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

May 31

Humiliating Reality of Trump’s Giant Peace Grift Exposed

Several countries that pledged billions of dollars have not actually given any money.

Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which vowed to help rebuild Gaza, has no real funding despite receiving billions of dollars in pledges, according to a new report.

The president formally announced the board in January. Countries could join by contributing $1 billion, and members included Azerbaijan, Israel, Qatar, and Bahrain.

Nine countries later pledged more than $9 billion toward a Gaza “relief package” for the war-torn territory following years of fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

However, the Board of Peace’s World Bank-backed fund has still not received any substantial donor funding, four people familiar with the matter told The Financial Times. “Zero dollars have been deposited,” one source said.

Of the nine countries that pledged money to the relief package, only the United Arab Emirates and Morocco have actually sent any funds.

Morocco’s $20 million contribution has gone toward funding an office for Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat serving as “high representative” for post-war Gaza, as well as salaries for a Palestinian technocratic committee formed by the board to help govern the strip.

The UAE provided $100 million to train a new police force for Gaza, but the funds are currently frozen, and no progress has been made on the initiative, sources told the FT.

Elsewhere, the State Department pledged to redirect around $1.2 billion in aid toward projects linked to Trump’s Board of Peace. However, the money—which the board would not manage directly—has reportedly not yet been spent.

“None of that money [has gone to the board]. None of that money is being managed by the Board of Peace. And State tells us there’s no intent to have any of that money managed by the Board of Peace,” a senior congressional aide told the FT.

Sources also said that “not one U.S. dollar” has gone toward rebuilding Gaza, four months after Trump’s board was established.

A spokesperson for the board said it has yet to award contracts for security and reconstruction projects in the strip because “we’re not operating in Gaza yet,” citing Hamas’ refusal to disarm.

It was previously reported that several countries that pledged billions toward the board’s goals are reluctant to pay up because there has been little real progress in Gaza, even after a ceasefire agreement was reached. Trump’s war in Iran, which he started on Feb. 28, has also heightened those concerns.

“Nobody with money and resources wants to work with the Board of Peace,” a source told The Guardian. “Lump on the conflict with Iran, and the people with deep pockets now have an excuse not to pay.”

A spokesperson for the board also told the FT that a major issue with the funding effort is that there is no governing authority on the ground “to handle the flow of services and goods that are imagined as part of the plan.”

“We’re not, like, hoarding money in a bank account and then awarding contracts for things that can’t be delivered,” the spokesperson added.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the State Department for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/humiliating-reality-of-trumps-giant-peace-grift-exposed/?

May 31

Trump Goons’ $10B Mistake Spotted in Court Docs

The new system for tariff refunds was set up last month.

A court declaration filed by the Trump administration has revealed that Customs and Border Protection overstated its tariff refunds by at least $10 billion.

The agency announced Tuesday that it had certified $20.6 billion in tariff refunds to U.S. importers that filed claims through its newly launched web portal. It is the first major wave of reimbursements processed since the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs President Donald Trump imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) earlier this year.

However, a new government declaration filed with the U.S. Court of International Trade highlighted a significant miscalculation in the sums. CBP stated that the value of refunds processed at the start of the program was far lower than reported in earlier updates to the court, according to a Bloomberg report.

Two weeks ago, a U.S. trade official said the administration was issuing more than $35.5 billion to importers.

However, that figure “was overstated by approximately $10 billion,” according to Brandon Lord, executive director of trade programs for CBP’s Office of Trade, with the actual figure closer to $25 billion.

The claims were submitted through a new web platform called the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) system, which launched last month. The system was created inside the wider customs filing platform used for import entries.

“This was not a reflection of any error in CAPE (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries) processing or refunds, but rather was the result of an inadvertent error in the data query used to calculate the figure,” Lord said, noting that around $64 billion in potential and certified refunds have been approved for processing

CBP estimates total refunds could reach $85 billion. The payments include interest on duties paid across more than 8 million import entries.

The refund process traces back to a Supreme Court ruling in February that held that the use of IEEPA to impose Trump’s tariffs was illegal.

The Court determined that the White House had exceeded its delegated powers, as the Constitution explicitly assigns tariff authority to Congress.

That created a legal obligation to refund duties that had been collected under what turned out to be an unconstitutional framework. This included recalculating entries and refunding money to all eligible importers, not just those that had gone to court to fight the changes.

The refund program is being monitored by the trade court, which has instructed CBP to provide regular updates as the billions are sent to importers.

Tuesday’s filing also stated that more than 4,000 consolidated refund payments remain in limbo as importers have yet to establish their digital payment capability.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-goons-10b-tariff-mistake-spotted-in-court-docs/?

May 31

Bombshell Letter Sounds Alarm on ‘Meddling’ MAGA Billionaire

Document warns that Ellison’s latest mega media merger is a “political arrangement.”

More than 200 journalists and program makers have signed a letter warning of the impact that Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery will have on CNN and HBO.

MAGA-friendly media conglomerate Paramount is in the process of acquiring WBD, the parent company of CNN and HBO, in an $81 billion deal that, if approved by shareholders, will ultimately merge HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single streaming service.

Paramount CEO David Ellison is a tech billionaire and Trump ally who has forged close links to the current U.S. administration. He has been spotted next to the president at UFC matches and attended this year’s State of the Union address with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

After Skydance merged with Paramount last year, bringing CBS under Ellison’s control, he installed the MAGA-curious Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News.

Weiss has been called out for interfering in the output of CBS’s flagship news show 60 Minutes, including withdrawing a segment shortly before it was due to air, in order to seek input from the Trump administration.

The warning letter, to be delivered to Paramount this week, documents media industry fears that Ellison’s influence over impartial news reporting will also take hold at HBO and CNN, both of which Trump regularly criticizes.

The letter, organized by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and obtained by Status, is signed by around 200 current and former journalists, including former ABC News anchor Sam Donaldson, former CNN anchor Jim Acosta, and former ABC and CBS News correspondent Judy Muller.

The signatories oppose the merger with WBD, claiming it will “open the door to improper political meddling in journalists’ editorial decisions.”

The letter states, “Ellison will likely alter CNN’s editorial direction (not to mention meddle with HBO’s documentaries) to be more friendly to the administration, threatening press freedom.”

It warned that members of the president’s administration “expect exactly that,” and cited “sweeping changes to appease Trump,” at CBS, including the hiring of “Trump-aligned columnist Bari Weiss.”

It referred to a report in The Wall Street Journal last December, in which David Ellison was said to have visited Washington to reassure Trump administration officials that he would overhaul CNN if he bought WBD.

The Journal said Trump had told people close to him that he wants new ownership of CNN, as well as changes to CNN programming.

After the death of CNN founder Ted Turner this month, as part of his tribute Trump said the network “became woke.”

“Maybe the new buyers, wonderful people, will be able to bring it back to its former credibility and glory,” Trump wrote, seemingly referencing Ellison.

The letter being sent to Paramount this week said, “We urge federal and state regulators, as well as Paramount shareholders and news consumers, to treat this merger not as an arms-length and above board business transaction, but as what it plainly is: a political arrangement to circumvent constitution safeguards, with severe consequences for American democracy.”

Ellison is hoping to close the deal by July, according to Status.

The Daily Beast has contacted Paramount and Freedom of the Press Foundation for comment.

Also signing the letter are former MSNBC host Katie Phang, Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras and Emmy-winning filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir.

Another signee is current CNN contributor Sarah Elizabeth Cupp, better known as S.E. Cupp. She told Status, “journalism is under assault in America—not just by authoritarian forces, but by market forces, too.”

