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

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Some National Guard units in Washington, D.C., now carry firearms in escalation of Trump deployment Some National Guard units patrolling the nation’s capital at the direction of President Donald Trump have started carrying firearms, an escalation of his military deployment that makes good on a directive issued late last week by his defense secretary. Read more.

What to know: A Defense Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly said some units on certain missions would be armed — some with handguns and others with rifles —  and that would include those patrolling to establish a law enforcement presence throughout the capital.     The development in Trump’s extraordinary effort to override the law enforcement authority of state and local governments comes as he is considering expanding the deployments to other Democratic-led cities.   In Washington, a patchwork of protests popped up throughout the city over the weekend, while some normally bustling corners were noticeably quiet.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ BREAKING: Kilmar Abrego Garcia surrenders to ICE in Baltimore, faces possible deportation to Uganda   ‘Stay out of our city': Chicago officials slam Trump’s threat to target city in next crime crackdown   Four ways ICE is training new agents and scaling up   Judge blocks Trump from cutting money to Chicago, LA and other cities over ‘sanctuary’ policies   France summons US Ambassador Kushner over 'unacceptable' letter about rising antisemitism   HHS moves to strip thousands of federal health workers of union rights   Texas redistricting fight shakes up battle lines for both parties in key US Senate race   Trump halts work on New England offshore wind project that’s nearly complete   Federal judge rules Alabama Senate district violates Voting Rights Act, orders new map   Wisconsin judge rejects motions to dismiss charges against Trump aides   Trump’s death penalty push faces setbacks as judges block attempts to reverse prior decisions   Judge strikes down Minnesota law banning religious tests for college credit program   A commuter college thought it could avoid Trump’s education crackdown. Here’s what happened   FACT FOCUS: Posts overestimate number of noncitizens living in US by tens of millions   Trump blames renewable energy for rising electricity prices. Experts point elsewhere   ‘No magic fixes’ for Democrats as party confronts internal and fundraising struggles   US releases Emmett Till investigation records ahead of 70th anniversary of his killing   UK’s top diplomat gets a warning for illegal fishing with US vice president

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Trump Rages at Republican Senator in Truth Social Meltdown

The president ordered Chuck Grassley to tell Democrats to “go to HELL” over a longstanding custom.

Donald Trump lashed out at Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley after the “blue slip” custom was used to block his former personal lawyer from becoming the U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

In a Sunday post on Truth Social, the president attacked Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley over the decades-old tradition that allows home-state senators to object to federal judicial nominations.

Two New Jersey Democratic Senators–Cory Booker and Andy Kim–used the blue slip custom to prevent a floor vote on Habba’s nomination. On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that Habba has been unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey after the president’s team attempted a convoluted maneuver to keep her in the role without Senate approval.

“I have a Constitutional Right to appoint Judges and U.S. Attorneys, but that RIGHT has been completely taken away from me in States that have just one Democrat United States Senator,” Trump wrote. “This is because of an old and outdated ‘custom’ known as a BLUE SLIP, that Senator Chuck Grassley, of the Great State of Iowa, refuses to overturn, even though the Democrats, including Crooked Joe Biden (Twice!), have done so on numerous occasions.

“Therefore, the only candidates that I can get confirmed for these most important positions are, believe it or not, Democrats! Chuck Grassley should allow strong Republican candidates to ascend to these very vital and powerful roles, and tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!” Trump added.

Habba also attacked Grassley, Booker, and Kim over the blue slip tradition, named because of the literal blue-colored forms sent to senators seeking their approval or disapproval for judicial nominations in their home states.

“This tradition that Senator Grassley is upholding effectively prevents anybody in a blue state from going through to the Senate to then be voted on, Habba told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.

“Senator Booker and Senator Kim had absolutely every right to vote no for me for the U.S. attorney position, but I had the right, as the nominee, to get in front of the Senate and to be voted on, to be vetted. I never even got there.”

Grassley is standing firm, saying he will not scrap the long-running blue slip custom despite pressure from Trump to do so.

In posts on X defending himself, Grassley wrote: “A U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not have the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t have the votes to get out of [committee]. As chairman. I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE.”

“Habba was withdrawn as the President’s nominee for New Jersey U.S. Atty on July 24 and the [Senate Judiciary Committee] never received any of the paperwork needed for the Senate to vet her nomination,” Grassley added.

Trump had also urged Grassley to scrap blue slips in another Truth Social rant in July, demanding the 91-year-old senator get rid of it “immediately” and “not let the Democrats laugh at him.”

