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

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An internal document shows the Vietnamese military preparing for a possible American war A year after Vietnam elevated its relations with Washington to the highest diplomatic level, an internal document shows its military was taking steps to prepare for a possible American “war of aggression" and considered the United States a “belligerent” power, according to a report released Tuesday. Read more.

Why this matters: The document confirms a deep-seated fear of external forces fomenting an uprising against the Communist leadership. “There’s a consensus here across the government and across different ministries,” said Ben Swanton, co-director of The 88 Project and author of the human rights organization’s report. “This isn’t just some kind of a fringe element or paranoid element within the party or within the government.”   While noting that “currently there is little risk of a war against Vietnam,” the Vietnamese planners write that “due to the U.S.’s belligerent nature we need to be vigilant to prevent the U.S. and its allies from ‘creating a pretext’ to launch an invasion of our country.”

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Seeking shelter from Trump’s fury, U.S. trade partners reach deals with each other   Iran’s president seeks 'fair and equitable negotiations' with the United States   Trump to host Colombia's Petro just weeks after insulting him as a 'sick man' fueling drug trade   ps:I guess distrust of the US is everywhere!! I wonder why??

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Trump Blames Republican’s U-Turn on His MAGA-Voting Wife

The president tried to blame a congressman’s wife for his rebellious streak.

President Donald Trump took aim at an unusual target in a Monday Truth Social post: Rep. Thomas Massie’s Trump-voting wife.

Attempting to blame Massie’s wife, Carolyn Moffa, for the congressman’s repeated disagreements with his own party, the 79-year-old president wrote on Truth Social, “People are saying that Thomas Massie became a Liberal because his new wife, blessed be their marriage, is supposedly a Radical Left ‘flamethrower.’” Massie, 55, married Moffa, 37, a former staffer for Republican Sen. Rand Paul, in October.

Trump continued, “This new union all went so fast that maybe he didn’t know what he was getting into but, nevertheless, he is an absolutely terrible and unreliable ‘Republican’ — Perhaps a RINO, or maybe even worse!”

He then went on to reaffirm his endorsement of Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy Seal and Trump diehard who is primarying Massie in Kentucky’s 4th District.

“Thomas Massie is a Complete and Total Disaster, we must make sure he loses, BIG!”

Massie was quick to respond, writing on X, “So now he’s attacking my wife who voted for him three times. Maybe someone told him she’s actually the one who suggested I ask Pam Bondi in person at a dinner when we would get Phase 2 of the Epstein files. Bondi said there were no more files. As they say, the rest is history.” Massie has been a prominent advocate for the victims of the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein—including co-sponsoring the bipartisan bill that forced the release of the files relating to his case. That earned him a permanent spot in Trump’s bad books, with the president posting about his endorsement of Gallrein’s campaign multiple times this year. When previously contacted for comment by the Daily Beast, Massie said, “This is apparently the third attempt to launch Ed Gallrein’s campaign; in fact this exact endorsement was posted weeks ago. Failed candidate and Lindsey Graham donor Ed Gallrein couldn’t even win his home county in his last race and is poised to lose again.”

Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who joined Massie in breaking ranks with their party to criticize the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files, threw her support behind Massie in a lengthy X post.

“President Trump treats those who support him the most like crap,” she wrote. “The President should be more concerned with voters, who put him in office, like Thomas Massie’s wife, not super rich donors and their favorite foreign countries and business demands.”

She also condemned her fellow Republicans for failing to publicly support Massie, writing, “Shame on every one of you. Cowards. You make me sick.”

The post is not the first time the president has invoked Massie’s wife in his attacks on the congressman, with Trump commenting on Massie’s decision to remarry following the death of his wife in June 2024 in a controversial Truth Social post that even earned him criticism from his own supporters.

“Did Thomas Massie, sometimes referred to as Rand Paul Jr., because of the fact that he always votes against the Republican Party, get married already??? Boy, that was quick!” Trump wrote.

“No wonder the Polls have him at less than an 8% chance of winning the Election. Anyway, have a great life Thomas and (?). His wife will soon find out that she’s stuck with a LOSER!”

“[Trump] is mad he didn’t get an invitation [to the wedding],” Massie quipped when asked about the post.

In addition to the handling of the Epstein files, Massie has criticized his own party for its handling of issues like the economy and foreign affairs, although he has noted he still votes with Republicans “91 percent” of the time.

“But when they‘re covering up for pedophiles or starting a new war or doing regime change or bankrupting the country...” Massie told CNN’s Jake Tapper last month. “That 9 percent, I‘m not with my party.”

“It definitely hurts me to campaign with the president against me,” Massie added, referring to the president’s endorsement of Gallrein.

“That’s why you don’t see other members of the Republican Party sticking their necks out. They’re afraid of the president.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-blames-republicans-u-turn-on-his-maga-voting-wife/?

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Trump Blames Republican’s U-Turn on His MAGA-Voting Wife

The president tried to blame a congressman’s wife for his rebellious streak.

President Donald Trump took aim at an unusual target in a Monday Truth Social post: Rep. Thomas Massie’s Trump-voting wife.

Attempting to blame Massie’s wife, Carolyn Moffa, for the congressman’s repeated disagreements with his own party, the 79-year-old president wrote on Truth Social, “People are saying that Thomas Massie became a Liberal because his new wife, blessed be their marriage, is supposedly a Radical Left ‘flamethrower.’” Massie, 55, married Moffa, 37, a former staffer for Republican Sen. Rand Paul, in October.

Trump continued, “This new union all went so fast that maybe he didn’t know what he was getting into but, nevertheless, he is an absolutely terrible and unreliable ‘Republican’ — Perhaps a RINO, or maybe even worse!”

He then went on to reaffirm his endorsement of Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy Seal and Trump diehard who is primarying Massie in Kentucky’s 4th District.

“Thomas Massie is a Complete and Total Disaster, we must make sure he loses, BIG!”

Massie was quick to respond, writing on X, “So now he’s attacking my wife who voted for him three times. Maybe someone told him she’s actually the one who suggested I ask Pam Bondi in person at a dinner when we would get Phase 2 of the Epstein files. Bondi said there were no more files. As they say, the rest is history.” Massie has been a prominent advocate for the victims of the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein—including co-sponsoring the bipartisan bill that forced the release of the files relating to his case. That earned him a permanent spot in Trump’s bad books, with the president posting about his endorsement of Gallrein’s campaign multiple times this year. When previously contacted for comment by the Daily Beast, Massie said, “This is apparently the third attempt to launch Ed Gallrein’s campaign; in fact this exact endorsement was posted weeks ago. Failed candidate and Lindsey Graham donor Ed Gallrein couldn’t even win his home county in his last race and is poised to lose again.”

Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who joined Massie in breaking ranks with their party to criticize the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files, threw her support behind Massie in a lengthy X post.

“President Trump treats those who support him the most like crap,” she wrote. “The President should be more concerned with voters, who put him in office, like Thomas Massie’s wife, not super rich donors and their favorite foreign countries and business demands.”

She also condemned her fellow Republicans for failing to publicly support Massie, writing, “Shame on every one of you. Cowards. You make me sick.”

The post is not the first time the president has invoked Massie’s wife in his attacks on the congressman, with Trump commenting on Massie’s decision to remarry following the death of his wife in June 2024 in a controversial Truth Social post that even earned him criticism from his own supporters.

