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

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• 🤖 The White House said today that it met its deadline to establish a voluntary framework for evaluating advanced AI models. But it won't say what the framework contains, who's seen it or when companies will start using it. More from Maria Curi.

25 states sue over Trump’s new tariffs, calling them ‘pretext’ to replace his old ones

WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty-five states sued the Trump administration Monday over its latest tariffs, calling them a pretext for replacing import taxes the Supreme Court struck down in February.

https://apnews.com/article/tariffs-25-supreme-court-import-taxes-120895adbee7ae06157cd5f4bf5c7583?

Trump overhaul could gut Head Start preschool standards, leaving states to set the rules

President Donald Trump's administration is planning a dramatic overhaul of Head Start that would gut its quality standards, upending the hallmarks of the early education program for impoverished children, two people familiar with the deliberations said. Read More.

Trump accounts were closed in 2021 due to concerns over possible money laundering, Capital One says

Bank accounts held by President Donald Trump were closed by Capital One in 2021 after it flagged financial activity that had characteristics of money laundering, the bank disclosed in a court filing over the weekend. Read More.

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The New Era That Wasn’t

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Fundamental realignments in the way Americans vote are rare, but predictions that they have occurred are not. Nearly as soon as Donald Trump was declared the winner of the presidential race in November 2024, people started saying the election represented a new era. “Trump just realigned the entire political map. Democrats have ‘no easy path’ to fix it,” announced NBC News.

The election had been very close. Trump won slightly more electoral votes than Joe Biden had in 2020 (312 to 306), but he also won fewer total popular votes and a smaller percentage of the vote. This was still significant because it was the first time in three tries that Trump had captured a plurality of the electorate, but the case for realignment hinged less on raw numbers than on demographic breakdowns. The Republican Party had strengthened its grip on the white working class and had done historically well with young voters—young men in particular—and Hispanic voters.

Writing in The Atlantic in May 2025, the pollster Patrick Ruffini argued that a new era of politics had dawned, in which Trump had broken Democrats’ solid grip on minority voters. “The realignment of the working class, which helped Trump win in 2016, would not stop with white voters. In 2020 and 2024, the realignment came for nonwhite voters,” he wrote. “In an era of nationalized politics and growing polarization, the social basis for Democratic majorities is looking more and more tenuous.”

The Democratic Party’s problems remain very real, but for the moment, Trump and the GOP have more serious ones. The most glaring one is Trump’s deep personal unpopularity. In the current polarized and dyspeptic political environment, all presidents seem to be unpopular, but Trump is in a different league. A CNN poll released last week measured Trump at 34 percent support, matching the low he reached in that poll following the January 6 insurrection. Still, that was better than his showing in the AP-NORC survey, which found his approval at 33 percent, just one point above a 2017 low. Quinnipiac University found Trump at 32 percent, the lowest ever in that poll.

These broad strokes are ugly enough, but digging into polling results shows particular deterioration with the particular groups that were supposed to be at the center of the Trump 2024 realignment.

Consider young voters. Kamala Harris won a slim majority of them in 2024, a huge drop from the 25 percent margin that Biden enjoyed four years earlier. The Yale Youth Poll found in May that 68 percent of voters ages 18 to 22 and 72 percent of voters ages 23 to 29 disapproved of Trump. Echelon Insights also found that younger voters disapprove of Trump more than the general population—the number has fallen 37 percent since the start of this administration. Polling from the Harvard Institute of Politics found that young voters are especially skeptical of expanded presidential power and claims of “national emergency”—two staples of Trump’s approach to governance.

One reason Trump’s numbers have sunk so much among young people is his poor performance among young men. A popular explanation was that a feminized, woke Democratic Party had driven them away and into the arms of Trump and a growing manosphere of influencers. To the extent that that was true, it was ephemeral. These voters are still wary of the Democrats, but they’ve soured on Trump as well. The Yale Youth Poll found that men under 30 were one of the two groups that had turned the most against Trump since last fall.

Trump is also bleeding support among Black and Hispanic voters, and especially men, as Bloomberg Government reports. In 2024, Trump won almost half of Hispanic voters, but polls show Republicans drawing 27 to 35 percent support in the midterms, which would be their worst performance with the group since the Democratic-wave year of 2018. Equis, a pollster focused on the demographic, finds Latino approval of Trump is lower than that of non-Latino voters. A May poll found that a quarter of Hispanics who voted for Trump in 2024 wouldn’t do so again.

The decay has even reached Trump’s core supporters. A New York Times review of polling data found in June that white working-class voters’ views of the president’s handling of the economy were tanking. During the first two years of his first term, these voters rated him higher than the overall population; now they rate him much worse. In February 2016, Trump boasted about his backing among the least-educated voters, saying, “I love the poorly educated.” They don’t love him back: Echelon finds his approval down to 41 percent among those with a high-school education or less. Polling from the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism finds a shrinking Trump base and less personal connection to Trump, which is a particular problem for a personalist leader and movement. Republican strategists are now worried that even consistent GOP voters might not turn out in November, according to The Washington Post.

As the poll analyst G. Elliott Morris has written, several convincing explanations existed for Trump’s 2024 victory that didn’t involve realignment, including the lingering effects of the pandemic, global anti-incumbent sentiment, and the peculiar dynamics of Biden’s ill-advised decision to run and his late exit from the race. But the foremost was inflation. Americans were angry at the Democratic Party because of persistently higher prices. Now Trump is losing support for the same reason. Not only has Trump not ended inflation, as he promised—in June, it ran at 3.5 percent—but his decisions, especially the Iran war, have driven prices higher. Voters were willing to give Trump a chance because of their disgust with Biden. Now they’re seeing the results, and they don’t like them.

This was perhaps foreseeable. Although some observers believed a sea change had occurred, the Brookings Institution scholar (and Atlantic contributor) Jonathan Rauch concluded on November 9, 2024, that the result did not represent “a pro-MAGA realignment or a sweeping repudiation of Democrats. Rather, this was an ordinary election.” He added, prophetically, “While the Republicans undoubtedly scored a clear victory, they may be tempted to claim a stronger mandate than the voters intended to deliver—and they may respond with policies that are more extreme and disruptive than the public wants or expects.” Now the realignment looks nearly as moribund as GOP chances in the midterms.

Related:

• Patrick Ruffini: American realignment
• Trump crashes into reality

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Trump’s Goons Reduced to Begging for Help as War Crisis Spirals

The Department of Defense is running out of ideas as the war with Iran exhausts its stockpiles.

The Pentagon just admitted—with about as much subtlety as a bomb going off—that it’s fast running out of ideas for Donald Trump’s war on Iran.

“We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” a member of the intelligence branch of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) pleaded in an email blast to military analysts last Wednesday, according to CNN.

The network notes that the “crowdsourcing-style” query speaks to just how badly the Trump administration is scrambling to put an end to the conflict Trump promised would last “a few weeks,” and which has now entered its sixth month.

The 80-year-old president signed a memorandum of understanding for a stay of hostilities on June 17 while negotiators worked out terms for a lasting peace. The temporary arrangement saw Iran promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway in the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of global oil supply passes.

The U.S. pledged in exchange to lift sanctions, unfreeze assets, and underwrite billions of dollars in reconstruction. Even Republicans balked at the terms of the deal, which lasted just 21 days before negotiations collapsed and Iran resumed attacks on vessels in the waterway.