Grassley lamented Trump’s attacks during a July 30 committee business meeting, saying he was “offended by what the president said, and I’m disappointed that it would result in personal insult.”

A spokesperson for Grassley referred the Daily Beast to his social media posts when reached for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-rages-at-republican-senator-chuck-grassley-in-truth-social-meltdown/?

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There’s One Major Problem With Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize Dream

A majority of the Norwegian Nobel Committee panel has concerns that could torpedo his ambition.

Donald Trump’s desperate hopes of being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize may be severely hindered, as the majority of the committee that decides who gets the honor has publicly condemned the president.

At least three of the five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee panel, which selects the recipients of the prestigious award, have spoken out against Trump for his attacks on the press and concerns he is “dismantling” U.S. democracy in his second term, The Washington Post reported.

President Trump has made no secret of his desire to be handed a $1 million Nobel Peace Prize, insisting he has stopped multiple wars since January, including conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Israel and Iran. Speaking to reporters at the Oval Office on Friday, Trump took credit for having “settled” seven wars, claiming the number increases to 10 if you include “pre-wars.”

One major hurdle for Trump is that members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee do not appear to be big fans of the president. Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chairman of the panel, mentioned the president by name while decrying “the erosion of freedom of expression even in democratic nations” during 2024.

“President Donald Trump launched more than 100 verbal attacks on the media during his election campaign,” Frydnes told PEN Norway, a group that promotes freedom of expression, last December.

Another panel member, a former Norwegian minister of education, Kristin Clemet, offered a more scathing attack on the first 100 days of Trump’s return to the White House.

“No one can deny that some of the problems Donald Trump has said he will do something about are real. But many of the solutions he chooses, and the way he proceeds, are deeply disturbing,” Clemet wrote for the liberal think tank Civita in May.

“After just over 100 days as president, he is well underway in dismantling American democracy, and he is doing everything he can to tear down the liberal and rules-based world order.”

A third committee member, Norway’s former state secretary in the foreign ministry, Gry Larsen, has also been a public critic of the president for years.

A day before the 2020 election, she uploaded a photo to Facebook wearing a red “Make Human Rights Great Again” hat, parodying Trump’s MAGA merchandise. She also posted on X in 2017 that Trump was “putting millions of lives at risk” by expanding a U.S. foreign aid ban to target international abortion services.

It is unclear whether the other two panel members share similar strong objections to Trump, but one of them, academic Asle Toje, did express some sympathy for Trump during the constant legal issues that occurred during the Biden administration, The Post noted.

Frydnes was coy about whether he would be willing to hand Trump a Nobel Peace Prize when reached for comment by the newspaper, but said that awarding it to a head of state is “perhaps often the most controversial.”

“Both because if you’re a head of state, you have power. You have power, and you’ve used power. You often have blood on your hands if it’s a conflict. But you also have the power to do things afterwards, which complicates the picture,” Frydnes said.

The Norwegian Nobel Institute did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/theres-one-major-problem-with-donald-trumps-nobel-peace-prize-dream/?

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Democrats demand Trump resume a major offshore wind project near Rhode Island

NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) — A nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut faces an uncertain future after the Trump administration abruptly halted construction, and the states’ Democratic governors, lawmakers and union workers called Monday for the president to reverse course.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-renewable-energy-offshore-wind-farm-c1faf852d2960473b8f96b14321f6832?

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Less Effective, More Intrusive (Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP / Getty)

