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

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Trump’s Sinister Plot to Remake America’s Judiciary

The chads won’t need to be hanging if Trump is just going to rip up ballots entirely.

In Donald Trump’s telling, he has to win every election for his own ego. It’s good for America too, he’d argue, but that’s not really the point. (Or the truth.) So to assure his future well-being, he is working to stack the system with judges who will rule for him under the guise of preserving election integrity whenever he or his allies are questioned, and whose very presence—mostly white and mostly male—will resonate with his MAGA base.

Of the 34 individuals Trump nominated for lifetime judicial appointments in the first year of his second term, 26 were male, 31 were white, zero were women of color and zero added professional diversity to the bench— certainly no defense attorneys or non-profit types.

Twenty-six were confirmed.

Beyond their nominations reflecting Trump’s wish to Make America White Again, there is a noticeable unanimity across these candidates in their responses to questions about the 2020 presidential election in their Senate confirmation hearings, as though they’d been coached. (Trump, of course, remains fixated on cementing his alleged victory in 2020, an election he says was rigged.)

When Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal at a hearing late last year asked three nominees, lawyers nominated to be federal district judges by Donald Trump, whether the Capitol was attacked on January 6, they refused to answer. Each instead parroted a standard remark—that President Biden was certified as the winner, leaving open the question of whether the actual result was in doubt and ensuring they remain in good standing with the president who had nominated them.

Some have direct ties to Trump, like Emil Bove—formerly the president’s personal attorney. Confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit, Bove tops the list of what the advocacy group Alliance For Justice (AFJ) calls “Trump’s Allegiant: The Lowlights.”

Whatever Trump wants, Bove complies. Having been initially rewarded with a position at the Department of Justice, Bove behaved there like he was above the law. A whistleblower reported that he had encouraged the department to ignore lower court orders to return a plane of immigrants that had been wrongfully deported. Bove later wrote the memo that instructed the Southern District of New York to drop charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams for soliciting bribes and campaign contributions in return for Adams’ cooperation with Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics. When several prosecutors refused to carry out Bove’s order and quit, he stepped in and made personally sure the charges were dropped.

Another particularly notable sycophant is Jennifer Mascott, confirmed to the Third Circuit where she has no ties other than a beach house in Delaware. Her appointment can be chalked up to her outspoken support of unfettered executive power. A thumbnail sketch of her in the AFJ’s report on Trump’s year in judges cites her support for a “King-like executive” having argued in congressional testimony that subjecting a president to criminal prosecution for official acts would be an unacceptable threat to the office. (To be ‘fair,’ this appears to be the position of our current Supreme Court. Maybe Mascott has plans to climb the career ladder further still?)

In his first term as president, Trump went a long way to transforming the judiciary. He got a record number of judges confirmed, and they are young conservatives who will be around for a generation or two. In his second term, the pace has slowed considerably.

On Thursday, he announced four nominations on Truth Social, one for the Virgin Islands, one for the Court of International Trade, one for the district of Montana, and another for the district of South Carolina—a Black woman, Sheria Clarke, who has worked with former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, a rabble-rouser when he was in Congress.

These follow four nominations made in January to other district court seats.

Of course, with Trump you never know what’s coming next—it’s still possible that he may prioritize getting more of his people in place before the midterms, and before the avalanche of lawsuits that are likely to be filed if the November election results don’t go his way. Indeed, many of Trump’s new judges are no fans of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the cornerstone of voting rights that is now subject to right-wing interpretation.

Confirmed to the Ninth Circuit is Eric Tung, for example, a former clerk for SCOTUS Justices Antonin Scalia and Neil Gorsuch and a strong supporter of a theory that would grant state legislatures largely unchecked power to suppress voting rights. He filed a brief in North Carolina’s gerrymandering case saying the state Supreme Court had overstepped in striking down the legislature’s gerrymandered map. A social conservative, he has also criticized feminist groups for what he describes as blurring gender roles and says he believes in “emphasizing family and what it means for a woman to be a good wife or partner.”

There’s 40-year-old Alabama solicitor general Edmund LaCour, confirmed to a lifetime appointment as a district judge in the northern district of AlabamaLaCour was just two years out of law school when he filed a brief with the Supreme Court in favor of gutting part of the Voting Rights Act; he argued that “race-based remedies to combat racially discriminatory maps were flawed as a constitutional matter.” He has also defended Alabama’s near-total abortion ban and supported a rollback of the Endangered Species Act.

And don’t forget Missouri solicitor general Josh Divine, who in 2010 wrote an opinion piece supporting literacy tests for voting while attending the University of Northern Colorado. “In the Civil Rights Act, literacy tests were banned because they were used as a form of discrimination in that they were only administered to certain groups of people,” he said, “but literacy tests themselves are not a bad thing.”

“When you have so many judges who have a history of undermining voting rights, you’re laying a fertile groundwork to put those rights at risk,” says Christine Chen Zinner, Federal Research and Advocacy Director at the Alliance for Justice.

Trump said he was going to drain the swamp, but he seems more intent on flooding it with reflections of himself, judges who see the country through a frame that values executive power as more than a coequal branch of government. He is setting in place a pipeline that could facilitate Trump-style election denialism and create chaos all the way to the Supreme Court, and beyond.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-sinister-plot-to-remake-americas-judiciary/?

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• Live updates: Homeland Security seems certain to shut down tonight
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• Trump administration reaches a trade deal to lower Taiwan’s tariff barriers
• Trump pardons 5 former NFL players for crimes ranging from perjury to drug trafficking 
• Top Trump antitrust official leaves post following disputes over big mergers
• Justice Department sues Harvard for data as it investigates how race factors into
• US spent $40 million on roughly 300 deportations to third nations, Democratic report finds
• Feds investigating whether 2 ICE officers lied about the shooting of a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis
• RFK Jr. pledged more transparency. Here’s what the public doesn’t know anymore
• UN approves 40-member scientific panel on the impact of artificial intelligence over US objections
• EPA ends credits for automatic start-stop vehicle ignition, a feature Zeldin says ‘everyone hates’
• Trump’s FTC chairman chides Apple boss Tim Cook for content of Apple news feed
• Journalist Don Lemon pleads not guilty to civil rights charges in Minnesota church protest
• House renames press gallery after Frederick Douglass in bipartisan recognition of Black history

 

• 🪖 President Trump traveled to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, today to meet with military families and spotlight members of the special forces involved with last month's capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. In a speech, he highlighted his record defense spending, incorrectly claimed he won the popular vote in 2016, and attacked Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper. Watch.
• 🇮🇷 Trump is sending the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier to the Middle East to boost U.S. forces in the region amid tensions with Iran, Axios' Barak Ravid and Colin Demarest report. It joins the USS Abraham Lincoln, which was sent to the area last month. Go deeper.
• 🚔 ICE is preparing to spend $38.3 billion this year on a "new detention center model" that holds nearly 100,000 people, Axios' Brittany Gibson reports from an agency memo. Go deeper.

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Trump vs. the Government

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Americans don’t always know where their tax dollars are going, nor do they always agree with how they’re used. President Trump has an unorthodox proposal for where 10 billion of them should go: directly to him.

On January 29, Trump, along with the Trump Organization and his sons Don Jr. and Eric, sued the IRS for mishandling his tax information. The group is claiming improper disclosure—that a contractor leaked the president’s and his sons’ tax returns to The New York Times and ProPublica during Trump’s first term. (As part of his 2023 guilty plea for disclosing tax-return information without authorization, the contractor admitted to leaking Trump’s information to the Times.) The president is seeking $10 billion in damages; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed last week that all of it would come from the Treasury General Account, which consists entirely of taxpayer dollars.

