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

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Trump, 79, Gives Jaw-Dropping Excuse for Boosting Deranged Election Conspiracy

The president revived one of the most outlandish conspiracy theories from the 2020 election.

President Donald Trump has offered a startling new explanation for amplifying the debunked “Italygate” conspiracy.

Late Wednesday night, Trump revived one of the most outlandish conspiracy theories from the aftermath of the 2020 election, reposting a claim on his social media platform suggesting Italian satellites were used to hack into U.S. voting machines and flip votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

One of the posts he shared asserted: “China reportedly coordinated the whole operation … the CIA oversaw it, the FBI covered it up, all to install Biden as a puppet.”

Experts have repeatedly debunked this so-called “Italygate” theory, which first surfaced in 2020 and alleged that the election had been rigged in favor of Biden through a scheme involving Italian military satellites and technology, with votes supposedly being switched from Trump to Biden remotely via systems linked to the U.S. Embassy in Rome and an Italian defense contractor.

The tale was promoted in some far-right and QAnon-aligned circles as part of broader unfounded fraud claims.

The theory even reached the highest levels of the Trump White House. In late December 2020 and early January 2021, then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows forwarded emails about Italygate to acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, urging the Justice Department to investigate the outlandish allegations. Rosen’s aides dismissed the idea as “pure insanity,” and no credible evidence has ever emerged to support it.

Multiple fact-checks by Reuters, USA Today, and others have found no basis for the claims, noting the story’s implausible mechanics and lack of real evidence.

In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Trump was asked about election conspiracy theories he has promoted on social media, including the “Italygate” theory.

“Do you believe that stuff?” anchor Tom Llamas asked.

“No, no. No. No. … I sometimes will… retruth” those claims, Trump replied.

Trump’s late-night reposts on Truth Social came in the wake of an FBI seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia and were part of a flurry of posts spreading baseless claims about his election loss. “This is only the beginning,” he wrote alongside other false allegations tied to the Georgia action, adding, “Prosecutions are coming.”

Trump’s reaction to the FBI’s move in Georgia also included resurrecting conspiracies about the 2016 election, reposting a claim that accused former President Barack Obama of falsifying intelligence and conspiring with multiple foreign powers to overthrow the U.S. government.

The claim is unsupported by evidence and widely dismissed, and critics note it is logically incoherent, as Obama was the sitting president in 2016—making the accusation tantamount to alleging he attempted to overthrow his own administration.

For years, Trump has promoted unfounded claims that the 2020 election—particularly in Georgia—was stolen, despite multiple audits, certifications, and court rulings affirming the results.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-79-gives-jaw-dropping-excuse-for-boosting-deranged-italygate-conspiracy/?

ps:64 or 65 times to court on this issue and lost everytime!!!!!!!!!!

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Law Firm Chief Who Bowed to Trump Finally Quits Over Epstein Ties

Brad Karp was the first major law firm executive to bend the knee to Trump.

The chairman of a powerful Wall Street law firm who drew outrage by caving to President Donald Trump’s revenge campaign has finally quit after his fawning emails to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were revealed.Brad Karp, the 66-year-old head of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, had gushed that the disgraced financier was “amazing,” and asked Epstein for help getting his son a job with a Woody Allen production, according to documents included in the latest tranche of materials released by the Department of Justice. Several days after the messages became public, he abruptly resigned as chairman of Paul, Weiss on Wednesday, according to a statement released by the firm.

“Leading Paul, Weiss for the past 18 years has been the honor of my professional life,” Karp said in a statement. “Recent reporting has created a distraction and has placed a focus on me that is not in the best interests of the firm.”

According to the statement, Karp will remain with the firm and “focus his full-time attention to client service.”

Paul, Weiss had previously explained Karp’s presence in the Epstein files by saying that the firm was retained by Leon Black, the former CEO of a longtime client, investment firm Apollo Global Management, to negotiate fee disputes with Epstein.

“The firm was adverse to Epstein, and at no point did Paul, Weiss or Brad Karp ever represent him,” the firm said in a statement Sunday. The emails, however, showed that the interactions between Karp and Epstein—who died in a Manhattan prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges—were often far from adversarial.

“I can’t thank you enough for including me in an evening I’ll never forget,” Karp wrote to Epstein in July 2015, the day after a scheduled dinner with Epstein, Karp, and Allen, the Financial Times reported. “It was truly ‘once in a lifetime’ in every way, though I hope to be invited again. You are an extraordinary host—and your home…!!!”

Epstein’s assistant also arranged for Karp and his children to attend multiple screenings of Woody Allen films between 2014 and 2018.

The 90-year-old filmmaker married his ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn in 1997 and was accused of sexually abusing Farrow’s other daughter Dylan, which he denies.

Allen and Previn were regular guests for years at Epstein’s townhouse on the Upper East Side, where they were always welcome despite the controversy surrounding the Annie Hall director, The New York Times reported in December.

Last year, Karp came under fire for being the first Big Law firm executive to make a deal with Trump after the president signed a series of executive orders targeting law firms that had represented his perceived enemies.

While other firms fought Trump’s orders and won big in court, Paul, Weiss agreed to provide $40 million in free legal services to causes championed by Trump, release a statement about neutrality in hiring, and avoid any policies promoting diversity and inclusivity.

The deal backfired with major corporate clients and led to an exodus of top talent. Karp was personally heckled and protested at a New York Bar Foundation gala in November, Bloomberg Law reported.

Trump himself was close friends with Epstein for more than a decade. The president has denied knowing anything about Epstein’s crimes.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/paul-weiss-chief-brad-karp-who-bowed-to-donald-trump-finally-quits-over-jeffrey-epstein-ties/?

ps:Looks like he thought he was paying to not see those files released??

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The Ugly Truth Behind Trump Ordering Kaitlan Collins to Smile

Trump wanted her to expose her teeth. Instead he exposed his own sick agenda.

President Donald Trump snapping at CNN top reporter Kaitlan Collins for not smiling after she asked about the Epstein files was more than a clumsy deflection of a valid question. It was a worldview.

“Why don’t you ever smile?” He asked her.

“You never smile when you ask a question. You should smile more.”

“You don’t look very happy.”

Smile, girl. Be pretty. Make me think you like me. Deliver your questions like room service, not subpoenas.

Trump has never asked a male correspondent why he isn’t smiling. He didn’t say it to Jim Acosta. He didn’t say it to David Sanger. He didn’t even say it to Don Lemon. Men are allowed to look grim, severe, even hostile, while women are expected to look decorative, happy, even pleasing. Even if they’re asking about rape, corruption, and moral rot, a lady reporter must remember her lip gloss.

Expecting women to grin and bear it is nothing new. When women speak with authority, they are “shrill.” When they persist, they are “scolds.” Flip the gender and men who speak with authority are “experts.” When they persist, they’re geniuses. Or at worst if a man starts to explain something obvious, it’s called “mansplaining,” which we treat like a mildly annoying dinner companion.What makes Trump’s jab at Collins, 33, especially grotesque is that she was asking about convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. It took more than one thousand victims—one thousand!—for America to agree that Epstein was not a misunderstood libertine with powerful friends, but a serial predator running a vertically integrated abuse operation with powerful friends. Even now, Trump’s instinct is to shrug off Epstein’s crimes and, instead, focus on the real problem: a woman asking tough questions. Yes, it’s her job, but wouldn’t Collins serve the world better if she simply stayed at home and made babies like Usha Vance?

Our culture endlessly excuses men’s bad behavior. We call it “context.” We call it “complicated.” We call it “locker room talk.” Which brings us to longevity expert Dr. Peter Attia and the institutional moral vertigo now on display at CBS.

Attia’s emails with Epstein, ingratiating, immature, and wildly inappropriate, are being waved away as a lapse in judgment. CBS now frames its decision to keep him on air as a brave stand against “cancel culture,” as if basic standards were some kind of authoritarian plot.

But this is not cancel culture. This is character culture.

In a recent statement, Attia described his actions in 2018 as “incredibly naive.” The man was in his forties! His statement also failed to mention that he made the choice to stay and hang out with his pal Jeffrey in Manhattan while his infant son was in an ICU thousands of miles away. (The child’s heart had stopped beating. Fortunately, Attia’s wife, a nurse, was able to revive the baby who did recover.)