View in browser “The era of big government is over,” Bill Clinton declared 29 years ago. Donald Trump never got the memo. In his second term, the president is embracing perhaps the most sweeping expansion of federal power since that of Franklin D. Roosevelt: bullying state governments, using military force if necessary; telling private institutions, including media corporations and universities, how to operate; extorting law firms into doing free work for the government; and, in the latest escalation, taking a stake in the tech firm Intel. For decades, the American right and the Republican Party held themselves up as the defenders of individual citizens, corporations, and state and local governments against intrusive control from Washington. But where Ronald Reagan joked that the nine most terrifying words in the English language were I’m from the government, and I’m here to help, Trump’s credo is “I’m from the government, and I’m here to take over.” The debate in America is no longer about whether socialism can gain a foothold. It’s whether the socialism that dominates will be progressive or right-wing. Conservative pundits and trolls have long used socialist as a ready-made epithet for any left-of-center policy ideas. Trump himself even called Kamala Harris a “communist” during the 2024 campaign. But Trump is offering proof that a government can be both socialist and reactionary. As recently as 2016, the right-wing writer Michael Anton argued in favor of a Trump presidency by warning of “the soul-sapping effects of paternalistic Big Government and its cannibalization of civil society and religious institutions.” Today, that’s a pretty good description of Trump’s approach to power. (Anton now serves in Trump’s State Department.) Last week, the Trump administration announced that the government was taking a 10 percent stake in Intel. This would be remarkable enough on its own: The federal government doesn’t usually take stakes in any companies, except in cases of imminent collapse that endanger the national economy. Yet the circumstances of this case were even more shocking. As Wall Street Journal reporting indicates, this was more of a protection racket than a business deal. First, the announcement came after the president demanded that Intel’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, resign over past business dealings with the Chinese military. Second, the stake was “bought” with $8.9 billion already promised to Intel as grants under a 2022 law passed by Congress. (If Tan’s ties to China were really a national-security threat, going into business with him would be a curious choice.) Speaking with reporters today, Trump agreed that his action is a form of industrial policy. When the Biden administration adopted this approach, in which government is more closely involved with private businesses, Republicans and conservatives attacked it as socialist. The top economic adviser Kevin Hassett says more investments will come soon. The self-described socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is, in a rare case of agreement with Trump, on board with the Intel deal, but the arrangement has enraged some Trump allies. “This is actual socialism happening by a Republican administration,” Erick Erickson, the veteran conservative commentator, fulminated. “You may be comfortable with socialism. You may decide you like socialism, because someone from the Trump administration wants socialism, but my God, people, what have we been fighting for for the last decade?” Fair question—except that this is hardly a major divergence from Trump’s modus operandi. Over the weekend, Governor Wes Moore of Maryland, Governor J. B. Pritzker of Illinois, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson responded with verbal jousts to Trump’s threats to federalize National Guard forces (over the governors’ objections) and send them to Chicago, and Baltimore, following his militarization of Washington, D.C. Trump has still not laid out what the goal of these actions is, short of vaguely enforcing order, nor when they should stop, nor why the National Guard is suited to them. But conservatives have traditionally been very uncomfortable with this kind of federal intrusion on states, even in far more justifiable cases, such as enforcing desegregation. Meanwhile, Trump is attempting to force states to stop using mail-in ballots, which he falsely claims are linked to fraud, a notion fed to him recently by the notorious election thief Vladimir Putin. As Barton Gellman wrote in The New York Times, this is an astonishing attempted grab of power over elections. The Constitution vests control of elections with Congress or the states, not the president. Some Republicans even objected when the Obama administration tried to set up cybersecurity assistance for election systems, but few are questioning Trump today. At the same time, he is trying to depose a Federal Reserve governor so that he can exert more control over monetary policy. These are attempts to expand the federal government’s reach within the public sector; more unusual still are the incursions into private enterprises. The Intel stake is only the most recent and most expansive. Trump strong-armed law firms into agreements in which they’re reportedly doing free work to boost his agenda. Last night, he threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses for NBC and ABC stations—omitting CBS, which already knuckled under to him—in his latest attack on free speech and attempt to force the press to cover him positively. Not content to merely police universities’ use of affirmative action or potential civil-rights violations, the federal government has effectively fired a university president and is trying to control what curricula they can teach and dictate what students they can and cannot admit. Trump is even trying to tell the National Baseball Hall of Fame whom it should enshrine. Paradoxically, Trump is also shrinking the federal government’s footprint, as measured by headcount and agencies. He’s closed or sought to shut down USAID, the Education Department, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and has fired or bought out hundreds of thousands of federal employees; the exact number is difficult to know because of unresolved litigation and the administration’s opacity. Yet even as he shrinks the size of the government, he is expanding its role into new and unprecedented areas. And the pace of government spending continues to rise, in part because of ill-conceived “efficiency” cuts. The result is a government that is less effective at providing services, more expensive, and more intrusive. This is just the nightmare that right-wing politicians and thinkers have been warning about for a century, and now their party has made it reality. The era of small government is over. Related: David Frum: Trump is making socialism great again. The real reasons American socialists don’t win