The suit taps into a real issue: Taxation doesn’t work without privacy. In order to fully comply with the system, Americans need to be able to trust that their personal details won’t be made public. Anyone can pursue legal action after getting their data leaked; the tax code specifically allows for it. But Trump, who is suing the IRS in a personal capacity, also happens to be the president, which means that his job involves overseeing the agency and its parent, the Treasury Department. This circulation of taxpayer dollars to the president’s personal bank accounts by way of litigation would be the first such transfer in U.S. history, experts told me. (Trump also made history when he refused to release his returns despite having previously pledged to do so, thereby breaking the modern tradition of presidents voluntarily showing the American people their tax information.)

The lawsuit itself raises a few big questions. An amicus brief, co-filed by two watchdog organizations and four former government officials, argues that the case could be thrown out because Trump actually missed the date by which he was supposed to file. And the fact that the leaker was a contractor of the IRS at the time of the leaks, not an employee, could potentially get the case tossed on its own.

Then there’s the question of the $10 billion—an obscene amount on its face, but not entirely without logic. The tax code allows plaintiffs to sue for $1,000 per each instance of disclosure, or for an unspecified amount of “actual damages.” Trump’s lawyers are arguing that because his information was “likely seen by tens of millions of viewers”—in what’s known as secondary disclosure—and was covered widely in the press, Trump is entitled to “at least” $10 billion in statutory damages. Several courts have already rejected the idea that secondary disclosures count under this particular statute. If the courts opt for actual damages, Trump’s lawyers are also arguing that he has suffered at least $10 billion in financial harm. The president has said that if he wins, he will give all of the money to charity (although he hasn’t always been faithful to his promises to donate funds).

The suit is just the latest of Trump’s legal attacks on both private institutions and his own government. Since his election in 2024, the president has secured $16 million each from settlements with the media companies Paramount and ABC, and almost $60 million total from settlements with the American tech firms Meta, Alphabet, and X. Trump also filed complaints in 2023 and 2024 against another federal agency, the Department of Justice, and has reportedly demanded $230 million in compensation for its past investigations into him—but he did not officially sue. My colleague Quinta Jurecic called it a form of extortion.

Theoretically, an impartial court will adjudicate Trump’s IRS case. But the president ultimately controls both parties to the lawsuit. A judge would have to approve a settlement, but Bessent, who works a second job as acting commissioner of the IRS and who reports directly to the president, would oversee the payout. Keith E. Whittington, a professor at Yale Law School, told me that, under the broad theory of executive power that Trump has embraced in the past, he could potentially give direct instructions to either Bessent or the lawyers themselves. Courts may get “pretty nervous about a situation in which, arguably, you’ve got the same person on both sides of the case,” Whittington said. Trump himself has noted the potential conflict of interest: “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” he recently told reporters.

Trump’s destruction of presidential norms has been well documented at this point in his second term. But the IRS lawsuit represents something slightly different. Until now, there was no expectation that a president might “put the government in this situation, in which he is trying to extract money from the Treasury to serve his own private interest while he’s a sitting president,” Whittington explained. “One might characterize that as a question of norms, but I doubt it even occurred to anyone to think about whether or not this is an appropriate thing to do.”

What does it say about how Trump understands his role if he is willing to sue his own government to line his pockets? The job is meant to come with trade-offs: In exchange for power over the federal government, a president usually surrenders some ability to prioritize their personal interests—by divesting their holdings from private companies, for example (Trump has not done this, either). With the IRS lawsuit, Trump has discovered yet another way to leverage his office for his own gain. The question of whether he can sue his own agency is perhaps less important than whether he should.

Related:

• Trump to DOJ: Pay up.
• Why Meta is paying $25 million to settle a Trump lawsuit (From January 2025)

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Trump Admin Blew Over $1M Per Migrant on Botched Deportations

The highly-criticized plan cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

The Trump administration has spent over $40 million on deporting people to the wrong country, only for most migrants to end up back in their nation of origin.

A 30-page report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, released on Friday, details the huge cost to American taxpayers of what one U.S. official called a “scare tactic” and a “hugely expensive deterrent” operation by the administration.

According to the report, more than $32 million has been paid to five countries—some with a history of corrupt governments and human rights abuses—as of January, to accept roughly 300 third-country nationals deported from the U.S. The term third country refers to the U.S. deporting migrants to nations that aren’t their own. The five countries that received lump-sum payments from the United States with minimal oversight of how the funds are being spent are Rwanda, El Salvador, Eswatini, Palau, and Equatorial Guinea, which ranks 172nd out of 182 countries in a global corruption tracker.

“This is not diplomacy but human trafficking disguised as a deportation deal,” Eswatini’s largest political opposition party said, as opposition groups and civil society expressed outrage over the arrival of deportees.

About 80 percent of deportees have either returned to their countries of origin or are currently in the process of doing so, the report notes, citing Ghana as an example.

According to court filings, U.S. officials told migrants headed to Ghana even before they arrived that they would eventually be sent to their home countries. “While at the fuel stop in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the apparent head ICE official on the plane… told me that those on the plane were being sent to Ghana and that Ghana would send us to our home countries,” one migrant said of their deportation.Migrants are often deported on military aircraft that cost more than $32,000 per hour, and the committee report estimates that the administration has spent roughly $7.2 million on these third-country deportation flights—only for many to be flown back to their home countries on additional U.S.-funded flights, doubling the taxpayer expense.

Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump, 79, has pursued an immigration enforcement agenda aimed at “the largest domestic deportation operation,” with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claiming there were “more than 675,000 deportations” in his first year in office.

As part of this push, in March, the administration deported roughly 250 Venezuelan men deemed to be members of the street gang Tren de Aragua in El Salvador, invoking the Alien Enemies Act.

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the men were denied due process and ordered the Trump administration to allow those who wish to return to the United States—a move that will likely impose another cost on taxpayers.

In exchange for accepting deportees, the report notes that the government of El Salvador received “in-kind and financial support” from the Trump administration, including the return of several high-profile MS-13 leaders who had been serving as U.S. informants at the request of the El Salvador president, Nayib Bukele.

The consequences for countries that refuse to accept deportees were seen in early 2025, when Colombian President Gustavo Petro barred two U.S. military planes carrying deported migrants from landing, prompting the Trump administration to threaten tariffs on the country’s exports.

The information that, to date, the Trump administration has paid at least one country more than $1 million per third-country national received comes at a time when the president is facing low approval ratings, partly as a result of Americans struggling with an affordability crisis.

“Through its third-country deportation deals, the Trump Administration is putting millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of foreign governments, while turning a blind eye to the human costs and potentially undermining our diplomatic relationships,” said Jeanne Shaheen, a ranking member of the committee.

The Daily Beast has contacted the US Department of State for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admin-blew-over-1m-per-migrant-on-botched-deportations/?

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Deranged Trump Ally Blows Half His Campaign Cash on Own Book

Pillow man Mike Lindell is handing out copies of his book, “What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO,” instead of campaign flyers in his bid for Minnesota governor.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is campaigning for Minnesota governor by giving away copies of his autobiography, paid for with campaign funds.The 64-year-old, whom President Donald Trump, 79, dubbed “THE Pillow Guy,” announced his run for Minnesota governor in December. Since then, he has spent roughly $187,000 of the $356,000 raised in the first two weeks of his campaign on copies of his own book, What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO.