“It’s more important than ever that news organizations be stewarded by people and entities that prioritize facts, truth, and accountability, not dollars, deals, and political power grabs,” Cupp said.

Trump has saved some of his worst vitriol for CNN journalists, often insulting the “irrelevant” network on his social media. He has also repeatedly clashed with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, whom he once called “the worst reporter,” and criticized for never smiling.

“I’ve known you for 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face. You know why you’re not smiling? Because you know you’re not telling the truth,” he told Collins in response to a question about the Epstein files.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bombshell-letter-sounds-alarm-on-meddling-trump-ally-billionaire-david-ellison/?

May 31

Trump is getting the Republican Party that he wants. But can he win in the midterms?

President Donald Trump is on a winning streak in Republican primaries, most recently endorsing Ken Paxton ahead of his Tuesday runoff victory over Sen. John Cornyn in Texas. But Trump’s tightening grip on his party could make it harder to win in the November midterms, when Republicans face a broader electorate that has soured on the president’s second term and the economy. Read more.

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🇮🇷 President Trump said during a Cabinet meeting today that Iran is "very much intent" on making a deal, but he won't let the Iranians rush him into anything. Trump told reporters: "They thought they're going to outwait me. ... I don't care about the midterms." Get the latest.

📺 CBS News declined to renew its contract with "60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, six months after editor-in-chief Bari Weiss pulled her segment on torture in Salvadoran prisons. N.Y. Times gift link.

May 31

A Slow Roll

																(Alex Wroblewski / Bloomberg / Getty)
															

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For months, Donald Trump has been desperate for Iran to loosen its grip on the Strait of Hormuz. Now he says it’s happening; a deal to reopen the waterway “has been largely negotiated,” per a Truth Social post on Saturday. Nothing has been finalized, and details are sparse; the White House claimed that a draft agreement released by Iranian state media today was a “complete fabrication.” But even if an agreement does emerge, reestablishing normal ship traffic through the strait will take time—and energy markets won’t necessarily be quick to respond.

Getting vessels through the strait isn’t simply a matter of telling captains to start their engines. Before they can set sail, they need to know what routes they can reasonably take, and whether they might trigger any of the underwater mines still reportedly lingering in the area. Seafarers will need assurances of safe passage before oil, fertilizer, helium, aluminum, and other commodities can actually start to reach their ports and relieve global markets.

First, both shipping companies and energy traders will need to be convinced of a lasting peace that protects travel through the strait. Trump has falsely announced breakthroughs before: During the past three months of war, the president has claimed repeatedly that the conflict is effectively over and that much of Iran’s military capacity has been destroyed. These statements are directly contradicted by the facts: The war continues—the U.S. launched strikes as recently as Monday—and Iran has proved its resilience. Last month, after Iran agreed to reopen the waterway amid a tentative cease-fire, Trump wrote on social media that Iran had “agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again,” and that it would “no longer be used as a weapon against the World!” Iran closed the strait the next day.

In recent weeks, officials on both sides have claimed that they are inching closer to a deal to end the war and reopen the strait. But the announcement of a deal, if it comes, wouldn’t be a guarantee of peace in the region. The U.S. has lately been escorting trapped vessels, and some crews have paid tolls in exchange for safe passage—yet as this week’s strikes make clear, the conflict remains volatile even during a cease-fire. A deal could break down almost as quickly as it’s announced. Claire O’Neill McCleskey, who previously led the compliance division at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, told me that “a Truth Social post is not going to be sufficient to convince people to take the risk.”

If a lasting deal does materialize, immediate dangers could still persist. According to The New York Times, American officials signaled last month that Iran’s military may not be able to locate all of the mines it has placed. Trump has said that the U.S. Navy cleared a portion of them out, but the fear that some mines remain could be enough to deter ships. (Captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, said on Monday that the renewed strikes on Iran were in part targeting boats trying to lay new mines.) The International Energy Agency reported this month that getting minesweeping resources into the region could take “several weeks,” and the cleanup could take “a minimum of two to three months” to “re-establish steady export operations.”

Then there are the logistical concerns. Some ships are still operating with skeleton crews and will need to bring on new workers to restart operations; others will need to be cleaned of barnacles and algae. What lane should these ships use as they make their way through the strait, and in what order should they attempt to cross? Iran has been trying to reroute traffic closer to its shores, creating a new strategic choke point near Larak Island, which the country controls. It’s unclear whether true freedom of navigation will eventually return to the region. Trump insisted during a Cabinet meeting today that “nobody’s going to control” the strait, but Iranian officials are unlikely to give up their new power after leveraging it so successfully.

Resolving the larger problem—the most significant oil shock in history, by some estimates —could take longer still. When ship traffic starts up again, tankers headed for, say, East Asia, might take weeks to reach their destination. Another issue is the Middle East’s reduced capacity to produce the oil that’s loaded on these ships. Damaged refineries will need repairing (Ras Laffan, a large Qatari facility hit by drone and missile strikes, isn’t expected to return to full capacity for three to five years), and closed-up wells will need to be carefully reopened, which could reportedly take as long as a few weeks.

Traders are already responding—Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil futures, fell almost 7 percent after Trump’s social-media post this past weekend and jumped back up about 4 percent after news of the strikes broke on Monday evening. But prices are still far from normal. Brent crude is trading at about $95 a barrel, up $25 since the start of the war, and the average price of gas in the U.S. is nearly $4.50 a gallon. Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me that should a “credible peace deal” come through today and oil prices decline, he’d expect that to affect gas prices within two to three weeks. The sheer number of variables here has led different experts to come up with very different guesses about what might happen to the oil market once the war ends. One CNN analyst recently suggested that gas won’t return to the prewar national average of $3 a gallon until 2032.

The war is now approaching its fourth month; even Trump is tired of it. But because neither side’s representations have exactly proved credible, seafarers may not know how to proceed if and when a deal is announced. Whatever they decide, they’ll be moving carefully—and slowly.

Related:

May 31

Trump's Cuba war games

Photo illustration of a collage featuring Donald Trump over a map focusing on Cuba, and red triangles and blue, red, and yellow stripes.

Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

The Trump administration is bracing for the potential collapse of Cuba's totalitarian government as early as this summer, and has war-gamed military response plans in case the island descends into chaos, U.S. officials tell Axios' Marc Caputo.

Why it matters: President Trump hasn't authorized an invasion and prefers a peaceful transition to a free Cuba. So the administration will keep pushing economic sanctions to try to strangle the regime in Havana in a slow-motion constriction.

"The best way to describe it is 'accelerationism,'" a senior administration official said, referring to hastening societal collapse.

"But we don't want to kill off the regime just yet. There's a method to this. It's in stages."

🔎 Zoom in: This methodical squeezing of Cuba's communist regime aims to buy time for Trump, engrossed in peace talks with Iran, to eventually focus on Cuba.

"Iran's not finished, and the president is not in a rush," another senior administration official said. "Trump wants to exhaust all the levers that he can. But at this point, there aren't as many levers as before."
A third senior administration official said: "We have a pretty deep toolbox, especially when it comes to sanctions and enforcing them. More is on the way."

The big picture: The Cuba operation aims to eliminate the wellspring of Latin American Marxist agitation and anti-U.S. activism, ever since Fidel and Raúl Castro led their successful revolution in 1959.

To bring Cuba to its knees this year, the administration first targeted the island's lifeline: Venezuela and its socialist leader, Nicolás Maduro, who kept Havana afloat with oil shipments that powered the country and gave it export revenue.

👀 Inside the room: Last month, U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the Caribbean, held a multiagency "tabletop" exercise to prepare for military action in Cuba, one of the senior administration officials said.