The president declared his ceasefire “over” at a NATO summit on July 8. Things have only escalated in the weeks since, with Tehran firing its latest barrage of strikes against U.S. military assets in Jordan last Monday.

American forces stationed in the region responded by Wednesday night, launching what CENTCOM has described as a “heavy wave” of attacks against targets in Iran. The country’s state media reported explosions in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas and on the islands of Kish and Qeshm in the Persian Gulf. A couple and their 2-year-old child are thought to have been killed.

CENTCOM’s frantic email plea went out that morning. Trump eventually called off any further strikes after an intervention from Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, who called the president personally and asked him to scale down the hostilities.

The Pentagon’s effort to workshop ideas for how to bring Trump’s war to an end comes after signs the department is fast running out of the munitions stockpiles it would need to continue the conflict at its current rate.

Current and former officials at the Department of Defense told the Washington Post last month that training and maintenance are now being scaled down to save cash as the administration begs Congress to fork over $67 billion to make up the shortfall caused by the war.

The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon for comment on this story. “U.S. Central Command has a long history of thinking and working in innovative ways,” a spokesperson for CENTCOM told CNN in a statement.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pleads-for-help-with-trumps-iran-war-crisis-by-asking-troops-for-input-on-decision-making/?

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Trump Hints at Crackpot Revenge Plot Against Canada

The president signaled that a punishment was on the horizon.

President Donald Trump hinted that a plan to seek revenge on Canada is in the works, but he won’t reveal it just yet.

Trump, 80, affirmed his prior threats to a reporter during a press gaggle on Sunday who asked whether he had decided on a “punishment” for the country’s wildfire smoke.

“I have, yeah,” he said. “You’ll find out about it soon.”

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

Last month, the president threatened to punish Canada after smoke from raging wildfires in Ontario wafted into the U.S., impacting the air quality in a handful of states across the Midwest, Northeast, and mid-Atlantic.

Trump claimed that the U.S. was being “invaded” by the smoke and slapped a 50 percent tariff on a variety of Canadian imports, citing the country’s “discriminatory treatment of American products.”

Canada bit back, rescinding its invitation for U.S. officials to attend the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford told CBS News last month that Trump’s actions hurt both nations, saying, “It’s unfortunate he took this avenue with his closest friend and ally.”

Trump raged at Canada in a Truth Social post at the time. “We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!” Trump wrote.

“I will call the Prime Minister during the day to find out what they are going to do about it. The cost is incalculable!” he continued. “Canada has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal, knowing that such refusal will lead to exactly this result.”

“This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying,” Trump concluded.

He later told reporters after the FIFA World Cup final that he had spoken with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney about the smoke while attending the match in New Jersey.

“I told him, I mean, you got to stop these fires from coming in and, you know, poisoning our air,” he said. “Our air has been poisoned.”

“I have a good relationship with Mark Carney, but, you know, we got to stop the fires up there,” Trump continued. “If we can help them, we’ll help them. But maybe they should pay us some damages or something or we should do some tariffs.”

Carney, 61, laid out his nation’s firefighting plan in a post on X last month, detailing how over 5,300 firefighting personnel had been deployed, and how Canada was using data and advanced thermal imaging for real-time detection and mitigation.

About 5.9 million acres of land have burned in this year’s wildfire season in Canada, according to government data.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-sounds-alarm-on-revenge-plot-against-canada-for-wildfire-smoke/?

ps:How pathetic!!

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Trump’s Stunning Humiliation Over AG Exposed: Lawyer

The rare rebuke of Trump’s political agenda has emerged as one of the strongest pushbacks from Congress in his second term.

President Donald Trump’s rare political setback at the hands of his own party exposed the limits of his power, legal expert Andrew Weissman said.

The Republican-controlled Senate has stalled on a vote to confirm acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the president’s former personal defense attorney, to his role last week, after it became clear that he did not have enough support to be moved out of the committee for a full Senate vote.

Several senators, most notably GOP Sens. Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, have been opposed to Blanche’s appointment until he can fully disavow the $1.8 billion Justice Department-brokered agreement Trump made with the IRS.

Speaking on The Daily Beast Podcast with host Joanna Coles, Weissman said that while he ultimately believes Blanche will be confirmed, it is “useful to have the senators say there is a line, you know, beyond which I will not cross.”

“Remember, there are two parts to the bogus settlement,” he elaborated. “And when I use bogus, that is a federal judge found that this whole ten-billion-dollar lawsuit was bogus and not and this was not in fact a ‘settlement.’”

Weissman said the agreement consisted of two key provisions. The first was the creation of a fund that, according to reports, would compensate Trump allies. “The Department of Justice has now been doing that,” he said, “but not using the fund. They’ve been using other funds.”

The second provision, he argued, is what has become the real sticking point.

“There was this general release that only Todd Blanche signed,” Weissman said. “The acting attorney general giving an audit release of tax liability for Donald Trump, his family, and his companies.”

Weissman suggested Trump was far more invested in preserving that portion of the agreement than the compensation fund.

“The president seemed to be fine saying, ‘Hey, I’ll give up the fund because that’s money that’s not going to me,’” he said. “But when it comes to the tax audit ... ‘I’ll be damned if I’m giving up something for me that I got.’”

The White House did not respond to request for comment.

Trump has been lashing out at Tillis and Cornyn for not stalling Blanche’s confirmation, saying he will keep Blanche acting attorney general until January, when they are both no longer in office.

“That seems to be the sticking point that you know, that’s the thing that Todd Blanche either isn’t willing to give up,” Weissman concluded. “Or isn’t willing to give up because Donald Trump isn’t willing to give it up.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-stunning-humiliation-over-ag-exposed-lawyer/?

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Trump Throws GOP Into Full-Blown Civil War

The rift between Trump and the Senate leader has lawmakers panicked.

Republicans fear that tension between Donald Trump and the Senate’s top GOP lawmaker could sabotage the party’s midterm prospects.

GOP lawmakers are frustrated by the charged silence between the president, 80, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, 65, who, according to Thune, speak only on an “as-needed basis.”

“We need to be talking up the wins, talking about how crazy Democrats are, and instead we are knifing each other,” one GOP senator told CNN.

At the root of the friction between the two men is Thune’s stated inability to pass Trump’s “Save America Act,” which would impose new proof-of-citizenship rules and other requirements that voting rights advocates say would disenfranchise large numbers of Americans.

While the House of Representatives passed a version of the bill, the president’s flagship legislation does not have the votes to clear the Senate, where Democrats have also wielded the filibuster—the 60-vote threshold needed to advance most legislation.

Privately, Thune has been direct with Trump about the legislation’s improbability. As a result, Trump has publicly blasted Thune over the impasse. Last week, when asked Wednesday whether Thune was still “the man for the job,” the president was coy.

“We’re going to find out. I’ll let you know,” he said.

Spokespeople for Thune and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Thune, for his part, has also been repeatedly blindsided by the president. Trump moved to oust Sen. John Cornyn, a key Thune ally, in favor of MAGA-aligned candidate Ken Paxton. The president has also stalled the renewal of key surveillance authorities used by U.S. intelligence agencies in protest and refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill Republicans hoped to tout ahead of the midterms.

