi, I’m Carl Reiner. I’m 96 and a half years old, and I’ve seen a lot of things in my lifetime. I lived through the Great Depression. I served in World War II, in our fight to defeat fascism. I’ve seen the invention of television and performed on television even before my family owned one. What I’ve never seen is the American people being lied to every single day.”

Carl cited lies about everything from climate change to Medicare.

“The one thing I cannot bear to see is America being destroyed by racism, fear-mongering, and lies. Fortunately, there is something we can do about that.“

He called on people to vote in the midterm elections.

“On November 6th, we can vote for elected officials who will hold this president accountable, and after we’ve done that, my personal goal will be to stick around until 2020 and vote to make sure we have a decent, moral, law-abiding citizen in Washington.”

Carl Reiner died in June of 2020, five months before Trump was, in fact, voted out of office. Trump was subsequently convicted on felony charges of paying hush money to a porn star.

But Trump retained that celebrity charisma, and he proved a genius for image making when he was shot, rising with a bloody face, fist raised, shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!”As Trump returned to the White House, Reiner continued being his father’s son, on what was now X. Reiner had come to a rational conclusion that the survival of democracy itself was at stake. He was not shy about reminding people of Trump’s criminal record. But even as he was being his father’s son when it came to politics, Reiner had been having terrible problems as a father with his younger son. Nick Reiner wrote a semi-autobiographical screenplay, Being Charlie, that dramatizes his struggles with drug addiction and his parents, his father in particular. Rob directed the movie, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015, on Nick’s 22nd birthday.

That means the family’s struggles were there for all the world to see before Trump was first elected president.

But when those troubles erupted into horror on Sunday night, Trump made it all about him. His post on Truth Social on Monday morning was among the most disgraceful things ever to blight social media.

Trump, 79, began by contending that the deaths of Rob, 78, and Michele, 68, were “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.”

“He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before.”

Trump said all this even as some of his supporters were coming to see the unsocial truth behind his mendacious rantings on Truth Social.

And to make it all the worst of the worst, Trump had the unconscionable gall to close by saying, “May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

That gives new meaning to his claim to be the Peace President.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-rob-reiners-truth-telling-sent-trump-deranged/?

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Jared Kushner Forced to Abandon Plan to Build Trump Hotel After Furious Backlash

Kushner and firm pull out of plan to build a $500 million development in Serbia.

Jared Kushner has given up on building a Trump-branded hotel in Europe after the project sparked a major backlash and led to the indictment of a senior politician, according to news reports.

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law had been working for more than two years to gain permission to tear down the protected building in central Belgrade, Serbia, and build a $500 million luxury hotel and residence on the site.

A special prosecutor indicted a cabinet member and three other officials over the project on Monday, forcing Kushner’s firm to abandon the development, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“Because meaningful projects should unite rather than divide, and out of respect for the people of Serbia and the city of Belgrade, we are withdrawing our application and stepping aside at this time,” a spokesman for Kushner’s $4.8 billion private-equity firm, Affinity Partners, said hours after the indictment was returned.

The Serbian government had taken steps to strip the site, a former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense headquarters that was heavily damaged in a 1999 NATO bombing campaign, of its cultural-heritage protections and transfer it to Affinity Partners.

But in May, the semi-independent prosecutor’s office arrested an official for allegedly forging the documents that paved the way for the site’s demolition, and launched a wider investigation, WSJ reported.

At the time, Affinity Partners told the New York Times it was reviewing the matter and determining next steps.

Soon after, President Aleksandar Vučić’s government passed two Parliamentary measures that stripped the bombed-out building of its protected status, a move that opponents decried as unconstitutional and corrupt.

Thousands of protesters marched against the government’s approval, which was widely seen as an effort to appease the Trump administration, according to the Journal.

That perception probably wasn’t helped by Donald Trump Jr. visiting the country in the spring to try to prop up the government.

Affinity Partners, which is mainly funded by Middle Eastern governments, has said it had played no role in the review of the site’s cultural status, and Kusher has insisted that he tells his investors not to expect any favorable treatment from the U.S.

On Monday, the special prosecutor said it had indicted the minister of culture and three other officials for abusing their positions and falsifying documents.

Vučić has vowed to pardon any official caught up in the case. He says the aborted Trump hotel was not about politics but about tearing down an eyesore that the government has tried for years to redevelop.

Kushner’s project, however, was uniquely positioned to draw the ire of both the left and the right.

The building, which was damaged during a NATO air campaign meant to halt ethnic cleansing led by former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, remains a symbol of national identity on the right, with nationalists opposing its sale to the family involved in governing NATO’s powerful member state.

Left-wing politicians, on the other hand, blasted the sale as the giveaway of a public asset without an open process.

The Daily Beast has reached out to Affinity Partners and the Trump Organization for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jared-kushner-forced-to-abandon-plan-to-build-trump-hotel-after-furious-backlash/?

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Damning Poll Finds Record Number of Americans Say Healthcare Is in Crisis Under Trump

Gallup’s new numbers landed on the Obamacare deadline day.

Nearly one-quarter of Americans say the healthcare system is in crisis under Donald Trump in a damning new poll released as millions brace themselves for higher premiums.