“Did Thomas Massie, sometimes referred to as Rand Paul Jr., because of the fact that he always votes against the Republican Party, get married already??? Boy, that was quick!” Trump wrote.

“No wonder the Polls have him at less than an 8% chance of winning the Election. Anyway, have a great life Thomas and (?). His wife will soon find out that she’s stuck with a LOSER!”

“[Trump] is mad he didn’t get an invitation [to the wedding],” Massie quipped when asked about the post.

In addition to the handling of the Epstein files, Massie has criticized his own party for its handling of issues like the economy and foreign affairs, although he has noted he still votes with Republicans “91 percent” of the time.

“But when they‘re covering up for pedophiles or starting a new war or doing regime change or bankrupting the country...” Massie told CNN’s Jake Tapper last month. “That 9 percent, I‘m not with my party.”

“It definitely hurts me to campaign with the president against me,” Massie added, referring to the president’s endorsement of Gallrein.

“That’s why you don’t see other members of the Republican Party sticking their necks out. They’re afraid of the president.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-blames-republicans-u-turn-on-his-maga-voting-wife/?

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Tulsi Gabbard Offers Bonkers Reason for Being at FBI Ballot Raid

The director of national intelligence claimed that she was present at the raid at the president’s request.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has offered up an explanation for her presence at a controversial FBI raid on voting offices in Georgia last week.

The 44-year-old raised eyebrows last week after she was spotted at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center as agents seized materials, including ballots and computers, related to the 2020 election.

The appearance saw Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Hines—the top Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, send a letter to Gabbard demanding an explanation.

The answer came on Monday night in a letter addressed to members of the Select Committee on Intelligence and posted to X on Monday night.

“For a brief period of time, I accompanied FBI Deputy Director Bailey and Atlanta Acting Special Agent in Charge Pete Ellis in observing FBI personnel executing that search warrant, issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia pursuant to a probable cause finding,” Gabbard wrote.

“My presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counterintelligence (CI), foreign and other malign influence and cybersecurity.”

She also confirmed that she facilitated a phone call between some of the FBI agents who participated in the raid and President Donald Trump.In her X post, Gabbard condemned the “blatantly false and slanderous accusations being made” against her by “Members of Congress and their friends in the propaganda media.”

Gabbard defended her decision not to brief lawmakers about possible threats to election security prior to the raid, writing that she would not “irresponsibly share incomplete assessments.”

“I will share our intelligence assessments with Congress once they are complete,” she wrote in her letter.

Despite Gabbard’s insistence that her presence at the raid was not unusual, people with knowledge of Gabbard’s meeting with FBI officials told the New York Times that her continued presence ruffled feathers “given that her role overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies does not include on-site involvement in criminal investigative work.”

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche also appeared unsure regarding Gabbard’s involvement in the raid, telling CNN’s Dana Bash on Monday, “I don’t know why the director was there.”

“She is not part of the grand jury investigation,” he continued, adding, “but she is for sure a key part of our efforts at election integrity and making sure that we have free and fair elections.”

A Fulton County commissioner announced that the county would be filing a lawsuit on Monday challenging the legality of the raid.

“I have asked the county attorney to take any and all steps available to fight this criminal search warrant,” Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. said.

“The search warrant is not proper, but there are ways that we can limit it. We want to ask for forensic accounting; we want the documents to stay in the State of Georgia under seal; and we want to do whatever we can to protect voter information.”

The president has continued to insist that the 2020 election was rigged against him, even going so far as to suggest that Republicans should “nationalize” elections and take control of the way voting is conducted.

The 79-year-old has persisted with his crusade despite its relative unpopularity; as CNN data guru Harry Enten noted on Friday, the continued rehashing of debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election is “not a winner” for Republicans, citing polling from 2020 that showed 60 percent of Americans believing that Biden won the election “fair and square.” Polling conducted in 2024 found that number had increased to 62 percent.

“It was that same three in five Americans—they simply did not move,” Enten told CNN’s News Central. “Donald Trump has made the case, and the American people do not buy the case that Donald Trump has been making, no matter how obsessive he is about it.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/tulsi-gabbard-offers-bonkers-reason-for-her-presence-at-fbi-ballot-raid/?

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US shoots down Iranian drone that ‘aggressively’ approached an aircraft carrier, military says

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. Navy fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that was approaching the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea, U.S. Central Command said Tuesday, threatening to ramp up tensions as the Trump administration warns of possible military action to get Iran to the negotiating table.

https://apnews.com/article/us-iran-drone-shot-down-military-634f406a5bb416b7a1a8bec8cc72b4b8?

Trump signs bill to end partial government shutdown, setting stage for next fight

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed a roughly $1.2 trillion government funding bill Tuesday that ends the partial federal shutdown that began over the weekend and sets the stage for an intense debate in Congress over Homeland Security funding.

https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-ice-funding-471e55ba4c3247051739ee1b50b2857a?

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Red Alert (Matthew Hatcher / Bloomberg / Getty)

View in browser With nine months to go until the midterm elections, President Trump’s campaign to subvert them is escalating. His administration has recently taken a series of steps that have election officials, observers, and administrators deeply and rightfully concerned about the prospects for improper interference with the election process. In October, I published an in-depth article on how the president could interfere (and already was interfering) with the midterm elections. Since then, the reasons for worry have become more urgent. In the past two weeks, the FBI conducted a search in a major Democratic county in a swing state, in service of debunked theories about fraud in the 2020 election; the Justice Department attempted to extort voter rolls from another Democratic state under threat of armed occupation; and the president floated plans to “nationalize” elections. Trump has tried to subvert an election before, but these efforts are earlier, more organized, and—crucially—employing the power of the federal government to help him achieve his personal political goals. Yesterday, Trump spoke with Dan Bongino, the podcaster turned FBI deputy director turned podcaster, and called for his party to seize control of voting in states. “These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally,” Trump said, reprising an oft-used and incorrect claim. (Voting by noncitizens is rare and does not amount to enough to swing elections.) “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over’—we should take over the voting in at least, many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won that show I didn’t win.” The federal government has no constitutional or statutory role in states’ election administration, so the call for “nationalization” is an assertion of power that the federal government does not have, a hallmark of other recent White House ploys. Trump’s declaration that “Republicans” could do it may be a suggestion that Congress take action, but it also points to the partisan aims of his attack. Trump’s efforts to prove that he won in 2020 are all premised on false claims, yet he continues to try to drum up evidence for a conclusion he’s already reached. “You’re gonna see something in Georgia,” he told Bongino, referring to a search this past Wednesday at the Fulton County election center, in Atlanta, where agents looked for records including ballots, tabulator tapes, and voter rolls from the 2020 election. Immediately after that election, Trump repeatedly and falsely claimed that he won Georgia, and when his legal efforts to challenge the result fell short, he called the Republican secretary of state and asked him to “find” almost 12,000 votes. (Trump and some associates were charged with racketeering in Fulton County as a result, but the case was dismissed last year.) The search is a stunning intrusion into local election administration. “It’s a five-alarm fire,” as one Arizona Republican election official told my colleagues Sarah Fitzpatrick and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez. Since the search, more troubling information has emerged. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has no obvious role in the FBI or domestic-election oversight but has been a proponent of bogus fraud claims about the 2020 election, was present for the operation, which she said in a letter to Congress was at Trump’s behest. The New York Times reports that Gabbard met with some of the FBI officers the following day and put Trump on speakerphone for a chat with them—a serious departure from normal practice, and a move that emphasizes the appearance of inappropriate pressure: a federal law-enforcement agency acting as a political agent of the president in a nakedly partisan operation. (Bongino’s own return to partisan podcasting, just weeks after leaving his post as No. 2 at the FBI, demonstrates how politics has infected the bureau.) As Trump continues to clash with local officials in Minnesota, he also claims that he was cheated out of votes there. “I feel that I won Minnesota—I think I won it all three times,” he said. “I won it all three times, in my opinion.” On January 24, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Governor Tim Walz demanding that the state turn over its voter rolls to the Justice Department as a condition of the federal government ending its violent crackdown in Minneapolis. Since May 2025, the DOJ has ordered 44 states and the District of Columbia to hand over voter rolls, though it has no statutory right to them. Many states, including Minnesota, have resisted. Bob Bauer, a veteran Democratic election lawyer, argues that although Bondi’s letter appears to yoke together two unrelated questions—election integrity and immigration enforcement—the Trump administration may not see them as separate, but rather as an opening to interfering with elections using federal agents. “The administration’s lawyers might view the potential deployment of ICE as an option allowing for the fielding of what one advocate describes as ‘essentially an army’ charged with ensuring election security through immigration law enforcement,” he wrote this week. As bleak as these developments are, a few hopeful signs for the midterms have emerged. First, Trump has been publicly setting expectations for poor results for Republicans, a sign that he may be resigning himself somewhat to a loss. Second, the president’s attempt to force gerrymanders in GOP-controlled states, in order to help preserve the House majority, seems to be ending up as basically a wash, after Democrat-controlled states responded in kind. Third, an election is at greatest danger of interference when the margin of victory is narrow, and Americans’ growing disapproval of the president’s handling of immigration and the economy has buoyed Democrats on the generic ballot for Congress. An old joke goes that the election administrator’s prayer is, “Lord, let this election not be close.” Even as Trump tries to tamper with elections, his actions in office make it more likely that the prayer is answered. Related: Donald Trump’s plan to subvert the midterms is already under way. Trump’s DOJ comes for the ballots.