The South Dakota senator has also been tasked with voicing concerns from GOP senators who are afraid to speak out against the president, making him a scapegoat in the eyes of the administration, lawmakers told CNN.

“I would say we’re all longing for a relationship with the White House where we work more in harmony,” Republican Sen. John Curtis told the outlet.

Sen. Jim Justice echoed a similar sentiment, calling the infighting “not really productive” in a statement to CNN. “There’s no point in going round and round and round.”

Senators fear the standoff between Trump and Thune will only worsen following the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime Thune ally and the president’s golf buddy. It also comes at a time when Republicans are trailing the Democrats by 8 points, according to a poll released by CNN last week.

“If you don’t watch out, you’re gonna make things much, much, much worse because we’re gonna lose seats and that will make it worse for the president,” Justice said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-and-john-thune-throw-gop-into-full-blown-civil-war/?

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Trump's presidential paywall

Data: Financial Modeling Prep, Binance. Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals For years, Truth Social was President Trump's money-losing megaphone. Now his company is charging Wall Street clients up to $1.2 million a year for a license giving a split-second edge on posts that can — and frequently do — jolt global markets, Axios' Dan Primack and Zachary Basu write. Why it matters: Trump has transformed his second term into the most lucrative venture of his entire career, raking in more than $2.2 billion in 2025 from his family crypto empire, legal settlements and various licensing deals. Truth API, as the data feed is branded, is the logical endpoint of that profiteering: the presidency's unrivaled power to move markets, packaged and sold as a subscription. 🔎 Zoom in: The product offered a live demonstration of its value almost immediately (charted above). Hours after Truth API launched, Trump announced he'd canceled massive planned strikes on Iran. Oil prices fell nearly 5% when markets reopened. A March 23 post postponing strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure sent Brent crude tumbling nearly 11%. Trump's March 2025 announcement of a U.S. crypto reserve drove XRP up 27% and added roughly $300 billion to the global crypto market. His threat last October to impose massive new tariffs on China sent the S&P 500 down 2.7%. 🔄 How it works: The real-time feed from Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) went live Saturday, delivering Truth Social posts directly to institutional clients in milliseconds. A source familiar with the matter tells Axios that access to the platform's 10 top-trending accounts costs $60,000 to $100,000 per month. Customers seeking a broader range of accounts could pay more. At least five high-frequency trading firms have signed up, according to The Wall Street Journal. Trump Media says customers also include financial news organizations. 💸 Follow the money: Trump Media is publicly traded, with Trump as its dominant shareholder. He is the sole beneficiary of a revocable trust that owns 41.5% of the company. Donald Trump Jr., the trust's sole trustee, controls the shares. Trump Media generated just $871,000 in revenue during the first quarter of 2026 and $3.68 million in all of 2025. Its shares have risen 7% since the eve of the API announcement, adding nearly $77 million to the paper value of Trump's stake. Between the lines: Customers are buying a fractions-of-a-second advantage. Truth API gives trading algorithms a direct, machine-readable feed they can act on before most investors receive a push alert or refresh their screens. 🥊 Reality check: TMTG says the posts are already public when they reach the API. What the company sells is the latency gap — the brief interval between publication and widespread awareness. The company explicitly markets the service to firms for which "the cost of a delay in information" is highest. A TMTG spokesperson told Axios: "Senate and House Democrats continue to mischaracterize Truth API either out of ideological opposition to free markets or a failure to grasp the distinction between public and nonpublic information."

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Trump says Pirro ‘folded like an umbrella’ in bid to drop Reflecting Pool vandalism charges U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s move to dismiss charges against a former Olympian accused of vandalism was an embarrassing setback for the Justice Department. It marked a rare moment during President Donald Trump’s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying him. Read more.

Why this matters: Pirro, a former Fox News host and longtime ally, was handpicked by Trump as top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital. Speaking at an unrelated Oval Office event, Trump ducked questions about whether he’d fire Pirro. But the president kept up his drumbeat of sharp criticism, saying he remained disappointed by her assessment that damage to the Reflecting Pool was the result of shoddy construction, not vandalism. Though she has not commented publicly since Trump’s initial social media post criticizing her, Pirro was spotted walking into the White House on Monday evening.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ WATCH: Trump’s comments about Pirro 25 states sue over Trump’s new tariffs As Blanche’s path to confirmation is cleared, Trump’s tax audit immunity remains in place Trump accounts were closed in 2021 due to concerns over possible money laundering, Capital One says Supreme Court won’t halt $656M judgment against the PLO and Palestinian Authority Ethics panel recommends House censure Rep. Chuck Edwards for conduct with two aides

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What Trump Secretly Told MAGA’s Accused Wife-Beater Leaks

The president gave Max Miller a blunt message on a private phone call.

Details have leaked of a private phone conversation between President Donald Trump and the under-siege Republican Max Miller.

Miller, a two-term congressman, has been accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno, another Ohio Republican.

The allegations against the Trump-endorsed lawmaker, which also involve his young daughter, may cost him his congressional seat as he faces major backlash from constituents, even being labeled a “predator” by voters.

Trump, 80, phoned Miller on Monday and expressed his doubts over his candidacy, three sources familiar with the call told Axios.

The president told Miller—who worked as a presidential aide in the first Trump White House—that “things aren’t looking good,” and repeatedly said his re-election would be tough.

“He said he had a poll with no detail, and I pushed back with our poll that has us winning by 9 with our message out there,” Miller told The Wall Street Journal, explaining that Trump had told him his prospects of winning weren’t good.

“He kept on reiterating it’s going to be tough, and it’s going to be a really hard one for you,” Miller said.

Ohio’s 7th District should be a reliably red seat, with Trump winning 55 percent of the vote in 2024. Miller won his last election with just over 51 percent of the vote.

But Miller was neck-and-neck with his Democratic opponent, Brian Poindexter, even before the abuse allegations surfaced. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Miller is just 1 percentage point ahead of Poindexter.

During his phone call with Trump on Monday, Miller, who has denied the allegations of abuse involving his ex-wife and their child, told the president that he is staying in the race.

He also claimed his own polling demonstrated he was in “solid shape.”

The reports of the private conversation follow Trump refusing to weigh in on the serious allegations against a candidate he personally endorsed.

They include claims that Miller pointed a gun at Emily’s head, threw her against the wall, poured hot water on her, and potentially fractured their 2-year-old daughter’s collarbone.

On Sunday, Trump merely said, “So far, it’s accusations, I’ll be looking at it.”

Trump added on Monday that Miller’s situation was “a very sad thing.”

“I know Max, he’s a good person, I mean I always thought he was a very good person. And I’m going to let the families figure that out,” he said. “It’s accusations. And I’m going to let them figure that out.”

As Miller and Emily Moreno’s bitter custody battle over their daughter has seen the allegations against Miller make national news, Bernie Moreno had remained largely silent.

Sources close to Moreno told CNN that he wanted to speak out previously, but was asked not to by his daughter.

When Miller accused Emily Moreno of having mental health issues and lying during their custody battle in a 20-minute livestream on Sunday, it provoked her father into responding.

“I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake. I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does,” the MAGA Republican said.

“He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter,” Moreno wrote on X.

“If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Miller’s rep for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-trump-secretly-told-magas-accused-wife-beater-max-miller-leaks/?

ps:He should be telling him to stop his campaign, but than he'd be a hypocrite!!!!!