Attia has said that he wants to live as long as possible so he can spend meaningful time with his grandchildren. Maybe he can dispense grandfatherly wisdom such as “P---y is, indeed, low carb,” a light observation he emailed to Epstein.

The recent reveal of Attia’s behavior lost him the sponsorship of a protein bar that was also, ironically, low-carb. The makers of David Protein bars concluded, sensibly, that this was not the sort of judgment one wants attached to their brand. CBS, meanwhile, is looking the other way while positioning Attia as a martyr for free speech.

In short, men can show a lack of judgment and keep their jobs, while women can show a lack of enthusiasm and be criticized. And that’s the connective tissue to Trump and his craving for grinning gals.

Trump wants a court, not a press corps. He wants obsequious cabinet members who “dear leader” him until he falls asleep in a surround-sound loop of over-the-top flattery. He wants Collins to smile. Smiles signal obedience. In a way, it’s a compliment – a step up from “Quiet, piggy.”

Of course, Kaitlan Collins does not owe anyone a grin. Nor does any woman connected to the Epstein files, including the victims, reporters, lawyers, and podcasters.

Smiling is what you do when the system is working. Not when it’s protecting monsters.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-ugly-truth-behind-trump-ordering-kaitlan-collins-to-smile/?

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Trump Humiliated as Another Peace Plan Goes Up in Smoke

The U.S. rejected Iran’s request to change the location and format of meetings.

Plans for high-stakes talks between the U.S. and Iran are on the verge of collapsing as officials disagree over the meeting’s location and agenda.

The U.S. told Iran on Wednesday that it would not agree to Tehran’s demands to change the location and format, Axios reported.

The two countries were set to meet on Friday in Istanbul amid escalating tensions as the U.S. has increased its military presence in the Middle East. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened military action if Iran does not come to the table.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were slated to participate.

But on Tuesday, the Iranians said that they wanted the meeting to take place in Oman in a bilateral format. The request would ensure that the discussions were focused only on nuclear issues.

But U.S. officials decided to reject the request on Wednesday, two U.S. officials told Axios.

“We told them it is this or nothing, and they said, ‘Okay, then nothing,’” one senior U.S. official said.

The official said that if Iran agreed to return to the original format for the meeting, the U.S. would be willing to come to the table this week or next.

On Tuesday, Trump indicated that the plans for talks were still being negotiated while speaking to reporters at the White House.

“They had a chance to do something a while ago, and it didn’t work out, and we did ‘Midnight Hammer,’” Trump said, referring to the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June. “I don’t think they want that happening again.”

In an interview with Fox News, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday said the president was pursuing talks, but she did not rule out force.

“Of course, the president has always a range of options on the table, and that includes the use of military force,” she said, and referred to the June strikes that the “Iranians know that better than anyone.”

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that if the Iranians want to meet, the U.S. is ready.

“They’ve expressed an interest in meeting and talking. If they change their mind, we’re fine with that too,” he said.

Rubio said the talks would have to also include the range of Iran’s missiles, not just its nuclear program.

“I think in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles,” Rubio said.

However, A senior Iranian official said talks of its missiles was “off the table,” according to Reuters.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-humiliated-as-another-peace-plan-goes-up-in-smoke/?

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Trump Calls His Enemies Terrorists. Does That Mean He Can Just Kill Them?

“Terrorist” is the word that the Trump administration employs to describe the victims of its most egregious acts of state violence.

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/02/trump-nspm-7-domestic-terrorist-minneapolis-alex-pretti/?

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Trump Throws Another Goon Under Bus for Tulsi’s Crazy Raid

The explanation of why Tulsi Gabbard was at the FBI raid in Georgia keeps shifting.

President Donald Trump blamed Attorney General Pam Bondi for Tulsi Gabbard being in attendance as the FBI seized 2020 election documents in Fulton County, Georgia.

It was the latest in a series of shifting claims made by the administration amid questions about why the director of national intelligence was on the scene after Gabbard informed lawmakers that she had been specifically directed by the president to observe the operation.

The president referred to Gabbard as the “Director of National and International Intelligence” during his speech Thursday morning and said she was doing a great job.

“She took a lot of heat two days ago because she went in at Pam’s insistence. She went in, and she looked at votes that want to be checked out from Georgia,” Trump said.

The president gestured toward the attorney general who was also in the room for the National Prayer Breakfast as he spoke.

“They say ‘why is she doing it?’ Right, Pam? ‘Why is she doing it?’ Because Pam wanted her to do it, and you know why? She’s smart,” Trump continued.

Democratic lawmakers raised concerns after Gabbard was in attendance last week as FBI agents seized 2020 ballots.But in her own letter to ranking members on the congressional intelligence committees, Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, Gabbard, wrote that it was the president who requested her attendance at the raid.

“My presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security,” she wrote on February 2.

Gabbard also wrote: “the President tasked ODNI with taking all appropriate actions under my statutory authorities towards ensuring the integrity of our elections and specifically directed my observance of the execution of the Fulton County search warrant.”

Asked to clarify by the Daily Beast, a spokesperson for the Director of National Intelligence said both Trump and Bondi had asked Gabbard to be there.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also defended Gabbard showing up in Georgia this week and suggested it was at the president’s request.

“Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by the president of the United States to oversee the sanctity and the security of our American elections,” Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday.

She argued that Gabbard was working alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and it was a “whole-of-government” effort.

“I don’t see anything wrong with the president tasking a Cabinet member to pursue an issue that most people want to see solved,” Leavitt said without mentioning Bondi.

In what has been a massive departure from the norms, The New York Times reported this week that after the search in Georgia, Trump got on the phone and directly questioned the FBI agents who took part. The call was facilitated by Gabbard. She denied that Trump asked questions.

It came after the president spent years making baseless claims of election fraud and arguing without evidence that he actually won Georgia in the 2020 election when Joe Biden won the state by more than 11,000 votes.

Trump was asked specifically why Gabbard was there by NBC News in a sit-down interview aired on Wednesday.

“I don’t know,” Trump said. “But you know, a lot of the cheating comes from, it’s international cheating.”

After a back-and-forth over foreign efforts to influence elections, Trump quipped that Gabbard was “foreign governments” to explain her participation.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-throws-pam-bondi-under-bus-for-tulsi-gabbards-crazy-raid/?

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Cornered Trump Refuses to Back Vance as Successor

The president claims he has not considered who he will endorse—but he has thought about defying the Constitution to stay in power himself.

President Donald Trump refused to name Vice President JD Vance as his preferred successor when pressed in a sit-down interview with NBC News.

Trump, 79, appeared to be taken off guard when NBC’s Tom Llamas asked him Wednesday, “Will you endorse in the 2028 presidential primary?”

The president said he was “inclined” to eventually back a candidate but claimed he has not yet thought about whom he would choose. He later suggested he has not ruled out defying the Constitution to remain in office beyond Jan. 20, 2029.

Llamas reminded Trump that he previously said Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be a “tough ticket to beat.” He then asked, “Who should be at the top of that ticket?”

Trump answered, “Well, I don’t want to get into this. We have three years to go. I don’t want to, you know, I have two people that are doing a great job. I don’t want to have an argument with, or I don’t want to use the word fight. It wouldn’t be a fight. But look, JD is fantastic, and Marco is fantastic.”

The president has just under three years left in his term, but Republicans will soon line up to announce their bids to succeed him. Trump himself announced his third bid for the presidency on Nov. 15, 2022, just a week after the midterms. The 2026 midterms are nine months away.

Trump hailed Llamas’ question about Vance and Rubio as the “most interesting” of the interview, but declined to favor either of his top deputies. Instead, he vaguely described their attributes without saying which is which. “I would say one is slightly more diplomatic than the other,” Trump said. “I think they’re both of very high intelligence. I mean, they will do shows, they will do Joe Rogan, as opposed to the opponent not doing it because they couldn’t handle it. They will be able to do whatever they have to do.”