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Dollar Days (Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Getty.)

View in browser The U.S. dollar is getting weaker, and that’s just how the president wants it. During an appearance last Tuesday at the Machine Shed Restaurant in Urbandale, Iowa, Donald Trump told reporters that the dollar’s declining exchange rate was “great.” Trump understands that a weak dollar doesn’t sound good. In his first term, he tweeted, “As your President, one would think that I would be thrilled with our very strong dollar. I am not!” His logic is that the relatively weak currencies of America’s foreign competitors, such as China and Japan, can make their goods cheaper in international markets, and that the United States would do well to replicate their strategy. This theory isn’t unfounded—a weak dollar would boost the economy in certain respects—but the president’s unpredictable foreign-policy and global-trade decisions are threatening to erode America’s economic standing abroad in a far more significant way. When Trump talks about the relative strength or weakness of the dollar, he’s talking about its value in foreign-exchange markets. When the dollar index plunged 1.3 percent last Tuesday, that meant the dollar lost 1.3 percent of its value relative to a group of competing currencies, making some foreign goods a little more expensive to import. It did not mean that your dollar was immediately worth 1.3 percent less at the grocery store (although costlier imports do somewhat counteract the president’s affordability agenda). That’s partly why, despite some mixed messaging after he took office in 2017, Trump has been fixated on a weak dollar for much of his adult life: In 1987, he took out full-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe lamenting the dollar’s strength against the weakness of Japan’s “brilliantly” managed yen. A weaker dollar makes American companies and American goods more competitive abroad. Theoretically, the incentive to export and the disincentive to import could push companies to invest in domestic manufacturing—bringing back factory jobs and providing one potential path to the president’s long-held goal of squashing the trade deficit. It’s typically pretty hard for American presidents to unilaterally effect a long-term change in the dollar’s exchange rate. Kenneth Rogoff, formerly the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, told me that because the exchange rate is governed by so many different factors, the president wishing for a weaker dollar is “like doing a rain dance.” One of those factors is interest-rate policy—which is why the Federal Reserve usually has far more influence over the dollar’s value than the president does. When borrowing costs go down, the dollar index also tends to go down. Part of the reason Trump is so keen on exerting greater control over the Fed is its power over the value of money. Although Trump hopes a weaker dollar will boost American exports, he’s also taking steps that could more than offset any gains. His mercurial policies are now threatening to push away some of America’s long-standing trading partners. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. dollar has been by far the world’s most dominant currency: Banks around the world tend to lend and borrow in dollars; many transactions that don’t touch America are conducted in dollars; and nearly 90 percent of trades on foreign-exchange markets happen by way of dollars. Our money has historically been attractive because it is stable. The dominance of U.S. currency throughout the 20th century was deeply connected to this country’s status as a global superpower, free from erratic dictators and seemingly unable to default on its debts. This has afforded us what the former French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing once called our “exorbitant privilege.” As long as the dollar remains dominant, the U.S. has the edge on all other countries when it comes to borrowing, running gargantuan deficits, and imposing sanctions. Last spring’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were an expression of that exorbitant privilege—a way to strong-arm some of our allies. On April 10, a week after the plan was announced, the dollar dropped by about 2 percent. As my colleague Annie Lowrey put it at the time, those tariffs raised questions about “whether the United States deserves to have its privilege revoked.” A weaker U.S. dollar isn’t necessarily a less dominant dollar. Many have prophesied the end of the dollar’s supremacy, and yet it remains on top. Part of the reason that the currency’s dominance is so hard to shake is that it’s self-perpetuating: Why use something else when so many people, companies, and nations are already using dollars? None of the economists I spoke with suggested that the dollar is in real danger of losing its hegemony, at least not in the near term. And the euro, yen, yuan, and so-called digital gold—bitcoin—are all for various reasons ill-equipped for dominance. (Actual gold, which thrives in times of global insecurity, is having a moment.) But the president’s distaste for global institutions (such as NATO and the World Health Organization), for existing treaties, and for the alliances the U.S. has enjoyed since World War II has given international-trading partners plenty of reasons to worry about America’s stability. Maurice Obstfeld, another former IMF chief economist, told me that even if no clear successor to the dollar presents itself, “with enough inner geopolitical chaos caused by Trump, and geo-economic chaos, the dollar’s reach would shrink, and the reach of other currencies would rise.” A less dominant dollar would be a particularly dramatic indication of America’s waning status abroad. The real trouble, in other words, is not that the dollar’s value is getting weaker. It’s the possibility that America’s allies and trading partners may one day cease to respect it. Related: The markets are getting used to Trump. This gold rush is ominous.

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DHS Goons Use Sinister Secret Weapon on 67-Year-Old U.S. Citizen

Homeland Security investigators turned up at the retiree’s door after he sent an email criticizing a high-profile deportation case.

A 67-year-old retiree was targeted by the Department of Homeland Security after emailing a federal prosecutor featured in a news report to urge leniency in a high-profile deportation case.

Identified only as “Jon,” he told The Washington Post he was slapped with an “administrative subpoena” just hours after sending the email, kicking off a bizarre series of events that saw federal investigators show up at his door after the government used an arcane legal tool against him.

Jon, a U.S. citizen living in the Philadelphia area, said he’d been outraged by the case of a migrant facing deportation to Afghanistan, where the detainee claimed the Taliban would likely kill him. After reading a news report about the case that cited the lead prosecutor, he looked up the prosecutor’s contact information online and typed up a quick email urging him to reconsider the case.