A new healthcare survey released Monday found 23 percent of U.S. adults describing the nation’s healthcare system as being “in a state of crisis,” while another 47 percent said it has “major problems.”

The number of people calling it a full-blown “crisis” has reached a record 23 percent, topping prior highs in 2009 and 2013. Gallup

Gallup also found 29 percent of people cited high costs as the country’s most urgent health problem—one of the highest readings the firm has logged in years of tracking.

Cost and access have typically topped the list of health problems in the U.S. since 2000. Gallup

The survey was released on the day that people must apply for Obamacare coverage that begins on New Year’s Day.

The gloom cuts across party lines, according to the Gallup survey. The data show that 81 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans say the system is either in crisis or has major problems.

Americans also fear affordability—something Trump has unsuccessfully tried to paint as a “Democrat hoax.” Only 16 percent said they are satisfied with the total cost of U.S. healthcare, even though 57 percent said they’re content with what they personally pay.

Americans' satisfaction with their own healthcare costs has been steady since 2022. Gallup

A real-time political countdown is heightening anxiety. Congress is heading toward the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act—Obamacare—premium tax credits at year’s end. Monday was the deadline to enroll for Obamacare coverage that starts Jan. 1.

Independent health policy research company KFF estimates that if the enhanced credits expire, subsidized enrollees’ annual premium payments would jump 114 percent on average—from $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026. On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Mike Johnson, 53, has said Republicans will move their own healthcare package while not extending the ACA subsidies, the Washington Post reported. The Senate has already blocked competing Democratic and Republican approaches in the last week, according to multiple reports.

With the Affordable Care Act on the books since 2010, Gallup’s Lydia Saad said the issue isn’t coverage availability so much as affordability. “It’s not that they don’t have the plans... They can’t afford the plans,” she told The Washington Post. KFF’s Liz told the Post, “Healthcare is a pocketbook issue for people.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services for comment.

The survey was conducted Nov. 3-25.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/damning-poll-reveals-record-number-of-americans-say-healthcare-is-in-crisis-under-donald-trump/?

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Trump Files Doomed New $10 Billion Lawsuit Over Edit of His Speech

It is the latest legal action the president has taken against a media outlet he doesn’t like.

President Donald Trump has launched a major legal battle against the BBC, filing a federal lawsuit that seeks up to $10 billion over allegations the U.K. public broadcaster misrepresented a part of his speech delivered prior to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. His attorneys argue the segment deceptively stitched his remarks together to make it appear he encouraged violence. The BBC has previously apologized for the way the footage was cut, calling it an “error of judgment” but rejecting claims it defamed the president. Legal experts have said the suit appears futile, as the statute of limitations has already expired in the U.K. and the program on which the segment aired, Panorama, does not broadcast in the U.S. The controversy has led to the resignations of senior executives at the corporation and prompted fierce debate in both the U.K. and U.S. over editorial standards and press freedom. The case adds to a widening series of high-profile legal offensives Trump has launched against major media organizations both before and after returning to the presidency, including suing The Wall Street Journal over its reporting on his relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and a successful action against ABC News after one of the network’s anchors mischaracterized the ruling against Trump in a sexual assault case.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-files-doomed-new-10-billion-lawsuit-over-edit-of-his-speech/?

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Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, criticizes Bondi and opines on Trump in Vanity Fair

Susie Wiles, President Donald Trump’s understated but influential chief of staff, criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and offered an unvarnished take on her boss and those in his orbit in a series of observations that were published Tuesday in Vanity Fair. The magazine’s two-part profile of Wiles immediately sent shock waves through Washington while sending the West Wing into damage control. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

WATCH: Vance defends Susie Wiles, says he's never seen her 'be disloyal' to Trump after Vanity Fair article Hegseth says he won’t publicly release video of boat that killed survivors in the Caribbean Muslim rights group sues Florida Gov. DeSantis over 'foreign terrorist' label The US gained 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October; unemployment rate at 4.6% A crypto company was under investigation. Now it's in business with Trump's social media firm

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Trump expands travel ban and restrictions to include an additional 20 countries

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration announced Tuesday it was expanding travel restrictions to an additional 20 countries and the Palestinian Authority, doubling the number of nations affected by sweeping limits announced earlier this year on who can travel and emigrate to the U.S.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-travel-ban-countries-immigration-visas-border-9dde0aecb3ffe418266700d9eefef937?

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A ‘Public Relations’ Tactic

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For months, President Donald Trump’s crusade against the drug trade has carried the threat of violence: “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country,” he said in October. Yesterday, hours before his administration announced that the United States had conducted three more strikes on alleged drug boats, he designated fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction—a move that could help him further justify the deadly conflict.

Under U.S. law, the definition of a WMD is broad enough to encompass incendiary bombs, rockets, grenades, biological agents, toxins, and other weapons that “can have a large-scale impact on people, property, or infrastructure.” Lawmakers have pushed to classify fentanyl as a WMD in the past; the drug belongs to the category of synthetic opioids, which accounted for roughly 48,000 deaths in the U.S. last year (approximately 60 percent of all overdose deaths). The idea was discussed and eventually abandoned during Trump’s first term and under Joe Biden—but ongoing military activity in the Caribbean and political tensions with Venezuela may have given Trump a reason to reverse course.