He continued, “I think there’s a difference in style. You know, you can see the style yourself, but they’re both very capable. I do think there’s the combination of JD and Marco would be very hard, [hard] to be beaten, I think. But you never know in politics, right? They say in the age of Trump, you never know.”

Vance, 41, has had a meteoric rise ever since he was chosen as Trump’s running mate at the Republican National Convention. The then-freshman Ohio senator was plucked from a crowded field, years after describing himself as a “Never Trump guy” and who viewed the president as “reprehensible” and an “idiot.”

Now, Vance is a loyal servant in the administration, backing even its most unpopular policies—like the ICE crackdown in Minneapolis that has left two Americans dead at the hands of federal agents.

Rubio, 54, has been equally loyal in MAGA 2.0, but less outspoken than Vance. Who the MAGA duo may face in a GOP primary remains a mystery, but reports say Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is considering a run as a more traditional Republican candidate.

The egomaniac Trump, despite being in decling health and plummeting popularity, is still not ruling out betraying the Constitution and somehow staying in office another term.

Trump did not rule out the possibility of ruling like a king when Llamas asked, “On January 21, 2029, do you see any scenario where you are still president?”

“I don’t know, it would be interesting,” Trump responded. “But wouldn’t it be terrible if I agreed with you, if I gave you the answer that you’re looking for? It would make life so much less exciting, right? It would be so much less exciting. But I only do this for one reason—Make America Great Again, and that’s what we’re doing.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cornered-trump-refuses-to-back-jd-vance-as-successor/?

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Epstein Said He Was Hanging With ‘the Trump Boys’ After the 2016 Election

Newly released email shows Epstein boasting he was in Palm Beach with “all the trump boys” at Christmas.

Jeffrey Epstein told a friend he was in Palm Beach with “all the trump boys” on Christmas Day 2016—a month after Donald Trump won his first U.S. election, a newly released email shows.

In a message sent on December 25 that year, following Trump’s victory in the November election, the convicted child sex offender wrote to Bill Gates’ advisor Boris Nikolic: “im in palm with all the trump boys. . = fun.”

A reply from Nikolic in the early hours of Dec. 26 reads: “Have fun!!”

Epstein did not spell out what “palm” means—although both he and Trump, 79, owned luxury homes in Palm Beach, Florida—or who exactly the wealthy financier was referring to when he said “the trump boys.”

It is also unknown whether the meet-up ever happened, or whether the president—who this week continued to try to shift media attention away from the files—was expected to be there himself.

Media coverage shows Trump had been spending the holidays at his Mar-a-Lago base in the seaside town. The Washington Post pool report on his Christmas Eve church service in Palm Beach says the service ended after midnight and the Trumps returned to Mar-a-Lago, where they were expected to celebrate Christmas with family and friends.

If Epstein’s boast reflected real plans involving Trump or his inner circle, it would suggest he may have been socializing with them just weeks before Trump’s January 2017 inauguration—much later than the president’s own timeline for their break.

When asked about Epstein after his death in 2019, Trump told reporters he had a falling out “a long time ago” and said: “I don’t think I’ve spoken to him in 15 years, I wasn’t a fan.”

Trump has since claimed he cut ties in the early 2000s after accusing Epstein of poaching young workers from the spa at Mar-a-Lago, including future accuser Virginia Giuffre, according to interviews reported by ABC News and other outlets.

Years earlier, in a 2002 magazine profile, Trump had called Epstein a “terrific guy” who was “a lot of fun to be with” and noted that “many” of the women around him were “on the younger side.”

A spokesperson for White House told the Daily Beast: “Epstein is a known liar and only the hacks at the Daily Beast—including disgraced Daily Beast employee Michael Wolff who was very close with Epstein—would believe his wild allegations."

The latest email appears in the Justice Department’s latest public dump of Epstein records, compiled under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The Daily Beast reported Monday on a separate memo in the files in which a confidential FBI source alleged Trump visited Epstein’s home for lunch in spring 2015 and remained close to him after the election.

In response to the FBI-source report, the White House told the Beast: “This is nothing more than a false allegation that has no basis in reality.” Trump has denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein.

The Justice Department has stressed that the 3.5 million pages released under the Act include everything from official case files to raw public tips, and warned that some documents—particularly those about Trump—contain “untrue and sensationalist” claims that are “unfounded and false.” Epstein, who was 66 when he died by suicide in a New York jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, had earlier pleaded guilty in Florida to state counts involving underage girls.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/epstein-said-he-was-hanging-with-the-trump-boys-after-the-2016-election/?

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Trump, 79, Rambles About His Chances of Getting Into Heaven

The president has repeatedly worried over his chances in the afterlife.

President Donald Trump obsessed over his chances of making it into heaven and bragged about all the good he’s done for religion on Thursday as he attended a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC.

It’s not the first time that the 79-year-old president, who is the oldest ever elected, has pondered aloud about his chances in the hereafter.

“I really think I probably should make it,” Trump argued. “I mean I’m not a perfect candidate, but I did a hell of a lot of good for perfect people. That’s for sure.”

At the start of his speech, Trump almost immediately turned to rambling about the media before making the case for getting into heaven.

The president complained that the last time he attended the event, he said, “I will never make it to heaven,” intending to be funny, but it wasn’t taken that way.

“I say ‘I’m never going to make it to heaven. I just don’t think I qualify. I don’t think there’s a thing I can do, but all of these good things I’m doing, including for religion,’” Trump continued, after pointing out the room was full of “fake news.”

He then got distracted and declared: “You know religion is back now hotter than ever before,” which he took credit for, before turning back to his complaint.“But I said, ‘even though I did that and so many other things,’ I named things. I said, ‘I won’t qualify, I’m not going to make it to heaven.’ The New York Times did a front-page story that Donald Trump is questioning his life and the meaning of his life,” Trump claimed.

He repeated that he was just having fun before declaring he should “probably” make it into heaven.

The president joked at the event that he never turns down the National Prayer Breakfast because he does not have the courage.

“I’m afraid not to be. I need all the help I can get,” Trump said, pointing heavenward.

While the president insisted he had previously been joking about not making it into heaven, he has repeatedly discussed what comes after death during his second term.

It appears as if the aging president, on numerous occasions, is considering his own mortality and trying to come to terms with it as he also faces a series of growing questions about his physical and mental health.

The president said during an interview on Fox & Friends last August that he wanted to end the war in Ukraine because he wanted to “try and get into heaven if possible.”

“I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole, but if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”

Asked about those comments on Air Force One a few months later, Trump claimed he was being “a little cute.”

“I don’t think there’s anything going to get me in heaven,” Trump said with a laugh. “I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-79-rambles-about-his-chances-of-getting-into-heaven/?

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Layoffs Under Trump Rocket to Worst January Levels Since Great Recession

Trump said just a few weeks ago that the economy is the “greatest economy in the history of the world.”

Despite President Trump’s claims about a miraculous economy, planned layoffs reached their highest level for January since the Great Recession.

New data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas released on Thursday revealed that last month saw more job-cut announcements than in any January since 2009.

The outplacement firm said that the 108,435 announcements made were up 205 percent compared to December 2025. That’s also 118 percent higher than January 2025.

Breaking down the 17-year high, the firm’s workplace expert Andy Challenger said, “Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January.” He added, “It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026.”

Key industries led the month’s layoffs, with the transport sector accounting for 31,243 planned cuts, largely due to UPS’s announcement to remove 30,000 people from its payroll.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the majority of the 22,291 planned job cuts in the technology industry were credited to Amazon, which plans to axe 16,000 roles.

According to CNBC, hiring figures were also bleak, with just 5,306 new hires announced in January.

Despite conversations in the tech space being dominated by artificial intelligence, Challenger said this instance may not be its fault.

He said that Amazon “CEO Andy Jassy, like many CEOs recently, has said AI will cost jobs in the coming years, but this cut appears to be due more to overhiring and reducing layers than to the new technology.”

Healthcare was the third biggest loser, with 17,107 job cuts announced. It is the largest monthly cut in the industry since April 2020.