“When we’re going around to all the places in Minnesota, other people are giving a flyer,” Lindell told the Minnesota Reformer at the beginning of February, adding that, instead of that tactic, he is “giving them the whole book so they know who I am.”

Lindell—who has become an outspoken 2020 election denier, even going so far as to accuse “Satan” of rigging the election against Trump—has spent millions spreading the conspiracy.

In June, Lindell was ordered to pay $2.3 million in damages for defaming a former Dominion Voting Systems employee, and had claimed even before the judgment that he was several million dollars in debt.

“I can’t self-fund. I don’t have any money left,” Lindell told a reporter when asked whether he would pay for his campaign out of pocket.

Instead, he has collected campaign donations to buy his book, priced at $19.97, as he seeks the Republican nomination for governor to run against Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar.The book is described as “a raw, authentic account by a man many thought would never rise above his serial, addiction-fueled failures,” with Lindell opening up about his life as a recovering crack addict and his eventual transformation into a devoted evangelical Christian and CEO.

While Lindell’s autobiography emphasizes his message to voters—that he will support “those of you struggling with addiction”—he faces the reality that Republicans have not won a statewide office in Minnesota since 2006.

The Daily Beast has contacted Lindell’s campaign for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/deranged-donald-trump-ally-mike-lindell-blows-half-his-campaign-cash-on-own-book/?

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👀 New rendering for Trump's ballroom

Rendering: Shalom Baranes Associates New renderings of President Donald Trump's planned White House ballroom show a 90,000-square-foot addition that would include offices for White House staff, The Washington Post reports (gift link). Shalom Baranes Associates, the architecture firm handling the project, shared the renderings with the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees major federal construction projects in D.C. The proposed addition "would remain the same height as the White House at its highest point — a priority for Trump and a major concern for outside architects and historical preservationists," the Post adds. Go deeper: 28-page update.

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📉 Feeling left behind

Photo illustration: Maura Kearns/Axios. Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images

President Trump promised economic relief for Black businesses and workers. But Black business leaders say his policies have put them under greater strain, Axios's Lauren Floyd writes. Why it matters: Federal layoffs, tariff-related costs and a weakening labor market have hurt many Black-owned small businesses. The Black unemployment rate has climbed to its highest level since 2021, rising three times faster than the overall rate. Trump gutted the Minority Business Development Agency, the federal agency tasked with growing minority businesses, and rescinded a Johnson-era order requiring federal contractors to take steps to prevent racial discrimination. White House assistant press secretary Taylor Rogers said: "President Trump promised to bring prosperity back to Main Street with an America First agenda that benefits every small business."

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How a Solitary Bullet Hole Blew Apart ICE’s Web of Lies

A nonfatal shooting forced DHS to walk back its own version of events.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem quickly offered a variation of her standard falsehood.

She had said the same after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, an unarmed mother of three, a week earlier on Jan. 7. And she would repeat it regarding the killing of VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.

“Fearing for his life, he fired a defensive shot,” Noem said of her agent.

She told the press that the delivery driver incident constituted “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement.”

“Our officer was ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms,” she added.

That falsehood was more elaborate than the others, but received less attention because the person shot in this case, Venezuelan Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, 24, suffered only a wound to his right thigh and survived.

Sosa-Celis was arrested along with his friend and fellow DoorDasher, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, who allegedly joined in assaulting the agent after a car chase ended in a struggle.But a bullet hole in the front door of Sosa-Celis’ home corroborates contradictory accounts by two eyewitnesses. They say the agent fired through the door, and Sosa-Celis was struck after he entered the house, so he could not have constituted a threat. The bullet was later found to have torn through the door and into the apartment.The bullet was found “between a child’s bed and a crib,” Aljorna’s attorney, Frederick Goetz, told the Daily Beast on Friday.

Goetz said two children, aged 1 and 3, were in the apartment at the time. The older one could be seen in a live video Sosa-Celis and his wife, Indriany Mendoza Camacho, made as they called 911 to report in Spanish that he had been shot “by ICE” when he was inside.

“They shot through the door,” Camacho said in Spanish.

In a subsequent statement, she reported that her husband was not even the man ICE had been chasing for fleeing a car stop. The agent had, in fact, been after fellow Venezuelan Aljorna, 26, who was arrested outside the home.

Aljorna’s partner, Valentina De Los Angeles Tiapa Moreno, was inside the home and had watched the incident unfold alongside Camacho. Sosa-Celis, the

two women, and the children then sought refuge in an upstairs bedroom, but ICE drove them out with tear gas.

A number of area residents had gathered outside the home and were loudly expressing their displeasure when ICE sought to scatter them with more tear gas.

It seeped into the home of a neighbor whose 6-month-old baby began to have difficulty breathing.

The neighbor took the baby out to his car only for agents to toss flash bangs under it, causing the airbags to inflate. The baby ended up going by ambulance to an emergency room, and survived.

In the meantime, ICE arrested both Aljorna and the wounded Sosa-Celis. An FBI criminal complaint charged them with “aiding and abetting the forcible assault, resistance, and impeding of a federal law enforcement officer.” ICE, which had been routinely forcing its way into private property in Minneapolis without search warrants, reported that the lack of one kept them from collecting the bullet.

ICE used the same excuse for not vouchering the supposed “ambush” weapons, the broomstick and the snow shovel, which ultimately proved to be plastic.

ICE also arrested the two women who had witnessed it all from inside the house. They and the two young children were flown out of Minneapolis the next morning.

“To Texas and other places,” Goetz reported.

But both women managed to file habeas corpus petitions seeking their release and return to Minneapolis. The petitions were filed under seal but were viewed by The Minneapolis Star Tribune, which reported that the documents contain detailed eyewitness accounts of the incident. The report revealed that the women watched an unnamed ICE agent punch and choke Aljorna. Sosa-Celis sought to help his friend.

“Seeing Alfredo in danger, Julio intervened and attempted to separate Alfredo from the man beating him and choking him — pulling on Alfredo towards the house to get him away from his attacker,” a petition says. “At no time did either Alfredo or Julio use or threaten to use a weapon, nor wield any object that could be deployed as a weapon, against the man assaulting Alfredo.”

The women say in their petitions that a child was in the room when Sosa-Celis was shot. Contrary to Noem’s initial statements regarding the encounter, the occupants were the ones truly afraid for their lives when they sought safety in an upstairs bedroom.

“Valentina and the other occupants of the home begged the agents not to kill them and said they would surrender,” one petition reports. “Still, when the agents entered the room, they trained their guns on Indriany, who was holding her child, and the others.”

The petitions were filed in Minneapolis federal court. The respondent is listed in court papers as David Easterwood, the acting director of the St. Paul ICE field office. He is also a pastor at Cities Church in nearby St. Paul, Minnesota. Journalist Don Lemon and several other people were later arrested after protesters interrupted a service there on Jan. 18.

The assembled protesters, whom Lemon was covering in his capacity as a journalist, named Easterwood’s role with ICE as the reason for their demonstration. Lemon appeared in Minneapolis federal court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to charges related to his arrest.

In the meantime, the women have been returned to Minneapolis. By all indications, they are ready to offer their accounts in the same courthouse should the case come to trial. The prospect of their testimony, combined with video of the incident and the bullet hole in the door, prompted the U.S. Attorney’s office to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be reinstated.

In other Minneapolis cases where Noem and fellow Trump administration officials were proven wrong, they nonetheless stuck by falsehoods perpetrated by ICE agents. That was in keeping with precedents set during ICE operations in Los Angeles and Chicago.