On his first day of his second term in office, Trump signed an executive order designating certain drug cartels as terrorist organizations. And since early September, the U.S. has launched 25 known attacks against boats that officials have claimed were carrying illicit drugs; at least 95 people have been killed, and at least one strike may have been a war crime. “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vice President J. D. Vance wrote after the strikes began. “Every boat kills 25,000 on average—some people say more,” Trump said in September. “These boats, they’re stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly fentanyl and other drugs, too.” Never mind that some of the slain may not have worked for cartels, or that no evidence of fentanyl has been found on these boats: Cocaine and marijuana, not fentanyl, represent the majority of drugs intercepted on the high seas.

Yesterday’s reclassification of fentanyl may not grant the president special power to authorize new military activity, or to unilaterally declare war. But it is a rhetorical escalation that reaffirms this administration’s posture in the armed conflict that’s already under way. Similar to how WMDs were used as a pretext for the Iraq War, Trump is “using that same language, that same authority to be able to do what he wants,” Christopher Sabatini, a senior research fellow at the think tank Chatham House, told me. It’s a “public relations” tactic, according to Regina LaBelle, a professor of addiction policy at Georgetown University. The reclassification may be playing on the public’s understanding of WMDs as a global, existential threat: the kind of thing a country could go to war over.

 

In apparent contravention of Trump’s campaign promise to extract the country from foreign conflicts, the U.S. has mounted a large-scale military buildup off the coast of Venezuela. An estimated 10,000 troops and 6,000 sailors are now deployed on Navy warships, including an aircraft carrier. Last week, the U.S. seized a Venezuelan oil tanker. Trump said on Friday that he will be “starting” land strikes on drug operations in Latin American countries, Venezuela among them, although he hasn’t said when. And he has explicitly threatened Venezuela’s autocratic leader, President Nicolás Maduro: When asked last week whether he’d push for regime change, Trump said that Maduro’s “days are numbered.”

The new designation for fentanyl was “part of trying to put forward some sort of justification for taking military action,” Paul Poast, a University of Chicago political-science professor, told me. But if that justification was aimed in part at Venezuela, as some experts have suggested, it’s not a very good one. The illicit fentanyl now flooding the U.S. doesn’t come here through Venezuela; most of it is manufactured in Mexico. The fact that Venezuela wasn’t explicitly invoked in yesterday’s announcement could also indicate that the executive order is a “signal that’s being sent to governments and transnational criminals in Latin America to watch out—you could be next,” Sabatini said.

Perhaps a bigger problem with the classification of fentanyl as a WMD is that unlike, say, sarin gas, it is not actually being used as a weapon. Although a chemical can be a WMD, “the vast majority of time when Americans die because of a fentanyl overdose, it was not an intentional outcome,” Jonathan Caulkins, a policy professor at Carnegie Mellon, explained. Fentanyl has been used as a weapon at least once: During the Moscow-theater hostage crisis in 2002, Russian Spetsnaz commandos deployed fentanyl in gas form, killing the Chechan terrorists and many of the hostages too. But just because the drug can be deadly on a large scale doesn’t necessarily mean it is a WMD. “We don’t use that term for cigarettes, bullets, cars,” Caulkins said—each of which also causes tens of thousands of deaths every year.

Although the WMD designation may not have immediate legal implications for Trump’s military powers, it could potentially change how domestic drug cases are prosecuted. The use of a WMD against people or property in the U.S. carries a maximum sentence of life in prison; if someone dies, prosecutors can argue for the death penalty. According to research co-authored by LaBelle, that could impose “a life sentence on any person who uses drugs laced with illicitly manufactured fentanyl, or anyone who gives drugs laced with illicitly manufactured fentanyl to their friend.” As of now, the Trump administration has offered no guidance on how this might play out.

Although the reclassification of fentanyl reinforces Trump’s position against drug trafficking, it may not do much on its own to solve the opioid crisis. Overdose deaths have been declining in the U.S. since before Trump took office, long before the boat strikes began. Many theories have been proposed as to why—but the escalation of armed conflict isn’t one of them.

Related:

• Fentanyl doesn’t come through the Caribbean.
• Trump’s boat strikes could make the cartel problem worse.

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⚡ Trump's Venezuela blockade

President Trump designated Venezuela a "foreign terrorist organization" last night and formally ordered a blockade of all U.S.-sanctioned oil tankers servicing the country, Axios' Marc Caputo writes.

• Why it matters: Trump's newest escalation, backed by a giant U.S. armada, exerts unprecedented pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro's regime, threatening to bankrupt the country's already struggling economy.

The big picture: The designation of the Venezuelan government as a "foreign terrorist organization" bears two major implications:

1. It creates more of a pretext for direct military action in Venezuela,
2. It smooths the way for U.S. personnel to sanction, stop or seize any vessel carrying Venezuelan oil.

? Zoom in: About 18 tankers under U.S. sanctions that are fully loaded with oil currently sit within Venezuelan waters.

