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

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💉 COVID vaccine injuries could become official condition

Illustration: Tiffany Herring/Axios Trump administration health officials are considering a plan that would make COVID-19 vaccine injuries a formal diagnosis that can be coded in medical records, Axios' Maya Goldman reports. Better documentation could help lay the groundwork for lawsuits against vaccine makers. 👩‍⚕️ CDC officials last week considered a proposal from a nonprofit representing people with COVID-19 vaccine injuries that would add a distinct code to the system doctors use to classify illnesses. The new code could allow providers "to identify, track and study patients who experience adverse effects specifically related to COVID vaccines," Mary Stanfill, a CDC health information specialist, said during a public meeting last week. Such codes are also used for insurance payouts, as well as research and statistical analysis. Keep reading.

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US Treasury plans to put Trump’s signature on new paper currency in first for sitting president

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Department plans to put President Donald Trump’s signature on all new U.S. paper currency, the agency announced on Thursday.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-currency-signiture-treasury-first-d919877e39f907eba1172a07920ea80e?

ps:Sorry not the treasury that wants trump on the currency is the criminal-in-chief that wants this!!!!!

Program cut off

Meteorologists and emergency planners are about to lose access to a hurricane planning tool following the lapse of a federal contract. It’s used to make critical decisions, including ordering evacuations.   Trump says he’ll sign order to pay TSA agents as Senate works into the night on funding deal WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he would sign an order instructing the Homeland Security secretary to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration agents, while senators worked late into the night trying to end a budget impasse that has jammed airports and left workers without paychecks. https://apnews.com/article/airport-delays-wait-times-shutdown-congress-tsa-b419e989a22dbc028d01cbd892fadb40? ‘Because I’m president’: Trump explains why he voted by mail yet opposes voting by mail WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, who wants to ban mail-in voting, said he had the right to vote by mail-in ballot in Florida’s special election Tuesday “because I’m president of the United States.” https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/03/26/repub/because-im-president-trump-explains-why-he-voted-by-mail-yet-opposes-voting-by-mail/?

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“Regime” Change (Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty)

View in browser Critics have used many phrases to describe Donald Trump’s presidency, some of them unprintable. Scholars and journalists have debated whether Trump’s approach is “authoritarian,” “white supremacist,” or “fascist.” More recently, however, a growing number of people have begun referring to the “Trump regime.” “The Trump regime has proven over and over,” The New Republic’s Michael Tomasky wrote, that its morality is “the advantage of the stronger.” A fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute complained that oversight tools “were effectively destroyed by the Trump regime last year.” And a writer for The Nation called for Democrats to “launch a ‘Nuremberg Caucus’ to investigate the crimes of the Trump regime.” Google Trends shows that although the phrase was occasionally deployed during Trump’s first term, it has become far more common over the past year. These usages are meant to tell us something about the state of contemporary politics in the United States—although exactly what is not always clear. Ambrose Bierce, the sardonic author of The Devil’s Dictionary, might have observed that a “regime” is any government that one doesn’t like. Those referring to the “Trump regime” this way seem to be implying that the administration is rapacious and authoritarian. But few of them are explicit about that, and their counterparts in the academy indulge in the same vagueness. “Very rarely do regime analysts stop to define what they mean by political regime,” the political scientist Gerardo L. Munck complained in 1996. The word was popularized in American politics as a sort of euphemism: During the George W. Bush presidency, regime change was a bloodless, technocratic term for the bloody, chaotic effort to topple Saddam Hussein and install a democratic system of government in Iraq. A good working definition, Munck told me in an email, is “the set of rules that regulate how people come to occupy government offices and how government decisions are made.” But even scholars often employ the term as a pejorative, used to describe authoritarian government. These “regimes” tend to have two main characteristics, sometimes overlapping though also in tension: first, the personalization of government around a single individual, and second, a set of informal power structures, such as business oligarchs or a “deep state,” that operate outside of the formal system of government. One could argue that the U.S. has had the same “regime” since 1789, when the Constitution entered into force and George Washington became president. Alternatively, one could look to moments such as the post–Civil War amendments or the New Deal as shifts in the regime. Either way, to state that Trump oversees a regime is to suggest an epochal change. That’s how Robert Reich sees it. Reich, a commentator and professor who served as secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, has been one of the most consistent and prominent users of the phrase. “I began referring to the Trump ‘regime’ rather than ‘administration’ because, especially in his second term, Trump has acted more like an authoritarian ruler than a president in a constitutional system of governance,” he wrote to me in an email. “This is no ‘administration’ that manages the executive branch by implementing the will of Congress, as expressed by the citizens of the United States.” I thought that perhaps scholars of regime systems would push back on using the label for Trump’s government, but the ones I spoke with cautiously endorsed it. “In the past, it was common to refer to the Pinochet regime in Chile or the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq,” Munck said. He told me that the use of Trump regime “is a correct appreciation, that highlights a key weakness in the current state of democracy in the U.S.” And Licia Cianetti, a political scientist who recently co-authored a paper on defining the word, wrote to me that “the personalisation of Trump’s style of rule, and some features like its oligarchization, make the use of ‘regime’ in this pejorative sense expedient to express what seems to be happening to American democracy.” Without downplaying the dangers that Trump poses to the American way of government (perils that The Atlantic has been aggressive in describing), I am not ready to join the “Trump regime” crew yet. One reason is that regimes can be resilient—a point that, ironically, Trump’s actions have demonstrated. “We have, really, regime change,” Trump said about Iran this week. “This is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different.” That’s nonsense. Although American forces have arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and killed several Iranian leaders, removing the dictators has not dislodged the dictatorships in either Caracas or Tehran. The 250-year-old democracy in Washington might also be stronger than those who wish to undermine it believe. Trump may hope to topple the laws and checks that constrain him, but he has not yet fully succeeded. Polls show widespread voter disapproval of Trump’s presidency and suggest trouble for the president’s allies in the midterm elections. Fair elections in 2026 and 2028 would not undo all of the damage Trump has done, but they would show that some observers have overstated his ability to demolish the constitutional system. Long live the regime! Related: Jonathan Rauch: Yes, it’s fascism John R. Bolton: A foreign policy worse than regime change

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Vance's big role

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Brandon Bell and U.S. Navy via Getty Images

Vice President JD Vance is preparing to take on the most important assignment of his career: steering U.S. efforts to end a war he'd been concerned about waging in the first place, Axios' Marc Caputo and Barak Ravid report. Why it matters: Vance has already had multiple calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, met Gulf allies about the war and been involved in indirect communications with the Iranians. He's expected to be the top U.S. negotiator in potential peace talks. Vance was highly skeptical of Israel's rosy prewar assessment of how the war would unfold, and currently expects the war to continue for another few weeks, according to U.S. and Israeli sources. Vance advisers think some in Israel are trying to undermine the VP, possibly because they find him insufficiently hawkish. Israeli officials deny that. President Trump made Vance's role official in a Cabinet meeting yesterday, asking the VP to give an update on Iran, and noting that he was working with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on the negotiations. Trump further delays strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. Screenshot via Truth Social. 🔬 Zoom in: Vance's seniority in the administration and his well-documented opposition to open-ended conflicts overseas, White House officials say, make him a more attractive interlocutor for the Iranians than Witkoff and Kushner, who oversaw the two previous rounds of failed talks. Partly for those reasons, Witkoff recommended Vance as lead negotiator. "If the Iranians can't strike a deal with Vance, they don't get a deal. He's the best they're gonna get," a senior administration official said. Vance is prepared to "take his place onstage" — but only if and when direct negotiations commence, according to a White House official. State of play: Trump extended his deadline for negotiations with Iran yesterday, as Pakistani, Egyptian and Turkish mediators keep trying to organize in-person talks. Iranian officials told the mediators they're still waiting for a green light from "top leadership." If such a summit happens, Vance could sit across the table from Iran's speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The administration is also considering a major military escalation if diplomacy fails. Between the lines: During the lead-up to war, Vance was one of the more skeptical internal voices, raising questions about its duration, purpose and impact on U.S. munitions stockpiles, sources say. Once Trump decided to go to war, though, Vance advocated for using overwhelming force to achieve victory as quickly as possible. Vance advisers say he's supportive of Israel, but is concerned about potential gaps between the U.S. and Israeli objectives as the war continues. 🪖 An Iraq War veteran, Vance told The Washington Post two days before bombs dropped on Tehran: "I do think we have to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. I also think that we have to avoid over-learning the lessons of the past."