During the Minneapolis operation, numerous videos appeared online showing federal agents behaving in ways that would have made them liable to charges in any responsible police department. The agents appeared to be acting with impunity, or, as JD Vance said last month, with “absolute immunity.”But the initial lies against Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were countered by so much truth that the “immunity” proved to have limits. ICE announced on Friday that it was taking disciplinary action against the agent who fired the shot and the partner who backed up his account.

“Today, a joint review by ICE and the Department of Justice (DOJ) of video evidence has revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements,” Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement. “Both officers have been immediately placed on administrative leave pending the completion of a thorough internal investigation.”

Lyons continued, “Lying under oath is a serious federal offense. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is actively investigating these false statements. Upon conclusion of the investigation, the officers may face termination of employment, as well as potential criminal prosecution.”

Lyons then veered from the truth himself.

“The men and women of ICE are entrusted with upholding the rule of law and are held to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and ethical conduct,” he said. “Violations of this sacred sworn oath will not be tolerated.”

What had made this case different from other violent encounters members of the public have had with immigration agents was the magnitude of the evidence contradicting ICE’s narrative, including the bullet hole in the front door that struck a man who posed no threat and could itself have proven deadly as it continued between a child’s bed and a crib.

“This was a rock-solid case of innocence,” Goetz said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-a-solitary-bullet-hole-blew-apart-ices-web-of-lies/?

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Obama Breaks Silence on Trump’s Racist Ape Video

The former president highlighted protesters in Minneapolis who are fighting back.

Former President Barack Obama is finally weighing in on the racist video shared by the sitting president—and he’s not buying the outrage machine driving it.

Obama, 64, addressed the controversy in a sit-down interview with journalist Brian Tyler Cohen published on Saturday. Instead of directly discussing the clip posted on 79-year-old President Donald Trump’s social media account, the former president used the moment to call out what he described as a broader collapse in political discourse.

Cohen didn’t ease the 44th president into the topic. He broached the subject by arguing that public rhetoric has “devolved into a level of cruelty that we haven’t seen before,” noting that behavior once considered “disqualifying just a few years ago” is now not only tolerated—but “rewarded.”

He pointed to recent examples, including key officials in the Trump administration labeling victims of ICE-related shootings as “domestic terrorists,” before turning directly to the viral image Trump reposted on Truth Social—one depicting Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.

“Just days ago, Donald Trump put a picture of you—your face—on an ape’s body,“ Cohen said. Obama let out a small breath of laughter as Cohen recounted this.

”We’ve seen the devolution of the discourse. How do we come back from a place that we have fallen into?” Cohen asked.

Obama’s answer was measured—but pointed.

He said he believes “the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling,” dismissing the viral outrage cycle as nothing more than a tactic to grab “attention.” Obama said Trump’s racist post on Truth Social was merely “a distraction.”

The former president drew a sharp distinction between what dominates social media and what he says reflects real American values, describing the online chaos as “a clown show that’s happening on social media and on television.”

Still, he made clear the shift isn’t imaginary. Obama took direct aim at politicians and public figures amplifying inflammatory rhetoric, arguing that a basic sense of “decorum” has eroded. There’s no “shame about this,” he said, framing the shift as a loss of “propriety and respect for the office.”

Even so, he pushed back on the idea that the country itself has fully followed the downward spiral of some of its loudest voices.

Pointing to the unrest in Minneapolis following a series of deadly encounters involving federal agents, Obama said the public response tells a different story. The killings of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three, on Jan. 7, and ICU nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, later that month, sparked widespread protests across the Twin Cities, as thousands of federal agents flooded the area.

For Obama, the reaction—not the rhetoric—is what matters. He praised what he called an “extraordinary outpouring of organizing, community building, decency” among residents, framing the protests as a rejection of the political climate being fueled at the top.

“This is not the America we believe in,” he said, describing a public unwilling to succumb to the noise. Instead, he added, people are choosing to “fight back,” “push back,” and call out what they see.

The mounting backlash hasn’t been limited to the streets. Trump’s repost of the racist image has drawn condemnation from both sides of the aisle—though not equally fast.

Democrats quickly blasted the post, with several prominent figures calling it racist and unacceptable. But what raised eyebrows was the response from within Trump’s own party.

Sen. Tim Scott, a longtime Trump ally and former vice presidential contender, was among the first Republicans to break ranks, calling the post “the most racist thing” he has seen from the president and urging an apology.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins echoed the criticism, and GOP congressman Roger Wicker followed suit, labeling the video “totally unacceptable.”

Even so, the White House didn’t immediately walk it back. Initially, the administration appeared to stand by the post before eventually shifting blame to a staffer amid mounting pressure—a move that only fueled further criticism about accountability.

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obama-breaks-silence-on-trumps-racist-ape-video/?

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Bondi Desperately Tries to Bury Epstein Files for Good—Again

The DOJ has submitted a list of “politically exposed persons” named in the Epstein files that—bizarrely—includes Marilyn Monroe.

Desperate to put a lid on the Epstein files for good, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s DOJ has sent a slapdash letter to Congress. This was presumably intended to answer all outstanding queries, but it has already prompted a new set of questions.

In an effort to fulfill the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Department of Justice sent a six-page letter to Congress, which contains—per the act’s requirements—a list of “all government officials and politically exposed persons” mentioned in the Epstein files.

While the list of roughly 130 individuals contains those who have already been associated with the deceased sex trafficker—including Donald Trump, Les Wexner, and Steve Bannon—it also contains a roll call of Trump’s greatest foes, plus a sprinkling of seemingly randomly connected people.

Former presidents Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama are all included on the list, but so too are Keir Starmer, George Clooney, and Elvis Presley.

The Transparency Act, signed into law by Trump (who was under pressure to do so) in November, required that the DOJ report to Congress all categories of information released and withheld, a summary of redactions, and a list of all those named in the files.

In the letter, co-signed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the list is explained as comprising anyone who is a government official or public person whose name appears multiple times, which is where the cloudiness of the list begins.

These mentions could be in direct conversations with Epstein or his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, or simply from someone they spoke to, offering no indication of the extent of their relationship.

This wide-net approach means that Janis Joplin and Marilyn Monroe—who died in 1970 and 1962, respectively—were both included on the list and serve as examples of people who, critics argue, were included to complicate discernment of culpability.

“The DOJ is once again purposefully muddying the waters on who was a predator and who was mentioned in an email,” Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna said in response to the letter.

“To have Janis Joplin, who died when Epstein was 17, in the same list as Larry Nassar, who went to prison for the sexual abuse of hundreds of young women and child pornography, with no clarification of how either was mentioned in the files, is absurd.”

“Release the full files,” Khanna continued. “Stop protecting predators. Redact only the survivors’ names.”

Khanna is one of the co-sponsors of the Transparency Act alongside his Republican counterpart, Rep. Thomas Massie. Both are named on the list.

The letter comes days after Bondi was grilled in a House Committee Hearing over her handling of the files’ release on Wednesday. In a wild display of fealty to Trump, a combative Bondi shouted MAGA talking points at Judiciary members and refused to answer questions while several of Epstein’s victims looked on.

The shocking outburst prompted even conservative commentators to call for Bondi’s resignation.

On Jan. 30, the DOJ released approximately 3.5 million files on Epstein, which they claimed would be the final round of disclosure, despite there reportedly being as many as 3 million more documents that have not been made public.

Blanche stated that the DOJ now considers its obligations under the Transparency Act fulfilled, with the list of names sent to Congress today meeting the Act’s 15-day deadline for publication.

However, that release has been branded an “abject failure” by critics, who have questioned why the documents are riddled with black-line redactions.