• The U.S. is monitoring those vessels and plans to seize them as soon as they move into international waters.
• "Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before," Trump said on Truth Social last night.

The intrigue: At least two oil companies that once had business in Venezuela have asked the U.S. government about the fate of the nearly 1.9 million barrels of crude seized last week on the vessel Skipper, a source told Axios, declining to name names.

• The Skipper's oil is valued by experts at about $95 million.

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Trump Blames Anyone but Keystone Kash for Bungled Manhunt

The president zeroed in on a scapegoat as the hunt for a mass shooter passed the 72-hour mark.

President Donald Trump doubled down on blaming Brown University and not his own bumbling FBI as the hunt for the Brown University shooter stretched into its fourth day.

An unidentified suspect opened fire at about 4 p.m. Saturday inside a lecture hall where students were attending a review session for a final exam in economics, killing two students and injuring nine others, before fleeing the campus in Providence, Rhode Island.

The building had limited security camera coverage, making it difficult to follow the suspect’s movements into the surrounding neighborhood, where the shooter was then picked up on surveillance footage.

“Brown is different than maybe some universities in that it is very much integrated with a residential neighborhood,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said during a press conference Tuesday night. “This building is on the literal edge of the campus, and the person of interest walked out the door (and) as soon as he stepped onto the sidewalk, was no longer on campus.”

Trump, however, tried to blame the university for the fact that officials still have not identified the suspect, a stocky man wearing a face mask and a beanie who was caught on camera.

“Why did Brown University have so few Security Cameras? There can be no excuse for that. In the modern age, it just doesn’t get worse!!!” Trump wrote after midnight local time in a Truth Social post.

It wasn’t the first time the president has appeared to deflect as the FBI has struggled with the investigation. On Sunday, FBI Director Kash Patel announced on social media that a person of interest was in custody, only for authorities to then clear the person in question.

Asked on Monday why the FBI was having so much trouble identifying the shooter, Trump replied, “Well, it’s always difficult. So far, we’ve done a very good job of doing it... they’ve done it in record time,” before claiming the investigation wasn’t in the FBI’s jurisdiction.

“You’d really have to ask the school about that because this was a school problem,” he continued. “They had their own guards, their own police, their own everything. But you would have to ask that question to the school and not to the FBI.”

Patel himself wrote on social media, however, that the FBI had launched an “all-out 24/7 campaign” to arrest the shooter.

The bureau released new images of the suspect on Monday and said it was offering up to $50,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, told PBS News Hour that the shooting raised important questions about campus accessibility and security, but that Brown University was not responsible for catching the killer.

“The school has no arrest or investigatory authority,” she said in an interview Tuesday night. “The investigation is clearly led by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.”

Patel’s premature announcement that a person of interest was in custody hurt the investigation because it forced everyone to focus on the wrong person, meaning the real suspect was able to get farther away, and evidence could have been destroyed.

“The challenge is not only did they lose time. You’re really beginning to have a community lose confidence, and that you can’t have,” Kayyem added. “It looks like they’re too divided.”In the meantime, MAGA influencers have latched onto wild conspiracy theories about the suspect “walking like a leftist” and targeting one of the victims because she was conservative, even though witnesses said the killings appeared random.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-tries-to-deflect-heat-from-fbi-in-late-night-brown-university-rant/?

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Trump orders blockade of ‘sanctioned oil tankers’ into Venezuela President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country’s economy. Read more.

What to know: In a post on social media Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to continue the military buildup until the country gave the U.S. oil, land and assets, though it was not clear why he felt the U.S. had a claim.   Venezuela’s government released a statement Tuesday accusing Trump of “violating international law, free trade, and the principle of free navigation” with “a reckless and grave threat” against the South American country. Maduro’s government plans to denounce the situation before the United Nations.   Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels per day, has long relied on oil revenue as a lifeblood of its economy. Since the Trump administration began imposing oil sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, Maduro’s government has relied on a shadowy fleet of unflagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Trump expands travel ban and restrictions to include an additional 20 countries   The US labels another Latin American cartel a terrorist group as the anti-drug war escalates

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• Takeaways: Susie Wiles pulls back the curtain on the Trump administration in revealing interviews
   

• Sen. Mark Kelly calls Pentagon investigation into his remarks a move to chill military dissent
   

• Trump will go to Delaware for the dignified transfer of the 2 National Guard members killed in Syria
   

• Jack Smith set for private interview with lawmakers about Trump investigations
   

• Georgia Senate set to question Fani Willis over Trump prosecution
   
• Federal judge says he’s inclined to deny preservationists’ request to halt Trump’s ballroom project
   
• Former NIH scientist sues Trump administration, claims illegal firing over research cuts
   
• Jared Kushner pulls out of Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery
   
• FCC leader Brendan Carr to face Senate questioning for first time since Kimmel controversy
   
• Maryland to consider slavery reparations after Gov. Wes Moore’s veto is overridden
   
• FAA head vows to maintain safety measures implemented after tragic DC plane crash
   
• Cannabis entrepreneur Duke Rodriguez joins the race for New Mexico governor
   
• Virginia Roberts Guiffre’s memoir sells 1M copies worldwide
   
• Last U.S. cents sold at auction for a sum of $16.76 million were worth a pretty penny

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Trafficked, exploited, married off: Rohingya children’s lives crushed by foreign aid cuts The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed this year by President Trump, along with funding reductions from other countries, have shuttered thousands of schools and youth training centers and crippled child protection programs for Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority in Bangladesh. Read more.