"Everything is on the table, but no invasion is planned or imminent," the official said. "When POTUS says go, we're ready for anything."

In the exercise, another source said, U.S. officials discussed Cuba's possession of drones and how to respond to possible unrest in the sweltering Cuban heat as spring turns to summer.

"It's going to be hot," the source said. "People won't have electricity. Food spoils without refrigeration. People get angry. They can take to the streets. And then what happens? I can't see the president doing nothing if there's repression."
Another source, a Trump adviser, disagreed: "The president does not want boots on the ground for more than 48 hours. It's a quagmire in the making. This could get messy."

One presidential adviser said the approach to Cuba is "classic Trump: Push your enemy off balance. It's pressure, watch the response, apply more pressure, watch the response, apply more pressure."

One of the officials said: "We have time. The regime doesn't."

Go deeper: 3 crucial differences between Cuba and Venezuela.

May 31

💥 Iran war drains America's arsenal

Illustrated collage of the Earth on a red background with the globe showing as a hot orange color and lines going all around it like missile trail lines.

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

The Iran war has exacerbated a shortage of missile-defense weaponry that is likely to plague the U.S. and its partners, from Ukraine to Taiwan, for years to come, Axios' Dave Lawler and Colin Demarest write.

Why it matters: The conflict is draining weapons stockpiles far faster than American factories can replace them, leaving the Pentagon and its allies scrambling to ramp up production and find cheaper alternatives.

The report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies finds the U.S. used so many interceptors from missile defense systems like Patriot and THAAD in the Middle East that stockpiles won't be replenished until 2029.

And that's if the war doesn't resume.

🧮 The math is stark: The U.S. took delivery of just 172 Patriot interceptors in fiscal year 2026 and has used more than 1,000 in the Iran war, according to CSIS.

The Pentagon insists it's maintained enough capability to defend the U.S. and prosecute the Iran war.

Keep reading.

May 31

Trump Eyes His Next Targets in Petty Revenge Tour

The president is on a cull of GOP ranks that could continue well beyond the current election cycle.

President Donald Trump is on a “revenge tour” among Republican Party ranks that could very well continue right up into the 2028 election cycle.

The president has already gotten his own back against Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn in the current cycle.

Massie had proven himself a constant thorn in Trump’s side over the Epstein files furor, while Cassidy was one of seven GOP senators to vote for conviction after Trump’s second impeachment. The president has claimed Cornyn was “not supportive of me when times were tough.”

Trump backed challengers against all three in the Republican primaries this month. All three incumbents lost. Former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein will now contest Massie’s seat, with scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton running for Cornyn’s.

Louisiana Rep. Julia Letlow now advances to a runoff with state Treasurer John Fleming, incidentally another Trump favorite, for a spot at the top of the party ticket in the race for Cassidy’s seat.

Politico noted Wednesday that “Trump’s appetite for revenge” has not so far proven “entirely consistent.” Maine Sen. Susan Collins stands as a conspicuous exception, given that, like Cassidy, she voted to impeach Trump back in 2021.

The president warned Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert earlier this month that he would back a primary challenge against her over her support for Massie, but failed to do so before the filing deadline.

Trump also threatened Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick last week for not doing enough to back MAGA’s legislative agenda. His fury landed the day after Fitzpatrick had already advanced through an uncontested party race, and the congressman is now set to run on a GOP ticket for a sixth term.

“The real fireworks could come in 2028 Senate primaries,” Politico writes, naming three Senate Trump critics who might very well find themselves on the chopping block when the time comes.

Trump called Kentucky’s Rand Paul, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, and Indiana’s Todd Young out earlier this year after they voted to push a resolution that might have curtailed his administration from any further military action against the Venezuelan regime following his capture of Nicolas Maduro in January.

He wrote in a virulent Truth Social post that all three “should never be elected again.” Politico also identified Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who otherwise enjoys a warm relationship with the president, as an official who could face obstacles.

Thune has publicly insisted the GOP lacks the votes to push through measures to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate, even as Trump continues to trumpet the move as essential for the party’s political survival.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis told the outlet he could easily see a number of his colleagues in the legislature leave office rather than face down the president’s fury in two years’ time. Tillis himself is retiring after the November midterms after tangling with Trump over the president’s crusade against former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

“But I also think… he’s not going to carry the same weight in the 2028 election cycle, particularly if we’ve lost one or both chambers in 2026,” Tillis said of any future cull, given Democrats currently hold an almost 7-point lead in this year’s battle for control of the House and Senate.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-eyes-next-revenge-targets-in-congress-and-the-senate-ahead-of-2028-cycle/?

ps:So pathetic!!!!!

May 31

Veteran Slams Draft-Dodging Trump Over Vanity Project Claim

“This is a monument to the ego of one man,” the Vietnam War veteran said of the president’s proposed triumphal arch.

A Vietnam War veteran suing to block Donald Trump’s proposed triumphal arch in Washington, D.C., tore into the president over his claims the project would commemorate the nation’s founding and military history.

Jon Gunderson, 81, slammed the planned monument in an interview with MS NOW’s Katy Tur on Tuesday, calling it “a monument to the ego of one man” rather than a tribute to veterans.

Trump, 79, unveiled plans last year for a 250-foot gilded triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial as part of celebrations marking America’s 250th anniversary. In a Truth Social post last month, the president said his administration had “officially filed the presentation and plans to the highly respected Commission of Fine Arts for what will be the GREATEST and MOST BEAUTIFUL Triumphal Arch, anywhere in the World.” Gunderson is among a group of Vietnam War veterans suing to stop construction of the project. They argue it was never authorized by Congress and that it would obstruct views of Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 400,000 American service members are buried.

“This is not a monument to veterans. This is a monument to the ego of one man,” Gunderson said during an appearance on Katy Tur Reports.

“And we know from Arlington National Cemetery, which was built after the Civil War to unify the nation, you had this sweeping view of Washington, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument,” he said.

“This arch, which is bigger than the Statue of Liberty, bigger than the Lincoln Memorial, bigger than the Arc de Triomphe, would take away that view,” Gunderson added.

“It’s disrespectful for veterans. It’s not the way to honor veterans.”

The veteran also took aim at Trump after Tur noted the president’s insistence that the arch would honor veterans.

“Well, it’s a little ironic that somebody who avoided service with daddy’s rich help talks about honoring veterans,” Gunderson said.

Trump received five military deferments during the 1960s, four for academic reasons and one for bone spurs.

The veteran went on to criticize Trump over a report from The Washington Post that the president plans to cite a nearly century-old government report that authorized a similar project to skip approval from the current Congress for his arch.

Trump’s administration officials argue Congress pre-approved the 2026 arch when lawmakers signed off on a report by the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission in 1925.

“If you honor veterans, you do it the right way. Now, I’m not an architect. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know exactly the right way, but it’s certainly not finding some arcane 1924 law of a disbarred committee and justifying it. It’s got to go through the Congress,” Gunderson added.

In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the arch “is going to be one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world.”

“It will enhance the visitor experience at Arlington National Cemetery for veterans, the families of the fallen, and all Americans alike, serving as a visual reminder of the noble sacrifices borne by so many American heroes throughout our 250 year history so we can enjoy our freedoms today,” said Ingle.

“President Trump will continue to honor our veterans and give the greatest Nation on earth — America — the glory it deserves,” the spokesman added.

The proposed arch is just one of many vanity projects Trump has kick-started since returning to the White House for a second term last year.

He has gilded the Oval Office with rococo mirrors, gold medallions, and eagle figurines, and erected oversized flagpoles on the grounds. The president has also sparked uproar for his costly plans to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which is expected to be completed in late 2028, coinciding with the end of his term in office.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/veteran-slams-draft-dodging-trump-over-vanity-project-claim/?