The law allows for redactions only to protect the identities of victims. However, the DOJ’s process has, in fact, revealed the names of many victims while protecting the names of the perpetrators.

This was a point raised by Massie with Bondi on Wednesday, whom she branded a “failed politician” and a “hypocrite” for his efforts.

“This is bigger than Watergate,” Massie told the AG. “This cover-up spans decades, and you are responsible for this portion of it.”

Bondi’s own hypocrisy was not helped after a 2014 campaign ad resurfaced online in which she promised to defend abused women and children.

“I’ll fight to put human trafficking monsters where they belong: behind bars,” Bondi says in the video.

More than a decade later, when asked to apologize for failing Epstein’s victims, she refused.

The Department of Justice did not immediately return the Daily Beast’s request for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pam-bondi-desperately-tries-to-bury-jeffrey-epstein-files-for-goodagain/?

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MAGA Architect Plotted With Epstein Against Pope Francis

Steve Bannon wrote to Epstein that he wished to “take down” the Pope.

One of the leading figures behind President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement discussed opposition strategies against Pope Francis with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser to Trump, told Epstein that he wished to “take down” the leader of the Catholic Church.

In June 2019, Bannon wrote to Epstein: “Will take down Francis. The Clintons, Xi, Francis, EU – come on brother.”

This exchange came years after Epstein served a light sentence for his 2008 conviction for child sex offenses in Florida, and just days before Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in New York.

The exchange was first reported by the Letters from Leo Substack.

In the text exchange, Bannon references the book In the Closet of the Vatican, which exposed much of the secrecy and hypocrisy at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.

The book created much controversy as the author, French journalist Frédéric Martel, asserted that more than 80 percent of the clergy at the Vatican are gay.

Another text exchange from April 2019 shows Epstein emailing himself “in the closet of the vatican.” He then sent Bannon an article titled “Pope Francis or Steve Bannon? Catholics must choose.”

Bannon responded: “Easy choice.”

It remains unclear how serious Bannon was about his proposal to “take out” the leader of the Catholic Church. Epstein, for his part, did not directly respond to Bannon’s threat and instead asked him an unrelated question about the famous professor Noam Chomsky.

Rome and the Vatican were once a very important priority for Bannon. In 2014, the former Trump adviser established a Rome bureau while he was running the right-wing outlet Breitbart News. He also wanted to set up a “gladiator school” for Judeo-Christian political training near the city. Those plans were blocked by the Italian government in 2021; Bannon reportedly was furious.

The Daily Beast reached out to a representative of Bannon for comment.

Bannon has been all over the DOJ’s latest tranche of Epstein files released earlier this month. Between mirror selfies and lewd text messages the pair exchanged regarding one of Trump’s assistants, more details about their relationship have been uncovered.

These particular exchanges between Bannon and Epstein were made during a period of heightened scrutiny on the Catholic Church as sexual abuse scandals plagued the Vatican.

Pope Francis’s worldview was also oftentimes at odds with the Trump administration’s agenda, as the pontiff advocated for migrants and was a strong critic of nationalism.

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said of Trump in 2016.

Francis’s predecessor, the American Pope Leo, has taken up the mantle of criticizing the president during his second administration.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-architect-steve-bannon-plotted-with-epstein-against-pope-francis/?

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Russian Opposition Leader Poisoned With Lethal Frog Toxin

The findings only confirm what most countries believed: Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Russian state.

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in prison in February 2024, was “highly likely” poisoned with a frog toxin, five European countries said in a joint statement.

The foreign ministries of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands confirmed on Saturday, nearly two years to the day since Navalny’s death, that they are “confident” that he was poisoned.

“Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America. It is not found naturally in Russia,” the joint statement said.

“Given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death. Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him,” the statement said.

Their findings directly counter the Kremlin’s claim that Navalny died of natural causes.

“Russia’s repeated disregard for international law and the Chemical Weapons Convention is clear,” the statement continued, outlining Russia’s previous documented use of poisons. “We are further concerned that Russia did not destroy all of its chemical weapons.”Navalny, one of the few Russian figures to pose a direct threat to Putin’s leadership, died in a maximum security prison on Feb. 16, 2024. Shortly before his death, his supporters said his freedom was in the final stages of being negotiated in a prisoner exchange. Navalny’s death sent shockwaves around the world as dozens of countries condemned what they viewed as a state-sponsored murder.Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said in a statement that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin must be held accountable for Navalny’s death.

“I was certain from the first day that my husband had been poisoned, but now there is proof: Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapon,” she posted.

“I am grateful to the European states for the meticulous work they carried out over two years and for uncovering the truth,” the post continued. “Vladimir Putin is a murderer. He must be held accountable for all his crimes.”

On Saturday, Navalnaya spoke with reporters at the Munich Security Conference, the same event she was supposed to attend when she got word of his death in 2024. She reiterated that Putin was personally responsible for her husband’s death.

“I want to repeat: Vladimir Putin killed my husband, Aleksei Navalny, using a chemical weapon,” she said to the press. “Of course, it’s not news that Vladimir Putin is a killer, but now we have yet another direct piece of proof.”

The revelation from the five European nations regarding Navalny’s death in Russian custody comes amid ongoing negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the ongoing war. President Trump and his administration have been heavily involved in the discussion.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-opposition-leader-alexei-navalny-poisoned-with-lethal-frog-toxin-european-nations-report/?

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🌐 Twin speeches preview future MAGA doctrine

Secretary of State Marco Rubio leaves Germany yesterday after speaking at the Munich Security Conference. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the future of MAGA's foreign policy clear in a speech yesterday: In Germany, he warned the Munich Security Conference of the dangers of mass migration, while emphasizing the shared heritage between Europe and the U.S., Axios' Marc Caputo writes. Rubio's "Make the West Great Again" message dovetailed in substance with Vice President Vance's address at the same conference last year. But it was softer in tone and loftier in rhetoric, earning Rubio applause instead of the shock that greeted Vance. Why it matters: The Munich speeches by Rubio and Vance articulate President Trump's global vision, albeit more cogently and eloquently. And the twin addresses chart the course of Republican foreign policy for years to come. Vance and Rubio are Trump's ideal standard-bearers: The two appear likelier than ever to run together on a ticket to succeed Trump in two years. 🛰️ The big picture: The Trump-Vance-Rubio doctrine is a vision of national sovereignty, mutual self-interest, strong military power and foundational civilizational values in a multipolar world. Unapologetic opposition to mass migration tied together the Munich speeches of Rubio and Vance. "Controlling who and how many people enter our countries — this is not an expression of xenophobia," Rubio said. "It is not hate. It is a fundamental act of national sovereignty." "We are part of one civilization — Western civilization," Rubio added. "We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together." "While we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone," Rubio said, "it is our preference, and it is our hope, to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe." 🏛️ Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), in an op-ed for Fox News, called Rubio's speech "a defining moment for the U.S.-led global order ... a powerful call for the champions of the West to defend a shared civilization. ... I trust many in Europe will heed the call."

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Europeans push back at US over claim they face ‘civilizational erasure’ A top European Union official on Sunday rejected the notion that Europe faces “civilizational erasure,” pushing back at criticism of the continent by the Trump administration. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas addressed the Munich Security Conference a day after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a somewhat reassuring message to European allies. He struck a less aggressive tone than Vice President JD Vance did in lecturing them at the same gathering last year but maintained a firm tone on Washington’s intent to reshape the trans-Atlantic alliance and push its policy priorities. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Rubio’s speech to European allies takes a softer tone but sticks to Trump’s firm stance  State Department orders nonprofit libraries to stop processing passport applications US military boards another oil tanker in Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean What to know about the Homeland Security shutdown

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Trump Attacked Immigrant Food Aid in Minnesota. Locals Fought Back.