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⚖️ Judge's reprieve for Anthropic

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

A federal judge paused the Trump administration's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk, marking an early legal victory for the embattled company, Axios' Maria Curi reports. The preliminary injunction gives Anthropic relief from ongoing reputational damage and provides greater certainty for commercial partners, the company says. Keep reading. ⚡ Scoop: Altman told staff he tried to "save" Anthropic in Pentagon clash As Anthropic's negotiations with the Pentagon were collapsing, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees he was trying to "save" his competitor, according to internal Slack messages seen by Axios' Maria Curi and Zachary Basu. At the same time, Altman privately vented that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had spent years trying to undermine him. On Feb. 26, Altman sent an all-staff message saying OpenAI shared Anthropic's red lines and wanted to help de-escalate — while making clear he still hoped to strike his own deal with the Pentagon. He acknowledged that the optics may not look good in the short term. But he stressed the nuance of the situation and said he was committed to acting on principle rather than appearances. On Feb. 27, Altman relayed to a core group of staff that negotiations between the Pentagon and Anthropic had taken a turn for the worse due to the perception that Amodei was playing to the press. ⏰ Later that day, as the Pentagon's 5 p.m. deadline approached, Altman told the group that the Pentagon believed it could offer Anthropic an off-ramp from the supply chain risk designation. Altman remarked that he found it strange to be working so hard to "save" a rival whose CEO had, in his view, spent years trying to destroy OpenAI.

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🖊️ Trump to sign greenbacks

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved this design for a commemorative gold coin last week. Photo: U.S. Mint via Reuters Since 1914 — 112 years ago — U.S. currency has carried the signatures of the Treasury Secretary and the U.S. treasurer. The Treasury Department announced yesterday that, for the first time, a sitting president's signature will appear on future U.S. paper currency alongside the Treasury secretary's, supplanting the treasurer, in honor of America's 250th birthday celebration. Go deeper. Last week, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved a 24-karat gold commemorative coin bearing President Trump's image — also tied to the 250th anniversary. That cleared the way for the U.S. Mint to begin production. Go deeper. 🛠️ As Trump continues to reshape Washington's architecture, he has discussed turning the White House Treaty Room, on the second floor of the presidential residence, into a guest bedroom with an en suite bath, the N.Y. Times' Luke Broadwater and Maggie Haberman report. ps:I'm surprised that he didn't change the "In God We Trust" to In trump we Trust!!!!!"

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Senate approves funding for TSA and most of Homeland Security, but not immigration enforcement The Senate early Friday morning approved Homeland Security funds to pay Transportation Security Administration agents and most other agencies, but not the immigration enforcement operations at the heart of the budget impasse that has jammed airports, disrupted travel and imposed financial hardship on workers. Read more.

Why this matters: The funding shutdown has resulted in travel delays and even warnings of airport closures as TSA workers missing paychecks stop coming to work. Multiple airports are experiencing greater than 40% callout rates of TSA workers and nearly 500 of its almost 50,000 transportation security officers have quit during the shutdown.   The deal, which the Senate approved unanimously early Friday morning without a roll call, would fund much of the DHS, except the immigration enforcement operations. It did not include any of the restraints Democrats demanded as they sought to rein in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. It next goes to the House, which is expected to consider it Friday.   Trump said Thursday he would sign an order to immediately pay the TSA agents, saying he wanted to quickly stop the “Chaos at the Airports.”

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Closing some US airports due to TSA staffing would have big consequences, experts say   Minnesota to host ‘No Kings’ flagship rally, headlining Springsteen amid ICE tensions   A Minneapolis woman recounts death of Alex Pretti as lawyers eye a class action lawsuit   Appeals court pauses orders restricting federal officers’ use of tear gas at Portland ICE building   Why a private company is investigating rapes at an ICE detention center instead of the sheriff   Federal judge temporarily blocks the Pentagon from branding AI firm Anthropic a supply chain risk   Trump administration seeks Endangered Species Act exemption for oil, gas projects in Gulf   Education Department headquarters will relocate as part of Trump’s dismantling   Trump administration opens investigations into race in admissions at 3 medical schools   FACT FOCUS: Only some driver’s licenses usable for voter registration under the SAVE America Act   Trump-endorsed effort to repeal Utah’s anti-gerrymandering law fails to make the ballot   North Carolina’s photo voter ID mandate can continue as a judge upholds the law   Trump interrupts a Cabinet meeting dealing with war and rising prices to talk Sharpies   WATCH: Trump says Sharpie is ‘hot as a pistol’   US Treasury plans to put Trump’s signature on new paper currency in first for sitting president

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With markets rattled, Trump again delays threat against Iran power plants Facing a convulsing stock market, President Donald Trump on Thursday moved to buy himself more time and hold off, once again, on carrying out a threat to obliterate Iran’s energy plants over the Islamic Republic’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Read more.

Why this matters: Trump said he was delaying taking potential action because talks aimed at ending the conflict are going “very well,” despite the fact that Iran continues to publicly insist it is not negotiating with the White House on a 15-point proposal — delivered by Pakistani intermediaries — to end the war. He said Iran had asked for the grace period. “They asked for seven (days),” Trump said in an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “The Five” shortly after he announced on social media he would give Iran until April 6 to reopen the strait. “And I said, ‘I’m going to give you 10.’” Iran had effectively dared Trump to follow through on the threat, warning it would retaliate against the region’s vital infrastructure.   Trump publicized his decision shortly after Wall Street closed Thursday, when U.S. stocks recorded their biggest loss since the war with Iran started. The S&P 500 dropped 1.7%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 469 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.4% to fall more than 10% below its all-time high set early this year.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Food prices could rise as war sparks global fertilizer shortage   Why Pakistan has emerged as a mediator between US and Iran   Older and younger conservatives at CPAC are split over Trump’s war in Iran

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Trump Plots Major War Move as His Crisis Deepens

The Pentagon is considering sending up to 10,000 additional troops to the Middle East.

The Defense Department is weighing whether to send 10,000 additional ground troops to the Middle East as President Donald Trump’s war with Iran rages on.

The move would give the president more military options amid talks of negotiations with Iran and increasingly disastrous polling numbers. It was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

If deployed, the force would likely include both infantry and armored vehicles, and would add to the 5,000 Marines and thousands of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division who have already been ordered to the region.