May 31

AP Exclusive: Trump administration tells prosecutors to stand down on Venezuela leader, sources say

The Trump administration has quietly instructed federal prosecutors in Miami to avoid pursuing criminal investigations into Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a longtime target of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to current and former U.S. law enforcement officials. Read more.

Why this matters:

It's the latest sign of warming relations between the White House and the oil-rich nation, as the Trump administration seeks to work with Rodríguez to stabilize Venezuela after Nicolás Maduro’s ouster and open the country to U.S. investment.
It’s unclear whether prosecutors had implicated Rodriguez in any crimes or whether investigators were moving toward an indictment. A Justice Department spokesperson said in an email “there was never an investigation into her to shut down.” But DEA records obtained by the AP earlier this year show she consistently surfaced on the radar of federal law enforcement dating to at least 2018, though she has never been criminally charged in the U.S. like several other senior Venezuelan officials. Rodríguez, a U.S. attorney representing her and the Venezuelan Communications Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

May 31

Trump Judge Gives Shock Green Light to His Voting Power Grab

Democrats had argued that Trump’s order was unconstitutional.

A federal judge has declined to block an executive order signed by Donald Trump that targets his longtime enemy, mail-in ballots.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Federalist Society member who was nominated to the bench by Trump in June 2018, ruled that Democrats’ hopes to block the plan—which would create a federal list of citizens eligible to vote and ask the U.S. Postal Service to only mail ballots to those people—were premature.

“Given that the Executive Order does not command Plaintiffs to do anything, and that no agency has yet acted pursuant to the Order in a way that could harm Plaintiffs, they have not suffered any harm at present,” wrote Nichols.

Democrats had argued that the order was unconstitutional as it infringed on individual states’ rights to regulate elections.

Trump has long waged a war against mail-in ballots, including pushing the debunked claim that they were the cause of widespread voter fraud at the 2020 election.

Despite this, Trump himself used mail-in voting to cast his ballot in a March Florida special election for a district that encompasses his Mar-a-Lago resort. Democrat Emily Gregory won the race over Republican candidate Jon Maples in a shock victory.

Judge Nichols said the Democrats who filed their original legal challenge, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, could file a fresh injunction once federal agencies begin implementing the executive order.

The move from Trump came as the president and the GOP seek any advantage they can ahead of November’s midterm elections, where Republicans are expected to suffer major losses.

Historically, Democratic voters favor mail-in ballots, whereas Republicans tend to vote on the day of an election.

On May 31, Trump signed an executive order, which he claimed would “enhance election integrity” via the U.S. Mail.

This includes asking the Department of Homeland Security to create “state citizenship lists” from federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security records, and other federal databases.

This list would then be used to help state election officials verify their voter rolls and determine who is eligible to vote, with the U.S. Postal Service only allowed to deliver ballots to these approved voters.

Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Heather Williams suggested the move from Trump amounted to “voter suppression” and a “desperate move by Trump to steal the next election.”

“This is a blatant attempt by the president to undermine states’ control over election administration for his own benefit—which is a direct attack on the Constitution and our democracy,” she said.

Nichols previously asked those challenging the order how he could block it before he even knew “how DHS is going to compile the list.”

“We don’t know, sitting here today, whether any of these steps are going to take place,” Nichols said during a May 14 hearing, via Roll Call.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-judge-carl-nichols-gives-shock-green-light-to-his-mail-in-voting-power-grab/?

May 31

Judge refuses to block Trump order to limit mail voting. There’s no immediate effect on the midterms

A federal judge has declined to halt President Donald Trump’s executive order creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections are run shortly before this year’s midterm elections.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-elections-mail-voting-executive-order-9474fae41161dc5954295ae1370bcb88?

May 31

Key inflation gauge worsens as Americans' income and spending power erodes

A key inflation gauge accelerated in April to the highest level in three years, squeezing Americans’ finances and creating political challenges for President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans with midterm elections just five months away. The report also showed, in addition to gasoline, prices for groceries, clothing and electricity are also on the rise, indicating that inflation may be growing more entrenched. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

Sunday at 11:28 PM

Insiders Spill Trump’s Secret Plot for Regime Collapse

The president hopes “accelerationism” will defeat Cuba, rather than a full-scale invasion.

Donald Trump is not in a rush to invade Cuba, as he believes the communist regime could fall apart within a matter of months, according to a report.

Multiple insiders told Axios that the president believes Cuba’s government could collapse by the summer, and that expectation is influencing future policy toward Havana, including whether to eventually resort to military action.

Trump has frequently suggested that Cuba could be his next target after the war in Iran, but so far he has focused on incremental regime-change measures, including economic sanctions and cutting off oil supplies from Venezuela.

“The best way to describe it is ‘accelerationism,’” one senior administration official told Axios, referring to the fringe philosophy of speeding up a perceived inevitable societal collapse. “But we don’t want to kill off the regime just yet. There’s a method to this. It’s in stages.”

The strategy of waiting for a potential societal collapse in Cuba also gives Trump more time to focus on the deeply unpopular Middle East conflict, which has dragged on for three months.

It has been reported that Senate Republicans have warned Trump against opening a fresh conflict with Cuba while the war in Iran continues.

“Iran’s not finished, and the president is not in a rush,” another senior administration official told Axios. “Trump wants to exhaust all the levers that he can. But at this point, there aren’t as many levers as before.”

A third senior administration official said the U.S. government still has a “pretty deep toolbox” for maintaining pressure on Cuba, including imposing additional sanctions. “More is on the way,” the official added.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

The Trump administration has insisted there are no immediate plans to invade Cuba to force regime change.

However, a senior official told Axios that U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the Caribbean, recently conducted a multiagency “tabletop” exercise to prepare for potential military action in Cuba.

“Everything is on the table, but no invasion is planned or imminent,” the official said. “When POTUS says go, we’re ready for anything.”

It remains unclear what such military action against Cuba might look like. Politico reported earlier this month that options under consideration ranged from a limited U.S. airstrike as a warning shot to a full-scale invasion.

One Trump adviser told Axios that the president is unlikely to launch an all-out war against Cuba and does not want “boots on the ground for more than 48 hours.”

“It’s a quagmire in the making. This could get messy,” the adviser added.

“Push your enemy off balance. It’s pressure, watch the response, apply more pressure, watch the response, apply more pressure,” the adviser said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/insiders-spill-trumps-secret-plot-for-regime-collapse/?

ps:What a pathetic warmonger president!!

Sunday at 11:33 PM

Republicans Melt Down Over Trump’s ‘Self-Inflicted’ Disaster

The president’s decision to back a scandal magnet in the Texas Republican primary has, remarkably, not gone down well.

Republicans are biting their nails over how much cash Donald Trump’s meddling in a primary race may now mean they have to splurge on a general election in a state that should’ve been theirs for the taking.

Scandal magnet Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton got a runoff win over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn for the top spot on the GOP’s ticket in November after president issued a last-minute endorsement. But the primary is estimated to have cost the party’s warring factions a record-breaking total of $135 million, and Paxton will now compete with rising Democratic star James Talarico for Cornyn’s seat.

Almost a dozen party donors and strategists told Politico on Thursday they’re now terrified it could cost as much as an additional $150 million to haul Paxton, 63, through his midterm contest with Talarico, 36.

It is an extraordinary GOP expenditure for Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to statewide office in 32 years.

Those costs would, in turn, drain key resources from races in other traditional battleground states. “Last night will go down as one of the worst self-inflicted political wounds of all-time,” as one source put it to Politico.