Three months after it began, the story of President Donald Trump’s siege of Minnesota has been one told with violent imagery. Masked men smashing windows and dragging women from their cars. A smiling mother behind the wheel of her SUV, a rattling of gunshots, a dashboard sprayed with blood. Outraged Americans shouting at government agents amid clouds of choking gas. An ICU nurse prone on the pavement.

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/12/trump-immigrant-food-aid-minneapolis/?

Pam Bondi Admits DOJ Has a Secret Domestic Terrorist List

Attorney General Pam Bondi for the first time acknowledged the existence of a secret list of domestic terrorist organizations during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. 

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/12/pam-bondi-domestic-terror-list-nspm-7/?

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World Leader Sounds Off on Trump’s Unhinged Nobel Peace Prize Text

Trump sent the foreign leader an incendiary message after he didn’t receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has spoken at length for the first time about his heated exchange with President Donald Trump in January.

It began last month, after a text message from Støre suggested that the pair talk to find a solution to Trump’s repeated threats to seize Greenland by force. Støre proposed to Trump that they “de-escalate,” telling him that “so much is happening around us where we need to stand together.”

The president rejected his appeal, replying hours later with an inflammatory message that read, “Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

He also doubled down on his threats against the Danish self-autonomous territory, insisting that the U.S. be given “Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

Asked for his thoughts on the exchange at the Munich Security Conference, Støre told The Atlantic, “What did I think? I thought, ‘Well, it’s just bringing the debate to a level where we don’t solve problems.’” Støre raised his eyebrows at the question, according to the report.

“I’m not going to engage in a shouting match,” he continued. “I’m not going to respond to it.” The response he did send to Trump, which he paraphrased for the Atlantic, said, “I take your message; I still think it’s useful to talk.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment. “President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize many times over,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said in an email to The Atlantic in response.

Støre told The Atlantic that he wasn’t surprised by Trump’s message, because he was familiar with the 79-year-old’s fixation on the Nobel Peace Prize, which is awarded by the independent Norwegian Nobel Committee and not the government.

The president’s preoccupation, which saw him cold-call Norwegian diplomats and publish rants on social media complaining that he had not received the prize, ultimately led the actual winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, to hand the prize to Trump.

“I decided to present the Nobel Peace Prize medal on behalf of the people of Venezuela,” Machado told Fox News. “It was a very emotional moment.” When asked why she presented the president with the award, which the Nobel Institute went to great lengths to stress is not transferable, Machado said that she felt he deserved it.

Trump has previously told reporters, “Don‘t let anyone tell you that Norway doesn’t control the shots, OK? It’s in Norway. I lost a lot of respect for Norway. And I believe very strongly that Norway controls the Nobel Prize.”

“I reminded him every time that it’s not my decision; it’s not the government’s decision. This is an independent committee. It is staunchly independent,” Støre said of Trump’s repeated complaints.

“Some of my diplomats say, you know, ‘If the prime minister would try to interfere with the Nobel committee, he would have to resign, because it would simply be unacceptable.’”

Støre said that the president did not appear to accept this explanation, telling The Atlantic that, “He doesn’t listen on that frequency, I would say,” while holding his hand up to his ear.

Still, Støre ended with a hopeful note. “I would simply, you know, pay tribute to Trump that he takes messages,” he said, claiming that Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, “never did.”

“I mean, you can access him,” Støre added. “We are leaders, and I appreciate that.”

Speaking to CNN’s Erin Burnett in January about how he managed the president’s expectations, Støre said, “If you are prime minister, you have to be diplomatic in the sense that you talk straight, but you’re able to deal with people, and the United States is very important ally for Norway, strong cultural, political ties. And that’s my point of departure for finding good solutions.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/world-leader-sounds-off-on-trumps-unhinged-nobel-peace-prize-text/?

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How Evil Epstein Used Elites to Stifle the Truth

Tina Brown recounts the moral rot of a high-status “club” that protected its own even after the truth was in plain sight.

Daily Beast co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown revealed more about how the Beast’s reporting on Jeffrey Epstein left the sex predator’s elite circle “ignoring the elephant in the room.”

Brown, appearing on The Daily Beast Podcast, recalled the effect of the series of articles written about Epstein in 2010 by anti-human trafficking advocate Conchita Sarnoff.

“There were all these people who were just in this favor bank of this elite world that we all know very much is the way the world goes round,” Brown told Daily Beast Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty.

“They were all there for different reasons, but at the end of the day, they were all ignoring the elephant in the room that they had no business ignoring because after we published those pieces, there was nothing you could say that was ambivalent about Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct.”

Sarnoff reported on the slap on the wrist Epstein received in 2008: an 18-month “house arrest” sentence for soliciting prostitution from a child, which allowed him to go back and forth from New York to his private Caribbean island. Epstein’s illegal encounter wasn’t a one-off, she also revealed; he was a serial pedophile.

When first commissioning Sarnoff, Brown said there was no telling what horrors would be uncovered.

“There’s nothing like being sort of, you know, aggressive and ignorant at the same time,” she said. “At that point, Jeffrey Epstein was not this kind of mythic demon that he is now.”

Brown said Epstein came off like a “creepy social climber” when she first met him “briefly” at a Clinton Global Initiative reception in 2005.

“He was just one of those rich guys, you know, percolating around and who was sort of on the fringes of sort of the action, really. Not an outsider, but someone who certainly wasn’t a major figure,” she recalled. “He had these dead eyes that I always found very... I thought he was a creepy social climber was my instinct.”

But as the reporting process moved along, the web of Epstein’s influence came into greater focus; Sarnoff was able to acquire flight logs showing various VIPs taking trips to the financier’s private island.

“The more she reported, the more kind of alarming it became because of the people on those flight logs,” Brown said. “Then you start to think, ‘Oh my God, the guy is so hugely well-connected.’ And it was puzzling.”

“They were all kind of involved for different reasons,” Brown explained. “There were the ones who were looking always for the sex and the girls and the fact that he was... just satisfying people’s most kind of insidious fantasies, really. And then there were the ones who were just trying to grift in the same way that he was trying to grift on them... They want to ride on his private plane. They want him to get their kid into a fancy school.”

Epstein, for instance, helped get Woody Allen’s daughter into Bard College, emails from Allen’s wife, Soon-Yi Previn, show.

The Daily Beast’s reporting quickly got Epstein’s attention.

Not only did they spur Epstein’s fixer, Peggy Siegal, to try to “neutralize” Brown, as the Department of Justice’s recently released Epstein files revealed, but Epstein himself managed to snake his way past security at the Daily Beast’s headquarters in New York to confront Brown in her office.

“I stood by the door, and I said to him, ‘Jeffrey... what are you doing here?’” Brown recalled on a prior episode of The Daily Beast Podcast.

“He said, ‘Just stop.’ And he looked at me with this kind of snake eyes, cold, and it was menacing. It was really menacing. And he pointed his finger and he said, ‘Just stop.’”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-evil-epstein-used-elites-to-stifle-the-truth/?

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Defiant Nobel Peace Prize Institute Reacts to Trump’s Incessant Whining

The institute is seeking to be more transparent about how it chooses a winner in response to the president’s meltdown.

The Norwegian Nobel Institute has responded to President Donald Trump’s extended tantrum about not receiving a Nobel Peace Prize.