The Journal notes that it is unclear exactly where the 10,000 troops would be sent, but that they would likely be “within striking distance” of Iran.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told the Daily Beast: “All announcements regarding troop deployments will come from the Department of War. As we have said, President Trump always has all military options at his disposal.”

A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment.

The Trump administration sent thousands of Marines to the region last week, followed by 2,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division.

Since the start of Trump’s war on Iran on Feb. 28, 13 service members have died, and nearly 300 have been wounded. The wounded include dozens of soldiers hospitalized in Germany with health issues that have been labeled “urgent,” including traumatic brain injuries and memory loss.

News of the potential deployment comes less than a week after the U.S. Department of the Army revised its recruitment policy, raising the maximum enlistment age from 35 to 42.

It also comes as President Trump announced he was once again pressing pause on his threats to destroy Iran’s power plants amid the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a result of what he described as “very good and productive conversations.” Iran has continued to deny that any negotiations are taking place.

“They asked for seven [days] and I said I’m going to give you 10 because they gave me ships, we talked about the eight ships, the present that I talked about the other day,” he told the panelists on Fox News’ The Five on Thursday.

The president had previously referred to a mysterious gift Iran had given him on Tuesday; it was later revealed on Thursday that the gift in question was granting passage through the strait to eight oil tankers.

“They were very thankful about that,” Trump said, referring to the extended pause, adding, “We are speaking, and it is going fairly well, so I gave them 10 days.”

Despite reports that Pakistan has been acting as an intermediary between the U.S. and Iran to deliver Trump’s 15-point peace plan, Iran has denied that any such talks are taking place.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi denied on Wednesday that negotiations were taking place, but did acknowledge that the U.S. had been “sending various messages through different intermediaries” for several days.

A day earlier, Iranian Lieutenant Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari responded to Trump’s claims that talks were underway by asking the U.S., “Has the level of your internal conflicts reached the state of negotiating with yourselves?”

Undeterred, Trump has continued to reference the talks, claiming on Wednesday that Iran was afraid to admit they were taking place.

“They are negotiating, by the way,” Trump told attendees at the National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising dinner in Washington D.C.

“They want to make a deal so badly but they are afraid to say it. Because they figure they will be killed by their own people. They are also afraid they will be killed by us.”

Despite his public statements—including vowing to continue “bombing our little hearts out” on Monday—reports suggest that privately, the president has told associates he wants to end the war in the next couple of weeks as it is distracting him from other priorities.

The war is testing his relationship with anti-interventionist members of his party, including Rep. Nancy Mace, who has repeatedly asserted that she does not support the deployment of troops to Iran.

Trump’s actions in Iran have also hurt his polling numbers, with fresh numbers released on Thursday revealing that military action in Iran has a net approval rating of -16.

On the question of the president’s handling of Iran in general, the number slips even further to a net approval rating of -28. In addition, the president’s own net approval rating is currently at its lowest point, of -18.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-plots-major-war-move-as-his-iran-crisis-deepens/?

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CNN Data Guru Hits Trump With a ‘Reality Check’ After 100% Approval Brag

“The CNN poll said I’m 100 percent,” the president had boasted.

CNN data guru Harry Enten has offered a brutal “reality check” to Donald Trump as the president brags about eyebrow-raising polling results.

The president latched onto a poll cited last week that showed he had 100 percent favorability among MAGA voters. He described it as an “honor” and bragged about it publicly on at least two occasions.

Enten’s assessment was blunt. “Donald Trump has never been more unpopular in his second term in office,” he said on The Source with Kaitlan Collins on Thursday.

Enten circulated the NBC News poll last week. It actually found that, among the full sample, just 44 percent of respondents approved of Trump, while 54 percent disapproved. However, the bit that titillated the president was more nuanced than he was willing to admit.

The poll asked respondents if “You consider yourself to be a supporter of the MAGA movement,” to which 30 percent replied “yes.” So, the poll showed 100 percent of 30 percent of people approve of Trump.

The president took a victory lap regardless. “They said they’ve never seen a poll like that. The CNN poll said I’m 100 percent, and they’ve never seen that before, which is an honor,” he said on the White House lawn last Friday. He also brought the results up repeatedly at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s 2026 Annual Fundraising Dinner on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Enten had a message for Trump. Speaking to Collins on CNN, he said, “I’ll give you a reality check. Look, President Trump is quite popular with MAGA. MAGA very much enjoys this [Iran] war. They very much love the president. But of course, they are just a certain portion of the electorate. When you expand it out. The reality check is this. Donald Trump has never been more unpopular in his second term in office.”He used a Fox News poll released on Wednesday to make his point. It surveyed 1,001 registered voters nationwide who were randomly selected from a national voter file. The results were damning for Trump, delivering his highest disapproval rating yet: 59 percent.

“And I will note this, Kaitlan Collins,” he continued. “It is not just the Fox News poll where Donald Trump is at an all-time highs in terms of his disapproval ratings, all-time lows in terms of his approval rating. It is in the polling aggregate as well. It has been poll after poll after poll in which he’s either at or near an all-time high in terms of his disapproval rating.”

At the time of writing, the New York Times’ daily average of dozens of polls has Trump’s disapproval rating at 56 percent. His approval rating is a meager 40 percent.

Trump’s war in Iran has caused a schism in the GOP and prompted independents to walk away. The conflict has caused economic chaos and hit Americans in the pocket.

However, Trump doesn’t appear to care. Speaking at the NRCC dinner on Wednesday, he said energy prices rising and the stock market recoiling “didn’t matter to me.”

“We had to get rid of the cancer, cut out the cancer. The cancer was Iran with a nuclear weapon,” he said

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-data-guru-hits-trump-with-a-reality-check-after-100-approval-brag/?

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Trump’s Eyebrow-Raising War Boast Exposed as BS

The 79-year-old president claimed a top Biden official backed the Middle East conflict and said they had started negotiations.

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken has shot down Donald Trump’s suggestion that he supported the president’s war in Iran.

In a series of posts on X, top Biden administration official Blinken shared comments from Trump’s speech on Wednesday and said the 79-year-old president had completely misinterpreted his remarks about the deeply unpopular war in the Middle East.

“I’ve heard that today Blinken made a statement that he should have done it,” Trump said at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) annual fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C. “Thanks a lot, Blinken, I appreciate it. Blinken is Biden’s guy, I guess. Who the hell knows who he is. He’s his guy. But he came out with the statement that they should have done it, they made a mistake.”

Blinken wrote that Trump had cited him as supporting the attacks on Iran to stop the country from developing a nuclear weapon and as “expressing regret” that the Biden administration didn’t take similar action. “Except I didn’t,” Blinken added.

Blinken then shared clips of a speech he gave at the Harvard Kennedy School on Wednesday, in which he discussed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal that Iran signed in 2015 during the Obama administration. Under this deal, Tehran dismantled much of its nuclear program. Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.

“That’s what President Trump inherited when he came into office the first time, and unfortunately, he decided he didn’t like that agreement. He tore it up. He said he would replace it with something bigger and better. Fine. Except he didn’t,” Blinken said.

“What would have happened if President Trump had just left the JCPOA in place? When the JCPOA expired, it could be extended or renegotiated, as with most arms control agreements,” Blinken wrote on X while paraphrasing his speech. “If Iran refused, the U.S. would still retain the military option, with a lot more information about Iran’s program because of the most intrusive inspections ever.”