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Chairman Trump

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

To President Trump's many roles, formal and self-designated, add a new one to the list: chairman of all boards, Axios managing editor for business Ben Berkowitz writes. Why it matters: The president has assumed a quasi-authority to orchestrate how the private sector operates, both broadly and down to the management and ownership of individual companies. No one's stopping him. So he continues to confidently plow ahead. Those with insight into his strategy argue it's anything but arbitrary. There's a mold-breaking calculus at play, they say, centered on national security and American competitiveness. ? Zoom in: The director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" yesterday that the government's new stake in Intel was a "down payment" on the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, adding it was "absolutely right" that Trump would seek more such investments. In other words, if you're a private company, you may soon be invited to sell a chunk of your business to the government, even at the cost of diluting existing shareholders. There are plenty of other examples this year of Trump telling businesses how to do business: ? Chip companies that wanted to do business in China being ordered to hand over 15% of their revenue to get export licenses. ? Apple being squeezed for another $100 billion investment commitment to avoid huge tariffs for not making its phones in the U.S. ? U.S. Steel having to hand over a golden share to Trump's personal control to reverse the rejection of its sale to Nippon Steel. ⚖️ Law firms being ordered to hand over free services to the government to avoid being pursued over their past work. It's not just private industry — sports and entertainment businesses are also getting pushed around: ? Trump threatened to derail the Washington Commanders' new stadium deal unless the team changed its name back to the Redskins. ⚾️ He demanded the Baseball Hall of Fame include Pete Rose, and more recently, Roger Clemens. ? ABC and NBC are being threatened with losing their various local broadcast licenses because Trump doesn't like their reporting on him.

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? Trump ignites Fed war

Via X President Trump moved to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook last night, Axios Macro authors Courtenay Brown and Neil Irwin write. Why it matters: It's legally unclear if the president has that power. So Trump touched off a historic legal fight that threatens the central bank's political independence. Trump cited Article II of the Constitution and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to tell Cook she was "removed" from her position, "effective immediately," according to a letter the White House rapid response team shared on X. Bill Pulte — the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who has been among the most outspoken among Trump officials about the Fed — alleged in a letter earlier this month that she "falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud." ?️ The big picture: Trump's action turns what has been a theoretical — that he might seek to test the limits of the law by firing Fed governors, rather than just pressuring them — into a reality. It has never happened before, so no one knows how any wrangling over the legality of firing Cook will play out, nor what it will mean for the Fed in the meantime. The Federal Reserve Act allows the president to fire a Fed governor for cause, but it is unclear whether the fine details of years-old mortgage applications from before Cook became a governor are sufficient. Keep reading. Screenshot: MSNBC Above: The Trump administration has overseen a huge wave of high-profile military retirements and removals. In the past two weeks, that's included the Air Force's top general and the leaders of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Naval Special Warfare Command and Navy Reserve.

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Republican Told to Take His ‘Head Out of Trump’s A**’ in Town Hall Trainwreck

Other constituents complained about the president’s support for Russia and booed his mass-deportation policy.

Voters at a town hall meeting in Missouri demanded that their Republican congressman denounce President Donald Trump’s “lies”—and told him to get his head “out of Trump’s a--.”

Rep. Mark Alford was the latest GOP lawmaker to host a contentious live event during the August recess despite party leaders advising their caucus to avoid in-person meetings with constituents. Other Republicans have been savaged with boos, jeers, and profanity.

The crowd at Alford’s Monday town hall—which was held at Southwest Baptist University campus in Bolivar—was largely civil, but the voters were no less scathing than those who drowned out his colleagues in other states with chants of “Lie! Lie!”

“You are not helping me. Believe me, you are not helping me,” said one older man who identified himself as Fred Higginbotham. “You need to take your head out of Trump’s a-- and start doing your representation of us,” he added, drawing some of the night’s loudest whoops and cheers.

Higginbotham also called Trump a “dictator” who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“I listened to him for about a half-hour today and I got sick at all the lies he brought up,” he said. “I would appreciate you taking your father’s U.S. Constitution book, read it, study it, make your own lines underneath it, and get Trump out of office!”

Other voters also called out Trump’s “lies” and demanded that Alford respond to them.

“I just wondered if you had shared with President Trump that Vladimir Putin was the aggressor, because he keeps saying Ukraine did it. And we all saw what happened, but he continues to lie and lie and lie,” one woman said.

“I never heard him say that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky was the aggressor in this. Did he say that? I don’t believe he has,” Alford said, as audience members scoffed.

The woman who asked the question shook her head and laughed, before nodding to say that, yes, Trump did say that.

In February, Zelensky criticized peace talks between Russia and the U.S. for excluding Kyiv. Trump responded by telling reporters, “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” The Guardian reported.