“Healthcare providers and hospital systems are grappling with inflation and high labor costs,” Challenger said. “Lower reimbursements from Medicaid and Medicare are also hitting hospital systems. These pressures are leading to job cuts, as well as other cutting measures, such as some pay and benefits. It’s very difficult for leaders of these companies to tighten budgets while not sacrificing patient care.”

In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said, “President Trump’s economic agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, tariffs, and energy abundance has a proven track record of success—these same policies created a historic economy in his first term. As trillions of investments continue pouring in to make and hire in America, and as GDP growth continues to accelerate, Americans can rest assured that the best is yet to come.”

The administration’s financial confidence is nothing new. Trump repeatedly bragged about a booming economy under his stewardship, claiming in Michigan in January that it had been the “greatest first year in history.”

Whether or not people are buying the bluster, however, is a murkier matter. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Trump praised his own policies, especially tariffs, claiming they had “created an American economic miracle, and we are quickly building the greatest economy in the history of the world, with other countries doing just fine!”

But GOP strategist Karl Rove attacked the president on Fox News Sunday, accusing him of “making the same mistake” as Joe Biden by claiming people were doing better financially than they really felt they were, The Hill reports.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/layoffs-under-trump-rocket-to-worst-january-levels-since-great-recession/?

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Trump Boosts Furious Screed Against Supreme Court Justice

The president shared a call for a liberal justice to recuse herself from future immigration cases.

Donald Trump has promoted a highly critical opinion piece from New York Post columnist Miranda Devine targeting liberal Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

On Thursday morning, the 79-year-old president shared the tirade to Truth Social, where Devine blasted the first-ever Black woman appointed to the nation’s highest court over her appearance at what she called the “rancidly partisan anti-ICE” Grammy Awards on Sunday.

“The 55-year-old Biden DEI candidate was nominated for a Grammy for narrating the audiobook of her memoir Lovely One, which she unashamedly believes herself to be,” Devine wrote. “But she should have stayed home rather than laughing and clapping in the audience with a bunch of virtue-signaling luvvies ranting ‘f--- ICE’ every time they got on stage.

“It should have been obvious to Jackson that the event would be politically charged. She has to sit in judgment on various Trump administration immigration enforcement cases. How can she be seen as impartial?”

Artists such as Billie Eilish and Bad Bunny used their Grammy Awards acceptance speeches to call out Trump and the aggressive immigration tactics used by ICE in states like Minnesota. Other stars, including Joni Mitchell, Justin Bieber and his wife, Hailey Bieber, also wore “ICE out” pins during the ceremony and while posing on the red carpet.

Jackson was also in attendance at the Grammys ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday as a nominee for best audiobook for her memoir but ultimately lost out to the Dalai Lama.

While Jackson did not make any political statement during the awards show, Devine still believes she should recuse herself from all immigration cases handled by the Supreme Court due to her “enthusiastic involvement in the anti-ICE Grammys.”

“After all, the left has waged a years-long campaign to get Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito thrown off the court for such sins as holidaying with a friend who happens to be wealthy, in Thomas’ case, or, in Alito’s case, having a wife who flew a patriotic flag outside their home,” wrote Devine, the nepo baby daughter of Frank Devine, the late executive editor of the New York Post.

The Supreme Court is set to rule on a number of cases that could affect Trump’s presidency, including whether the president’s reasoning for implementing his sweeping global tariffs was legally justifiable

Trump shared the furious opinion piece about Jackson one day after the Supreme Court ruled that California could proceed with a redrawn congressional map approved by voters that heavily favors Democrats in the 2026 midterms.

The new map, spearheaded by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, was drawn in retaliation for similar gerrymandering efforts in Texas that would give the GOP five additional seats in November.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-boosts-furious-screed-against-supreme-court-justice-ketanji-brown-jackson/?

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World’s Richest Man Wants You to Know How Tough He Has It

Seriously.

The man on track to become the world’s first trillionaire is complaining that his material success hasn’t brought any joy into his life.

“Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about,” Elon Musk wrote on X late Wednesday. He included an emoji. It was a sad emoji.

Forbes estimates the SpaceX CEO’s current net worth at $852,500,000,000. That is bigger than the GDP of Switzerland, Israel, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Argentina, and Australia. It is, in fact, bigger than almost every country in the world, save perhaps the top thirty.

Late last year, Tesla shareholders voted to approve a stock-based compensation package for their founder with a theoretical max value of about $1,000,000,000,000 over the next decade. That figure represents a non-trivial percent, roughly 0.22 percent, of all money in existence.

Musk, who has at least 14 children, did not include the full extent of the proverb in his tweet: “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy comfort.”

It has been a busy few years for the Tesla CEO. A period that has solidified his descent from stargazing Trump skeptic to Dark MAGA’s edgelord supreme, dogged by allegations of sexual impropriety toward employees, Nazi salutes, conspiracy theories, pervy deep fakes and what is, reportedly, a wicked ketamine habit.

That trajectory arguably began in earnest with Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, now rebranded as X, in October 2023. In the months and years since, users have quit the platform by the millions amid an explosion of fake news, disinformation and hate speech spurred on, in many cases, by Musk himself.

X has come under ever greater fire in recent weeks after users began tasking Grok, the platform’s AI chatbot, with generating sexually explicit images of children and non-consensual pornographic images of women. These reportedly included pictures of Renee Nicole Good, the widowed mom-of-three shot dead by an ICE agent in a Minneapolis street last month, wearing a bikini.

Musk abandoned his prior support for the Democratic Party after an attempt on Donald Trump’s life in 2024. He subsequently poured more than $280 million into the Republican leader’s campaign.

Those efforts paid off. Trump won, and appointed Musk head of his administration’s cost-cutting “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) initiative. It would go on to axe between $2 and $10 billion in federal funding, along with eliminating an estimated 300,000 government jobs.

Among the most decried casualties of DOGE’s crusade against government spending was USAID, the world’s largest humanitarian organization. Independent studies have since found that Musk’s decision to effectively dismantle the agency could contribute to 14 million deaths around the world by 2030. Of that number, around a third would be children under 5.

Much of Musk’s time as Trump’s government efficiency czar came after a February 2025 appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, in which the Tesla CEO described empathy as “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.” In the same interview, he referred to welfare programs as a “Ponzi scheme.”

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Musk will be required to sit for depositions in a lawsuit brought by former USAID employees, who claim his gutting of the agency was unlawful given what they describe as Musk’s lack of any formal authority to do so.

Trump and Musk enjoyed a close relationship on the campaign trail and during the president’s first few months back in office. Musk once even went so far as to say, “I love [Trump] as much as a straight man can love another man.”

The warmth of that bromance was subsequently matched by the viciousness of the pair’s public divorce in June of last year, after the SpaceX founder blasted the MAGA leader over spending proposals he claimed would undo all of his work at DOGE. Amid an escalating war of words, Musk accused Trump of refusing to publish fresh documents on the crimes of late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein because his name features prominently in those files.

Musk’s comments have since proven more prescient than he might have expected. The latest releases from the ‘Epstein Files’ have indeed featured the president’s name, but also that of the Tesla CEO.

“What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Musk wrote to the convicted sex trafficker in one missive. “I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose,” he added in another.

The SpaceX founder has since sought to distance himself from that correspondence. “No one pushed harder than me to have the Epstein files released and I’m glad that has finally happened,” he wrote in an X post over the weekend.

“I had very little correspondence with Epstein and declined repeated invitations to go to his island or fly on his ‘Lolita Express,’ but was well aware that some email correspondence with him could be misinterpreted and used by detractors to smear my name,” he added.

The Daily Beast has reached out to Musk’s representatives for further comment on his existential quandaries.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/worlds-richest-man-elon-musk-wants-you-to-know-how-tough-he-has-it/?