What to know: With no safe space to play or learn, children are left to wander the labyrinthine refugee camps, making them increasingly easy targets for kidnappers. As a result, scores of children as young as 10 are forced into backbreaking manual labor, and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution.    Violations against children in the camps have risen sharply this year, according to UNICEF. Between January and mid-November, reported cases of abduction and kidnapping more than quadrupled over the same time period last year, to 560 children.   In a statement to The Associated Press, the State Department said the U.S. has provided more than $168 million to the Rohingya since the beginning of Trump’s term, although data from the U.N.’s financial tracking service show the U.S. contribution in 2025 is $156 million. Asked about the disparity, the State Department said the U.N.’s financial tracking service had not been recently updated and “generally does not show the latest information on all U.S. funding.”

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ WATCH: Rohingya child marriages on the rise after Trump's foreign aid cuts   Millions facing acute food insecurity in Afghanistan as winter looms, UN warns

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Trump defends Wiles after stunning interview

President Trump is defending chief of staff Susie Wiles after her blunt, private views on the past year were revealed in a series of stunning on-the-record Vanity Fair interviews.

• "I didn't read it, but I don't read Vanity Fair — but she's done a fantastic job," Trump told the New York Post.
• "I think from what I hear, the facts were wrong, and it was a very misguided interviewer, purposely misguided."

Trump minimized Wiles' saying that he has an "alcoholic's personality."

• "I've said that many times about myself," Trump said. "I'm fortunate I'm not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I've said that — what's the word? Not possessive — possessive and addictive type personality. Oh, I've said it many times, many times before."

Wiles is the most powerful White House aide, credited with running a more disciplined, loyal and effective operation than Trump's first term, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• ? That makes her candid interview — in which she questioned the execution and outcome of some of Trump's most aggressive policies — all the more striking.

Via X

? Wiles wrote in her first original X post since October 2024 (above): "The article published early this morning is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history."

• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also rallied behind Wiles, tweeting that Trump "has no greater or more loyal advisor than Susie." (Video)
• Cabinet members and Republican senators agreed.

Wiles' interviews with author Chris Whipple stray from or contradict the administration's line on Trump's most controversial policies:

• ?️ Jeffrey Epstein files: Wiles had scathing criticism for Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the Epstein files, saying she "completely whiffed" by handing out "binders full of nothingness" to MAGA influencers and falsely claiming there was a "client list" on her desk. Wiles confirmed that Trump is "in the file" but denied any evidence of wrongdoing, chalking it up to him and Epstein being "young, single playboys." She also said Trump was wrong to claim that former President Bill Clinton had visited Epstein's island, telling Whipple: "There is no evidence."
• ? Tariffs: Wiles revealed there was a "huge disagreement" over Trump's "Liberation Day" reciprocal tariffs, and that she recruited Vice President JD Vance to halt Trump's rollout until there was "complete unity." That effort failed, and Wiles admitted that the tariff process had been "more painful than I expected."
• ?️ Jan. 6 pardons: Wiles said she questioned whether Trump should pardon all 1,500-plus defendants, and advised him against freeing the most violent rioters — a warning he ignored.
• ? Elon Musk and DOGE: Wiles described Musk as an "avowed" ketamine user and "an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are." She said she was "aghast" at Musk's unilateral dismantling of USAID.

Via X

Trump has praised Wiles as the indispensable architect of his second term, and her standing is unlikely to change.

• If anything, the interviews reveal the key to her success: She isn't a guardrail installed to influence or restrain Trump, as Vance told Whipple, but a "facilitator" of the president's vision.

Video of V.P. Vance ...

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Ballroom construction must go on as a matter of "security," Trump admin says

The Trump administration argued in a Monday filing that construction on the president's massive ballroom project must continue due to "security concerns."

https://www.axios.com/2025/12/16/trump-ballroom-construction-security-concerns?

Inside the Trump Administration’s Man-Made Hunger Crisis

On July 18, a mild, overcast night in Nairobi, Kenya, a team of President Donald Trump’s top foreign aid advisers ducked into a meeting room at the Tribe Hotel, their luxury accommodations in the city’s diplomatic quarter, for a private dinner. 

https://www.propublica.org/article/kenya-trump-usaid-world-food-program-starvation-children-deaths?

The Summer of Starvation: Amid Trump’s Foreign Aid Cuts, a Mother Struggles to Keep Her Sons Alive

After the Trump administration cut off food from the third-largest refugee camp in the world, thousands of families faced impossible choices as their children starved.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-usaid-kenya-humanitarian-aid-starvation-families-children?

Before Trump took office, many nonprofit organizations used words in their mission statements like:

Marginalized  Racism  Equity  Diversity

More than 1,000 organizations have deleted words like these.