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Trump Is Drowning in Failure as Crises Mount: Political Guru

The president is having trouble cleaning up his own messes, according to political analyst David Rothkopf.

President Donald Trump is struggling to stay afloat as a series of crises he helped create continues to pile up, political guru David Rothkopf argues.

Appearing on the latest episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, Rothkopf explained how the 80-year-old president is floundering in his attempts to contain the consequences of his administration’s actions—whether it’s his reshaping of the federal government or his deepening war with Iran.

“Over the course of the past 18 months, Donald Trump has dismantled the parts of the U.S. government that protect us from foreign election interference, that protect us from foreign spying,” the political analyst told host Joanna Coles.

Rothkopf pointed to how staffing cuts at the FBI and other national intelligence agencies over the last year have left the U.S. more vulnerable to foreign meddling than ever before.

Between January and August 2025, then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard slashed more than 500 intelligence jobs, including roles associated with the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which monitored efforts by foreign agents to manipulate the American public.

“They shut down... the group that tracked Russian interference,” Rothkopf said before predicting that Russia and Iran are going to interfere in U.S. elections over the next three months. “Trump is going to use that to his advantage,” he added.

“Buckle up, everybody,” Rothkopf warned. “The next 90 days are going to be a weird and wild ride.”

When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast in a frequently recycled statement: “David Rothkopf is a far-left loser who clearly suffers from a severe and debilitating disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”

“Did you see the poll results he’s getting in the past few days?” Rothkopf asked. “Donald Trump has—on inflation, on his war, on his overall approval, on his approval with Independents—the worst poll ratings, not just of his career, but of any president of the modern era.”

Trump’s approval rating has plunged to 32 percent amid backlash over his unpopular Iran war and the continued strain of rising costs on Americans.

A CNN poll last week also found that a staggering 70 percent of respondents disapprove of how Trump is handling the economy and 73 percent believe the administration isn’t focusing on the most pressing issues.

“Donald Trump is drowning in failure,” Rothkopf declared. “Nothing he says or does is working anymore. And so he’s got to try these wild schemes to distract from it, to get attention, to hope it disrupts something.”

“When I look at these polls and when I look at thing after thing, whether it’s failures in the courts or failures in Iran or failures overseas or problems with the economy,” he concluded, “Donald Trump is drowning in failure, and we are going to pay the price as he tries to keep his head above water.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-is-drowning-in-failure-as-crises-mount-political-guru-david-rothkopf/?

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MAGA-Curious CBS’ ‘60 Minutes’ Boss’ Leak Crackdown Backfires

The flagship news show is leaking like a sieve.

The executive producer of 60 Minutes begged his staff to stop leaking word of turmoil on his watch—only for them to go ahead and leak that message to another outlet anyway.

TV news virgin Nick Bilton, 49, is the former New York Times tech columnist and filmmaker who had never worked in television at all before CBS’ MAGA-friendly new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, 42, handed him one of TV’s most prestigious jobs earlier this year.

Weiss recruited Bilton after taking the helm at CBS last October after Trump ally David Ellison took control of the network’s parent company in a controversial merger. Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, is a Republican megadonor. Critics say Weiss has since carried out a conservative overhaul of the network and steered coverage away from anything critical of the Trump administration.

Her time in the top job so far has been a disaster. Staff, and in particular the team at 60 Minutes, roiled and bucked at her changes, with long-time host Anderson Cooper leaving the show. She responded by purging the program of veteran journalists like executive producer Tanya Simon, executive editor Draggan Mihailovich, senior producer Matthew Polevoy, and correspondent Cecilia Vega.

Those firings all landed on a single day in May, since dubbed “Black Thursday” by staff. Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi left after her contract lapsed unrenewed the same week. Bilton, hired just days later to replace Simon, then fired 60 Minutes mainstay Scott Pelley after Pelley told him in front of the team that Weiss had been “murdering” the program.

Weiss and Bilton have since set out on a hiring blitz in a desperate scramble to fill the desks their firings have emptied. Critics have slammed many of those new recruits—among them right-wing opinion writer Ross Douthat and controversial U.K. broadcaster Sir Trevor Phillips—as grossly underqualified compared to the caliber of journalists the program has historically attracted. Bilton has reportedly been using job interviews as “therapy sessions” to discuss with prospective hires just how tough he’s finding his role.

These and other shocking details of Weiss and Bilton’s stewardship at 60 Minutes have emerged because their staff cannot keep from talking about the turmoil with colleagues at other media organizations. Status has led much of the reporting on the chaos—and it was to Status that Bilton’s sprawling 734-word anti-leaking memo leaked on Tuesday.

“In the memo, Bilton made clear he is frustrated by the unrelenting speculation regarding the show, along with the torrent of unauthorized information making its way into the press,” the outlet wrote. “While he didn’t mention this publication in particular, one imagines he isn’t especially thrilled when we end up informing his own staff about developments regarding their own program.”

Status adds that Bilton has told his employees that “since I started there has been roughly a rumor a day,” and that those rumors “about me, about you, about what’s coming next—95 percent of them are fabrications and blatantly incorrect.”

“I no longer have the time or the patience for them, and I’d rather we spend that energy on the stories,” he went on. “If you hear something and it matters to you, come ask me and I’ll tell you what I know. Otherwise I’d like this place to be talked about for what we put on television.”

The Daily Beast has contacted CBS for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-60-minutes-boss-nick-biltons-anti-leaking-memo-is-immediately-leaked-amid-staff-discontent-at-cbs/?

ps:What did anyone expect?

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Trump’s Staggering Missile Crisis Revealed

The president’s war has the Pentagon running out of money, ideas, and now even the weapons he would need to defend the U.S. from attack.

Donald Trump’s war with Iran is becoming even more disastrous by the day as his own officials warn the Pentagon has used up “virtually all” of its long-range missiles.

The U.S. military has spent the overwhelming majority of those stockpiles carrying out strikes against the Islamist regime since the president, 80, launched that conflict on Feb. 28, according to sources familiar with Defense Department data, who spoke anonymously to Reuters on Tuesday.

Those officials are now panicking that the depleted supply of “highly accurate long-range missiles” could affect “the military’s readiness for future conflicts,” leaving the U.S. vulnerable to attack by even more capable adversaries like Russia and China, the outlet writes.Trump, 80, is fast running out of time to save any semblance of face over the war he promised would last a “few weeks” and which has now entered its sixth month. He signed a memorandum of understanding for a temporary ceasefire in June. It lasted just 21 days before talks for a lasting peace fell through. Washington and Tehran have engaged in an escalating series of tit-for-tat strikes in the weeks since.The Pentagon has also let slip that it is running out of ideas for how to sustain the conflict until the president’s diplomats can get their act together. “We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” a top defense official pleaded in an email blast to military analysts last week. CNN, which first reported the message, said the “crowdsourcing-style” request shows how dire the situation has now become.

The Defense Department has further signaled that it is running out of money amid the soaring costs imposed by Trump’s war. Officials told The Washington Post in July that the Pentagon has been forced to scale down training and maintenance to save cash as the Trump administration begs Congress for $67 billion to plug the hole blown in its budget by the president’s war.

Trump, in a statement to Reuters, said the U.S. has “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need,” adding that “our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels.”