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In the Dark (Smith Collection / Gado/ Getty)

View in browser The CIA World Factbook occupies a special place in the memories of elder Millennials like me. It was an enormous compendium of essential facts about every country around the world, carefully collected from across the federal government. This felt especially precious when the World Factbook went online in 1997 (it had previously been a classified internal publication printed on paper, then a declassified print resource), a time when the internet still felt new and unsettled. Unlike many other pages on the World Wide Web, it was reliable enough that you could even get away with citing it in schoolwork. And there was a special thrill in the idea that the CIA, a famously secretive organization, was the one providing it to you. Memories are now the only place the World Factbook resides. In a post online yesterday, the agency noted that the site “has sunset,” though it provided no explanation for why. (The agency did not immediately reply to my inquiry about why, nor has it replied to other outlets.) The Associated Press noted that the move “follows a vow from Director John Ratcliffe to end programs that don’t advance the agency’s core missions.” The demise of the World Factbook is part of a broad war on information being waged by the Trump administration. This is different from the administration’s assault on truth, in which the president and the White House lie prolifically or deny reality. This is something more fundamental: It’s a series of steps that by design or in effect block access to data, and in doing so erode the concept of a shared frame for all Americans. “Though the World Factbook is gone, in the spirit of its global reach and legacy, we hope you will stay curious about the world and find ways to explore it … in person or virtually,” the CIA wrote in the valedictory post. Left unsaid: You’re on your own to figure it out now. If the World Factbook was indeed shut down because it didn’t meet Ratcliffe’s standard for core CIA functions, that reflects the Trump administration’s impoverished view of the government’s role. The World Factbook was a public service that helped Americans and others around the globe be informed, created a positive association with a shadowy agency, and spread U.S. soft power by providing a useful service free to all. I’ve been unable to determine how much it cost the government to maintain, but there’s no reason to think it would be substantive. At least the raw information the World Factbook collected is available elsewhere (and the current version of the Factbook is available on the Internet Archive). The same is not true of some of the other casualties in the war on information, which have fallen victim to both ideology and incompetence. The executive branch has removed data from its websites, such as those of the CDC, the Census Bureau, and other departments, or removed the webpages that hosted them. Almost 3,400 data sets were removed from Data.gov in the first month of Trump’s term alone. At the start of the second Trump administration, some nongovernmental bodies worked to preserve government data by scraping information from existing sources. That’s valuable as far as it goes, but it doesn’t help with future data—or data that never get collected in the first place. As the University of Michigan law professors Samuel R. Bagenstos and Ellen D. Katz write in a new paper, “The Trump Administration has scrapped existing obligations to collect and report racial, ethnic and gender-based data involving law enforcement, education, federal contracts, public health, environmental justice, and social research.” In some cases, the administration has simply stopped collecting information. In others, it has significantly changed what data it collects, especially information related to gender identity and race, because of executive orders from the president. These shifts may sound abstract, but changes in federal data-collecting can have direct impacts on people’s lives and livelihoods. As NOTUS reported this week, data erasure means it’s harder to disseminate word about opioid drugs, feed hungry Americans, assess U.S. schools, and understand changes in prices. After the CDC’s entire Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System staff was placed on administrative leave in April, maternal-mortality data weren’t collected for months. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose commissioner Trump fired last summer, did not report monthly jobs data for October, because of the fall government shutdown—the first time in 77 years that an unemployment rate was not released. The war on information is perhaps even more dangerous than the war on truth. When people can see evidence that obviously contradicts what the administration is saying, they’re primed to disbelieve the officials. (Case in point: A new Quinnipiac poll finds that only 22 percent of people believe that Alex Pretti’s shooting was justified.) But democracy requires voters having access to accurate and shared information so that they can assess the claims that the government makes. This is what the Trump administration is undermining. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said that everyone was entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts. Now it’s not clear that anyone is entitled to any facts at all. Related: Donald Trump’s war on reality The short-circuiting of the American mind

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Cause and effect

It’s been one year since the Trump administration dismantled the US Agency for International Development. A new study warns that continued cuts to global aid programs could result in at least 9.4 million additional deaths by 2030, many of them children under five. 💊 President Trump will announce the launch of the TrumpRx website tonight, advancing a plan to offer discounted drug prices through special deals with drug companies, a Trump adviser told Axios' Marc Caputo. Go deeper. 💊 TrumpRx discount drug site launches   Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Leon Neal/POOL/AFP via Getty Images The White House last night launched its TrumpRx discount drug website, offering a new cash option for buying prescription drugs instead of using insurance, Axios' Maya Goldman reports. 👩‍⚕️ The site is a key part of President Trump's efforts to lower health costs. But most Americans likely already have access to even cheaper medicines through their health plans. 💵 The site features discounts that the Trump administration negotiated with several big drug companies, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. People can't buy drugs directly from the site. Instead, it's a landing page with links to pharmaceutical companies' direct-to-consumer platforms or to pharmacy coupons. 🎙️ Trump, at a White House unveiling: "People are going to save a lot of money and be healthy." Official site.

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Trump’s racist post about Obamas is deleted after backlash despite White House earlier defending it

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s racist social media post featuring former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle was deleted Friday after a backlash from both Republicans and Democrats who criticized the video as offensive.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-obama-racist-video-a48a6b8884a88f9ec30cd4913e352b51?

Racist video of Obamas deleted from Trump account

President Trump speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images The White House blamed a staffer for uploading a racist clip of former President Obama and Michelle Obama on President Trump's Truth Social account. Aides first defended, then deleted the video, which portrays the Obamas as apes, Axios' Alex Isenstadt, Marc Caputo and April Rubin report. The post roiled the White House. Staffers reflexively defended the clip, but were besieged with calls from fellow Republicans begging them to take it down, a source familiar with the discussions tells Axios. 📱 The AI-generated video was on the president's feed for roughly 12 hours. The two-second snippet appeared at the end of a minute-long election conspiracy video that was posted at 11:44 p.m. ET last night. The clip revives a centuries-old trope against the first Black president and first lady in U.S. history, during the first week of Black History Month. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said when first asked about the post: "This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from [T]he Lion King." Screenshot: @votetimscott/X 🏛️ The video led to a rare rebuke of Trump from Republicans in Congress, including Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the Senate's only Black Republican. "Praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House," Scott, head of the Senate GOP's campaign arm, posted on X. Go deeper: Trump revives racist imagery once seen as disqualifying.

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A Hole in the Narrative

View in browser

For as long as the Trump family has been cashing in on crypto, Don Jr., Eric, and their affiliates have deployed a particular narrative about their reasons for investing in the industry. Back in 2024, before the launch of a crypto empire that has now reportedly added at least $867 million to the family fortune, Don Jr. said on his podcast that digital assets were “obviously very appealing to guys like me who have been debanked”—an umbrella term for being cut off from a financial institution—“because they don’t check certain boxes.”

That same narrative is behind the president’s current legal assault on major banks. When Donald Trump returned to office last year, he started going after some of the businesses and individuals who he believed had wronged him in the past. On the list were universities, white-shoe law firms, and some of America’s largest banks. In a recent $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, which follows a similar suit from last year against Capital One, Trump alleged that he had been debanked on unfair grounds. In court filings, he accused each firm of closing his accounts in 2021 due to “political and social motivations” and “unsubstantiated, ‘woke’ beliefs” that they needed to distance themselves “from President Trump and his conservative political views.” (The JPMorgan suit, which the company said has “no merit,” arrived a day after Dimon publicly criticized the president’s proposal to cap credit-card interest rates; Capital One has also denied Trump’s allegations and filed a motion to dismiss the case.)

The Trumps were indeed cut off from some financial services in 2021. But although they claim that it had to do with political bias and checking “certain boxes,” there is likely a simpler explanation: the fact that, on January 6, the president fomented a riot at the Capitol and tried to overturn the results of a national election. In the weeks and months after the insurrection, Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank reportedly refused further dealings with Trump, and Capital One and JPMorgan closed many of his personal and business accounts. Part of the reason debanking has become such a flashpoint is that financial institutions aren’t required to explain to their customers why they’ve been cut off. Despite much speculation at the time, only Signature publicly provided reasoning for its decision, citing the Capitol attack.

Debanking is a nebulous concept. It can include loan denials as well as account closures for financial or nonfinancial reasons, and it can encompass broad actions across multiple banks as well as a single action at one bank. It’s not clear whether JPMorgan and Capital One actually discriminated against Trump on the basis of his political views. And even if they are found to have done so, the law is not clear on whether that’s illegal.