According to this year’s tax filing, the American Athletic Conference, the $150 million collegiate sports league that includes schools like Rice and Tulane, is striving to be a leader in inclusion, but no longer in diversity or equity.

https://www.propublica.org/article/deleting-dei-language-nonprofits-irs-forms?

Amid Trump’s Proposed Pipeline Safety Rollbacks, Senator Questions Regulators’ Industry Ties

After reporting by ProPublica revealed industry connections among Transportation Department regulators and showed how they are seeking to loosen oil and gas pipeline safety regulations, Sen. Maria Cantwell is demanding answers.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-dot-oil-gas-pipeline-ethics-questions-senator-cantwell?

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What Trump has said about Project 2025 over the years: A timeline

As a 2024 presidential candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025, a plan by the conservative nonprofit the Heritage Foundation to overhaul the federal government, claiming he knew nothing about the initiative.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/12/16/trump-project-2025-timeline/?

These Project 2025 creators are now shaping Trump admin policies

During Donald Trump's second presidential term, his administration not only enacted many policy recommendations that aligned with the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 but it also hired several people who created the conservative plan to overhaul the federal government.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/12/16/trump-admin-project-2025/?

How Trump policies align with Project 2025 on immigration, federal reform and more

From immigration to abortion policies, numerous actions by the Trump administration mirror Project 2025 proposals, a Snopes analysis shows.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/12/16/trump-policies-project-2025/?

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Did Trump really fix NAFTA?

Trump replaced NAFTA with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in 2020. But his USMCA has so far failed to make trade work for North American workers.

https://www.epi.org/publication/did-trump-really-fix-nafta-what-usmca-failed-to-do-and-how-to-put-workers-first-in-north-american-trade/?

Trump moves to shut down climate research lab, calls its work "alarmism"

The Trump administration plans to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, calling its research "climate alarmism."

https://www.axios.com/local/boulder/2025/12/17/trump-closing-ncar-climate-lab-boulder?

Jack Smith tells lawmakers his team developed ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt’ against Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers in a closed-door interview Wednesday that his team of investigators “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trumphad criminally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to portions of his opening statement obtained by The Associated Press.

https://apnews.com/article/jack-smith-congress-justice-department-d35557d525fcfe51a20d08c6abb7f71d?

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Trump Gets Brutal Reality Check Ahead of Primetime Address

The president’s approval is underwater ahead of his address to the nation.

President Donald Trump is set to address the nation from the White House on Wednesday night, but his approval hit a record low as he prepares to take a victory lap.

Trump, 79, is set to talk about his accomplishments over the past 11 months during his primetime speech, the White House said. He will also address his forward-looking plans.

But it comes as the president faces record-low approval ratings as his first year back in office wraps up, with a growing number of Americans rejecting his approach heading into the midterm elections.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to lower prices, which helped him win back the White House. But Americans remain frustrated with his performance in helping the economy.

Just 36 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, according to the new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. It is his worst rating in the poll to date.

At the same time, his overall approval is just at 38 percent, the lowest mark of his second term so far and his lowest overall rating since early 2018, just before Democrats had a blue wave in that year’s midterms.

It comes as the poll found that many Americans say they’re struggling to make ends meet and are worried about their own and the country’s economic outlook. More said their financial situation has gotten worse rather than better in the past year. The top concern shared by Americans was prices at 45 percent.

The poll claimed 52 percent of Americans believe the U.S. is already in a recession.

The poll, released Wednesday, was the latest in a series that has shown Americans have soured on the GOP president.

At the same time, Congress is grappling with how to address the looming healthcare crisis, with premiums set to skyrocket for millions of Americans at the end of the year after Republican leaders refused to extend the Obamacare subsidies in time.

A group of moderate GOP lawmakers on Wednesday bucked party leadership to side with Democrats to force a vote.

Trump has pushed back on the discontent across the country by giving himself rave marks on the economy despite evidence to the contrary.

He has repeatedly blasted talk of affordability as a “hoax” by the Democrats. But some of Trump’s actions, including his planned address Wednesday night as well as a visit to Pennsylvania and another planned trip to North Carolina later this week, signal the White House is aware he’s underwater.

However, during his visit to Mount Pocono, PA, last week, the president veered completely off track during the rally-style event from what was supposed to be a speech about affordability and the economy.

Delivering remarks from the White House on Wednesday is a much more formal setting, which could help him remain on script, but it remains to be seen.

Convincing Americans that he’s still the man for the job as the unemployment rate ticks up to 4.6 percent, its highest level since 2021, and inflation rose slightly from its year-over-year rate a year ago, is another hurdle entirely.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-gets-brutal-reality-check-ahead-of-primetime-address/?

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Trump Issues Late-Night Threat to Arrest His Enemies

The president’s obsession with his long list of foes is apparently keeping him up at night.

President Donald Trump issued an unhinged call to arrest his political enemies in a late-night Truth Social post.

The 79-year-old boosted a message from a pro-MAGA account late Tuesday calling for the arrest of former Attorney General Merrick Garland and former FBI Director Chris Wray, adding, “And many others!!!”