The former secretary of state also said in his speech that people must hold “multiple ideas” about the war in Iran at the same time, including agreeing it is a good thing that Ayatollah Khomeini has been killed and that Iran’s nuclear program has been “re-obliterated since, apparently, it was obliterated in June,” while also considering the devastating consequences of the conflict.

Blinken added that the Trump administration’s failure to plan for Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, which has resulted in a global oil crisis, means the president can now only end the war on Iran’s terms or intensify the fighting.

“Maybe a negotiation can fix that, but with what concessions to Iran? Or we can double down, at huge risk,” Blinken posted.

“Meanwhile, 13 American servicemembers have lost their lives and hundreds more have been wounded,” he added. “America is more isolated than ever from our closest allies and partners. And billions more U.S. taxpayer dollars are being spent on another war in the Middle East (with an additional $200 billion requested from the Pentagon to fund this war). Not to mention the failure to make the case to the American people for why this was necessary, in their interest, or worth risking American lives for.

“So no, I would not have done it. For the record.”

Trump had previously claimed that a former president secretly confided in him that they wanted to attack Iran while they were in office. This boast was soon denied by aides for all four still-living past presidents: Biden, Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-eyebrow-raising-iran-war-boast-exposed-as-bs/?

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Trump Drags U.S. Military Into His White House Makeover

Trump’s comment hardly cleared things up.

Donald Trump said Thursday—without any explanation— that the military is “very much involved” in the construction of his controversial White House ballroom.

Trump made the vague comment during a lengthy Fox News interview in which he complained that the ballroom, which he will reportedly name after himself, is the subject of a lawsuit from a preservation group.

Last fall, Trump tore down the 123-year-old East Wing to make room for the 90,000-square-foot, $400 million project—a process that the National Trust for Historic Preservation says was done illegally.

“I am building the ballroom, and it’s a very big thing with the military and everything else. The military is very much involved,” Trump said on The Five over the phone. “It’s a big, big deal, and it’s great. It’s going to be beautiful.”

None of the five Fox hosts followed up.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast about the military’s involvement in the ballroom, or if Trump still considers the ballroom his “main priority,” as Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in October.

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

The president also mentioned the military when discussing his renovations during a cabinet meeting earlier in the day.

“This ballroom is going to be something that’s so beautiful for the city, so desperately needed by presidents,” Trump said during the meeting. “It’s no secret the military wanted it more than anybody. It was supposed to be secret, but it became unsecret because of people that are really unpatriotic, saying things.”

The president’s renovation efforts also reportedly involve the construction of a defensive bunker underneath what was formerly the East Wing of the White House. It would replace the previous secure underground facility in that location built by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.

Trump continued, “We’re building an arc, a triumphal arc, which will be incredible for the city. Incredible. We’re fixing up what was the Kennedy Center, I was honored when the board changed the name a little bit. Actually, it shows that the Republican and the Democrats, they worked together,” he said, referencing the center’s controversial name change in December.

Trump has regularly promoted renderings of the ballroom by bringing them to the Oval Office and posting them on social media. His anticipation of the structure even resulted in him getting up from a meeting with nearly two dozen oil executives to gaze out the window at the location of the future ballroom.

“Wow, what a view,” he said of the still-under-construction site in January.

Last week, the judge handling the National Trust’s lawsuit seemed to take issue with how the Trump administration has justified the East Wing teardown, for which it did not seek congressional approval. Government lawyers have claimed a federal law allows for alterations “as the president may determine.”

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, CNN reported, said that labeling the construction of the ballroom as “an alteration… takes some brazen interpretation of the laws of vocabulary."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-drags-us-military-into-his-white-house-makeover/?

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GOP Uses Biggest Event to Push Trump Third-Term Scheme

The move comes as Trump’s base shows signs of strain, with tensions spilling out over the Epstein files and the war in Iran.

Evangelist Franklin Graham has urged conservatives to unite behind Donald Trump in an apparent bid to give the president a third term.

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday, Graham urged Trump loyalists to put their differences aside and suggested they should try to keep the president in office.

 

“I love Donald Trump,” said Graham. “Is he perfect? No. But I love that guy. I love him. And we’ll never get another president like Donald Trump. That’s why we need to do everything we can to get him re-elected.”

Franklin, 73, is the son of the late evangelist Billy Graham and is one of Trump’s most prominent religious allies, acting as a key bridge to white evangelical voters.

He later issued a statement saying that he “misspoke”. Regardless, a third term would be near-impossible given that the Constitution bans people from being elected as president more than twice.

Nonetheless, this has not stopped Trump diehards—or the 79-year-old president himself—from daring to dream.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to run for a third term and, earlier this year, even suggested going for a fourth.

“RECORD NUMBERS ALL OVER THE PLACE! SHOULD I TRY FOR A FOURTH TERM?” he wrote on Truth Social.

But Graham’s comments come at a time when Trump’s base is showing signs of strain, with tensions spilling out over the Epstein files, the war in Iran, and bitter personal feuds.

As the Pentagon weighs up whether to send troops to the Middle East, Graham sought to counter reports of unease within Trump’s base over the conflict.

Praising Trump’s handling of the situation, he accused mainstream media outlets of attempting to “plant seeds of doubt” among supporters by highlighting criticism from within conservative ranks.

“They want to divide his base,” Graham said, urging attendees to reject such narratives.

Former Trump adviser Mercedes Schlapp also used the CPAC stage to call for MAGAworld to curb the infighting as they fend off Democrats during this year’s midterms.

“You know who the enemy is? Communists, socialists, Marxists,” she said, taking aim at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Josh Hammer, host of The Josh Hammer Show, had a different approach, taking aim at former Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene, podcaster Megyn Kelly, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, whom he described as “cowards of the retard right.” All three have spoken out against the president or his policies in recent months.

“What is the end goal here? The answer is both simple and harrowing,” Hammer said. “The goal is to destroy the MAGA coalition and the current iteration of the American right.”

Meanwhile, former congressman Matt Gaetz, who Trump initially tapped to be Attorney General until a sex scandal with an underage girl derailed his chances, put the onus on Congress to help the president.

“We are facing the midterms soon… I don’t know how they’re going to go, but for nine more months, we have the presidency, we have the House, and we have the Senate. We have a majority. I think we should take it out for a spin,” he said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-uses-conservative-political-action-conference-to-push-donald-trump-third-term-scheme/?

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Trump Skewered for Epstein Ties After White House Joke Backfires

The president can’t escape his past relationship with the convicted sex offender.

The White House’s bizarre attempt at an internet joke was the perfect setup for Democrats to blast the president’s ties to infamous child sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

On Thursday, the White House’s official X account shared a pixelated image of President Donald Trump, 79, sitting in the Oval Office.

An hour later, the official account for Democrats on the Homeland Security committee responded with a pixelated photo of their own, but in this one, Trump had a friend with him.

The blocky pic depicts arguably the most famous photo of the president with Epstein, with the two standing side-by-side at Mar-a-Lago with Trump’s hand on the convicted sex trafficker’s right shoulder, circa February 1997.

Within the files released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, one report shows that Trump was accused by a woman who alleged that he sexually abused her when she was 13.

Key details of the woman’s background and history that she provided to the FBI were verified as true by The Post and Courier, suggesting that she told the truth about numerous aspects of her life in her interviews.