Director Kristian Berg Harpviken told The Atlantic in a Sunday interview that the institute hoped to increase transparency around the selection process in an attempt to defend against accusations of bias leveled at it by Trump and his supporters.

“The strategy for clearing the air is simply to talk about it,” Harpviken said. While declining to mention Trump by name, referring to him only as the “candidate in question,” he explained the strategy as aimed at ensuring the masses understand the institute’s work.

“We see it as important that as many people as possible understand how it is that we work and what the principles are,” Harpviken told the Atlantic. “Whether those lobbying for the prize are receptive to that or not is really beyond our control.”

Harpviken added that “we haven’t had the embassy or officials knocking on our doors” when it comes to attempts to sway the committee. “Nothing like that.” He added that they will not be influenced either way. “A candidate who is aggressively campaigning for him or herself will neither be penalized nor privileged. We are very conscious about that.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment. In an email to The Atlantic, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, “President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize many times over.”

Trump spent much of 2025 fixated on the honor, going so far as to cold-call Norwegian diplomats and publish screeds on Truth Social bemoaning that, despite all his achievements, he would still not receive the prize.

His fixation eventually led FIFA to present him with its own invented peace prize in December, in an attempt to curry favor ahead of this year’s World Cup. He eventually managed to seize the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the actual winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, in January.

The exchange, which the Nobel Institute attempted to head off by publishing a reminder that Nobel Prizes cannot be shared or transferred, was reportedly Machado’s idea.

Asked by Fox News why she handed over her award, Machado said that Trump deserved it, adding, “It was a very emotional moment. I decided to present the Nobel Peace Prize medal on behalf of the people of Venezuela.”

The institute responded to the bizarre exchange with a pointed reminder that holding the medal and diploma did not make Trump a Nobel Prize winner.

“The medal and the diploma are the physical symbols confirming that an individual or organisation has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” the committee said in a statement released the day after Machado’s visit to the White House. “The prize itself – the honour and recognition – remains inseparably linked to the person or organisation designated as the laureate by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.”

Ultimately, receiving the physical award failed to placate Trump, who just days later issued a shocking threat to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,” the 79-year-old wrote in a message to his Norwegian counterpart.

Støre reminded the president that the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Peace Prize, is an independent body, a point he reiterated in his interview with The Atlantic.

“I reminded him every time that it’s not my decision; it’s not the government’s decision. This is an independent committee. It is staunchly independent,” Støre said.

“Some of my diplomats say, you know, ‘If the prime minister would try to interfere with the Nobel committee, he would have to resign, because it would simply be unacceptable.’”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/defiant-nobel-peace-prize-institute-reacts-to-trumps-incessant-whining/?

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Bondi Blasted for Putting Long-Dead Celebs on Epstein Email List

The DOJ’s list containing deceased celebrities did not put the Epstein scandal to rest.

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s attempt to quell the angry mob over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal backfired when she brought dead mid-20th-century celebrities into the mix.The backlash came after the Department of Justice sent a six-page letter to Congress listing 130 names of “all government officials and politically exposed persons” mentioned in the Epstein files—an effort some critics are slamming as “obstruction.”The letter included names for a wide range of reasons, from people Epstein corresponded with frequently to those he merely mentioned in conversation and never met. Among them were Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Janis Joplin. Monroe died in 1962, when the disgraced financier was 9.

The list does contain those already known to be associated with Epstein, including President Donald Trump, Les Wexner, and Steve Bannon. It also name-drops several of Trump’s most loathed foes, including former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Democratic donor and actor George Clooney, and lawmakers Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, who are spearheading the release of the Epstein files.

Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche then said the DOJ had fulfilled its requirements under the Epstein Files Transparency Act and considered the matter of Epstein and his powerful associates resolved—something people across the political spectrum are taking issue with.

“Bondi needs to be arrested for obstruction,” one X user wrote Sunday morning.

Lauren Greene, the daughter of former congresswoman and Trump ally-turned-foe Marjorie Taylor Greene, also chimed in Sunday morning.

“Dear Pam Bondi, DOJ and the MAGA cult…..Why is former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s name spelled WRONG?” she wrote on X.

“Bondi announced that the DOJ released all Epstein files under the Transparency Act. She says no redactions were made for ‘embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity’ to any official, public figure, or foreign dignitary,” right-wing commentator Mario Nawfal shared with his 3 million X followers on Sunday.

“From the number of files I’ve read with weird redactions, I can confidently say: this is BS,” he added.

Another person questioned where Bondi’s loyalities lied.

“The alphabetical list strategy is the oldest trick in the book to protect the powerful. When you mix names of people mentioned in passing with those who were active participants, the shock value dilutes the actual evidence,” one X user wrote. “The DOJ is essentially hiding the needle in a haystack of irrelevant names.”

Democrat Rep. Khanna slammed Bondi’s DOJ for “muddying the waters” with its letter.

“The DOJ is once again purposefully muddying the waters on who was a predator and who was mentioned in an email,” Khanna wrote on X.

“To have Janis Joplin, who died when Epstein was 17, in the same list as Larry Nassar, who went to prison for the sexual abuse of hundreds of young women and child pornography, with no clarification of how either was mentioned in the files, is absurd.”

“Release the full files,” Khanna continued. “Stop protecting predators. Redact only the survivors’ names.”

The letter comes days after Bondi was grilled at a House committee hearing about her handling of the release of the files. In a fiery show of Trump loyalty, Bondi defended the department’s actions and sparred with Judiciary members while several of Epstein’s victims looked on.

Bondi has faced searing criticism over the DOJ’s handling of the disclosures. Earlier this month, the department was forced to take down thousands of Epstein-related documents that may have identified victims, acknowledging that “technical or human error” had compromised the release.

On Jan. 30, the DOJ released more than 3.5 million Epstein-related documents—an action Blanche said marked the end of the department’s review of the files after the Transparency Act. It was signed into law by Trump in November and required the DOJ to report to Congress all categories of information released and withheld, a summary of redactions, and a list of all those named in the files.

But the release—which occurred 42 days after the department was legally required to make all relevant Epstein records public—represented only about half of the roughly 6 million documents the DOJ reviewed, fueling renewed concerns of a cover-up. The law allows redactions only to protect victims’ identities. However, the DOJ’s process has, in fact, revealed the names of many victims while protecting the names of the perpetrators.

This was a point Massie raised to Bondi on Wednesday. She branded him a “failed politician” and “hypocrite” for his efforts.

The documents include uncorroborated FBI tips accusing Trump of sexual assault, fresh references tying him to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and emails between Epstein and associates that mention the president.

The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Justice for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bondi-blasted-for-putting-long-dead-celebs-on-epstein-emails-list/?

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The US and Hungary sign agreement to cooperate on civilian nuclear energy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signals support for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the lead-up to April election (More) 

ps:Of course this administration would back Viktor Orban!!