Since returning to the White House for a second term in January, Trump has been on a personal revenge tour against high-profile foes who worked on the 2016 Russia collusion probe, his two impeachments, and the congressional inquiry into the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol in 2021. Several of his political opponents have been hit with charges in recent months, though the cases have often not held up in court. Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted in September, sparking accusations that the president engineered the charges for political revenge. A federal judge later dismissed that case, along with the case against New York Attorney General Letitia James, another Trump critic.

Without evidence, Trump has repeatedly accused Wray of lying about the presence of FBI agents during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. He has also clashed with Garland over the Justice Department’s oversight of federal investigations that involve him, including probes into the handling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

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

This is not the first time the president has singled out Garland and Wray. Just weeks ago, he lashed out at the pair and other political enemies on Truth Social, calling them “a disgrace to our Nation.”

Trump’s online tirades have frustrated some officials close to him, according to Zeteo, which reported earlier in October, citing three sources, that they were concerned that the posts could be used against the administration in court.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-issues-late-night-threat-to-arrest-his-enemies/?

ps:What a sad person! He needs lots of prayer!!

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? Executive order avalanche

Data: Pew Research Center, American Presidency Project; Chart: Axios Visuals President Trump has signed more executive orders this year than he did during his entire first term, Axios' Avery Lotz reports from new Pew Research Center data. ?️ Trump has signed 221 orders so far in 2025, surpassing the 220 he inked between 2017 and 2021. That's far more than other recent presidents. Former President Biden, for example, signed 162 over his entire term. ☢️ Trump's latest order designates illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. He's also wielded his executive pen to implement his rollercoaster trade agenda, eliminate diversity programs, restrict rights for transgender Americans, weigh in on federal architecture, reshape the civil service, set immigration limits and more. Go deeper.

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Jack Smith tells lawmakers his team developed ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt’ against Trump

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers in a closed-door interview on Wednesday that his team of investigators “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump had criminally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to portions of his opening statement obtained by The Associated Press. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

Trump is previewing his 2026 agenda in a 9 p.m. ET address to the nation as his popularity wanes US government sues US Virgin Islands and accuses officials of violating the Second Amendment  Trump’s National Guard deployment in Washington can continue for now, an appeals court says

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What Is It Good For? (Mark Reinstein / Corbis / Getty)

View in browser Last week, the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado made a daring escape from her home country to Norway, where she was honored as winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. The team that extracted her had several worries—including the risk that American forces in the Caribbean would strike the boats used in the operation, members told The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Luckily, Machado avoided F-16s and drones on her way to Oslo, but the outcome her rescuers feared would have been remarkable: the man who campaigned frantically to win the Nobel Peace Prize inadvertently killing the woman who did, as part of a likely illegal series of boat strikes that may climax with a land war in South America. Yesterday, Trump—who has deemed himself the “peace president”—escalated his belligerence against Venezuela, announcing a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers and demanding that the government “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” This is difficult to parse, but the Trump aide Stephen Miller suggests that it refers to past nationalization of the petroleum industry. In any case, a blockade could be an act of war under international law. This past Friday, Trump said the United States would launch land strikes within Latin America. “We knocked out 96 percent of the drugs coming in by water, and now we’re starting by land, and by land is a lot easier, and that’s going to start happening,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday. The 96 percent mark is unrealistic and backed by no evidence, as is the notion that land wars are easier than drone strikes at sea. Congress has neither authorized nor been asked to authorize these actions. The White House has relied on the tortured argument that because it has deemed that U.S. troops are not in active danger, the law doesn’t apply. Nor is it clear what the strategic rationale for such a strike on sovereign countries would be—much less the legal justification. (The administration insists its boat strikes are legal, but officials have been vague about their legal arguments and experts disagree.) Trump has claimed that drug interdiction is a goal, and said Friday that strikes might hit countries other than Venezuela. But he has also been moving to force Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro out of power, as White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair in an article published this week. Although Trump claims that Maduro is a drug kingpin, American intelligence assessments contradict him, and my Atlantic colleagues have reported that the administration’s real goal is to gain access to oil and rare earth minerals. This apparent drift toward a 19th-century-style imperialist war is notable for a president who ran in 2016 criticizing both parties’ embrace of foreign military interventions. (Trump has said for years, however, that the U.S. should have taken Iraq’s oil—whatever that means.) In the places where Trump is not on the verge of starting a new war, some of the many conflicts he claims to have resolved stubbornly refuse to stop. On the border between Thailand and Cambodia, both countries continue to fight, part of hostilities that have killed at least two dozen people and forced half a million to flee. Although Trump announced a cease-fire this past Friday, both governments said no such agreement has been struck. In Africa, fighting also persists between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a rebel group understood to be backed by neighboring Rwanda. In that case, Trump did manage to bring together the leaders of the DRC and Rwanda for a ceremony two weeks ago. The problem is that the peace hasn’t held; instead the rebel group has continued fighting. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described its actions as “a clear violation” of the cease-fire. A cease-fire in Gaza, achieved this fall, is also very tenuous. Israeli air strikes have continued sporadically, and Palestinian officials have said that at least 391 Palestinians have been killed since the agreement. The Israeli and U.S. governments sometimes question those figures, but Axios reports that the White House scolded the Israeli government for a strike over the weekend, which it said was a violation of the cease-fire. Meanwhile, an end to the war in Ukraine, which Trump seems to want badly, remains elusive. On Monday, American officials said that the United States, Europe, and Ukraine have agreed to security guarantees for Ukraine, though it’s not clear whether Russia will accept the cease-fire plan. The larger problem is still land: As part of a deal, Trump is reportedly pressuring Ukraine to surrender territory that Russia has not managed to capture through its yearslong, grinding war of aggression involving frequent war crimes. For obvious reasons, that’s a nonstarter for Ukraine. But Russia—which knows that Trump likes and often caves to President Vladimir Putin—shows little interest in concessions. There’s no shame in a president failing to resolve every conflict around the globe. Trump shouldn’t be expected to find solutions that have eluded previous leaders or bedeviled the world for decades—though he should be celebrated if he does; the Abraham Accords and the Gaza cease-fire are positive achievements. The problem is claiming to have resolved conflicts that aren’t over and announcing agreements that aren’t real. Trump doesn’t want to do the work, but he still wants the world to recognize his putative achievements with a Nobel Peace Prize. That honor seems out of reach barring some major developments, but at least he’s got the FIFA Peace Prize. Related: Trump knows what he wants, just not how to get there. What explains Trump’s aggression toward Venezuela? Who knows.