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly added that “the United States Military has more than enough munitions, ammo, and stockpiles to serve all of President Trump’s strategic goals and beyond,” and claimed, “Democrats destroyed our military, but President Trump rebuilt it.”

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told Reuters that “America’s military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the president’s choosing.” He added that “we have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon for further comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-war-with-iran-has-almost-entirely-depleted-us-missile-stockpiles/?

ps:What a pathetic bunch of clowns! They seem to think that they're playing a video game where the weapons never run out!!

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UFC Takes $30M Beating Over Trump’s Tacky Birthday Bash

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has suffered a heavy blow.

The UFC hemorrhaged money with Donald Trump’s big White House birthday bash.

The promotion, led by his ally Dana White, lost a staggering $30 million in its bid to give the president what he wanted, as he turned 80 in June.

The Freedom 250 event saw 4,300 people descend on the White House’s South Lawn, with tens of thousands more on the nearby Ellipse, to watch Justin Gaethje defeat Ilia Topuria at the top of the bill.

TKO Group Holdings Inc. chief financial officer Andrew Schleimer told investors on Monday that, “Given the event’s profile, which as anticipated, resulted in an approximate $30m loss, our margins at UFC as well as on a consolidated basis were meaningfully impacted,” BBC reports.

TKO said it had been anticipating the loss, but had gained brand exposure and media deals, and still saw revenue growth in the second quarter.

Bloomberg reports that on a conference call, UFC said the expenditure would pay off in the long run, claiming the event itself had been a “roaring success.”

They said that the impact in terms of reach and new deals was key, with 25 new marketing partnerships and earned media—publicity through organic, unpaid means—worth $1 billion.

Paramount Skydance Corp, which Trump-loving Larry Ellison owns, said that the event had pulled in 34 million viewers.

According to the BBC, the initial outgoings of the event for TKO had been expected to be $60 million, but that number was brought back down by sponsorships.

UFC also strengthened its position last year, when it signed a deal with Paramount worth $7.7 billion to make it the new home of its coverage.

The UFC footed the bill, with the exception of federal agents detailed to work on the event.

The 250 event, so-called to mark the 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, sparked controversy and led to Democratic staff producing an interim report as part of a wider investigation, titled “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday,” the Guardian reports.

The Daily Beast has made efforts to contact the UFC for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ufc-takes-30m-beating-over-trumps-tacky-birthday-bash/?

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Divided federal appeals court says Trump administration was wrong to terminate climate funds

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday said the Trump administration improperly terminated billions of dollars in funds to boost clean energy projects, handing a win to a coalition of nonprofits picked to run the Biden-era effort.

https://apnews.com/article/epa-grants-climate-united-trump-36ad8c6684939a1788dd49979e0f3ad9?

Trump administration revokes visa of Brazil’s ambassador to US in spat with Lula

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to the United States in retaliation for Brazil’s denial of visas last month for two American diplomats who sought to visit ahead of upcoming elections as well as what it said was Brazil’s stalling on approving President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador in Brasilia.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-brazil-lula-ambassador-diplomats-4d7f64110fff5dda2ffd374d5e52c682?

FBI agents fired over Trump investigation get broad backing in lawsuit against administration

An association of thousands of FBI agents and other groups are backing a lawsuit filed by three bureau employees who were fired last year for their roles in an investigation into President Donald Trump's efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election. Read More.

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Need for Speed

View in browser

For Donald Trump, social media is a fundamental component of the presidency. He shares his thoughts freely and constantly; world-shaking announcements that other presidents might have reserved for prime-time speeches, he posts online.

Trump Media and Technology Group, the company that controls Truth Social and is majority-owned by the president, is now selling speedy access to those posts through a service called Truth API. Launched this weekend, it provides users a raw feed of “market-moving” posts from the “highest-ranking Truth Social accounts”—the top one being Trump’s, which has 13 million followers. Typically, social-media users encounter split-second lag times before being notified about new posts; Truth API purports to minimize delays. It’s aimed at investment firms that can afford the subscription price (Trump Media has not publicized the cost, but The Wall Street Journal and others have reported that it’s up to $100,000 a month), and promises traders an advantage over their competitors. It also gives Trump Media a way to capitalize directly on the president’s words—and gives Trump another way to capitalize on the nation’s highest office.

The initial press release for Truth API made no mention of the president’s posts. But Truth Social was created primarily as a vehicle for Trump’s own commentary after he was booted off Twitter in 2021 following the January 6 riot. New accounts on the website automatically follow Trump, as well as Donald Trump Jr. and many others. (Trump Media declined to answer my questions, and the White House denied that Truth API creates conflicts of interest for the president.)

The value of the new service hinges on the fact that Trump’s statements move markets. This president has a habit of sharing new policies on social media before the White House has had a chance to release an official statement. He has used Truth Social to make adjustments to tariff rules, announce military actions, and telegraph future plans for foreign interventions. (Many observers have also pointed out that he tends to wait until after trading hours to share news that might have an undesirable effect on markets, as has been the case throughout the Iran war.)

The president’s comments portend stock-market shifts in lower-stakes situations too. One recent example: Trump told the public to “go out and buy” a Dell computer at least four times this year. He began doing this on February 19, about a week after he purchased at least $1 million worth of Dell stock. The last time Trump dropped this line, at the White House in July, the share price immediately climbed by almost 8 percent. Maybe the president just really likes Dell computers—or maybe he really likes the company’s CEO, Michael Dell, who, along with his wife, pledged to donate more than $6 billion to the administration’s new child-savings-account program. The president encouraged people to buy in, and shareholders made money.

Trump Media has said that Truth API data will be delivered in “milliseconds,” providing what they say is the “fastest access” to these posts. Critics argue that this gives certain traders an unfair, or even illegal, leg up: Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff wrote a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week demanding an investigation into the service. The letter suggests that, because the service offers access to market-moving posts before most people have had a chance to see it, it could potentially violate insider-trading laws, which ban trades based on nonpublic information.

But most of the experts I spoke with questioned this logic. Existing securities laws don’t fit this situation perfectly. Trump Media told The Wall Street Journal that Truth Social posts will continue to be publicly viewable at the same time for all users, whether they pay for Truth API or not. Those who subscribe will be notified slightly before the rest of us, but the posts themselves won’t be delayed or hidden—which could make it hard to argue that the information contained within them isn’t actually public. And Trump Media didn’t invent the concept of high-speed data feeds for institutional traders. As Stephen Bainbridge, a professor at UCLA Law, has pointed out, today’s stock exchanges already sell similar products, which are broadly considered legal.

Some of the legal scholars I interviewed observed that because this situation is unprecedented, the law may simply not have caught up. The SEC could potentially play a role in investigating Trump Media, but the agency, now under the aegis of Trump’s handpicked chair, Paul Atkins, has not commented on Warren and Schiff’s letter. (A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment for this story.) When I asked Jonathan Macey, a professor at Yale Law, what he thought of Warren and Schiff’s letter, he told me that they were essentially asking the fox to come check on the henhouse.

Truth API is a clear attempt to create a new revenue stream for a struggling company—its CEO, former Representative Devin Nunes, stepped down earlier this year after overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses during his tenure. It’s also yet another way for Trump to make money from the office of the presidency. Trump reported that he earned more than $2.2 billion last year, much of which came from cryptocurrency tokens and investments. No other president has ever come close to generating this much personal wealth while in office. Now he stands to profit from something more straightforward: unmediated access to his own thoughts.