Her account to the FBI claimed that Trump forced her to commit a sex act on him around 1984, following her recruitment by Epstein, who was a friend of Trump’s at the time.Though the president has repeatedly claimed that he expelled the sex offender from Mar-a-Lago, a redacted email included in the Epstein files seems to imply that the president may have stretched the truth.New York Rep. Dan Goldman shared the email on the House floor last week, which suggests that Epstein was “never asked to leave” Trump’s club, and shows Trump saying he “may have been” on Epstein’s plane and at his house.“Just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement to the Daily Beast. “And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”Trump’s ties to Epstein were not the only source of criticism on the post. Other political personalities called out the unseriousness of the administration amid the president’s war on Iran, which has already claimed the lives of 13 American service members.“This isn’t a f---ing game,” wrote political commentator Brian Krassenstein. “Americans are dying in war and you are sending cryptic tweets.”“What the f--- is this?!” said Cenk Uygur, founder of the progressive online news show, The Young Turks. “Weirdo trolling when there’s a political race going on is one thing, it’s a completely different thing when American lives are on the line and jagoffs in the White House are playing silly games instead of figuring out what to do in Iran.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-skewered-for-jeffrey-epstein-ties-after-white-house-joke-backfires/?

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Trump Refuses to Endorse His Goons for President

Trump let out an awkward chuckle when asked who he plans to pass the MAGA mantle to.

President Donald Trump remains noncommittal on any potential 2028 successors as he pits his top lieutenants against each other in a mad scramble for the MAGA crown.

“Who’s going to be the next president?” Fox News contributor Kennedy asked during the president’s appearance on The Five on Thursday, prompting nervous laughter from the other hosts and an awkward chuckle from the president.

Trump, 79, proceeded to launch into a long-winded answer in which he didn’t directly mention Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both of whom he has previously touted as possible successors.

“Well, I would say that it will be a Republican. I really believe that and I think it will be a good one,” the president said.

“I think we have a combination of people that would be very good. You put together a little combination, I think it would be hard to beat the combination.”

“I think you can figure that out,” he added, drawing muted laughter from the hosts.

Trump has said he would like to see Vance, 41, and Rubio, 54, run a joint campaign—without clarifying who he envisions at the top of the ticket—setting the stage for a potentially bruising battle when the 2028 jockeying kicks off after November’s midterms.

Momentum appears to be shifting away from Vance.

Trump predicted last August that Vance is “most likely” the leading contender to inherit his MAGA throne, saying, “He would be probably favored at this point.”

But since then, the president has left the field open, time and again declining to put Vance ahead of Rubio on any potential ticket.

Instead, he has apparently been pitting them against each other, frequently asking his advisers whether Vance or Marco should run in 2028.

While hosting an event at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 28, he asked a room of Republican donors to cheer for which of the two men they would rather see run in 2028—and it was Rubio who scored the louder reaction, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Rubio has played an increasingly prominent role in Trump’s Cabinet, not only as secretary of state but also as the president’s national security adviser. Trump has been unabashed in his praise for Rubio, declaring he’d go down as “the best secretary of state in the country’s history.”

Vance, meanwhile, has found himself in an awkward position as the president ramps up his foreign interventions, which fly in the face of his long-standing opposition to foreign entanglements.

The vice president’s lukewarm support for Trump’s war with Iran has rankled the president, White House sources told Zeteo this week.

Trump has been making “snide, annoyed comments” about Vance, as well as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, “knocking them for not being as enthusiastic,” the sources said.

However, others in the White House painted a different picture behind the scenes, telling Zeteo that Trump and Vance’s “relationship is as warm as ever.”

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-refuses-to-endorse-marco-rubio-or-jd-vance-for-president/?

ps:If he endorses anyone I'll be very surprised!! He cares only about himself, period!!!!

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Trump Ally’s Live TV Interview Derailed by Seriously Bad News

Outspoken 2020 election denier Mike Lindell was left visibly on edge at CPAC.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell became visibly flustered when he was served court papers during a live interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas on Thursday.

Lindell, 64, who is campaigning for Minnesota governor, was being interviewed by O’Keefe Media Group’s Michael Casey at the event when he was derailed by an alleged process server who attempted to hand him court documents.

Lindell is one of President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies and has even gone so far as to accuse “Satan” of rigging the 2020 election against Trump. He has faced multiple legal losses tied to those debunked conspiracy theories, and he’s apparently still facing further legal trouble over it.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt. I have this for you. You’ve been served,” the woman said, holding up what appeared to be the legal papers.

Lindell immediately attempted to brush the woman aside and said repeatedly, “Please. We’re on TV. Please, we’re on TV, please. OK, we’re on TV. We’re on TV. Please. OK, we’re on TV.”

Despite being pushed aside and off camera, the woman continued to try to hand Lindell the documents.

“What are you serving him with?” a smirking Casey asked the woman.

She eventually handed the papers to Lindell, who immediately tossed them aside and turned back to Casey to resume their interview.

On X, Casey described the woman as a “deranged leftist” who interrupted his interview with Lindell. She tried to “‘serve’ him court papers,” Casey wrote, sharing a clip of the exchange.

On Thursday, Lindell also suffered a legal blow when Biden-appointed Colorado Judge Nina Wang rejected his motion to overturn a defamation verdict related to the 2020 election. She also ordered that the legal team for his media company, Frankspeech, must convince her why they shouldn’t face fines or disciplinary action, MS NOW reported.

Lindell was permanently banned from X (then Twitter) in January 2021 after promoting unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 election. Lindell announced his run for Minnesota governor in December and has since spent tens of thousands of dollars handing out copies of his book, What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO, instead of campaign flyers.

Lindell called the Daily Beast and said the incident stemmed from “a couple that is using my likeness” on their website. “We sent them a cease and desist, and whatever, for whatever reason, they’re very disgruntled about the cease and desist to them.”

The My Pillow CEO claimed that the incident captured on TV, “wasn’t a service of any papers,” instead, Lindell said that it was a “girlfriend or whatever acting like trying to make it [look like] on TV that I was served on papers.”

“I sent them a cease and desist to quit using my image, my picture for advertising their products, but I gotta go,” Lindell said. “I gotta get on TV.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/deranged-trump-ally-mike-lindells-live-tv-interview-derailed-by-seriously-bad-news/?

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A year after Trump’s DOGE cuts, workers whose lives were upended question what was saved

Thea Price anticipated changes under the second Trump administration, but she never expected her life to be thrown into such disarray. Along with the 300 other employees of the United States Institute of Peace, Price was fired, rehired and then fired again as part of Trump’s crusade to shrink the federal government, a chaotic effort that cut tens of thousands of jobs and shrank or dismantled entire agencies. The DOGE website says it has saved about $215 billion through various actions. But the Government Accountability Office and think tanks haven’t determined how much was actually saved. Read more. ps:Nothing would be the correct answer!!!!!

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

House ethics panel finds Florida congresswoman Cherfilus-McCormick committed 25 violations Live updates: House considers whether to approve funding for TSA and most of Homeland Security US appeals court sides with Trump administration on detaining immigrants without bond Costa Rica to accept 25 ‘third country’ deportees from US every week Georgia’s Fulton County heads to court to seek return of 2020 ballots seized by FBI DOJ sues SeaWorld’s parent company over ban on wheeled walkers at their parks A Build America, Buy America law is causing construction delays amid the US housing crisis Education Department directs student loan borrowers in SAVE plan to prepare for repayment Brother and sister are charged after an explosive device was found outside a Florida Air Force base Secret Service agent assigned to Jill Biden accidentally shoots himself in leg at airport Russian man sentenced to 4 years in UK prison for assault witnessed on video by Barron Trump

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MAGA Melts Down After Dems Claim Victory in Senate Climbdown

MAGA House members and influencers are furious with how the standoff over funding ended in the Senate.