“No one is happier than Democrats,” another agreed. “Even if Paxton holds the seat—as is likely, though not guaranteed—donor funds will be diverted from critical races.”

Paxton drags an unusually long list of scandals with him into the contest—even for a Trump favorite. He faced three felony counts within just months of taking office in 2015 over claims he’d funneled investors toward a tech company that was quietly paying him.

His own aides then reported him to the FBI in 2020, alleging he’d used his powers as a public official to grant favors to a wealthy donor, real estate mogul Nate Paul. The allegations drove his 2023 impeachment by the Republican-led Texas House on bribery and abuse-of-office articles, though the state Senate ultimately acquitted him.

Paxton’s personal life has proven just as messy. The impeachment proceedings exposed an extramarital affair with a Senate aide, Laura Olson, whom Paul had given a job at his company, which critics slammed as a bare-faced bribe. Paxton’s wife, Republican state Sen. Angela Paxton, announced last July she was divorcing him “on biblical grounds.”

Contrast that record with Talarico—a squeaky-clean former middle school teacher who can quote scripture by heart—and the November race for four-term Sen. Cornyn’s seat just got more competitive than any Republican might’ve thought possible in a state this red.“Texas is not breaking its 32-year Republican streak for a woke freak who thinks there are six genders,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Zach Kraft told the Daily Beast when asked for comment on this story. “If Democrats want to light a pile of cash on fire, we will hand them the match.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-melt-down-over-trumps-self-inflicted-disaster-with-ken-paxton-pick/?

Sunday at 11:38 PM

Trump Goons’ Plot to Slap Trump’s Face on New Banknote Leaks

The honor of appearing on U.S. banknotes is usually reserved for the deceased.

Donald Trump’s loyalists at the Treasury leaned on the government’s money-printers to draw up a $250 note bearing his face, a new report has revealed.

Behind the scheme are two of the president’s political appointees, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. They are U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach, who once served in Georgia’s state senate and pushed Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and Beach’s senior adviser, Mike Brown.

Last year, the pair repeatedly pushed staff at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) to knock up Trump banknote prototypes, four of the agency’s employees told the Post—despite a law that only allows “deceased individuals” to appear on cash.

Beach went so far as to hand bureau staff mock-up designs in August and September, one parking Trump’s face dead center on the note, the Post reported.

The artist behind it, British painter Iain Alexander, said he had run the design past Trump, 79, himself. “He likes to call me his favorite British artist,” Alexander told the newspaper.

Alexander also revealed he has pitched a “women’s liberation” theme for the note’s reverse, fronted by Revolutionary War flagmaker Betsy Ross—an idea he says Trump enthusiastically backed.

A $250 note was chosen to coincide with this year’s celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.

But the idea didn’t land well with everyone. Bureau director Patricia “Patty” Solimene—who spent 24 years in the Army before becoming the first woman to run the agency—warned the appointees that the note wasn’t authorized and could take years to produce, insiders told the Post. On April 27, she was abruptly reassigned to a new job at the Treasury Department.

In a farewell email seen by the Post, Solimene said the reassignment was not her decision, signing off with a pointed “The buck stopped here.” Brown—who once chaired the Kansas Republican Party and only landed at the Treasury Department in October—has since been handed her old role.

Trump is already creeping onto U.S. cash by other means. Solimene’s team agreed to print $100 bills bearing his signature—a first for any sitting president—and the Post reports that they are now rolling off the presses in downtown Washington, D.C. The Treasury said Secretary Scott Bessent, 63, signed off on the $100 notes to recognize the country’s “historic achievements.”

Experts say the $250 note itself is going nowhere without Congress. Lawmakers floated a bill last year to let Trump grace a $250 note in time for the country’s 250th birthday, but it has not gone through.

Former bureau director Larry Felix told the Post that such a bill “is not statutorily authorized” and noted that the last $100 redesign took more than 10 years to complete.

A Treasury Department spokesperson told the Daily Beast that the BEP is only conducting “appropriate planning and due diligence” on a $250 note in response to the active legislation, and would move to produce the commemorative bill if it becomes law—insisting Beach never asked staff to print it before Congress passes anything.

The department also stressed that no taxpayer money funded the signature change, which it calls a routine update with a new administration, and that under 12 U.S.C. § 418 the Treasury secretary has full discretion over the design of Federal Reserve notes.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The currency push is the latest in Trump’s vanity blitz that has seen the State Department announce it will stamp his face on passports. And the Daily Beast reported in December how his headshot was slapped onto the main national parks pass, bumping a prize-winning photo of Glacier National Park, and sparking a lawsuit to prevent it.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-goons-plot-to-slap-trumps-face-on-new-250-banknote-leaks/?

ps:What a pathetic little vain man!!!!!

Sunday at 11:43 PM

Trump Voters Turn on Him as Price Pain Spirals

White non-college-educated voters were once the cornerstone of Trump’s support.

White

orking-class voters are turning on Donald Trump.

In 2024, 66 percent of the demographic voted for Trump, who pledged to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States by using tariffs and stopping jobs from moving overseas. He rejected what he described as the damaging effects of globalization on American workers, declaring in his victory speech that “the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”

But the data tells a different story: as of December 2025, manufacturing employment was down by 65,000 jobs compared with when he was inaugurated for his second term in January 2025.

As a result, polls now show Trump’s key voting group swinging away from him.

A CBS News poll conducted this month shows that disapproval of Trump’s job performance among white voters without a college degree has climbed to 54 percent, up sharply from 32 percent in February 2025 and 45 percent in February this year.

The same poll found that white non-college-educated voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy by 22 percentage points.

According to AAA, the national average price for regular gasoline has climbed above $4.50 a gallon, topping $5 in seven states, following Trump’s decision to wage war in Iran and the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Although Trump has brushed aside fears over rising prices—saying the rise in cost was “peanuts” in comparison to the threat of Iran developing a nuclear weapon—they are clearly having an impact on voters, especially working-class Americans in key battleground states like Ohio, which Trump won by 11 points in 2024.Austin Keyser, a leader with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Ohio, told the Washington Post he hears from other union officials about meetings where members express second thoughts about supporting Trump, pointing to frustration over higher prices and delays or setbacks in projects they are working on.

Peggy Liff, a 57-year-old welder who has voted for Trump three times, recalled a time she felt more financially secure under his first term, saying she once had “money in the bank.”

“Prices were down,” she said. “Gas was low.” Now, she said, that situation has changed. “He’s concentrating on other things, like overseas, Iran,” she said of Trump. “He says he’s doing it for us, but I don’t see where that’s happening.”

Meanwhile, Annette Dombrowksi, a 64-year-old factory janitor in Ohio who also voted for Trump, expressed deep frustration with the broader political landscape, saying, “I don’t even want to vote for anybody in the next election. I don’t care, because they’re all c---.”

“The working class voters are abandoning Donald Trump,” CNN data expert Harry Enten said, adding, “Those who have put him over the top in 2024 are saying, You know what? Not for me right now.”

White House spokesman Davis Ingle The Daily Beast: “The ultimate poll was November 5th 2024 when nearly 80 million Americans overwhelmingly elected President Trump to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda.

“No other President in history has accomplished more for the American people than President Trump, who is working tirelessly to create jobs, cool inflation, increase housing affordability, and more. The President has already made historic progress not only in America but around the world, and this is just the beginning as his agenda continues taking effect.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-voters-turn-on-him-as-price-pain-spirals/?

Sunday at 11:57 PM

Following Suit

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No White House is immune to hypocrisy. What makes the Trump administration’s approach to justice so astonishing is not just the depth of the hypocrisy but its brazenness.