The legal experts I spoke with said that Trump’s argument is shaky. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act prevents discrimination against customers on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, and age—but, crucially, not political alignment. Beyond that, banks are mostly free to choose whom they do business with. And financial dealings with Trump were considered risky well before January 6, thanks to his history of business failures. In 2016, The New York Times reported that some bankers had captured the sentiment in a neat, two-word phrase: Donald risk.

That risk was only exacerbated by the events of January 6 and by Trump’s impeachment soon after, when it became apparent that there would be some kind of reckoning for what had happened at the Capitol. Nicholas Anthony, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, told me that the riot was “very reasonable” grounds “for any institution to drop a client.” The banks “were wary of the public seeing them doing business with Trump-related organizations,” Graham Steele, a Stanford Law fellow who worked in the Treasury Department under Joe Biden, explained to me; they were also likely “worried that somehow the funds in their accounts would be found to have helped finance, frankly, an insurrection.”

Even outside of these lawsuits, Trump has argued that conservatives are often targets for debanking. Last summer, he signed an executive order intended to protect customers who are debanked because of their political or religious beliefs. Although this may sound good on paper, he’s focused on the wrong issue. A 2025 review from Reuters found that out of the thousands of complaints about closed bank accounts filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, fewer than 1 percent of them “include the terms ‘politics,’ ‘religion,’ ‘conservative’ or ‘Christian.’”

But exclusion from the American banking system remains a real problem, particularly for low-income people and people of color. There are few broad studies on the debanking phenomenon as Trump seems to understand it—but there’s plenty of data on the communities that have historically been excluded from the financial system. A 2023 report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation found that Black, Hispanic, and American Indian households were unbanked (meaning they have no checking or savings account) at much higher rates than white households, and that the share of households with no form of mainstream credit at all (credit cards, mortgages, car loans) was higher among lower-income and less-educated households.

“There are certain communities that have a legacy of having been redlined out of getting access to credit and financial services,” Steele said. “That’s the real debanking problem.” Trump’s lawsuits and executive order probably won’t do much to chip away at that systemic issue. The president may say that he is protecting those who face discrimination, but his goals here are, as usual, extremely personal.

Related:

• Trump’s crypto defenses aren’t reassuring.
• The Trump presidency’s world-historical heist

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Trump Posts Vile Video of Obamas in Manic Late-Night Rampage

The 79-year-old president spent the night spewing out conspiracy theories.

President Donald Trump shared a racist video of Barack and Michelle Obama as part of a manic late-night Truth Social posting spree.

The 79-year-old fired off no fewer than 66 posts between 10:36 p.m and 12:25 a.m, including his usual routine of filling his feed by posting and then reposting the same content, usually sourced from MAGA accounts.

That included everything from cute dog videos taken from TikTok to baiting his regular foes Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

But one alarming video sharing conspiracy theories about rigged elections ends with doctored footage of the Obamas, their heads superimposed onto the bodies of animated apes.

The Daily Beast has chosen not to publish the clip.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Press Office X account posted the offending video, with the caption “Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and representatives for the Obamas for comment.That disturbing video was at odds with Barack Obama’s other appearance in Trump’s posting spree.

Trump shared 14-year-old footage of Obama being asked to show I.D. before he voted that has been recirculating on MAGA social media. It is being used to promote Trump’s SAVE Act to encourage voter registration.

The president also posted, then reposted, footage from May last year of far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer confronting CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Loomer is filming Tapper while saying, “Have some courage for once, apologize for all your fake news at CNN.”

In another ancient post, Trump shared a May 2025 screed from right-wing activist Roger Stone, who wrote that Trump belongs on Mount Rushmore and said Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna was sponsoring legislation to make it happen.

“Wow. So nice. Thank you Anna Paulina! President DJT,” Trump added by way of thanks, despite the fact that the bill was introduced by Luna more than a year ago, in January 2025.

The president also referenced the Epstein files, a subject he has been actively trying to avoid all week, even saying that America should move on from concerning itself with the late child sex offender.

As part of his Truth Social rampage, Trump shared a video that features a photo of him with his former friend Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile financier who died in a Manhattan jail in 2019. It also includes a snippet of author Michael Wolff, who co-hosts the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head podcast.

Wolff can be heard saying, “Epstein believed that Donald Trump went to the Palm Beach police and said ‘Jeffrey Epstein has young girls at his house’. Thereby beginning the legal process that would ultimately bring Jeffrey Epstein down.”

Trump has threatened to sue Wolff after the latest release of documents from the Epstein files, accusing the acclaimed author of “conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein” to harm him.

The president has always denied any allegations of sexual abuse.

Wolff is suing Melania Trump under laws designed to protect free speech after she threatened him with a $1 billion lawsuit for speaking about her ties to Epstein.

In response to the latest Trump threat, Wolff told the Beast, “This is the third or fourth time the Trumps have threatened to sue me. So far this has only resulted in me suing them. So, bring it on. Let’s sue each other. I have nothing to hide, but the Trumps surely do.”Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung provided the Daily Beast with a statement he has previously given, “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--- and has been proven to be a fraud. He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-posts-vile-video-of-barack-and-michelle-obama-in-manic-late-night-rampage/?

ps:What a vile little man he is!!!!!

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Stephen Miller’s Wife Makes Truly Deranged 2028 Plea

Katie Miller seems to regard the Constitution as little more than a minor inconvenience.

MAGA mouthpiece Katie Miller takes it as a given that Donald Trump will be running for a Constitution-busting third stint in the White House.

“I’m here to beg Kamala Harris to please run again in 2028,” the former White House staffer, who is married to Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, told Fox News on Thursday.

“There’s nothing I’d love to see more than the President Trump-Kamala Harris rematch of 2028,” she went on. “I know all of your viewers are equally as excited as me to see that.”

The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, brought in after Franklin D Roosevelt defied convention to win four straight presidential elections, clearly states: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

Donald Trump has been elected twice.

Fox host Sean Hannity did little to push back against Miller’s proposals. “You want me to try and convince her?” he said of her efforts to bait Harris. “If you want, I’ll see if she’ll take my call.”

It follows after Miller hyped the MAGA base last month with a teasing tweet in response to a scheduled Trump speech to voters in Iowa. “He’s running,” she wrote. Trump himself has repeatedly teased the possibility of defying the constitutional bar to win a third term in office.

“I would love to do it,” he told reporters earlier in October. “Am I not ruling it out? You’ll have to tell me.”

It remains unclear how sincere the 79-year-old president, no stranger to fearmongering or rage-baiting, may be at this stage about the prospects of Trump 3.0.

His allies have nevertheless consistently teased prospective legislative challenges or novel interpretations of the relevant laws to permit him to run again.

“Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” former White House strategist Steve Bannon said late last year. “At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is.”

Other top Republican figures to have backed the initiative include Florida State Rep. Randy Fine, who has urged Congress to repeal the relevant statutes, and Tennessee congressman Andy Ogles, who wants to amend the Constitution to allow Trump—and only Trump—to run again.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and Harris’ representatives for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/katie-miller-says-theres-nothing-id-like-to-see-more-than-a-third-donald-trump-presidency/?

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Trump Demands He Gets His Name on Two National Transportation Hubs

The president will release infrastructure funding if Chuck Schumer backs his latest vanity-driven ambitions, a report says.

Donald Trump is leveraging $16 billion in withheld infrastructure funding to try to rename Washington-Dulles International Airport and Penn Station after himself.

The 79-year-old president’s latest move to affix his name on buildings of note, which PunchBowl News reported Thursday, relates to his withholding of funds for the Gateway Program, which will expand and renovate the Northeast Corridor rail line in New York City and New Jersey. Trump froze those funds last October during the government shutdown. New York and New Jersey have since sued.

Trump went to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer with his offer to release the funds in exchange for the Senate minority leader’s support for the name changes, four sources told the outlet. That discussion happened Jan. 15.

Schumer rejected Trump’s offer, claiming he couldn’t make it happen, CNN reported.

A source close to Schumer, 75, told PunchBowl: “There’s nothing to trade. The president stopped the funding and can restart the funding with a snap of his fingers... There’s no statutory need for Schumer to be involved here.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to Schumer’s office and the White House for comment.