Related:

• David Frum: The Trump presidency’s world-historical heist
• The real Trump family business is crypto.

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Inside Trump's AI framework

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

The White House is excluding open models from its framework for testing advanced AI capabilities, sources familiar with the matter told Axios' Maria Curi. Why it matters: The voluntary framework — which the White House plans to keep secret — will determine how the Trump administration reviews advanced AI models before release. The White House held staff-level meetings with industry yesterday to go over the recently completed framework. Companies that weren't invited remain in the dark about its contents. The AI framework comes as industry grapples with high-profile cyberattacks and rapid advances by Chinese AI developers, reigniting a debate on how to deal with open-source models. 🔬 What's inside: The AI framework reviewed yesterday defines a covered frontier model as closed-source with state-of-the-art capabilities and national security risks, multiple sources briefed on meetings held at the White House said. There's no clear definition of what is considered state-of-the-art or a national security risk. Open models are excluded, and the framework explicitly says nothing in it should be interpreted as restricting open models once they've been released. 👓 Between the lines: The White House wants companies to submit models for review only when they're close to public release, not in early development, according to people familiar with the discussions. That timing requirement means many companies with less advanced systems may not qualify for review under the framework at all, sources said.

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Trump’s arch could disrupt the historical significance of many of Washington’s sites, report says The proposal for a towering gilded arch, which last month received initial approval from a key federal commission, would impact the “integrity” of dozens of those historical properties, according to an assessment by the National Park Service. Read more.

Why this matters: The proposed arch is one of several projects President Donald Trump is pursuing to leave his lasting imprint on Washington. With the potential to change the city’s sightline, it has already sparked opposition. One of the most obvious elements the report cited is that the arch would break alignment between the Lincoln Memorial, Memorial Bridge and Arlington House that was formerly Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s home. The White House said in an email that it would follow all legal requirements in constructing the arch.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Lawyers in Reflecting Pool case say Justice Department knew case was flawed FBI agents fired over Trump investigation get broad backing in lawsuit against administration Guard deployment to Washington into 2029 will cost roughly $1.4B, estimate shows House Ethics Committee opens investigation into domestic abuse allegations against Rep. Max Miller FACT FOCUS: No, you won’t need an ID to shop at city-owned grocery stores in New York City

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Endangered Republican Senator Suddenly Opposes Trump’s AG

The GOP holdout could complicate the acting AG’s confirmation vote later this week.

An embattled Republican senator says she is against the nomination of President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer as attorney general.

Maine’s Susan Collins shared a statement Tuesday evening cementing her opposition to Todd Blanche’s nomination, arguing that the DOJ has strayed from operating independently of partisan influence under his reign as acting attorney general.

“While I believe Mr. Blanche is a capable lawyer, the Department of Justice has become increasingly political,” Collins, 73, wrote on X. “Mr. Blanche has taken several actions that have further eroded the Department’s independence, and that is the basis for my vote to oppose his confirmation.”

Collins cited Blanche’s ludicrous backdoor deal to “shield the President, his sons, and the family business from IRS audits” and his creation of a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” as prime examples of his partisan leanings.

She also condemned how he oversaw the DOJ’s targeting of two Democratic senators, Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, over their “ill-advised, but constitutionally protected” videos advising American troops not to follow illegal orders.

“More than 1,200 former Department of Justice employees have opposed his nomination, arguing that he has undermined the institution,” the senator added. “For these reasons, I will vote against this nomination.”

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

The Maine senator’s refusal to vote for Blanche comes after two of her GOP colleagues, Sens. Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, backpedaled on their previous condemnation of Blanche on Monday.

Both Tillis and Cornyn had said last week that they would not vote to confirm Blanche unless he confirmed in writing that the anti-weaponization fund he helped create as part of a settlement between Trump and the IRS was terminated.

Late on Sunday, Cornyn brokered an agreement with Blanche that seemed to adhere to his demands, leading him and Tillis to cast their support for his nomination as AG.

The Texas senator later admitted that “there was nothing we could do to rein in the president” as he faced pressure from Trump to vote in his favor.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which both Tillis and Cornyn sit on, voted 12-10 along party lines on Tuesday to advance Blanche’s nomination to a vote by the full Senate later this week.

Despite Blanche clearing a hurdle with Tillis and Cornyn, Collins’ lack of support could prove crucial in the final confirmation vote.

Republicans need only one more holdout to stop Blanche’s confirmation dead in its tracks, and several GOP senators, including Lisa Murkowski, Bill Cassidy, and John Curtis, have yet to clarify their support for Blanche.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/endangered-republican-maine-senator-susan-collins-suddenly-opposes-trumps-ag-todd-blanche/?

ps:I don't trust Blanche period! Even though he says one can easily do another!! This is what just about each trump candidate has done!!!

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This Is Why Jeanine Pirro Defied Trump: Wolff

Allegations against a supposed reflecting pool “vandal” were too absurd even for a longtime Trump ally to prosecute.

Donald Trump’s longtime biographer has lauded Jeanine Pirro for resisting intense pressure from the president to prosecute a supposed “vandal” without evidence.

Michael Wolff tells the Inside Trump’s Head podcast that he believes Trump’s hand-picked D.C. prosecutor and MAGA ally had a “burst of clarity” when she decided to drop charges against the former Olympian accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Pirro, 75, abandoned her prosecution of David Hearn on Friday, saying it was a “flawed installation” that caused Trump’s green-slime fiasco, not vandalism. She also admonished the Department of the Interior for not “fully and accurately” briefing her prosecutors.

“It’s just flatly not true. It is obviously not true,” Wolf said of the accusations against Hearn. “If it went before a judge, it would be thrown out. She... could be sanctioned on this.”

Wolff continued, “Trump wants this done, but she has to do it, and she has to do it in her name,” he explained. “So I think it just got to be too much for her. I think she just said, ‘I can’t. There is just no way. Even I, a loyal—abjectly loyal—Trump functionary, factotum, I can’t do this.’”

Hearn, 67, had pleaded not guilty to a single count of destruction of property. His lawyers said in a statement that the administration owes him an apology—though there has been zero indication from the White House that one is coming.

Rather, the 80-year-old Trump has raged at Pirro over her decision to drop the charges, saying in the Oval Office on Monday that she had “choked” and “folded like an umbrella.”

“I was disappointed with Jeanine Pirro. Really disappointed with Jeanine Pirro,” he said of the former Fox News pundit. “Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department, and I guess she choked. I don’t know what the hell happened.”

Neither the White House nor Pirro’s office immediately returned the Daily Beast’s requests for comment.

Asked by co-host Joanna Coles why Pirro would make such a decision that would anger the president, Wolff theorized that this lie was just “too much for her.” He said that he thinks Pirro experienced a burst of “incredulity” at the tricky situation she found herself in.

“Somehow, in her mind, I think she said, ‘I’m in... a terrible corner here,’” he said. “Some people suddenly say, ’I have a reputation. I’m Judge Jeanine, I have a reputation.’”