“Don’t play Russian roulette with [this person’s] life,” he wrote. “Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the U.S. government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.”

Five hours later, he received a notification from Google. The tech company informed him it had “received legal process from a Law Enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.” The notice said a “subpoena” had been issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

Jon said he soon learned he hadn’t been hit with a typical subpoena that would require a court’s sign-off, but an administrative subpoena, which can quickly be issued by any federal agency without prior approval and is not subject to oversight.

The Post notes that Homeland Security is “not required to share how many administrative subpoenas it issues each year,” though experts believe thousands are sent out, perhaps even “tens of thousands.” Civil rights groups have sounded the alarm over the little-known legal tool increasingly being used to crack down on free speech under the Trump administration.

A couple weeks after receiving notice of the subpoena, Jon said, he and his wife were startled when local police showed up at their home with two Homeland Security investigators. They showed him a copy of the email he’d sent to the federal prosecutor and asked for his “side of the story,” he recalled.

The investigators were satisfied with his explanation that he’d simply been expressing his opinion after using Google to find the prosecutor’s contact information, he said, and they left without further action.

He said he was later shocked to learn that their visit came despite Google not granting DHS’ request for his online information, leaving him to wonder what tools they had used to track him down.

They had requested detailed information on his online sessions, associates IP and physical addresses, a full list of all the online services he uses, any usernames and email address, his credit card information, his driver’s license, and his social security number.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told The Daily Beast the subpoena was “part of a criminal investigation,” without elaborating on the substance of that investigation. She added that Homeland Security Investigations “has broad administrative subpoena authority” to issue such subpoenas.

“There’s no oversight ahead of time, and there’s no ramifications for having abused it after the fact,” Jennifer Granick, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Post of the department’s use of these instruments.

“As we are increasingly in a world where unmasking critics is important to the administration, this type of legal process is ripe for that kind of abuse,” she added.

The Daily Beast reached out to Google for comment on this story.

“Our processes for handling law enforcement subpoenas are designed to protect users’ privacy while meeting our legal obligations,” a spokesperson said. “We review all legal demands for legal validity, and we push back against those that are overbroad or improper, as we did in this instance.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/department-of-homeland-security-goons-use-bonkers-secret-weapon-on-67-year-old-us-citizen/?

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Trump, 79, Launches Billion-Dollar Shakedown in Late-Night Meltdown

The president was still raging first thing in the morning.

President

onald Trump was so enraged by a news report saying he was backing off his demand that Harvard pay the administration a $200 million fine that he has decided to shake down the university for $1 billion instead.

The administration has been waging war on Harvard as part of a broader effort to make higher education more MAGA-friendly, including canceling $2 billion in federal grants, investigating the university for alleged civil rights violations, and trying to strip the university of its ability to enroll foreign students.

While Columbia University agreed to pay the administration a $200 million settlement to end similar investigations, Harvard has refused to make any direct payments, and instead challenged the administration’s tactics in court.

The two sides have been negotiating for months to end the legal battles—which so far Harvard has been winning—and resolve what the Trump administration says is a failure on the part of the university to adequately address antisemitism on campus.

On Monday, The New York Times reported that, according to four Trump administration and Harvard officials, the embattled president had finally dropped his $200 million demand in hopes of reaching a deal and scoring a victory in the face of record-low approval ratings.

But just hours after the report was published, shortly before midnight, Trump raged in a Truth Social post that the Times’ story was “completely wrong,” and demanded that the “morons” running the storied paper change their article “immediately.”

He then proceeded to “correct” the record in a separate, rambling post claiming that Harvard “wanted to do a convoluted job training concept,” which was rejected by the administration, to “get out of a large cash settlement of more than $500 million, a number that should be much higher for the serious and heinous illegalities that they have committed.”“This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings. In any event, this case will continue until justice is served,” Trump added. “We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, in the future, with Harvard University.”

He also quoted the one part of the “Failing New York Times” story that he apparently liked, namely that some people connected to Harvard think the university will eventually have to cut a deal with the administration because its financial model relies on federal funding.

Eight hours later, he was back at it, complaining first thing in the morning that the “Fake News New York Times” had not “adjusted its phony article.”

“They never call for facts, or factchecks, because the Times’ is a corrupt, unprincipled, and pathetic vehicle of the Left,” he wrote at about 8 a.m., in his first Truth Social post of the day.

The Daily Beast has reached out to The New York Times and Harvard University for comment.

In July, Harvard said it was willing to spend $500 million on workforce programs as part of a deal to restore its federal funding and end the legal stand-off. It balked, however, at making any direct payments to the government, The New York Times reported at the time.

Fast-forward six months, and the president has been eager to finally reach a deal with Harvard in order to claim a victory as he faces outrage over the admi

nistration’s violent immigration enforcement tactics, which resulted in federal agents shooting and killing U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.

Two weeks ago, he ran into billionaire investment executive Stephen A. Schwartzman, who is helping with negotiations between Harvard and the White House, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to the Times.

He asked Schwarzman to call him about the deal, and when they spoke a week later, Trump said he would drop the $200 million fine if it meant the two sides reaching an agreement. Education Secretary Linda McMahon also said something similar in a separate conversation with Schwarzman, according to the Times’ sources.

Harvard’s leaders, however, are wary of facing an even bigger backlash if they strike a deal with the administration at a moment of heightened tensions.

They’re also wary of the administration’s habit of reaching deals with universities—including Brown University and the Universit

of Pennsylvania—only to come back later and ask them to become even more MAGA, the Times reported.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-79-launches-billion-dollar-harvard-university-shakedown-in-late-night-meltdown/?

ps:What a petty little man!!!!!

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MAGA Candidate Begs for Cash to Campaign to Women on Tinder

James Fishback was previously accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old student.

A far-right Republican candidate for governor in Florida is asking for donations so he can bother “young female voters” on Tinder with his campaign pitch.

James Fishback, 31, who is running in the GOP gubernatorial primary alongside Donald Trump–backed Rep. Byron Donalds, shared his dating-app profile on X, suggesting he hopes to “share my plan to make it easier for them to get married, buy a home, and raise a family.”

The post shows a standard Tinder prompt designed to spark conversation, reading: “My hottest take… Florida should offer paid maternity leave to all moms.”

In a follow-up post, Fishback complained that he had run out of “likes” because Tinder limits how many times a user can “swipe right” per day to express interest in another profile.

He then urged followers to donate to his gubernatorial campaign so he could afford Tinder Plus, a paid subscription that would allow the 31-year-old to swipe right on as many “young” potential female voters as he wants. Tinder Plus costs between $5-$10 per month, with discounts for longer memberships.

In a statement to the Daily Beast about his scheme, Fishback added: “When I match with voters on Tinder, I share my full plan and invite them to join us at one of our 15 no-cost, in-person campaign events we’re hosting across Florida this February. I want them to know they’re not alone—and that I’m serious about building a state where all women can thrive."

Fishback is a political newcomer who has already faced a series of controversies as he seeks to replace term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis. These include repeatedly calling Donalds, who is Black, a “slave” to his political donors and praising Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist Holocaust denier whose growing influence has sparked a major civil war within the GOP.

Last month, Fishback suggested former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who is also Black, should be “hanged in the public square” for covering an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota.