Some Republican lawmakers have already signaled their support for legislation to rename Dulles as the “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” If Congress did manage to see through Trump’s desire regarding the capital-area airport and New York’s major ground transportation hub, the situation would seem to go beyond the merely cosmetic name changes Trump applied to the Kennedy Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace via exterior lettering.Meanwhile, the Department of Transportation said in December that it would “explore the revitalization” of the airport, which Trump visited in October to assess future projects. The airport, located 26 miles west of Washington, is named after John Foster Dulles, who was Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower for six years and, before that, briefly a New York senator in the seat Schumer now holds.The Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station takes its name for Schumer’s late colleague, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, whom Schumer eulogized as “truly a giant—giant as a thinker, giant as a senator, and giant as a human being.” Moynihan led the effort to build the train hall that bears his name.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-demands-he-gets-his-name-on-two-national-transportation-hubs/?

ps:Absolutely unbelievable!!!!!!

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Bondi Busted Hiding Trump Goons’ Messages From the Epstein Files

Communications from Bondi and other top administration officials were conspicuously absent.

A watchdog group is demanding that Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice explain why none of the millions of documents released as part of the Epstein files include communications from top Trump administration officials. The Democracy Defenders Fund alleged in a letter Friday that the DOJ has “impermissibly” narrowed the scope of the Epstein Files Transparency Act by failing to include any communications from Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, or FBI Director Kash Patel.Those officials “have been at the center of DOJ’s response (or lack thereof) to congressional and public calls for production of the Epstein files,” the letter said, meaning the Epstein Library “should be replete with their communications.”

“The obvious conclusion is that these communications have been withheld, destroyed, or redacted to the point that they are not traceable in the Epstein Library,” it continued.

The law requires the release of all of the DOJ’s unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials relating to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein, while allowing certain information to be redacted, including personal details of victims and materials that would jeopardize an active federal investigation.

The exemptions are “largely inapplicable” to communications from Bondi, Blanche, and Patel, according to the Democracy Defenders Fund, which has asked the DOJ’s inspector general to ensure compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

In a statement to Axios, a DOJ spokesperson said the complaints were a “tired narrative.”

“This Department produced more than 3.5 million pages in compliance with the law and, in full transparency, has disclosed to the public and to Congress what items were not responsive,” the statement said.

The Daily Beast has also reached out for comment.

The DOJ released the last tranche of Epstein-related files on Jan. 30, more than a month after the deadline Congress established for releasing any records related to the late sex offender and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

President Donald Trump, who was friends with Epstein for more than a decade, responded to the release by declaring, “I think it’s really time for the country to get onto something else.”

His name or related terms were found 5,300 times within the documents, though he has denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. The disgraced financier died by an apparent suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

He had previously pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution.

Epstein’s victims, however, have said they’re not satisfied with the DOJ’s release. Earlier this week, both Trump and Vice President JD Vance complained that CNN star Kaitlan Collins needed to smile more when asking what the president would say to victims who feel like they haven’t gotten justice.

The release was heavily redacted and yet full of mistakes, with the DOJ forced to rush to take down thousands of documents containing the unredacted names of victims and even nude images of young women.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bondi-busted-hiding-trump-goons-messages-from-the-epstein-files/?

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Karoline Leavitt Gives Jaw-Dropping Defense of Trump’s Racist Obama Video

The White House press secretary was forced to respond to a firestorm of criticism.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to defend a racist video that President Donald Trump shared online depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

In a frenzied posting spree overnight, Trump shared a clip about conspiracy theories regarding so-called rigged elections. The video ends showing the Obamas with their heads superimposed onto the bodies of animated apes.

The 60-second clip depicts the Obamas dancing in a jungle setting to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” while Trump is shown as a lion.

The video, which the Daily Beast has chosen not to publish, was widely condemned, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom calling it “disgusting.”

“Every single Republican must denounce this. Now,” he wrote in a post on X.

Leavitt, however, called the outrage around Trump’s post “fake.”

In a statement to Newsweek and other outlets, Leavitt said: “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from ‘The Lion King.’”

“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” Leavitt added.

The complete AI-generated video, which was first posted on X in October 2025, shows several other Democrats as animals, all bowing down to Trump at the end.

Joe Biden appears as a baboon; Kamala Harris as a tortoise; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as a zebra; House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as a meerkat; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a donkey; New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a hyena; and Hillary Clinton as a warthog.

It was made by content creator “Xerias,” who also claimed credit for another AI-generated clip shared by Trump last year.

That video, which the president shared after millions turned out for “No Kings” protests across the country, shows a digitally rendered Trump piloting a fighter jet with “KING TRUMP” lettering and dropping cartoonish payloads of excrement on demonstrators.

The artificial intelligence-generated slop, set to the Top Gun song “Danger Zone,” quickly went viral, prompting backlash and confusion across social media. It also earned a rebuke from singer Kenny Loggins, who was not pleased that his hit was used to soundtrack the bizarre clip.

“This is an unauthorized use of my performance of ‘Danger Zone,’” the 77-year-old said, demanding that the post be deleted.

The Obamas have been contacted for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/karoline-leavitt-gives-jaw-dropping-defense-of-donald-trumps-racist-obama-video/?

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Epstein Cellmate Claims Trump Administration Wanted Pervert Powerbroker ‘Dead’

Man who shared a cell with Epstein made the explosive claim in a pardon plea obtained by the Daily Beast.

Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cellmate claims to have evidence that the Trump administration wanted the disgraced financier dead and left him unprotected “on purpose,” according to a document obtained by the Daily Beast.

Nicholas Tartaglione, a quadruple murderer and former police officer, filed a pardon/commutation petition last summer in which he claimed that Epstein was deliberately exposed to violence in the hope that he would not survive long enough to stand trial.

Prior to Epstein’s death on Aug. 10, 2019, which officials ruled a suicide, jail bosses decided that America’s most high-profile prisoner should share a cell with an accused mass murderer for reasons that have never been explained.

Tartaglione had a reputation for extreme violence and a self-confessed hatred of child sex offenders. Tartaglione—who Epstein told prison guards had tried to kill him three weeks before he was found dead—claims “it is no coincidence” that he was “deliberately” moved into the same jail as Epstein and “placed in the same cell” as the convicted child sex offender.

In a 21-page petition obtained by the Daily Beast, Tartagloine says that he believes the Trump administration wanted Epstein “dead.”

A spokesperson for White House said, “Anyone is able to submit a pardon request—much like everything else the Daily Beast writes, no one should take their garbage seriously. President Trump is the final decider on all clemency and pardon requests.”

Trump, 79, has repeatedly denied any knowledge or involvement in Epstein’s criminal activities, but has long been haunted by his decades-long association with the uber-wealthy pedophile.

The well-connected financier was found hanged in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City, while awaiting trial over child sex trafficking offences.

References to the president and his many high-society and political associates identified in the Epstein files would likely have featured heavily during the public hearings.

The circumstances around Epstein’s death remain controversial, and many in Epstein’s circle—including his brother, Mark, his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, his former butler, and his legal team—do not believe that he took his own life.

This week, outspoken podcaster Joe Rogan, once a Trump supporter, also blasted the government for placing Epstein in a cell with Tartaglione. “It’s weird that they took a guy who is one of the most high-profile defendants ever, and you put him in jail with a mass murderer. Kind of crazy,” he said.

Reports into Epstein’s death blamed widespread institutional failings, but they were riddled with inconsistencies. A prison psychologist who saw Epstein in the weeks before his death reported that he said suicide was “against his religion” and insisted he was too cowardly to hurt himself because he couldn’t stand pain. Epstein’s lawyer, Reid Weingarten, later told a judge overseeing Epstein’s case: “At or around the time of his death we did not see a despairing or despondent person.”

On Thursday, CBS News reported a document in the Epstein files that showed investigators flagged an orange-colored figure on jail surveillance video moving toward Epstein’s locked housing tier around 10:39 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2019—despite earlier official assurances that no one entered that area that night.

The FBI’s observation memo described the image as “possibly an inmate,” while the DOJ inspector general’s review treated it as a corrections officer.