MAGA is on the brink of civil war as some Republicans are enraged over how the Senate concluded its standoff over Department of Homeland Security funding and voted to end the partial government shutdown.

The Senate voted early Friday morning, while most Americans were asleep, to fund much of DHS after weeks of negotiations and immediately rushed to leave town for a planned two-week recess.

The Senate bill funds TSA amid mounting chaos at airports, as well as the rest of DHS, except for ICE and CBP, after Democrats refused to budge on funding the embattled agencies since the killings of two U.S. citizens in January.

It came after President Donald Trump caved on his demand that Republicans tie DHS funding and his SAVE America Act earlier this week.

If the funding bill were to pass in the House, which appears increasingly unlikely, and Trump signs it, it would bring an end to the ongoing partial government shutdown, but multiple MAGA House members spent Friday morning furiously attacking the legislation.

“We can’t believe that the Senate abdicated its responsibility this morning,” raged House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris on Friday morning, while surrounded by other caucus members.

Harris warned that the only way his caucus would support the bill is if CBP and ICE funding are added back in, as well as voter ID measures.

“This deal is bad for America. It’s bad for Americans,” Harris said.

“The US Senate has PASSED a bill funding most of DHS following President Trump’s executive order to pay TSA workers using other funds,” wrote influencer Nick Sorter on X. “However, ICE and CBP are NOT funded. DO NOT let Dems get away with that.”

“WE in the HOUSE should AMEND the Senate Bill, ADD VOTER ID AND FORCE A VOTE IN THE SENATE,” wrote Tennessee Rep. Andy Ongles on X.

“PSA to senate schedulers: may want to book a return flight for your boss. Our work here isn’t finished,” wrote Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert.

“The Senate’s failure to fund all of DHS is pathetic,” wrote Rep. Keith Self. “The Senate’s failure to pass the SAVE America is pathetic. The Senate is weak, ineffective, and pathetic.”

In another post, he blasted the Senate for passing the funding bill after weeks of negotiations, then skipping town.

“Where we are on TSA funding... The Senate unanimously decided to give in to Democrat demands to not fund ICE or CBP,” wrote South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace. “They passed a bill by voice vote (which is why you saw them leaving town last night before the actual vote early this morning).”

Mace blasted the bill as a “surrender by Senate Republicans” and slammed it being “passed in the middle of the night and then the entire Senate decided to go home for 2.5 weeks.”

Right-wing MAGA influencer Laura Loomer claimed not pressing forward with efforts to pass the SAVE America Act, which includes a series of Trump priorities that Democrats have attacked as a voter suppression bill, would have an impact on the midterms.

“Republicans need to do as President Trump asked and pass the Save America Act. We have the majority. Let’s get it done,” Loomer wrote. “If they don’t, it will discourage the GOP base and massively suppress voter turnout for the midterm elections in 2026. It’s wild how hard we have to fight for the GOP to do the right thing.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-melts-down-after-dems-claim-victory-in-senate-climbdown/?

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Of Course Trump Has No Room for Treaties

The man who torched the Paris Agreement, the Iran deal, and countless other global alliances has a new target.

The White House Treaty Room has a deep history. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and William McKinley used it as their Cabinet Room—McKinley signed the peace protocol ending the Spanish-American War at its cabinet table in 1898. Who knows what he would have made of a Diet Coke button.

John F. Kennedy sat at the same table in 1963 and signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a document that, however imperfect, acknowledged that nuclear war between two superpowers would be catastrophic for everyone involved.

President George W. Bush used the room in October 2001 to start the “Enduring Freedom” war in Afghanistan after 9/11. And Joe Biden went there in April 2021 to announce the end of the 20-year conflict in the country.

But Donald Trump? He wants to tear it apart to create a knock-off Super 8 hotel guest room with its own bathroom. Of course he does.

He gold-plates the East Room. He gilds the Oval Office. He bulldozes the East Wing to build a $400 million ballroom. The “builder-in-chief,” as Trump’s spokesperson calls him, has “an extraordinary eye for detail and design,” after all.

That’s the same eye that conceived the bankrupt Trump Taj Mahal. It won’t be long until he turns the East Room, where seven presidents have lain in repose, into a full-fledged casino, with Pete Hegseth and Markwayne Mullin as blackjack dealers, and Kristi Noem as a cocktail waitress.

Because if you’ve only maintained a passing interest, you understand by now that Trump, while bloodthirsty for a Nobel Peace Prize, doesn’t just abandon diplomacy, he tears it apart just like he’s doing to the White House itself.

Trump is a man with a documented compulsion to obliterate every treaty he touches, whether that treaty is written on parchment or plastered on a wall. The Paris Climate Agreement? Demolished. The Iran nuclear deal? Razed. The Trans-Pacific Partnership? Wrecked.

He’s also deconstructed the United States’ relationships with the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In one remarkable January 2026 sweep that barely registered above the noise, the Trump administration pulled the United States out of 66 international bodies simultaneously, including the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN Women, and other humanitarian and environmental organizations.

So Trump turning his wrecking balls toward renovating the Treaty Room seems like a natural progression. He isn’t making a decorating decision, rather a philosophical statement. When you’ve already ripped up the treaties, why would you need the room? Particularly if it has anything to do with history.

Carved in the marble fireplace mantel in the White House State Dining Room (which Trump will surely turn into a McDonald’s given time) is what’s referred to as the “Adams Blessing.” After he became the first president to move into the White House while it was still under construction, Adams—who clearly never saw Trump coming—wrote to his wife: “I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under this Roof.”

It’s only really surprising that Trump hasn’t put a MAGA bumper sticker over the inscription.

The past forty-five presidents—give or take a couple on occasion, sure—have had appropriate reverence for the sanctity of the White House, and of its role in global diplomacy and statescraft. You would hope Trump to—maybe—feel the gravity of the Treaty Room, too; to be moved by the weight of history, and to lower his voice in the presence of something larger than himself.

But that “maybe” is foolish.

Because to him, there is nothing larger than himself. History, as it was to every one of his predecessors, is not a source of humility for Donald Trump.

The systematic dismantling of America’s international commitments is part and parcel of Trump’s errant and erratic foreign policy. His worldview holds that multilateral agreements are for suckers and losers, that alliances are money-making schemes, that the postwar international order is an affront to America’s greatness.

The institutions that American presidents and statesmen spent the better part of a century building—the WTO, NATO partnerships, climate frameworks, arms control agreements—are, in Trump’s telling, as inconvenient and useless as a $10 bill with Scott Bessent’s signature.

The removal of the Treaty Room—because that’s what it would be—and the torching of US participation in international bodies are what Trump “feels in his bones.” One happens with a sledgehammer and a contractor. The other happens with an executive order and a Truth Social post.

Because of Trump, the infrastructure of global cooperation, painstakingly built, brick by brick, after World War II, is developing cracks. Its delicate structure is fracturing, and it could very well fall into rubble. And in the White House, Trump is drawing up plans to wipe away a room where nations once came to make their promises to each other.

Kennedy, the story goes, was fond of the Treaty Room’s quiet. He’d retreat there in the evenings to read, to think, to feel the accumulated presence of consequential decisions made in that space.