A major Florida school district also cut ties with Fishback in 2022 over allegations that he had an inappropriate relationship with a student who was 17 at the time, NBC News reported.

The woman, since identified as Keinah Fort, sought an order of protection against Fishback last year over allegations he harassed her after they broke up. Fishback denied the claims as “completely false,” adding that he has “never been arrested, charged, or convicted of any crime.”

Multiple social media users have now questioned the optics of a man accused of a relationship with a minor going out of his way to target young women online under the guise of a political campaign drive.

“James was upset when he learned they set the minimum age at 18 tho,” Democratic National Committee youth official Matt Royer posted.

Jayden D’Onofrio, a Democrat running for Florida’s House District 102 seat, wrote: “If he could, James would turn his age filter to under 18 to meet his tastes.”

However, the Florida gubernatorial hopeful does not want the support of all female voters. In January, Fishbank outlined his plan to impose a 50 percent “sin tax” on the income of OnlyFans models.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/florida-republican-james-fishback-begs-for-cash-to-use-to-tinder-in-cringe-campaign-stunt/?

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Pam Bondi Hit by Fresh Humiliation as Minnesota Prosecutors Quit in Droves

Departing attorneys said they were fed up with the DOJ targeting protesters while refusing to look at immigration agents’ conduct.

Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice is hemorrhaging prosecutors in Minnesota as more attorneys have decided to leave their jobs rather than defend the Trump administration’s violent immigration enforcement tactics.

Eight veteran prosecutors have either left or announced they are leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported, bringing the total to 14 outgoing prosecutors after six others quit in mid-January.

That’s more than the office typically loses in a year, let alone a month, according to the Star Tribune. Key staff members, including a victim-witness coordinator and an evidence technician, also recently left.

The mass exit was triggered in part by the DOJ’s refusal to open a civil rights investigation into the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, who were fatally shot by immigration agents in January.

The departing attorneys had also voiced their concerns to U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen about the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent state and local investigators from probing the killings as potential homicides, and about orders to rush through charges against defendants accused of assaulting federal officers without conducting a full investigation.

The attorneys also thought they should consider whether the agents’ conduct contributed to the encounters.

“This was the ultimate example of selective prosecution,” a retiring attorney told the Star Tribune.

Fewer than 20 attorneys are staffing Minnesota’s entire criminal division, compared to at least 50 attorneys working on criminal cases in prior years, according to the Star Tribune.

The DOJ has had to transfer attorneys in from other states, many of whom are less experienced than the attorneys who left.

That means prosecutors will likely be forced to focus on easier cases that can be handled by less experienced lawyers, former prosecutors said.

In the meantime, the office has been overwhelmed by hundreds of wrongful detention cases filed by immigrants who are being held in ICE custody. The Trump administration is enforcing a mandatory detention policy, despite judges striking down the rule in more than 1,600 cases, Politico reported last month.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the DOJ for comment.

During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity last month, Bondi fumed at the first group of federal prosecutors who chose to quit rather than open a criminal investigation into Good’s widow, Becca, after her 37-year-old’s wife was killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.

“What happened in Minnesota? We had six prosecutors who suddenly decided they didn’t want to support the men and women of ICE!” she said, her voice rising.

“They wanted the taxpayers to pay for them to go on vacation because they decided they didn’t want to support law enforcement,” she said. “So, the breaking news tonight? I fired them all! They are FIRED from the office.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pam-bondi-hit-by-fresh-humiliation-as-minnesota-prosecutors-quit-in-droves/?

ps:What a sad bunch this administration is!!

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Trump Reveals Sinister New Plot to Game Elections

The president’s latest power grab proposal came a week after his FBI raided an elections office outside Atlanta.

President Donald Trump has urged Republicans to seize control of elections and place voting under federal authority, in one of his most explicit signs yet that he wants to game the system.

In a podcast interview with Dan Bongino, his former FBI deputy director, Trump suggested Republicans should “nationalize” elections around the country by taking over the way ballots are cast and counted.

“The Republicans should say, we want to take over,” he said, claiming without evidence that people were being “brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally.”

“We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

The president’s comments came less than a week after the FBI raided an elections office outside Atlanta, seizing ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election in Georgia.

Earlier, Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded that Minnesota—another state Trump also falsely claims he won “all three times” he ran—hand over its voter rolls in exchange for federal assistance as tensions escalated over ICE.

Both actions outraged local officials and voting rights advocates, particularly after dozens of challenges to the results of the 2020 election yielded no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Despite this, Trump used his softball interview on The Dan Bongino Show to reassert his false claim that Joe Biden “stole” the election that year, and hinted: “You’re going to see something in Georgia.”

“You’re going to see some interesting things come out, but you know, like the 2020 election, I won that election by so much, everybody knows it,” Trump said.

The push to have the GOP seize control of voting under a nationalized system would be hard to achieve given that the U.S. Constitution gives state governments primary authority to determine how elections are conducted—including how votes are cast, counted, and certified.

The Elections Clause of the Constitution does, however, allow Congress to regulate the “times, places, and manner” of federal elections, but this has historically been interpreted as allowing national standards, not a federal takeover of day-to-day election administration.

“Does Donald Trump want a copy of the Constitution?” asked Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer. “What he’s saying is outlandishly illegal.

“Once again, the president is talking no differently than a dictator who wants elections in America to be as legitimate as elections in countries like Venezuela.”

Nonetheless, it is not the only time the emboldened president—who was criminally indicted for trying to subvert the 2020 election—has asserted his desire for another election power grab.

As polls show his approval ratings sinking, Trump on several occasions has spoken about cancelling the midterm elections in November, rather than risk Republicans losing control of the House, Senate, or both.

This would inevitably stall Trump’s agenda and expose him to congressional investigations.

“You’ve got to win the midterms because, if we don’t win the midterms... they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” the president told Republican lawmakers at a retreat in Washington last month. “I’ll get impeached.”

Also last month, after repeatedly threatening to run for a third term, the 79-year-old president questioned an even bigger stay in the Oval Office, writing on social media: “RECORD NUMBERS ALL OVER THE PLACE! SHOULD I TRY FOR A FOURTH TERM?”

Such a move would be virtually impossible, given that the U.S. Constitution bans Americans from being elected as president more than twice.

Even if he found a loophole, Trump—who is increasingly showing signs of decline—would be 86 by the time he could seek a fourth term at the 2032 election. The next presidential election is in 2028.

But Monday’s comments were arguably his most explicit sign yet that the president is pondering, once again, interfering with the workings of democracy.

Trump, however, maintains that the 2020 election was rigged, framed voting as corrupt, and pushed his view that immigrants were voting illegally in elections.

“These people were brought to our country to vote and they vote illegally. Amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it,” he claimed.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-reveals-sinister-new-plot-to-game-elections/?

ps:That's all the country needs another 4 years of this convicted criminal and his administration!! I said this before, this man wants, actually needs, to stay president for as long as he lives otherwise it's back to court!!

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Don't tune into the Super Bowl hoping for a break from politics The Super Bowl is one of the few remaining cultural touchstones viewed by millions of people in real time, and it will unfold at a tinderbox moment for the U.S. The NFL has faced pressure to take a stance against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies ahead of Sunday’s game. Read more.