Around three weeks before Epstein died, he was discovered semiconscious in his cell with injuries to his neck. He told guards Tartaglione had attempted to strangle him, before later withdrawing the complaint, saying he couldn’t remember what happened.

Tartaglione, who was moved out of Epstein’s cell after that incident, has denied attacking the financier and even claimed that he had tried to save Epstein’s life, having discovered him on the floor with a “piece of string” around his neck.

“I never touched the man,” Tartaglione wrote in a September 2019 letter to the New York Daily News. “I despise anyone who hurts children, but whatever was going to happen to him, I was not going to be a part of it.”

Despite this, Tartaglione admitted in the same letter to the Daily News that he had been a curious choice of cellmate for Epstein. “The staff here at MCC had hundreds of inmates to choose from yet I was their first choice,” Tartaglione wrote.

Tartaglione has now written a petition for a pardon to the president.

“It is no coincidence that prior to trial I was transferred to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and deliberately placed in the same cell as Jeffrey Epstein,” he wrote.

He explained that the bloody and violent nature of his crime was well-known to his prosecutor, Maureen Comey, who was also the lead prosecutor in the Epstein case.

He claims that there were several attempts made on his own life after he had been unwittingly dragged into Epstein’s orbit. “I clearly was not protected on purpose, nor was Epstein. I truly believe that the government wanted both Epstein and me dead,” he wrote.

The petition also includes obvious attempts to curry favor with the president. He makes accusations against Comey, the daughter of Trump nemesis James Comey, who has since been fired from the DOJ.

He says she tried to get Epstein to implicate Trump in exchange for his freedom, but also claims that Epstein “told me that President Trump was not involved with Epstein’s crimes.”

The former police officer also claims he was framed for the kidnapping and murders of four men. He was convicted in 2024 and is serving four consecutive life sentences, meaning he is unlikely ever to be released.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/epstein-cellmate-nicholas-tartaglione-alleges-trump-administration-wanted-wealthy-financier-dead/?

ps:Personally I don't want to believe it, but I wouldn't put it passed him!!

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ICE Barbie Rushes to Deport Boy, 5, After Detention Nightmare

After Liam Conejo Ramos fell ill in a Texas detention center, the staff told his father they didn’t have any medicine to treat the boy.

Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security is trying to expedite deportation proceedings against the family of a 5-year-old boy who has become the face of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation strategy.

Photos of Liam Conejo Ramos standing in the snow wearing a Spiderman backpack and blue bunny-ears hat went viral last month after the preschooler and his father were detained by ICE in Minneapolis and sent to a detention facility more than 1,000 miles away in Texas.

Before Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, were released on Saturday on a federal judge’s orders, the boy became feverish, vomited, and grew lethargic, but was denied medication because the detention center said they didn’t have any, Arias told ABC News.

Earlier this week, top officials at the Department of Justice vowed to appeal the order granting the father and son’s release. Arias and his wife, who is pregnant with the couple’s third child, came to the U.S. from Ecuador with Liam and their oldest child in 2024 and legally applied for asylum.

But now, DHS has filed a motion to end the family’s asylum claims and fast-track their deportation, Minnesota Public Radio reported. Their attorney, Danielle Molliver, told the MPR she believed the motion was “retaliatory.”

“There’s absolutely no reason that this should be expedited,” she said. “It’s not very common.”

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin defended the department’s handling of the case.

“These are regular removal proceedings. They are not in expedited removal. This is standard procedure and there is nothing retaliatory about enforcing the nation’s immigration laws,” she said.

The federal government cannot deport the family to their home country of Ecuador if they would face persecution there, Molliver added. Instead, they could apply for asylum in a third country.

Arias told MPR in Spanish that the government was “doing everything possible to do us harm, so they’ll probably deport us. We live with that fear too.”

Since their release, Liam wakes up crying during the night, reliving the moment on Jan. 20 that immigration agents handcuffed his father while his mother—who neighbors said was too scared to come outside—cried inside the family home, Arias told Telemundo on Thursday.

“He hasn’t been the same since this all happened,” Arias said.

Witnesses later said the agents discussed having Liam knock on the front door to get whoever was inside to come out, leading to accusations they wanted to use the boy as “bait,” NBC News reported.

DHS has disputed the family’s account, claiming that Arias “fled on foot—abandoning his child” and that Liam’s mother refused to take custody of him.

“For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias,” DHS said.

But while ordering the father and son’s release, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, a Clinton appointee, blasted ICE officials for an “ill-conceived and incompetently implemented case” designed to meet “daily deportation quotas.”

Biery also criticized the department’s use of so-called “administrative warrants”—which are signed by ICE and not a neutral third-party judge—to enter and search the homes of potential deportees.

“Civics lesson to the government: administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. This is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer,” he wrote.

After the ruling, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, “ICE did NOT target or arrest a child.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-barbie-kristi-noem-rushes-to-deport-liam-conejo-ramos-5-after-detention-nightmare/?

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Trump refuses to apologize for video with racist imagery of Obamas posted on his social media

Donald Trump said on Friday evening, after a racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes had been posted to his social media account and then deleted, that he had directed aides to post the offensive video but that he hadn’t seen that portion of the clip and he refused to apologize for it.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/06/trump-racist-video-barack-michelle-obama?

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Brazen Trump Says He Approved Racist Obama Video—and Won’t Apologize

The White House tried damage control, but Trump doubled down.

President Donald Trump admitted he approved the Truth Social post containing a racist video, but insists he didn’t see the imagery depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes—and flatly refuses to apologize.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Mar-a-Lago on Friday, Trump acknowledged that he personally reviewed the AI-generated video before it was shared on his social media account, but said his attention was focused on material he described as related to voter fraud.

“I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine,” Trump said.

“It was a very strong post in terms of voter fraud.”

The video appeared late Thursday night amid a burst of Truth Social posts on Trump’s account amplifying debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Near the end of the clip, Barack and Michelle Obama briefly appeared as apes—imagery long associated with racist caricatures of Black Americans. The post remained online for nearly 12 hours before being removed.

The incident sparked swift bipartisan backlash, including from several Republicans who urged Trump to take it down. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who Trump considered for his VP in 2024, called it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House” and publicly pressed Trump to remove the post.Trump, however, refused to take responsibility. He claimed he passed the video on to a staffer to post on his behalf, and blamed aides for failing to review it in full before publishing it to his account.

“Nobody knew that that was in the end,” he said, referring to the racist imagery.

“If they would have looked, they would have seen it, and probably they would have had the sense to take it down.”

“Somebody slipped and missed a very small part,” Trump added.

The comments undercut the White House’s earlier attempt to shift responsibility to an unnamed staffer.

A senior administration official had previously told CNN that “a White House staffer erroneously made the post” and that it was taken down once discovered.

Trump did not repeat that explanation—and appeared to contradict it—when questioned directly.

Pressed on what message he had for Americans offended by the imagery, Trump dismissed the question altogether.

“I didn’t know about it,” he said. “I have no message.”

Trump’s explanation also clashes with longstanding reporting about how his social media operation functions.

While the president frequently posts himself, access to his Truth Social account typically runs through a small, tightly controlled circle of senior aides.

Those known to help draft or post on Trump’s behalf include Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, a longtime gatekeeper of the president’s online presence, and Natalie Harp, a close aide known as the “Human Printer,” who has been known to assist Trump with messaging and post preparation.

Former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said the explanation offered by the White House never added up.

Speaking to NewsNation, Mulvaney noted that access to Trump’s social media accounts has historically been tightly controlled and that the timing of the post, near midnight, narrowed the pool of who could have authorized it.

“If I were chief of staff, I’d go to the president, name the staffer, fire them—and I’d offer my resignation,“ Mulvaney said.

Trump, however, offered no indication that anyone would be disciplined and showed no sign of regret.

When asked whether the staffer blamed by the White House would be fired, Trump replied simply: “No.”

The White House has not clarified how Trump’s account of events squared with its initial claim that a staffer alone was responsible for the post.

Trump, for his part, made his position clear.

“I didn’t make a mistake,” he said.

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admits-he-approved-racist-obama-videoand-refuses-to-apologize/?