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Trump Addresses Nation

President Donald Trump gave a prime-time address to the nation yesterday to highlight his administration's work on the economy, health care, and immigration. He also announced a $1,776 dividend to every US soldier. The speech came as a recent poll found his approval ratings had reached a two-term low. The address also followed his announcement that the US military will impose a total blockade on sanctioned oil tankers near Venezuela. The US has 11 warships operating in the Caribbean Sea—its highest naval buildup there since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The Trump administration says it is targeting drug-trafficking boats. Trump has also threatened Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and reportedly gave him an ultimatum to step down or face further US military intervention.

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Trump's holiday heat

A fiery, combative President Trump — addressing Americans from a holiday-decked White House — insisted the economy is stronger than people think and any problems are Democrats' fault, Axios' Marc Caputo and Madison Mills write.

• It's a message that poll after poll says most voters don't believe.

Why it matters: Trump's speech was closer to a Festivus airing of grievances than a Christmas message of hope. He ran through a litany of problems — inflation, wage growth, the border, crime — that he said were entirely the fault of the Biden administration and that he insisted he'd already fixed.

? Zoom in: Focused and delivered without meandering asides, Trump's 18-minute address was essentially the economic speech he was expected to give last week in Pennsylvania, where he went off-script.

• The speech was notable for what he didn't do: use the words "hoax" or "con job" when talking about affordability.

? One announcement in the 18-minute speech: a "Warrior Dividend" of $1,776 (marking the nation's founding) for each of America's 1.45 million service members before Christmas Day — "the checks are already on the way."

• "We made a lot more money than anybody thought because of tariffs," Trump said. "Nobody deserves it more than our military."

? Trump promised a zooming economy next year, built around tax cuts and other measures in his "big, beautiful bill." He said that "our policies are boosting take-home pay at a historic pace" after "years of record-setting falling incomes."

• But the November jobs report numbers, released Tuesday, show average hourly earnings growth at 3.5%, down from 4% in January when Trump took office.
• Trump also said the administration is "solving" soaring grocery prices — even as grocery costs are up in most categories — and said electricity costs will "fall dramatically." The government's own data shows prices rising by double digits year over year.

? Behind the scenes: The rapid-fire tempo of the atypically short speech was a point of modest pride for Trump advisers, who say the president can stick to the script when he wants, and plans to drive his message home in 2026.

• "When the president addresses the nation like this, he can keep it short and sweet," one adviser said. "When he's on stage, he's going to freestyle. And people love it."

? Between the lines: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent often insists the Trump administration won't tell people how they're feeling, dismissing it as Biden-style gaslighting of voters.

• But Trump's message to the nation was effectively: Your vibes are off. The economy's fine.

Speech transcript ...

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?️ Trump plaques rip predecessors

Plaques seen yesterday along the White House's new Presidential Walk of Fame. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images President Trump has added partisan plaques under the portraits along his new Presidential Walk of Fame on the White House colonnade. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: "As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself." Here's what some say: "Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History. ... Nicknamed both 'Sleepy' and 'Crooked,' Joe Biden was dominated by his Radical Left handlers." "Barack Hussein Obama was the first Black President, a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History." "George W. Bush ... created the Department of Homeland Security, but started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which should not have happened." "Bill Clinton served as Attorney General and Governor of Arkansas before winning the Presidency in what was called a major upset over President George H.W. Bush. ... In 2016, President Clinton's wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!" "Ronald Reagan won the Cold War, and transformed American politics and the Conservative Movement. ... He was a fan of President Donald J. Trump long before President Trump's Historic run for the White House. Likewise, President Trump was a fan of his!" Plaque under former President Biden's portrait. Photo: Mark Schiefelbe/AP More on the plaques.