A few months later, in April, the president again explicitly blamed Zelensky for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying, “When you start a war, you gotta know that you can win the war. You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” the BBC reported.

Another constituent pointed out that Alford had talked about abuses in the Medicare and Medicaid system, but that Trump had pardoned someone who defrauded the Medicaid system for about $1.3 billion.

“I find that curious,” the man said to applause.

At the end of his first term, the president commuted the 20-year prison sentence of Philip Esformes, a nursing home magnate who was convicted in 2019 of bribing doctors and ripping off Medicare and Medicaid to the tune of $1 billion.

The White House justified the commutation by saying that Esformes, who was 52 at the time, had spent his time in prison “devoted to prayer” and was in “declining health,” PBS reported.

On the topic of immigration, Alford said that Trump had secured the border and “fixed the hole in the boat,” leading to loud booing along with scattered applause.

He also took Republican leaders’ advice and tried to rebrand the president’s widely hated “Big Beautiful” spending bill, referring to it by its legislative designation of “HR1.”

When Alford tried to claim the bill’s tax cuts would benefit the working class, the audience groaned and laughed. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has found the legislation to be regressive overall, with most of the benefits going to high-income households.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republican-rep-mark-alford-told-to-take-his-head-out-of-trumps-a-in-town-hall-trainwreck/?

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Trump Says He’s Firing First-Ever Black Woman on Federal Reserve. She Tells Him to Shove It

The president posted a termination letter online.

President Donald Trump announced he was firing Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook on Monday night, but the top official hit back and insisted she’s not going anywhere.

Trump posted a termination letter on his Truth Social account addressed to Lisa Cook, who was confirmed by the Senate in 2022 as the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor.

The letter included allegations that Cook had committed mortgage fraud and said she was being removed from her position “effective immediately.” Trump ally Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, referred Cook to the Justice Department for investigation last week.

The president’s letter claimed that due to the alleged improprieties, he had “sufficient cause to remove you from your position.” But Cook and her lawyer immediately questioned whether Trump has the power to terminate her at all.

Under the Federal Reserve Act, governors can only be removed from their jobs “for cause” or for some kind of wrongdoing, but Cook has not been charged with any crime, and no president has ever fired a governor before.

“President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” Cook said in a statement to The New York Times.

She added, “I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.”

Cook has hired lawyer Abbe Lowell, who said in a statement that Trump’s “demands lack any proper process, basis or legal authority.”

“We will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action,” Lowell added.

Trump had called for Cook’s resignation last week over allegations made by Pulte over her mortgage documents. Trump posted on Truth Social that Cook “must resign, now!!!”

Pulte claimed Cook had “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraudulent.” In a statement to the Daily Beast at the time, Cook said she had learned of the news through the media. “I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” she said.

“I do intend to take any questions about my financial history seriously as a member of the Federal Reserve and so I am gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts,” she added.

Trump’s letter stated that due to alleged “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter,” he had no confidence in her integrity.

Trump added: “At a minimum, the conduct at issue exhibits the sort of gross negligence in financial transactions that calls into question your competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the Federal Reserve and the White House for comment.

Cook, who was nominated to the post by Joe Biden, is not due to finish her current term until 2038.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, attacked Trump in a statement on the issue.

“The illegal attempt to fire Lisa Cook is the latest example of a desperate President searching for a scapegoat to cover for his own failure to lower costs for Americans,” Warren said.

“It’s an authoritarian power grab that blatantly violates the Federal Reserve Act, and must be overturned in court.”

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement, “Dr. Lisa Cook is the first Black woman ever to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Donald Trump is trying to remove her without a shred of credible evidence that she has done anything wrong.”

Jeffries continued, “To the extent anyone is unfit to serve in a position of responsibility because of deceitful and potentially criminal conduct, it is the current occupant of the White House. The American people are not buying your phony projection and slander of a distinguished public servant.”

Meanwhile, House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, told Axios, “What an outrage and a scandal. This is the big one constitutionally.”

Trump biographer Michael Wolff told the Daily Beast’s podcast Inside Trump’s Head that the president’s contempt for Cook was just one example of his bias against Black women.

“I spent the last two years, more than two years, deeply involved with Trump’s campaign,” Wolff said. “One of the motifs that was pervasive in the campaign was Trump’s attitude toward Black women.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-fires-first-ever-black-woman-on-federal-reserve/?

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How Trump Learned to Lie and Twist Truth: Author

The 79-year-old president, who trades in sensationalism and half-truths, is a product of 1980s tabloid culture, author Jonathan Mahler argues.