Why this matters: More than 184,000 people have signed a petition calling on the league to denounce the potential presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The NFL says the federal security presence will be consistent with past games and ICE won't be there.   Anticipation is building around how Bad Bunny, the halftime show’s Spanish-speaking headliner, will address the moment. He has criticized Trump on everything from his hurricane response in his native Puerto Rico to his treatment of immigrants. Trump has said he doesn’t plan to attend this year’s game and has derided Bad Bunny as a “terrible choice.”

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Prosecutors seek life sentence for man who tried to shoot Trump at a Florida golf course   Complaint accuses Gabbard of playing politics with intelligence, which spy agency rejects   Judge seems skeptical of legal justification for Pentagon's punishment of Sen. Mark Kelly   Trump says Washington has waited 200 years for the arch he wants to build. Not quite   Judge set to hear arguments as court gives Trump another shot at nixing hush money conviction   Florida congresswoman accused of stealing COVID-19 funds pleads not guilty 3 months after indictment   Trump accused of distorting history of Mexican-American War to justify heavy hand in Latin America   Ex-leader Harper says Canada should make 'any sacrifice necessary' to preserve independence from US   GOP effort to add House seats in Florida through census lawsuit hits a snag   Utah Congress members sue to try to block new House districts that boost Democrats' chances   ‘Monster’s Paradise,’ lampooning Trump, has world premiere at Hamburg Opera

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Trump, 79, Blows Up Karoline Leavitt’s Defense of His Bonkers Election Plot

The president ignored his press secretary’s attempted cleanup.

President Donald Trump threw White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt under the bus after she attempted to defend his remarks about seizing federal control over U.S. elections.

On Tuesday, Trump, 79, doubled down on comments he made during a podcast interview with Dan Bongino, his former FBI deputy director, in which he argued that Republicans should “nationalize” elections by taking over the way ballots are cast and counted.

Without offering evidence, Trump claimed such a move was necessary to combat what he described as corrupt state-run election systems. U.S. elections are primarily governed by state law, with voting administered by local officials across the country.

The remarks marked yet another effort by Trump to amplify election misinformation and revive baseless allegations that U.S. elections are rigged, especially the presidential contest he lost to Joe Biden in 2020. They also came just hours after Leavitt sought to walk back his comments.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

“I want to see elections be honest,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office when pressed on what he meant by exerting federal control over elections.

“A state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do ’em anyway,” the president said.

Trump went on to accuse several Democratic-run cities of election corruption.

“Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Pennsylvania. Take a look at Philadelphia. You go take a look at Atlanta. Look at some of the places—that horrible corruption on elections—and the federal government should not allow that,” he said.

“The federal government should get involved,” Trump added. “These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

The comments come after Trump himself raised doubts about his party’s prospects at the November midterm elections after a string of electoral successes for the Democrats. The president has begged Republicans to pull out the stops in the midterms to stop Democrats from attempting to impeach him if they take control of Congress.

Earlier on Tuesday, Leavitt, 28, attempted to walk back Trump’s declaration that, “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places.”

When pressed, Leavitt, herself a failed congressional candidate, insisted the president was referring to Congress passing the SAVE Act.

“What the president was referring to is the SAVE Act, which is a huge, commonsense piece of legislation that Republicans have supported that President Trump is committed to signing into law during his term,” Leavitt said.

Trump did not mention the SAVE Act during his interview with Bongino, and the proposed legislation does not authorize the federal government to take control of elections in specific states.

“Again, what I was just telling you is that with the passage of the SAVE Act, voter ID will be implemented across all 50 states,” Leavitt added. “The president was referring to specific states in which we have seen a high degree of fraud.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-79-blows-up-karoline-leavitts-defense-of-his-bonkers-election-plot/?

ps:As per usual always throwing someone under the bus!!

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Mike Johnson Mansplains Religion to the Pope

The devout Southern Baptist broke down scripture for the American pontiff.

Mike Johnson put on his theologian hat and broke down scripture for the Vicar of Christ.

The House Speaker, a 54-year-old devout Southern Baptist, delivered a theological dissertation on Tuesday after he was asked to respond to comments made by Pope Leo XIV about the Trump administration’s hardline immigration agenda.

In November, the Chicago-born pontiff cited scripture as he called for “deep reflection” about the treatment of migrants in the U.S. The first American pope, 70, has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s policies, from foreign relations to immigration.

“Jesus says very clearly at the end of the world, we’re going to be asked, you know, how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or not? And I think that there’s a deep reflection that needs to be made in terms of what’s happening,” he told reporters, referencing the gospel of Matthew. “Many people who’ve lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what’s going on right now.”

On Tuesday, MeidasTouch reporter Pablo Manríquez told Johnson, “Pope Leo has cited Matthew 25:35 to critique Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. How would you respond to Pope Leo in scripture?”

“So you want me to give you a theological dissertation? All right. I tell you what. I’ll post it on my website later today, but let me give you a quick summary,” Johnson responded before launching into a soliloquy insisting that the Bible says “assimilation is expected and anticipated and proper.”

“Borders and walls are biblical, from the Old Testament to the new, God has allowed us to set up our civil societies and have separate nations. Immigration is not something that’s frowned upon in scripture, in fact it’s welcomed,” Johnson explained.

“When someone comes into your country, comes into your nation, they do not have the right to change its laws or to change a society. They’re expected to assimilate. We haven’t had a lot of that going on,” he said.

Johnson also said that scripture mandates that civil authorities maintain order, which he claimed the Biden-Harris administration failed to do.

“We did not take care of our borders,” he said. “We should love our neighbor as ourselves, as individuals, but as a civil authority, the government has to maintain the law, and that is biblical.”

After finishing his two-minute speech, Johnson went on X to write more than 1,300 words further defending his argument.

“Despite the unfounded claims of the Left, supporting a strong national border is a very Christian thing to do. The Bible tells us so,” he concluded.

It might take more than that to convince Pope Leo, who has consistently criticized the Trump administration’s handling of immigration.

After ICE agents in Illinois refused to allow priests and laypeople to provide communion at a detention facility, Leo said “the spiritual rights of people who have been detained should also be considered, and I would certainly invite the authorities to allow pastoral workers to attend to the needs of those people.”

Ahead of the vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, Leo’s top ally in the U.S., urged lawmakers to “vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization.” A measure funding the agency for two weeks was signed by President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Leo said in an X post that he had received “greatly troubling news” following a Wall Street Journal report citing insiders who said the Trump administration was planning a regime change in Cuba by the end of the year.

“I echo the message of the Cuban bishops, inviting all responsible parties to promote a sincere and effective dialogue, in order to avoid violence and every action that could increase the suffering of the dear Cuban people,” he said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mike-johnson-mansplains-religion-to-the-pope/?

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Judge Ridicules Pentagon Pete’s Preposterous Revenge Plot

A D.C. judge said the defense secretary’s case against a Democratic senator is a “bit of a stretch.”

Pete Hegseth’s vengeful crusade against a top Democrat has been ridiculed by a judge who claimed it was totally unprecedented.

“You’re asking me to do something that the Supreme Court has never done,” D.C. District Judge Richard Leon said in a preliminary hearing reported by the New York Times.

He further described the Pentagon’s case against Sen. Mark Kelly as a “bit of a stretch.”

Hegseth’s campaign against Kelly comes after the Arizona Democrat appeared in an online video, posted in November, to remind serving military personnel of their duty to disobey illegal orders.

The clip drove top members of the administration apoplectic. Hegseth described the video as “despicable, reckless, and false.” President Donald Trump, meanwhile, called for Kelly and other Democratic lawmakers who featured in the video to be executed.