Last night, CNN reported that the Department of Justice is pursuing a criminal investigation against E. Jean Carroll, the writer who has accused Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s, and won nearly $90 million in civil judgments against him. The probe reportedly focuses on whether Carroll committed perjury during her testimony related to two civil lawsuits against him, both of which she won.

The news comes less than 10 days after Trump—putatively acting as a private citizen—announced an agreement with that same Justice Department to create a $1.8 billion slush fund to reward his political allies, potentially including those who sacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“The use of government power to target individuals or entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, or ideological reasons should not be tolerated by any Administration,” the DOJ official Trent McCotter said while announcing the settlement. That quote came in a written statement, which mercifully freed him from having to keep a straight face while saying it. In truth, using government power to target individuals for political and personal reasons seems like an apt description of the probe into Carroll as well as many of the Justice Department’s steps in recent months.

Carroll’s lawsuits infuriated Trump. The president has been accused of sexual assault by many women; he has denied all accusations, although he also boasts about nonconsensual groping in the infamous Access Hollywood tape. Carroll, however, brought a case where a court actually found him liable for sexual abuse. Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote that although “Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law,” the jury found that Trump “did exactly that” in the common understanding of “rape.” Trump insulted Carroll repeatedly on Truth Social as well as on the stand during one of the trials. He insisted before the trial that he did not know her, despite a picture showing them together, and said she was not his “type,” but when shown the photograph in a deposition, he mistook her for his ex-wife Marla Maples.

Trump couldn’t beat Carroll in court (though ongoing appeals efforts mean he has not yet had to pay up), but he does have a Justice Department that has shown a willingness to bring preposterous cases against his political enemies, and an acting attorney general who appears determined to prove he can succeed at political retribution where his fired predecessor did not. (CNN reported that Todd Blanche, who holds that title, was recused from this case because of his previous work as Trump’s personal lawyer in Carroll litigation.)

The accusation of perjury centers on financial support for Carroll’s legal efforts from Reid Hoffman, a LinkedIn co-founder and major donor to liberal causes. In a 2022 deposition, Carroll said she did not have any outside support for her litigation, but two weeks later, her lawyers told a judge and Trump’s attorneys that they had secured funding from a nonprofit Hoffman leads.

There are a couple of reasons to be skeptical of claims of perjury here. First, Kaplan, the judge overseeing the civil cases, already considered and dismissed concerns over the testimony. Carroll’s lawyers said she had no communication with Hoffman or the group, but Kaplan allowed Trump’s team to question her once more. The judge then concluded that Carroll’s credibility was not in doubt and barred Trump’s attorneys from questioning her about the funding during the subsequent trial.

Second, the DOJ investigation is reportedly being overseen not by a U.S. attorney in New York, where the trial occurred, but by Andrew Boutros, the U.S. attorney in Chicago. Although this is legal, it is unusual (or it was until this Trump administration, during which DOJ has repeatedly assigned faraway offices to handle political cases). The track record of the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office is a red flag of its own: The office was recently in the news when prosecutors dismissed the only remaining misdemeanor charges against members of the “Broadview Six,” a group of people arrested at a protest at an ICE facility last fall. They had already moved to dismiss felony charges, which turned out to be a result of misconduct by prosecutors.

April Perry, the federal judge presiding over the case, said she was “incredibly shocked” by prosecutors’ conduct during grand-jury proceedings. “I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts,” she said. Prosecutors personally vouched for the credibility of evidence before a grand jury, which is impermissible. When they failed to get an indictment, they excused grand jurors who voted against charges and tried again. They also spoke with grand jurors outside of a courtroom. Later, they redacted transcripts to hide it all from Perry.

Perry summoned Boutros to her courtroom, where she scolded him. “Your sole goal is to do justice. Your client is justice itself,” she told him. “I do believe deeply in the presumption of regularity and that most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing. That trust has been broken.”

Any investigation into Carroll faces the same problem: Boutros and the Trump Justice Department as a whole no longer have the benefit of the doubt that their actions are fair and impartial, and that they aren’t just attacking Trump’s enemies, real or perceived. Even if the probe sputters, a spurious criminal investigation is a form of extrajudicial punishment. Defendants must spend time and money on attorneys; the Southern Poverty Law Center also recently found itself cut off from financial channels because it is facing a dubious indictment.

Trump ran for office decrying what he alleged was the “weaponization” of the Justice Department, and he promised to reverse it. But what was apparent then and is beyond dispute now is that Trump had no problem with politicized justice—he just wanted it on his side. The Broadview and Carroll cases show just how effectively he has achieved that.

Related:

Monday at 02:15 AM

Calling for ‘new approach,’ CBS News leader Bari Weiss replaces executive producer at ’60 Minutes’

NEW YORK (AP) — Saying it was time for a new approach and a new chapter, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss has replaced the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” naming outsider Nick Bilton, a longtime technology journalist and documentarian, as the show’s new leader.

https://apnews.com/article/cbs-60-minutes-bari-weiss-bilton-0afb86888cccd9e47a3e103a88984bba?

ps:They already had sinking numbers because of there stupidity! Now 60 minutes which was one of there bedrocks to there success is now going to go further down? But we'll see!!

Judge temporarily blocks payouts from Trump’s $1.776 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ settlement fund

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from proceeding with a new $1.776 billion settlement fund for the Republican president’s allies who believe they were victims of a weaponized government, halting its formation or any potential payouts for at least the next two weeks.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-settlement-fund-antiweaponization-8baaee6aa8d83f0ad2905f5f8d457dec?

ps:Good for the Judge!!

Judge says Kennedy Center board broke law putting Trump’s name on building and blocks closure

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center and blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations — the latest legal setback for Trump’s efforts to leave his personal mark on the landscape of the nation’s capital.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-kennedy-center-renovations-closure-1857159baf8db4692324acb7ef62f249?

Monday at 07:41 PM

Union Station gets $466M glow-up

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A National Guard member watches travelers at Union Station in Washington last year. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The Trump administration is spending nearly half a billion dollars to upgrade Washington's Union Station, Axios' Cuneyt Dil reports.

The project could become one of President Trump's most consequential efforts amid a broader push to beautify D.C. in his preferred fashion, given the train hall's role as the city's front door.

Trump is pushing a cornucopia of other projects around the nation's capital — the White House ballroom, the "Triumphal Arch," repainting the Reflecting Pool, etc. — as the city prepares for a busy summer of events tied to America's 250th birthday, the World Cup, IndyCar and more.

🚆 The Union Station plan includes overall cleanliness and security improvements, plus:

Upgrading the Amtrak lounge, passenger waiting area and "ticketing experience."
Repairing an aging roof, parking garage and other interior zones.
Touching up the "passenger concourse and customer experience" with upgrades like play areas and nursing pods.

🌎 Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters yesterday that the "special project" aims to make Union Station a "world-class transit hub" (More details).

💰 It's unclear how the new Union Station grant meshes with a proposed multibillion-dollar modernization and expansion project.

The DOT yesterday criticized the Biden administration's proposed expansion plan, calling it a "boondoggle" and "far-fetched."

🏗️ Doug Carr, a key official who helped build New York's Moynihan Train Hall, still advocates for the broader effort.

Carr said in a statement: "This new funding enables us to invest in the critical ongoing near-term improvements that enhance the existing station experience for millions of travelers, while simultaneously laying the foundation for the future Station Expansion Project."

Go deeper ...

Monday at 07:56 PM

Insiders Expose ICE Barbie Successor’s Obsession With Bonkers Revenge Plot

Markwayne Mullin is so convinced of his scheme’s brilliance that he simply can’t stop talking about it.