Trump, predictably, feels nothing of the sort. He’s the man whiling away the night hours raging at cable news, after all. He sees square footage. He sees an opportunity for a renovation that will, no doubt, be described as the most beautiful renovation in the history of renovations.

When the guest bedroom is finished and the Treaty Room is dismantled, so too may be all of the international agreements that Trump has also destroyed. And who’s even going to stay there? It won’t be Melania.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/of-course-trump-has-no-room-for-treaties/?

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💰 New estimate of Trump worth

President Trump speaks to farmers from the Truman balcony this afternoon. Photo: Ken Cedeno/AFP via Getty Images President Trump is worth $6.5 billion, per Forbes' new estimate of his assets and dealings. 📈 Forbes writes: "Trump added $1.4 billion over the past year, leveraging the presidency for profit." "His cryptocurrency ventures, stalled out before the election, exploded after his victory, adding an estimated $1.8 billion to his fortune overall." 🧑‍⚖️ A big legal win killed off a $500 million legal judgment against Trump, while his licensing business rose $400 million "as foreign developers clamored to do business with an American president." Yes, but: The value of Trump's shares in Truth Social's parent company fell $1.3 billion last year, stopping his net worth from climbing even higher. Reality check: Only the president himself — and maybe an accountant or two — truly knows what's in his personal coffers. Go deeper.

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Sticker Shock (Mark Felix / Bloomberg / Getty)

View in browser Walk into any American airport today, and you might end up in a security line that extends past the baggage claim. You might hear a muffled voice announcing over the intercom that your flight has—once again—been delayed. And you might have to pay even more for this experience. Airfare has spiked since the start of the war in Iran, as airlines cope with rising jet-fuel prices and the new risks of flying in and around the Middle East. Business Insider found that the average price of a flight from one end of the United States to the other rose from $167 in February to $414 in mid-March. Outside the country, ticket prices for major routes connecting Europe and Asia have surged, per data from Alton Aviation Consultancy: The Hong Kong–London route is 560 percent more expensive than it was last month, and the Bangkok-Frankfurt route is up 505 percent. (Flights between the two continents would ordinarily pass through the Middle East.) And tickets are likely to stay expensive for some time. Americans are already seeing prices rise at airports and at the pump—the average cost of gas in the U.S. has gone from $2.98 a gallon to $3.98 a gallon over the past month—but the breadth of the war’s economic consequences is just starting to become clear. The energy shock could have broad implications for the prices of all kinds of consumer goods, including clothing, food, and computers (also: party balloons). What’s happening to plane tickets is a preview of what might come next for other industries. “Airfares are certainly the canary in the coal mine,” my colleague Annie Lowrey, who writes about economic policy, told me. “No other major consumer good or service I can think of is as sensitive to energy costs.” Jet fuel makes up roughly 30 percent of the cost of an airline ticket, and much of that increase is getting passed on to customers. When Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month, it pinched off the world’s oil supply, and prices shot up. The average price of jet fuel spiked more than 58 percent during the first week of the war and has increased more than 10 percent each week since. Airlines began feeling that strain right away, which soon started to bear on tickets—dynamic-pricing systems allowed companies to change what they charge for each seat in real time. Airlines have always had razor-thin margins. Fuel is the industry’s largest operating cost and can represent about 25 percent of a company’s total yearly spending. American Airlines recently said that it will be forced to spend an additional $400 million this quarter. “If oil prices stay where they are today, that’s 11 billion [dollars] of expense for us,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said this week. He also suggested that, for the company to break even, it would need to raise ticket prices another 20 percent. That direct correlation—as fuel prices go up, so does airfare—helps explain why the Iran war’s effects on plane tickets have been so immediate. A similar dynamic is at play in the trucking industry: When the cost of diesel goes up, so do the rates for ground-shipping contracts. The other big-picture issue affecting airfare has to do with flight capacity. More than 52,000 flights to and from the Middle East have been canceled since the start of the war. Flights that haven’t been canceled might have to take longer paths around the Middle East, using up more fuel and putting more pressure on airlines to compensate elsewhere, Martin Dresner, a supply-chain professor at the University of Maryland, told me. The Iran war could also raise the prices of semiconductors (reliant on helium, much of which comes from the Middle East), clothing (many synthetic fibers, including polyester, are made from oil), and aluminum-based products, as well as any consumer goods that travel via air freight. Fuel surcharges account for roughly 19 percent of the cost of a package delivery in the United States, and as shipping and transport costs go up, so could the price of groceries, Annie said. Businesses that sell nonperishable goods such as computers and clothing would likely react by selling off inventory and then, eventually, increasing sticker prices. Many of those effects won’t be felt immediately. Take urea, a nitrogen-based fertilizer that’s integral to modern farming. Much of its global supply comes from the Middle East, and urea prices have increased by 50 percent since the war began. Although farmers may take a direct hit on those prices, consumers may not actually experience a price shift for a while, thanks to the nature of the agricultural supply chain. Reduced urea leads to reduced crop yields, which leads to fewer and more expensive food products—a far more indirect relationship than that of jet fuel and airfare. Were the strait to fully open right now, some of those potential issues would never materialize, and the global oil supply would start to recover. But even if the war were to end today, “we’re looking at months ’til production is fully restored, at least,” Jason Miller, a supply-chain professor at Michigan State University, told me. Airlines will see elevated costs until the oil supply stabilizes—which is likely why United Airlines’ CEO has been telling people to book their tickets for summer travel as soon as possible, before prices go even higher. Ultimately, this economic squeeze could last longer than the war that created it. Related: American aviation is near collapse. The worst airport in America

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Trump Floats Renaming Vital Oil Route After His Favorite President

Trump’s offhand remark about the Strait of Hormuz has officials quietly weighing the optics.

President Donald Trump is toying with renaming one of the world’s most critical shipping routes after—who else—himself.

Speaking at an investor forum in Miami on Friday night, Trump casually referred to the Strait of Hormuz as the “Strait of Trump,” before quickly correcting himself, then insisting it wasn’t a slip.

“Excuse me, I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake,” he told the crowd.

“The Fake News will say, ‘He accidentally said.’ No, there’s no accidents with me.”

The remark drew laughs in the room, but behind the scenes, it’s not entirely a joke.

Trump has reportedly privately floated renaming the waterway the “Strait of America,” or even after himself, if the U.S. succeeds in wresting control of it from Iran, according to The New York Post.

One administration official reportedly told the Post that the U.S. is “taking the Strait back” and suggested that if America ends up policing it, “why should we call it Hormuz?”

It’s a big “if.”

The narrow passage, through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply travels, has become a flashpoint in Trump’s escalating conflict with Iran.

Tehran has managed to disrupt shipping, sending gas and oil prices soaring and leaving the White House scrambling for options.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his frustration with allies who have balked at joining a U.S.-led naval push to reopen the route, while ramping up threats and insisting Iran is “begging” for a deal.

“Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

At the same time, his fixation on naming rights is raising eyebrows, even among his own allies.

“It’s getting tiresome and tacky,” a former administration official told the Post, warning it risks “tarnishing his legacy” ahead of the fall midterms.

Still, the idea tracks with Trump’s long-running instinct to slap his name on anything within reach.

He previously pushed to rebrand the Gulf of Mexico and backed efforts to attach his name to Washington’s Kennedy Center, both moves that critics derided as vanity projects.

This leaves the world in the awkward position of watching a volatile geopolitical standoff play out alongside a potential naming exercise. Because in Trump’s orbit, even a global freight chokepoint might double as prime branding real estate.