The Pentagon swiftly announced an investigation into Kelly, specifically for possible breaches of military law, given that as a retired Navy captain he remains under military jurisdiction.

Kelly, 61, who flew combat missions in the Gulf War before piloting the NASA Space Shuttle, has fiercely defended his position, promising to “fight this with everything I’ve got.”

Hegseth eventually issued a formal censure against the senator in January over the video, and initiated administrative proceedings to demote Kelly and reduce his military pension.

Kelly, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was present at the court for Tuesday’s hearing.

According to the Times, Kelly’s lawyers are arguing the Trump administration is “brazenly violating the separation of powers to punish a member of Congress for constitutionally protected free speech.”

Judge Leon, nominated to the bench by President George W Bush, was apparently inclined to agree. He told the court that any decision not to block Hegseth’s case against Kelly would risk endangering “many, many other retirees who wish to voice their opinion.” He plans to make a temporary decision in the case as early as next week, the newspaper said.

The Daily Beast reached out to the Pentagon and Kelly’s representatives for comment on this story.

“As a matter of policy, the Department does not comment on ongoing litigation,” an official said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-pours-cold-water-on-pentagon-pete-hegseths-revenge-plot-against-democratic-senator-mark-kelly/?

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Trump is pushing to include risky assets like crypto and private equity in 401(k)s

Why this endangers retirement savers and the economy

https://www.epi.org/publication/trump-is-pushing-to-include-risky-assets-like-crypto-and-private-equity-in-401ks-why-this-endangers-retirement-savers-and-the-economy/?

Man who tried to shoot Trump at a Florida golf course gets life in prison

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump on a Florida golf course in 2024 was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison after a federal prosecutor said his crime was unacceptable “in this country or anywhere.”

https://apnews.com/article/trump-shooting-attempt-florida-ryan-routh-4bcddb2544bc127d6acf59b8311c458b?

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Trump’s border czar pulling 700 immigration officers out of Minnesota immediately

The Trump administration is reducing the number of immigration officers in Minnesota but will continue its enforcement operation that has sparked weeks of tensions and deadly confrontations, border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

Legal fight escalates over Georgia voting records as Trump says he wants to ‘take over’ elections Democrats demand ‘dramatic changes’ for ICE, including masks, cameras and judicial warrants Government lawyer yanked from immigration detail in Minnesota after telling judge ‘this job sucks’ New York attorney general to deploy legal observers to monitor federal immigration agents Federal immigration officials scout warehouses as they eye more detention space SBA says legal permanent residents will be ineligible for its loan program, effective March 1 Olympics: The hospitality stop known as ‘Ice House’ is now the ‘Winter House’ for US athletes Supreme Court refuses to block new California congressional districts that favor Democrats Trump signs bill to end partial government shutdown, setting stage for next fight Man who tried to shoot Trump at a Florida golf course gets life in prison US announces military team sent to Nigeria after recent attacks Trump calls Colombia’s Petro ‘terrific’ after White House meeting while downplaying past insults US-Iran talks to take place Friday in Oman, Iranian media say Federal Reserve governor Miran steps down from White House post New York and New Jersey sue Trump administration over $16B funding freeze for Hudson River tunnels AP Decision Notes: What to expect in New Jersey’s special congressional primary Business owner Rick Jackson launches Republican bid for Georgia governor

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US wants to create a critical minerals trading bloc with its allies to counter China

The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it wants to create a critical minerals trading bloc with its allies and partners, using tariffs to maintain minimum prices and defend against China’s stranglehold on the key elements needed for everything from fighter jets to smartphones. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

Trump and Xi discuss Iran in wide-ranging call as US presses China and others to break from Tehran China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin discuss their growing links, ties with US and global crises Why China is building so many coal plants despite its solar and wind boom Japan retrieves rare earth-rich mud from seabed to lower reliance on China China criticizes decision to award a Grammy to the Dalai Lama

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700 agents leaving Minnesota

The Trump administration is withdrawing 700 federal immigration agents from Minnesota, Axios Twin Cities' Kyle Stokes reports.

• That leaves "around 2,000" agents in a state that normally has closer to 150, border czar Tom Homan said today.

It's a big drawdown amid an immigration enforcement operation that killed two Americans, hollowed out the local U.S. Attorney's Office and proved deeply unpopular.

• Yet it's unclear whether the remaining agents' behavior will change.

🎙️ Homan, to reporters: "We're not surrendering our mission. We're not walking away from our mission. We're just making this more effective and more smart."

• He added that talks with state and local officials yielded "unprecedented" levels of cooperation from Minnesota county jails to hand over immigration suspects to ICE before they're released from custody.

🧑‍⚖️ Under Minnesota law, jails can't hold people longer than they otherwise would because of an ICE detainer — an administrative request without the force of a judicial warrant or a court order.

• Homan said counties aren't being asked to hold suspects for longer than required, only to notify ICE when they're released.

📺 President Trump told NBC's Tom Llamas today: "I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough." (Watch)

• Go deeper ...

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Trump boosts Guthrie search

Via Truth Social FBI Director Kash Patel is heading to Arizona as President Trump deploys federal resources to find "Today" show co-host Savannah Guthrie's 84-year-old mother, Axios' Marc Caputo and Rebecca Falconer write. Trump said on Truth Social he'd spoken with Guthrie and was "directing ALL Federal Law Enforcement to be at the family's, and Local Law Enforcement's, complete disposal, IMMEDIATELY." Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her home outside Tucson over the weekend in what law enforcement called "suspicious" circumstances. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has known the younger Guthrie for more than 25 years, spoke with her on the phone and is receiving constant updates on the case. Guthrie posted a video last night that her family is ready to talk to people holding their mother, but they want to see proof she is alive.

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Trump signs funding bill, setting up immigration enforcement debate

WASHINGTON — The partial government shutdown that began this weekend ended Tuesday when President Donald Trump signed the funding package that both chambers of Congress approved within the last week. 

https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/02/03/repub/us-house-sends-funding-bill-to-trump-setting-up-immigration-enforcement-debate/?

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Trump Gives Chilling Answer About Whether He’ll Accept Election Results

The president has made several concerning remarks about the 2026 midterms.

Donald Trump said he will only accept the GOP losing control of Congress in this November’s midterms if he considers the elections to have been “honest.”

Speaking to NBC’s Tom Llamas, the 79-year-old president was pressed on whether he would trust the midterm results after his suggestion that Republicans should “nationalize” election races across the country.

“I will, if the elections are honest,” Trump said. “I’m the last one that wants to complain. I just had a great election. They say one of the greatest elections—you will agree—ever. Won all seven swing states, won 84 percent of the counties in America, that’s why the map is all red.

“We just had a great election. I believe there was cheating.”

Historically, the ruling party in the White House has almost always suffered significant losses in midterm elections. With the GOP holding a razor-thin majority in the House, Republicans already face an uphill battle to retain control of the lower chamber in November. Intense backlash to Trump’s erratic second term also means the Senate could be in play for Democrats.

Trump has made a number of concerning statements amid expectations that the GOP will suffer an electoral wipeout in November, including floating the idea of canceling the elections altogether.

The president received bipartisan condemnation this week after he told the former deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, on his relaunched podcast that Republicans should “take over” the midterms under the guise of ensuring there is no widespread voter fraud.

“We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many—15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said.