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How Trump saved TikTok

Obtained by Axios President Trump had just won reelection and was basking in the parade of congratulatory pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago. On this day in November 2024, an old friend and a first-time visitor were meeting privately with Trump. They wanted something, and they brought something. Charlie Kirk — a beloved Trump confidant who had just led a smashingly successful turnout drive among young voters — was shepherding TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. A law banning the Chinese-owned TikTok in the U.S. was scheduled to kick in the same week Trump was inaugurated. They wanted him to stall the ban and eventually kill it. Knowing Trump responds best to visual stimuli, Kirk had coached the company to spin up four pages of infographics, "Trump on TikTok," showing his campaign's tens of billions of views on the now-threatened app. 📈 A chart (shown above) on the first page jumped out at Trump, who had backed a TikTok ban in his first term. "I'm more popular than Taylor Swift," he crowed. Many in Trumpworld heard he quickly called Barron, his youngest son, to savor the stat. On Day 1 of his second term, Trump signed an executive order to punt the TikTok ban. Why it matters: The Mar-a-Lago meeting was a pivotal victory in a campaign by several Trump insiders to overcome furious opposition to TikTok from China hawks on the Hill and in his political orbit who had national-security concerns. 📱 These insiders helped convince Trump's campaign to launch a TikTok account in June 2024, when he was looking for ways around traditional media. Then the insiders patiently engineered a complex deal, which closed last month, to sell TikTok's U.S. operations to a joint venture controlled by American investors — the death of the ban. How it happened: The campaign was born in early 2024, according to sources familiar with the internal deliberations. Tony Sayegh, a Treasury and White House official in Trump's first term, became a key man in the TikTok triumph. Sayegh was on a ski vacation when he saw President Biden declare in March 2024 that he'd sign a TikTok ban if Congress passed one. Sayegh — dubbed "TikTok's Trump Whisperer" by a Wall Street Journal article shortly after Trump's election — phoned a TikTok executive and suggested the very solution that eventually came to pass: If Trump won, he could sign an executive order thwarting the ban. "Impossible," the TikTok official said. "Can't happen." But it did, thanks to an aggressive political and legal strategy, paired with some lucky breaks. Some TikTok executives were skittish about going all-in with Trump, but Sayegh often told the company's D.C. team that Trump was the only person who could save TikTok in America. Chew warmed to the strategy. Jason Miller — a senior adviser to Trump during the campaign, who remains in close touch with him — told me that Trump "always recognized the power of TikTok, because he saw the impact it had with younger voters." "He'd say all the time: 'You guys are missing it! These young people, they love TikTok. They're on it all day long.' And he'd recount stories of Barron talking about it, and also younger people who work with him and for him." 🔎 Behind the scenes: To counter fears among some top Republicans about China's control of TikTok, Sayegh, Miller and others amped up outside allies — including Kirk, Tucker Carlson and Kellyanne Conway — to give Trump cover to take the plunge. Keep reading.

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🏛️ Warning to corporate America: "The subpoenas are coming"

Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

Matthew Miller and Tucker Eskew — veterans of high-profile campaigns, now partners at Vianovo, a bipartisan management and communications firm — write in a note to clients today that a "tsunami of Congressional oversight" is headed straight for corporate America if, as is likely based on history, Democrats win the House in November's midterms. "It's going to be so much worse than they expect," Miller tells me. Why it matters: Companies "that prepare in advance stand a much better chance of emerging with their reputations intact," the partners write. "The subpoenas are coming. The only question is whether companies will be ready." ⚠️ The Vianovo note says that "due to two key changes in Congressional Democrats' thinking, the focus on corporations is likely to be more intense than ever, and executives who are not prepared risk being swamped by a legal, political, and media onslaught." Larger corporations are likely to be the focus since for Democrats on the Hill, aggressive oversight of private companies is "a means for exposing alleged abuses by the Trump administration." From their experience with the first Trump administration in 2019 and 2020, Democrats know the White House is likely to refuse to turn over documents. So administration probes "will be supplemented by piercing corporate investigations." Among the possible focuses of Democratic oversight probes: algorithmic pricing ... health care ... crypto & digital assets ... utilities & energy ... trade & tariffs ... AI & tech. Read the client note.

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NAACP asks a judge to limit FBI use of seized Georgia voter records The NAACP and other organizations are asking a judge to protect personal voter information that was seized by the FBI from an elections warehouse just outside Atlanta. Read more.

What to know: FBI agents arrived at the elections hub just south of Atlanta on Jan. 28 with a search warrant seeking documents related to the 2020 election in Fulton County.   The motion filed late Sunday notes that the seizure happened as the Department of Justice has been seeking unredacted state voter registration rolls. The organizations asked the judge to “order reasonable limits on the government’s use of the seized data” and to prohibit the government from using the data for purposes other than the criminal investigation. They also asked for a full inventory of what agents took during the seizure and who has accessed it.   The DOJ did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment on the motion. President Donald Trump has fixated on Fulton, a Democratic stronghold and the most populous county in the state, asserting without evidence that widespread voter fraud there cost him victory in Georgia in 2020.

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More third-country nationals have been deported by the US to Cameroon, lawyers tell AP A new group of third-country nationals was deported by the United States to Cameroon on Monday, lawyers told AP, days after it came to light that the Trump administration sent nine people to the Central African nation last month as part of its secretive program to remove immigrants to countries they have no ties with. Read more.

Why this matters: The lawyers said they believed there were eight third-country nationals on the plane but had not spoken to them yet. The lawyers also expected to offer counsel to the new group of deportees, they said. The Trump administration has used third-country deportation deals as a deterrent to force migrants who are in the U.S. illegally to leave on their own, saying they could end up “in any number of third countries" if deported.   Of the nine migrants deported last month, eight had protection orders granted by a U.S. immigration judge that prevented them from being deported to their home countries for fear of persecution or torture, lawyer Alma David of the U.S.-based Novo Legal Group said. Deporting them to a third country like Cameroon, from where they could ultimately be sent home, was effectively a legal “loophole,” David said.   Cameroon is the latest of at least seven African nations to receive deported third-country nationals in a deal with the U.S. The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport roughly 300 migrants to countries other than their own in Africa, Central America and elsewhere, according to a report compiled by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and released last week.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ No clear path to ending the partial government shutdown as lawmakers dig in over DHS oversight   Teen daughter of a Chicago man detained in an immigration case dies from a rare cancer   Trump's border czar says 'small' security force will remain in Minnesota after enforcement drawdown

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Murdoch Paper Torches Pentagon Pete’s ‘Embarrassing’ Failed Revenge Plot

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board says “legal humiliation” is becoming a habit for Trump officials.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board ripped into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “embarrassing” crusade against a U.S. senator after a federal judge found it amounted to “retaliation.” Hegseth, who calls himself the “Secretary of War,” sought to strip Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona of his rank and pension after Kelly and five other Democratic members of Congress released a video citing the Military Code of Justice and reminding service members that they had a duty to disobey illegal orders.

Trump accused the lawmakers of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

“Enter Mr. Hegseth, who takes tango lessons whenever Mr. Trump says dance,” the editors of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Journal wrote.

The piece noted that last week, a federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush issued a blistering opinion blocking Hegseth’s effort to censure and demote Kelly, a combat veteran and former astronaut who retired in 2011 with the rank of captain.

The opinion started out bad for Hegseth and only got worse, as Judge Richard Leon found that Hegseth’s actions were a clear case of illegal retaliation for speech he did not like. If Hegseth had his way, the entire representative system of U.S. government would cease to function, Leon wrote.

“This legal humiliation is becoming a habit for Trump officials,” the Journal’s editors wrote.

They described how a grand jury also refused last week to indict the lawmakers for interfering with the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the U.S. armed forces, a failure for U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, who had brought the charges.

“News reports say not a single member of the grand jury voted to indict, a stunning rebuke for Ms. Pirro, who also seems to believe that her priority is lawfare instead of pursuing actual criminals,” the editors wrote.

Trump seems to expect “slavish loyalty” of his deputies—or at least those deputies act as if they think he does, they continued.

“But as they lose in court, they are doing their reputations no favors.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the Defense Department for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/murdoch-paper-torches-pentagon-pete-hegseths-embarrassing-failed-revenge-plot/?

ps:The real person responsible for all this garbage is seating in the WH!!!!!!!!!!