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-floats-renaming-strait-of-hormuz-after-his-favorite-president/?

ps:Who does he think he is? Renaming whatever he feels like? Only kings do that!!!!!

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Company Calls BS on Trump’s Rambling Pen Story

The president’s long-winded anecdote about Sharpies didn’t quite match the company’s recollection of events.

President Donald Trump delivered a rambling anecdote about how “the head of Sharpie” offered him customized pens—but the company said that never happened.

Trump, 79, took five minutes out of his Cabinet meeting on Thursday to brag about how he got custom-made Sharpies and saved American taxpayers thousands of dollars in the process.

“So I came here, and they have $1,000 pens. And, you know, you hand pens out, you’re signing, and you hand them out. You’re handing them to all these people. Sometimes you have 30, 40 people, and they are $1,000 a piece,” Trump complained. “Beautiful pen, ballpoint, $1,000. It was gold, silver, gorgeous. But I’m handing [them] out to kids that don’t even know what they are.”

“So I’m saying this is crazy, and it had another problem: They didn’t write well,” he continued. “So I take it out, and I sign, and there’s no ink, and I got all you people looking, and you say, ‘There must be something wrong with Trump.’”

Trump proceeded to recount how he “called a guy,” whom he later identified as “the head of Sharpie,” and explained that he wanted to use the iconic pens but didn’t want them to come in their typical gray packaging bearing the brand’s logo.

“He said, ‘Well, I can make it nicer,’” Trump quoted his Sharpie dealer as saying.

The president said the individual offered to paint the pens black and add designs, such as his signature and a drawing of the White House.

“So the guy said to me, ‘You don’t have to pay me, sir. I’ll give them to you for nothing.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want that. Let me pay you. I want to pay you.’ ‘No, sir. You don’t have to. You’re the president of the United States,’” Trump said.

“He was shocked. The head of Sharpie gets a call—I don’t even know who the hell he is,” he continued, drawing laughter from the room.

Eventually, they settled on $5 per pen, according to Trump.

“The bottom line is, they’re better pens. It’s a business story. So for $5—could be zero—but for $5 I get a much better pen than for $1,000 and I could hand them out and actually they become hot as a pistol,” the president concluded.

As vivid as Trump’s anecdote was, Sharpie maker Newell Brands said the interaction didn’t actually happen.

“We don’t have any information about the conversation described,” a company spokesperson told The Washington Post when reached for comment about Trump’s rambling story. “We’re proud to be a beloved brand trusted by so many globally.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on Friday.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/sharpie-calls-bs-on-donald-trumps-rambling-pen-story/?

 

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Keystone Kash’s Pathetic Play to Please Trump Exposed

The FBI director is reportedly trying to cobble together a case against one of the president’s most vocal critics.

Kash Patel has set his sights on the Trump administration’s latest Democratic target.

The FBI director, 46, is reportedly leading a behind-the-scenes push to release investigative files involving Rep. Eric Swalwell that date back a decade or more, according to The Washington Post. This is part of a broader effort to bring a criminal case against him.

Sources told the outlet that Patel recently instructed FBI agents in San Francisco to dig up and quickly redact files related to Swalwell, 45, and Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese agent who reportedly developed close ties to the congressman during his 2014 re-election campaign.

The Post reports that FBI leaders have also discussed possibly sending agents to China to see if Fang has any damaging information about Swalwell, or arranging a U.S. visa for her in exchange for intel on the California gubernatorial candidate, who just happens to be an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump.

More than a decade ago, the FBI investigated Fang over suspicions that she formed close relationships with American politicians, including Swalwell, as a political intelligence operative for China. She helped raise funds for Swalwell’s 2014 re-election campaign and helped install at least one intern in his office.

But no public evidence of wrongdoing against Swalwell was found, and a two-year House Ethics Committee probe into him ended in 2023 with the Republican-led panel deciding to “take no further action.”

Patel’s push to release files on Swalwell has raised concerns within the FBI about potentially compromising law enforcement sources and investigative methods, according to the Post.

The FBI did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment on Saturday. An agency spokesperson told the Post that the contentions in its story were “incorrect.”

“This FBI, being the most transparent in history, prepares documents for numerous different reasons, including for release to different agencies and departments to further review investigations that may have been opened under previous administrations,” the spokesperson said.

Sources also told The Washington Post that the FBI appears to be struggling to bring a criminal case against Swalwell. Last year, Trump’s Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte referred the Democratic lawmaker to the Justice Department for a criminal probe over allegations of mortgage and tax fraud linked to his Washington, D.C., home.

Swalwell, a longtime Trump critic who served as House impeachment manager during his second impeachment trial in 2021, blasted “the outrageous ends the White House will go to target political opponents.”

“As was Trump’s mortgage case against me, this decade-old story is, of course, nonsense,” Swalwell said in a statement. “The reason Trump is so desperately trying to stop me is not because I’m running for Governor of California, but because now I’m the favorite.”

“Kash Patel should be spending every moment trying to keep us safe. Not score political points,” he added.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/keystone-kash-patels-pathetic-fbi-play-on-eric-swalwell-to-please-donald-trump-exposed/?

[phkrause]

‘King’ Trump, 79, Suffers Another Worldwide Humiliation

Protesters all over the world have joined Americans in blasting Donald Trump.

It’s not just Americans who are turning out in droves to call out Donald Trump.

Protesters around the world poured out onto the streets on Saturday to take part in “No Kings” rallies as Americans geared up for the third installment of the popular movement against Trump, which is expected to draw millions of people.

In Italy, France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, and Australia, protesters took to the streets, carrying signs blasting the 79-year-old American president and his war with Iran.

In Rome, people held up an enormous banner that read, “For a world free from war” in Italian.

In Paris, one handmade sign declared, “No Kings” in French.In Madrid, a woman showed up with a placard that said “Power to the people” in Spanish.In Berlin, a cardboard sign asserted “No leader principle in [the] USA” in German, referring to a Nazi doctrine insisting on unquestioning obedience to Adolf Hitler.In Amsterdam, one banner asked, “WTF America.”In Athens, protesters marched in lockstep carrying a banner that pleaded “no to war” in Greek.In Sydney, a man held up a sign that read “We can’t stand him either.”

In the U.S., meanwhile, more than 3,000 “No Kings” protests were scheduled across the country. This was the third time since Trump returned to office that Americans have rallied against him on issues ranging from his heavy-handed immigration blitz to the fast-rising cost of living.

In Washington, D.C., protesters carried an inflatable effigy of Trump as they marched in his backyard.

“When I stood at the first ‘No Kings’ rally, we were fighting to protect democracy at home and against federal agents and troops that were deployed on American streets, against a government that was manufacturing a crisis to justify using its power against its own people,” Army veteran Naveed Shah, an organizer from the group Common Defense, said.

“Today, we’re still fighting that same fight, but now that manufactured crisis has gone global,” he added.

The largely peaceful protests drew more than 7 million people in October, up from more than 5 million in June, overshadowing Trump’s birthday parade.“Our members will be turning out peacefully in the streets because they believe in a better future for this country, and they can’t sit by on the sidelines about what Trump and his administration are doing to our home,” MoveOn executive director Katie Bethell said.

“Let’s be clear, the Trump administration has become a threat to the American people at every level. They are waging violence at home and abroad.”

When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/king-trump-79-suffers-another-worldwide-humiliation-with-no-kings-protests/?