“There’s an old expression: There is some s--t I cannot eat,” Wolff added. “I think that she just came to the end of the road. And I’m sure she now regrets it, by the way. But I think she had a burst of... clarity, a burst of just, ‘Can I do anything else?’”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-is-why-jeanine-pirro-defied-trump-on-reflecting-pool-prosecution-michael-wolff/?

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Bone Spurs President Uses AI to Award Himself Ultimate Medal

The five-time draft dodger imagined himself outranking two of America’s most iconic generals.

Draft-dodging Donald Trump has cast himself as a battlefield leader in the mold of America’s greatest generals—while appearing to bestow himself with the nation’s highest military honor.

The 80-year-old president posted an AI-generated image on Truth Social Tuesday depicting him alongside generals George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur, two of the most celebrated U.S. military commanders of World War II, against the backdrop of a raging battlefield.

Trump’s fantasy image places him above Patton and MacArthur in the military hierarchy, showing him with four stars while the legendary generals wear two. In reality, MacArthur was a five-star general—one of only five Americans to attain that rank—while Patton was a four-star general.

Trump, who received four deferments for education and one for a disputed bone spur diagnosis, also imagined himself bedecked with dozens of service ribbons and a medal resembling the Medal of Honor.

The Medal of Honor is presented by the president to service members who display “conspicuous gallantry” and risk their lives above and beyond the call of duty in combat. Recipients are saluted by service members of every rank, including five-star generals, as well as the president, according to the National Medal of Honor Museum.

Trump has never served in the armed forces and therefore never held an official military rank. He attended the New York Military Academy, where he became cadet captain.

After receiving four deferments while in college, Trump received a fifth deferment in 1968, as the Vietnam War was raging. That followed a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels—courtesy of a Queens podiatrist who rented an office in a building owned by his father, Fred Trump.

Trump has been thirsting after military glory despite having no military résumé.

White House insiders told The Wall Street Journal in April that amid the chaos of his war on Iran, which has so far claimed the lives of 18 troops, Trump considered giving himself the Medal of Honor.

The Journal reported that Trump pondered the idea during a White House reception, saying he deserved it because his plane flew into Iraq on an unlit runway during a first-term trip to visit troops stationed in the country, citing people who were at the event.

The president, who has reportedly called fallen soldiers “losers” and “suckers,” had previously riffed about his Iraq trip during a rally in Georgia in February.

“I flew to Iraq and was extremely brave. In fact, so brave I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor,” he said.

As his Iran war effort struggles, Trump has turned to AI to rewrite his own mythology—casting himself alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy over the past two weeks.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bone-spurs-president-uses-ai-to-award-himself-ultimate-medal/?

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

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Billionaire Republican Megadonor Pulls the Plug on Trump’s Party

The wealthy cosmetics heir pumped millions into Republican causes just last year.

Ronald Lauder, the billionaire and major GOP donor, has abruptly stopped handing out political donations ahead of the crucial midterm elections for Donald Trump.

The wealthy heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics fortune has tightened his purse strings and has not donated to any Republican causes in his home state of New York this year, The New York Times reported.

Lauder, who has an estimated net worth of around $4.9 billion, has closed his checkbook just as the GOP is expected to suffer heavy defeats in November’s nationwide elections. The ramifications of an electoral wipeout for the Republican Party would be significant for Trump if a Democratic-controlled Congress were to pursue impeachment proceedings against the president.

However, the 82-year-old’s change in spending habits does not appear to be linked to dissatisfaction with Trump or the GOP as a whole.

Instead, sources told the Times that Lauder’s adult children had convinced him to curtail his lavish spending and public activities as he enters his later years. That includes cutting back on political donations, downsizing staff, and giving fewer public speeches.

In January 2025, Lauder—whose daughter Jane is married to Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh—announced he would be retiring from the Estée Lauder Board of Directors.

Lauder is also hoping to prioritize art and philanthropic projects, which he believes will form a greater part of his legacy.

Gerard Kassar, chairman of the New York Conservative Party, said a close associate told him that Lauder had “got to a certain age that his family and him all decided he wasn’t going to be as active the way he has been.”

“Can anyone replace him in New York financially?” Kassar told the Times. “The simple answer is no.”

Lauder remained politically active last year, including donating $5 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC backing Trump, in March 2025. He previously handed $200,000 to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

He also donated another $1 million to a super PAC opposing Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign.

Lauder’s ties to Trump date back decades, and he is credited with putting the idea in the president’s head to try to purchase Greenland back in 2018. Estée Lauder’s headquarters is just two blocks away from Trump Tower on New York’s 5th Avenue.

Overall, Lauder is estimated to have donated more than $40 million to state and federal campaigns. However, that pales in comparison to what he has spent on artwork. In 2006, the billionaire paid $135 million for Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, the highest price ever paid for a painting at the time.

In a statement to the Times, Lauder said he has used his political donations to “strengthen” New York City.

He added: “I intend to continue dedicating my time, resources and energy to advancing those democratic principles and to ensuring that New York remains a place where people, families, businesses and communities can thrive.”

The Daily Beast has contacted Ronald Lauder’s office for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/billionaire-republican-megadonor-ronald-lauder-pulls-the-plug-on-trumps-party/?

ps:One by one, but is it to late??

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Military Families Rage at Trump Over Gross Conditions for Troops

Relatives of the crew aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln say exhaustion on the carrier could get someone killed.

Sailors fighting President Donald Trump’s war with Iran are washing in moldy showers and rationing meals in the ninth month of a mission that shows zero signs of ending.

The USS Abraham Lincoln sailed out of San Diego in November on a deployment supposed to last seven months. Trump, 80, launched his air campaign against Iran in February. The carrier has been in the fight ever since, and its 5,000-plus sailors and Marines still have no homecoming date. The president said the conflict would last a “few weeks.” It’s been five months.

Bonnie York, whose stepson is aboard the Lincoln, told MS NOW she had been told a doctor or therapist on the ship warned the crew needed to reach port before people started “losing their minds.” She voted for Trump—and partly because he promised not to start any new wars. She no longer believes the country is safer for it. “You’ve essentially stranded them out there,” she said of the crew.

Relatives of the crew told the network they fear the exhaustion on board will get someone killed. A dozen spoke to the outlet about the conditions, and most asked not to be named, fearing retaliation against their relatives on the vessel.

Brett Snow, a Navy veteran with a son on the ship, said the grind has produced a situation “ripe for accidents.” Even in peacetime, he said, a carrier is one of the most hazardous places to work.

The crew has set foot off the ship for just two days in the more than eight months since it left California. There was a brief stop in Guam in December, then no port at all until the Lincoln reached Oman on July 7, ending 208 unbroken days out on the water. No U.S. carrier has spent longer at sea without a break in the modern era.

Families of the service personnel on the ship described toilets that are out of service, laundry rooms shut for weeks and long stretches without hot water.

Nicole Conrad, who, like York, voted for Trump, has not seen her son’s face for months. He has messaged her about locked showers, a shuttered laundry and a meal that came to two tortillas and a half-cup of rice. She now wants Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, 46, to see the ship for himself. “He put our nose in a war that we shouldn’t be in,” she said.

The crew’s relatives went public two days after Trump handed Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, control of a new panel on military family welfare, the New York Post reports. He signed the order in the Oval Office on Monday. Its members are Christie Mullin, wife of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, and 20 spouses of the Joint Chiefs, the service secretaries and each branch’s top enlisted leader.