The newest addition to Donald Trump’s Cabinet has been chewing the president’s ear about his harebrained scheme to punish MAGA’s enemies.

Markwayne Mullin wants to target “sanctuary” cities and states, which limit cooperation with the federal government in enforcing immigration laws, by cutting the number of customs staff at their airports and potentially blocking international travelers from being processed.

Mullin replaced Kristi Noem, known as “ICE Barbie” for her habit of cosplaying as an immigration official, as Homeland Security Secretary in March after Trump fired her following a series of scandals.

Noem’s successor is apparently so eager to impress that CNN reports he’s been trying to steer conversation toward his plans for air-travel disruption at every opportunity. So far, there have been no efforts to prepare for the implementation of the measures.

“While Mullin keeps mentioning the idea in media interviews, there are no imminent plans for such a move,” the network writes, citing “two Trump officials familiar with the matter.”

“The push is seen internally as more of a personal desire of Mullin’s than one coming from inside the West Wing,” it goes on, adding that he’s been “bringing it up unprompted during meetings at the White House.”

”The president loves having a team that is constantly coming up with new ideas, but ultimately any policy decisions will be up to him,” one of the officials said.

Mullin’s idea might have met with a cool reception from Trump and his aides, but its potential for disruption has spooked the air travel industry, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

“We shouldn’t shut down air travel in a state that doesn’t agree with our politics,” Duffy told a congressional hearing last week.

Duffy has his own complicated relationship with air travel—or more specifically, air-travel safety.

During Duffy’s tenure as transportation secretary to date there have been several high-profile aircraft collisions and near-misses.

Many proved fatal, such as the January 2025 Potomac River crash that killed all 67 people aboard a commercial aircraft and a military helicopter that collided above Washington, D.C., or last November’s disaster in Louisville, Kentucky, when 15 people died when a cargo jet crashed seconds after takeoff.

The Daily Beast contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the White House for comment on this story.

A DHS spokesperson provided comments from Secretary Mullin: “We’re currently drawing up plans to say listen, in these sanctuary cities where the local radical left Democrats aren’t allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws, we shouldn’t be processing international flights into their cities either, because they don’t want us to enforce immigration but they want us to process immigration at their facilities? Nothing about that makes sense to me.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/insiders-expose-ice-barbie-successor-markwayne-mullins-obsession-with-bonkers-revenge-plot/?

Monday at 08:03 PM

Trump Triggers ‘Alarm Bells’ With Jaw-Dropping $9.7B Deal

Government ethics watchdogs are taking a closer look at the president’s stock purchases in the weeks leading up to the contract.

Donald Trump bought more than $1 million in Dell Technologies stock weeks before the tech giant secured a $9.7 billion Pentagon contract, triggering warnings from ethics watchdogs.

The Defense Department announced Wednesday that Dell Federal Systems, the company’s government-focused unit, had secured a five-year contract to oversee purchases of Microsoft software, services, and licenses across the military, intelligence community, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Dell shares surged nearly 40 percent in after-hours trading on Thursday after details of the deal were announced.

The contract was awarded after Trump’s investment portfolio purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of Dell stock on Feb. 10, according to financial disclosures. The filings also showed additional smaller Dell purchases in March.

The timing of the Pentagon contract has raised eyebrows, given that Trump, 79, has repeatedly publicly praised the U.S. tech company at events. Nine days after Trump purchased more than $1 million in Dell stock, he told a crowd in Georgia to “go out and buy a Dell computer,” as the company makes “phenomenal products.”

Trump’s relationship with the Dell family has also drawn scrutiny. In December, Dell CEO Michael Dell and his wife pledged billions to fund the so-called “Trump Accounts” of 25 million American kids.

“This absolutely does ring alarm bells with regard to conflicts of interest,” Greg Williams, director of the Center for Defense Information at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, told The Washington Post.

Presidents are exempt from federal conflict-of-interest laws that prohibit government employees from taking official actions that could benefit their personal finances.

Margaret Dylus-Yukins, senior legal counsel for ethics at the Campaign Legal Center and a former Office of Government Ethics lawyer, told the Post that “the ethics norm has been for presidents to historically avoid even the appearance of self-enrichment.”

“The fact that President Trump promoted a company owned by his friend that he also invests in does, indeed, create an appearance of a conflict of interest, though it does not constitute an actual ethics violation under the current rules,” Dylus-Yukins added.

When contacted for comment, White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Daily Beast that “Michael and Susan Dell are two of many entrepreneurs and philanthropists who have answered President Trump’s call to action to invest in the next generation of Americans through Trump Accounts.”

“President Trump’s only interest is doing what’s best for the American people, and his effusive praise for the Dells is rooted only in their patriotic contribution of over $6 billion to the Trump Accounts of 25 million working-class American children,” the spokesman added.

Trump’s family and his administration have brushed off insider trading accusations.

Earlier this month, the Trump Organization said in a statement that the president’s investments are placed by outside brokerage firms and that the accounts are overseen by independent third-party investment managers.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement last week that Trump’s assets were in a trust managed by his children and that “the president only acts in the best interests of the American public.”

“There are no conflicts of interest,” Kelly added.

The president’s 42-year-old son, Eric Trump, said last week that “President Trump’s investment holdings are maintained exclusively in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions.”

“These institutions have sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions, including asset allocation, trading, rebalancing, and portfolio management,” he said on X.

The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-triggers-alarm-bells-with-jaw-dropping-97b-deal/?

Monday at 09:52 PM

Judge Cries ‘Deception’ to Blow Up Trump’s Wild $1.8B Grift

It’s the second huge setback in one day for Trump’s MAGA-friendly slush fund.

President Donald Trump on Friday suffered a second major setback related to the nearly $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” from which his allies stand to benefit.

A federal judge in Miami reopened Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, which he withdrew last week before the announcement of several agreements with the Justice Department. Among them were: no more auditing of the president, his adult sons, or his businesses (which are run by his adult sons), and the creation of the $1.776 billion fund for those, like the Jan. 6 rioters, who claim Democrats “weaponized” the government against them.

Judge Kathleen Williams wrote that she ordered the investigation into the de facto settlement amid claims that it was “premised on deception.” On Wednesday, 35 former federal judges had written to the court urging her to look into the matter.

Williams’ order came hours after a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia temporarily halted the creation of the Justice Department’s fund.

In the four-page order, Williams, an Obama appointee, gave Trump a June 12 deadline to address “(1) the charges of collusion and whether the Parties are truly adverse; (2) the assertion that the dismissal in this case was premised on deception by the Parties; and (3) the question of whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the ‘victim of a fraud.’”

Former federal judge Shira Sheindlin, one of the nearly three dozen ex-judges who asked Williams to investigate, explained the situation on MS NOW.

“When you have a case in court, there has to be an actual case or controversy. Otherwise, the court does not have jurisdiction to even hear that case,” she began. “And if there’s no case, then there can’t be a settlement of that case. And if there can’t be a settlement of that case, then there can’t be a fund created by the settlement. And there can’t be any immunity for Trump and his sons to never have to have an audit of their taxes and maybe never pay those taxes. But none of that can happen if there’s no case.”

Sheindlin explained how Williams, during the proceedings, had questioned whether there really was an adverse party. Trump himself, Sheindlin also noted, had openly commented about negotiating with himself.

“But isn’t that a strange position to be in,” Trump said at a rally last December. “I’ve gotta make a deal. I negotiate with myself.”

“So that’s why she now is worried,” Sheindlin said. “But she was about to get briefs on this issue of whether there was a real case or controversy, and they didn’t want her to reach that. Not so much the merits; they didn’t even want her to decide that there wasn’t a case, because if there’s no case, there’s no settlement and no basis for the order.”