Article I of the U.S. Constitution gives the states sole authority to conduct elections. It is also unclear which of the 15 states Trump was hoping the GOP would “take over,” prompting further concerns that the president is laying the groundwork to interfere in the midterms.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the president’s remarks, telling reporters Tuesday that Trump was referring to the SAVE Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration.

“The president believes in the United States Constitution; however, he believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections,” Leavitt said. “And again, voter ID is a highly popular and commonsense policy that the president wants to pursue.”

Trump denied that he used the word “nationalize”—even though that was exactly what he said—while also pushing for voter ID to be implemented during the traditional pre–Super Bowl interview with NBC Nightly News.

“I said there are some areas in our country that are extremely corrupt. They have very corrupt elections. Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Philadelphia. Take a look at Atlanta. There are some areas that are unbelievably corrupt,” Trump said.

“I say that we cannot have corrupt elections if we have to, if they don’t straighten out. As an example, voter ID, why don’t the Democrats want voter ID? You know who does want voter ID? Democrat voters want it, but Democrat politicians don’t. Why don’t they want it? Because they want to cheat on elections.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-gives-chilling-answer-about-whether-hell-accept-midterm-election-results/?

ps:Why even ask him that question? You know exactly how he's going to answer it!!

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Jackie Kennedy’s 1964 Letter Comes Back to Haunt Trump

A letter by the former first lady detailed her hesitations about naming the center after her husband.

Jackie Kennedy once expressed fear that the Kennedy Center would “fall into the realm of political patronage” in a letter that’s making rounds in the wake of the cultural institution’s MAGA makeover.

An October 1964 letter penned by the then-first lady to the center’s chairman, Roger Stevens, detailed her apprehensions about naming the Washington, D.C. institution after her husband, John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated the year before.

“Last winter, when the decision was made to name it after him, I was not capable of making any decision — and so many people were pressuring me,” she wrote. “I don’t think he needs any memorial — his grave and his Library are that. The Center was a problem he inherited — and he would have done it differently had he initiated it. All I care about now is sparing him controversy. He has a right to peace now. So you must understand my hesitancy.”

But Jackie said she was willing to make it work on the condition that she have a say in selecting the center’s director, its trustees, and her representative to the Kennedy Center board.

“If these things cannot be granted — then I will ask in the next session of Congress that the Center’s name be changed,” she said. “If you will grant me these things — I will work with you with dedication. I do not think that I am difficult to work with.”

When it comes to the selection of trustees, Jackie wrote that “the list should gradually be honed down to people who will care and work for the Center.”

“The appointment of trustees must never be allowed to fall into the realm of political patronage,” she said. “If the incumbent President has a friend who is interested in the arts — fine — he should be on the board — as he can help — but someone who is being repaid for past favors (George Brown) or named in hope of campaign contributions — should not be on it.”

Six decades later, Jackie’s concerns have borne fruit. A month after he returned to the White House, President Donald Trump installed himself as chairman of the Kennedy Center and appointed MAGA loyalists to its historically bipartisan board. Ric Grenell, a Trump loyalist, was named president, and Sergio Gor, a confidant of the president, was appointed secretary.

Trump also slapped his name on the exterior of the Kennedy Center, despite needing congressional approval to formally change its name.

The response from artists and audiences was resounding: several renowned acts pulled out, many in protest of the Trump takeover, and ticket sales plummeted.

Last week, Trump announced that he was shuttering the “tired, broken, and dilapidated Kennedy Center for two years beginning July 4th to make way for his gaudy renovation.

“If we don’t close, the quality of Construction will not be nearly as good, and the time to completion, because of interruption from Audiences from the many Events using the Facility, will be much longer,” he claimed in a Truth Social post.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jackie-kennedys-1964-letter-comes-back-to-haunt-trump/?

ps:Why would that haunt him? He doesn't care what others say or think!! He'll just attack them in whatever way he can!!! In this case though there's not anything he can do to her!!!!

[phkrause]

Self-Help Guru Sorry He Got Busted for Vile Epstein Emails

Deepak Chopra spoke to Epstein about “cute girls.”

Self-proclaimed “consciousness explorer” Deepak Chopra has apologized for his embarrassing appearance in the latest release of documents from the Epstein files.

The 79-year-old self-help guru and author was a frequent email correspondent with late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, even after Epstein’s conviction for solicitation of prostitution with a minor in 2008.

Over email, the pair discussed everything from trying to connect Leonardo DiCaprio with Woody Allen for a potential dinner to Marla Maples’ pregnancy.

One email exchange between the pair from 2017 saw Chopra ask Epstein, “Did you find me a cute Israeli?” Epstein replied: “Does a cell have a form? Is a cell aware? Does it have emotion? Does it perform actions?”

Chopra said, “Cells are human constructs. No such thing! Universe is a human construct. No such thing. Cute girls are aware when they make noises.”

“Thank God,” Epstein says, before Chopra goes on, “God is a construct. Cute girls are real.” Epstein replied, “So when the girl says ‘Oh my god?’”

On his LinkedIn page on Wednesday, Chopra said he was “deeply saddened” by the suffering of Epstein’s victims and noted that he “unequivocally” condemned abuse and exploitation. He clarified he was never involved in, and did not participate in “any criminal or exploitative conduct.” “Any contact I had was limited and unrelated to abusive activity,” he said.

However, he admitted, “Some past email exchanges have surfaced that reflect poor judgment in tone.”

“I regret that and understand how they read today, given what was publicly known at the time,” he added.

Epstein was jailed in Florida in 2008 on state charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18, escaping federal sex-trafficking charges via a sweetheart deal with then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta. He was released in July the following year after serving less than 13 months of his 18-month sentence.

Investigations into Epstein’s abuse of minors were published by The Miami Herald in 2018. In July 2019 Epstein was arrested in New Jersey on one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. He died in a Manhattan jail the following month.

Emails in the latest tranche of documents released from the Epstein files reveal Chopra and the disgraced financier met at least 12 times between 2016 and 2019 for “meditation and funding meetings.”

Epstein also invited Chopra to intimate dinner parties at his infamous New York residence, where controversial director Woody Allen was present. Chopra said Epstein’s nights out were “a blast.”

In February 2017, Chopra invited Epstein to join him in Israel, saying, “Come to Israel with us. Relax and have fun with interesting people. If you want use a fake name. Bring your girls. It will be fun to have you.”

In emails released last November, in 2016 the pair had been discussing a time to talk on video call when Chopra asked: “Btw—Do you know Marla Maples?”

Maples is the former wife of Donald Trump and mother of Tiffany Trump.

Epstein said, “Yes , In fact when she told donald she was pregnant. I lost a 10k dollar bet with him, and sent him a truck of baby food in in payment. but i have not spoken to her in many years since then.” [sic]

In 2016, Maples posted on Instagram a picture of her and Chopra with the caption, “Appreciating all @DeepakChopra does to share #consciousness in our world & in the many seasons of our friendship✨”

Last November, when he first appeared in the Epstein files, Chopra said, “I hope that all of the truth comes out after ongoing and proper investigations. I’m happy to share whatever I know with authorized officials.”

Chopra, who wrote for the Daily Beast more than a decade ago, achieved fame through a connection to Oprah Winfrey, who interviewed him in 1993 about his books on yoga, meditation, nutrition, and new-age therapies.

He has been married since 1970, with two children and three grandchildren.

The Daily Beast has contacted reps for Chopra for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/self-help-guru-sorry-he-got-busted-for-vile-epstein-emails/?