Hegseth brushed off an earlier round of complaints about conditions at sea. Photographs of near-empty meal trays aboard the Lincoln and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli spread online in April, and the Daily Beast reported at the time on parents’ fury over their children going hungry on board. The defense secretary called that coverage “fake news.”

Rep. Sara Jacobs, 37, a San Diego Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the crew’s fatigue and mental health worry her deeply, and warned that history shows such strain can carry serious consequences, including a heightened risk of suicide. Trump, she said, “needs to end the Iran war now and bring our service members home.”

Other military families have had a different week. The Associated Press counted 51 cases of mothers, fathers, husbands and wives of serving troops taken into immigration custody since Trump returned to office. At least six have been deported. At least eight are still being held. No federal agency keeps a tally, and the Department of Homeland Security told the wire it compiles none, so the real figure is almost certainly higher.

The arrests have pushed back deployments, driven some troops to take leave and left others with nobody at home to mind their children. Experts told AP the reversal could damage readiness while the country is fighting a war.

One of the officials who has stepped in to get military spouses released is Markwayne Mullin, whose department is making the arrests, and whose wife took her seat on Trump’s commission for military welfare on Monday.

The Daily Beast has contacted his department, along with the White House and the Pentagon, for comment on this story.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/families-rage-at-trump-over-american-forces-aboard-uss-lincoln/?

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Judge Torches Trump’s DOJ Goons in Scathing Ruling

The judge ripped into the administration for moving to dismiss charges against the worst Jan. 6 defendants.

A federal judge slammed the Department of Justice as he “reluctantly” granted the Trump administration’s request to throw out the charges against nine members of an extremist organization that led the Capitol riot. On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 rioters, effectively wiping out about 1,270 convictions and ending criminal proceedings against the remaining defendants who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.He also commuted the sentences of 14 people found guilty of organizing and leading the attack—including former members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers—which freed them from prison but meant they were still classified as felons.

Judge Amit P. Mehta on Tuesday granted U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s motion to dismiss the charges against nine Oath Keepers, including its leader Stewart Rhodes, less than a month after charges were dropped against five Proud Boys.

Mehta’s scathing decision made it clear he was only ruling that way because he lacked the authority to deny the request, since the executive branch has final authority over charging decisions.

His ruling laid out the gravity of the crimes committed by the defendants and warned that in the court’s view, dismissal was not “in the public interest.”

“Today’s epilogue diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and excuses criminal acts that caused a centuries-long pillar of our democracy—the peaceful transfer of presidential power—to buckle,” Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote.

He also ripped into the DOJ for failing to provide a compelling reason for dropping the charges

“The government does not say that the charges were legally deficient or that evidence presented is insufficient to sustain Defendants’ convictions,” he wrote. “It confesses no prosecutorial misconduct, nor does it assert any denial or compromise of the defendant’s rights. And it does not identify any legal error that resulted in an unfair trial or wrongful conviction.”

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

Rhodes and five other defendants had been convicted of the most serious crimes, including seditious conspiracy, for trying to violently overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump.

Two others were convicted on other conspiracy charges, while another was convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding.

Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison, the second-longest of any J6 defendants, and had called on Trump to issue a full pardon so he could own a gun, vote in his home state of Texas, and receive veterans benefits.

Using encrypted communications, Rhodes helped recruit and train rioters, brought paramilitary gear and weapons to Washington, D.C., and helped breach the Capitol building. While the angry mob attacked police officers inside, Rhodes remained outside coordinating the attack, according to the DOJ.

He then continued plotting even after the riot failed to stop the election’s certification until he was arrested in 2022.

Rhodes and the other defendants had challenged their convictions in hopes of expunging their records.

They were facing an April deadline to file their arguments about why the government had overreached with its charges.

Defending the convictions would have likely required the DOJ to argue that the far-right groups were acting on behalf of Trump, who has long denied being responsible for the violence that took place at the Capitol, The New York Times reported at the time.

Instead, Pirro—a longtime Trump loyalist—filed to have the charges dismissed against the remaining defendants.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-torches-trumps-doj-goons-in-scathing-oath-keepers-capitol-riot-ruling/?

ps:The really sad thing is they all know, everyone of his administration know what they're doing wrong!!!!!

[phkrause]

ICE Rounds Up Dozens of Relatives of U.S. Troops

The change reflects the ruthlessness of Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda in his second term.

More than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops have been detained, and at least six have been deported, in President Donald Trump’s massive crackdown on immigration.

At least eight immediate family members of service members are currently in ICE custody. The Associated Press found that many military family members have been detained during immigration appointments while applying for parole-in-place or seeking to adjust their legal status.

Parents and spouses of service members have generally been protected from deportation for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Experts say the move could have a negative impact on U.S. troops as they fight Trump’s war with Iran. Deporting family members can leave troops in emotional distress, without caretakers for their children and forces some to leave their posts to take care of their families or help with the immigration process.

“How can I even focus on my military career because I have to worry about how my wife is doing?” said Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, whose wife was detained in front of their six-year-old daughter outside a Walmart in July while he was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas.

The change reflects the ruthlessness of Trump’s mass deportation agenda in his second term.

According to a new April 2025 policy, “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.”

Dan Gividen, who served as ICE’s deputy chief counsel under Trump in his first term, said it was uncommon for immigration authorities to detain service members’ immediate family members unless they had committed violent crimes.

“We would not place them into removal proceedings, period. That’s insane,” Gividen told the Associated Press. “The fact that they’re doing it now is just outrageous.”

One of the reasons why many join the U.S. military is because it offers a pathway to legal immigration status from within the country. The benefit, which the military itself advertises, extends to spouses, children and parents of active-duty service members and veterans.

The policy dates back to 2007, when President George W. Bush introduced it during the Iraq War.

“They basically told me that if you serve, and if you served honorably, you can help your parents,” said Vilchis-Valle, 23, who was honorably discharged shortly after his mother was deported. “In a perfect world, I wished, because of my service, they could have pardoned her.”

ICE historically canceled orders to detain parents or spouses of troop members or allowed them to adjust their legal status, Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney and retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, explained.

“It’s the same thing that happens if you don’t provide healthcare to the troops, or you don’t provide housing to the troops,” she said. If soldiers are preoccupied with detained or deported family, “they’re not concentrating on their job anymore.”

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-detains-relatives-of-us-troops-during-immigration-crackdown/?

ps:What a commander and chief, gets people to vote for him and than deports them as there kids who are serving our country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[phkrause]

Work slowdown in immigration offices

Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photos: Brendan Smialowski/AFP and Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A work slowdown by the Trump administration's immigration offices has exploded the backlog of applications for citizenship, green cards and work permits to an unprecedented 7.5 million people, Axios' Brittany Gibson writes from the latest agency data. Add the millions of immigrants waiting on decisions for asylum, work visas and permission to stay in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons, and the total backlog soars to more than 12.1 million. Why it matters: The delays have put potentially millions of people in legal immigration limbo — vulnerable to being arrested by ICE agents and deported, even if they've followed the rules to try to stay in the U.S. Officials say the delays are being driven by the administration's new focus on stricter vetting. A wave of DOGE-induced retirements also reduced the workforce at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Critics see a calculated plan to boost arrests and deportations. Keep reading.