“Two days before the brief was due, they come up with this voluntary dismissal. And she says on the record, ‘Gee, there’s no settlement here. I note that there’s no settlement.’ Well, that’s because they didn’t tell her that there was indeed a settlement,” Sheindlin continued.

“No sooner did she put her pen on the paper and sign off on this voluntary dismissal, guess what happened? They announced the settlement, and she was duped. She was really duped. And so when we wrote that motion, we said, you know, ‘This is a fraud on the court. You have the power to investigate that.’ And that’s what she did just tonight.”

The White House referred the Daily Beast to Trump’s legal team.

In a statement on Saturday, a spokesperson told the Beast in a statement, “President Trump, his family, supporters, and countless other America First Patriots were illegally targeted by the Democrat-led law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Justice, and the IRS. The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated actor to unlawfully leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to left-wing news outlets such (sic) The New York Times and ProPublica, which was then illegally released to millions of people.”

The statement continued, “Similarly, President Trump was also the victim of illegal harassment and invasions of privacy as part of the politically motivated and completely discredited Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and the wrongful, election-interfering raid of his home at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida. President Trump is entering into this settlement squarely for the benefit of the American people, and he will continue his fight to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”

The two orders regarding the “weaponization” fund weren’t the only losses Trump had in federal court on Friday.

A District of Columbia judge ruled that Trump didn’t have the authority to add his name to the Kennedy Center without going through Congress. The same judge also ordered that the arts center not be shut down for renovations by July 5, as Trump had wanted.

In response, Trump issued a 582-word response via Truth Social, in which he seemed to concede that he would not continue his efforts to remake the storied performing arts center in his image.

“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’” Trump wrote.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-cries-deception-to-blow-up-donald-trumps-wild-18b-grift/?

Monday at 10:09 PM

Trump, 79, Issues Dire Threat After Kennedy Center Humiliation

The president erupted in a 582-word rant after a judge undercut his plans for the storied performing arts center.

President Donald Trump lashed out at a federal judge on Friday and appeared to give up on his Kennedy Center takeover after suffering a humiliating defeat in court.

In a sprawling, 582-word Truth Social rant, the 79-year-old president suggested he no longer wanted anything to do with the institution after a judge blocked his effort to rename it after himself and halted plans to shut it down for renovations.

“Based on the fact that the Radical Left Democrats care more about opposing your favorite President, ME, than saving a dying Performing Arts Center… we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them,” Trump wrote.

The outburst came hours after U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the Kennedy Center’s board lacked the authority to rename the venue the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote in his 94-page decision.

Trump blasted the Obama-appointed judge, accusing him of putting the public at risk by refusing to allow the center to close for renovations.

The president claimed experts had warned of “rotting beams,” parking areas “subject to collapse,” and other alleged safety hazards at the building.

“Judge Cooper should be ashamed of himself!” Trump wrote.

The president also complained that Cooper had effectively overturned a unanimous vote by the Kennedy Center’s board to add the “TRUMP” name to the venue.

However, the vote to rename the venue after the current president came after Trump had purged the Kennedy Center’s leadership and filled the board with loyalists, who then elected him chairman and approved the rebranding effort.

Trump seized control of the institution in February, removing multiple Biden-appointed board members and installing allies, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo.

“I took great pride in taking over a losing Institution,” Trump said, insisting he had hoped to transform it into “the Finest Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World.”

“Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of,” he wrote.

The president then appeared to concede that his effort to remake the institution was effectively over.

“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’” Trump wrote.

He ended the post by announcing that he had instructed the Department of Commerce to begin arrangements with Congress for a “full and complete transfer” of responsibility for the Kennedy Center.

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

Trump’s complaints found support from Sen. Lindsey Graham, who blasted the ruling as a “judicial power grab.”

“I can’t believe a federal judge would deny President Trump—working with the Trump Kennedy Center Board—the ability to close the center for renovations,” Graham wrote on X.

The South Carolina Republican added that he would be “honored” to help move the renovation plans forward and said he supported attaching Trump’s name to the center because he had done more than any president since the center’s founding to “renovate it, protect it, and have it flourish.”

However, the ruling was welcomed by Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, whose lawsuit challenged Trump’s takeover of the institution.

“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement.

“The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity.”

The decision was also celebrated by members of the Kennedy family, including Maria Shriver, who called it “an appropriate birthday present” for her uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, whose birthday fell on Friday.

“I know they’ll probably appeal and the story isn’t over, but for today let’s celebrate a great birthday gift,” Shriver wrote on X.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/president-donald-trump-79-issues-dire-threat-after-kennedy-center-humiliation/?

Monday at 10:15 PM

Hardcore MAGA Couple Reveal Breaking Point With Trump

A longtime Republican described himself as “dumb as a rock” for buying into Trump after being personally impacted by his policies.

A Georgia couple is abandoning MAGA after saying they were personally affected by President Donald Trump’s policies.

Longtime Republicans Ron and Chrissey Kelley, both once-loyal Trump voters, told Raw Story that they have turned on the Trump administration after its policies came for their jobs.

Ron, a 55-year-old construction analyst for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) told the outlet he was furloughed amid the administration’s haphazard Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts.

“We voted for Trump, not realizing that he was going to slam as hard as he did, but it was on day one when he sat down, right after inauguration, and started signing those executive orders and just trashed us federal employees, it was a kick in the teeth,” Ron said.

“That point was the beginning of my turning away from MAGA,” he added.

Ron said he started to regret his vote when Republican policies began to “destroy my life, which affects my family.”

Months later, he says the impacts of the administration’s failed DOGE mission, led by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, are still a “headache.”

“They brought DOGE in and created a whole new layer of bureaucracy that we’re still suffering from,” Ron said. “They’ve created so much headache and so much overhead.”

Ron noted that he was very embedded in the MAGA movement—enough to believe Trump’s repeated lie that the 2020 election was rigged.

“I bought into the lie about the stolen election and all that, and I thought January 6 insurrectionists were actually patriots,” Ron said.

“I just remember being content with thinking that he was what we needed, and he was going to drain the swamp in Washington until he got into office this third [election], and realizing that I was dumb as a rock, and I believed everything that I was spoon-fed.”

Chrissey, for her part, said she was a lifelong Republican—until now.

“You were just a conservative. There was no thought behind it. You listen to Fox News, and you listen to conservative outlets, and you’re spoon-fed,” Chrissey said.

She recalled thinking, when Trump first came onto the scene: “He’s gonna fix everything. He’s a businessman. He’s gonna help us.”

But now, Chrissey said the administration’s botched handling of the Epstein files, as well as its deadly immigration tactics, have turned her away.

“Just watching the policies of what’s happening in our world today unfold one by one by one, I just started drawing up very different conclusions and found out that I was clueless, and most people are today, but now I’m awake and looking at it for what it is, and I cannot believe that he had my support,” Chrissey said.

“It’s lie after lie after lie,” she added.

Their decision has come with personal consequences, though, as the couple said leaving MAGA has caused a rift with their friends, who are still fully committed to Trump.

Ron said he now votes Democrat, while Chrissey considers herself an Independent.

Ron added that he thinks that while there are people in “deep, deep red MAGA that you’re never going to convince that Trump is not who they think he is,” he believes many are slowly coming out of their MAGA haze.

“I believe that the more that we share, the more of the fringe MAGA are dropping off,” Ron said.

“As you see in the polls that they keep taking, that Trump is dropping lower and lower and lower almost daily,” he said. “So the only way that that could happen is that his base is leaving him, which means that MAGA is moving.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/hardcore-maga-couple-reveal-breaking-point-with-donald-trump/?

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