Donald Trump’s playbook—outrage, mythmaking, and relentless self-promotion—wasn’t born in the White House or on The Apprentice. It was forged in the tabloid wars of 1980s New York, author Jonathan Mahler argues.

The 79-year-old president is “the personification of 1980s excess”, an era during which the young developer first learned to dominate the public stage, Mahler explained on Tuesday’s episode of The Daily Beast Podcast.

“What Trump does so well as a politician is build a story line,” the longtime New York Times Magazine writer said.

He argued that, contrary to the conventional belief that Trump’s rise as a master of publicity began with the reality TV show The Apprentice in 2004, the president is really a product of New York’s frenetic tabloid culture in the 1980s, when the media ecosystem wasn’t fragmented by social media and a few tabloids set the city abuzz.

“That is where Donald Trump learned to capture and hold the public attention,” Mahler said. “That is where he learned that publicity was power, that by capturing the public’s attention he could wield power.”

As a “new class of celebrities” of rich bankers and real estate developers like himself emerged in New York, Trump took full advantage of “working sources” and “calling in stories constantly, anonymously” to Page Six, Mahler said.

Trump, Mahler explained, recognized that he could “use the tabloids to elevate himself and to demonize his enemies,” inventing the fictitious spokesperson “John Barron” and using the pseudonym to give the press stories and take calls.

And while whether he’s mastered the art of the deal is up for debate, Trump had the art of publicity stunts down cold.

In one memorable instance, the 39-year-old developer publicly pressured then-New York City Mayor Ed Koch, with the help of tabloids, into handing the struggling Wollman Rink renovation in Central Park over to him in 1986. The stunt followed his feud with Koch over a denied tax break for Trump Tower.

Rather than a political maneuver, Trump saw his ploy as a “power grab,” Mahler argued.

“It was a way to use power,” he told host Joanna Coles. ”And now we see him do it. I mean, that’s basically how his presidency operates.”

The president was accused this month of launching a blatant power grab by taking control of the Washington, D.C., police force and deploying the National Guard in the name of a crime crackdown, even though violent crime in the city hit a 30-year low last year.

Critics have argued the move is more performance than policy, designed to make the president appear powerful alongside armed soldiers.

Trump first tested political waters in 1988, when he teased that he might run for president—although it’s widely believed to have been a publicity stunt to promote his book, The Art of the Deal.

Still, the book’s success “took Trump national and cemented the mythology around him in the kind of public consciousness,” Mahler said.

Mahler said Trump’s first foray into culture wars came in 1989, when he took out full-page ads in several prominent papers calling for the execution of the Central Park Five—a group of teenagers who were wrongly accused of raping and beating a jogger in Central Park, a crime they were eventually exonerated for.

During those formative years, Trump realized that he could “plant a seed” for a story and “run out the string literally for months on end,” said Mahler, whose book The Gods of New York: The Tumultuous Eighties, from Donald Trump to the Tompkins Square Riots was published earlier this month.

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

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-donald-trump-learned-to-lie-and-twist-truth-author-jonathan-mahler/?

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Fox News’ Attempt to Prove Trump’s Story Backfires

There is still no evidence that Maryland Gov. Wes Moore told Trump he is “the greatest president of my lifetime.”

Fox News attempted to back up claims Donald Trump made about Maryland Gov. Wes Moore by showing a clip that contained almost none of the president’s side of the story.

While speaking to reporters at the Oval Office on Monday, Trump, 79, told a tale about meeting the Democrat at the Army-Navy college football game in Maryland in December 2024.

“He came over to me, hugged me, shook my hand. He said, ‘Sir, you’re the greatest president of my lifetime.’ I said, ‘It’s really nice that you say that. I’d love you to say it publicly, but I don’t think you can do that,’” Trump said.

Moore, 46, immediately disputed Trump’s version of events, posting on X “lol” and “keep telling yourself that, Mr. President.”

Fox News’ Will Cain tried to embarrass Moore by playing footage on his show Monday, originally broadcast by The Art of the Surge on the network’s streaming service Fox Nation, which he suggested would show Trump’s version of events was accurate.

However, while the footage does show Moore excitedly shaking Trump’s hand and telling him “Good to see you,” the governor never hugs Trump, nor tells him he is the “greatest president of my lifetime.”

Trump and Moore did briefly discuss efforts to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which collapsed in March after a cargo ship crashed into it. Moore suggested it could reopen during Trump’s second term with federal funding.

“We’ll help you out,” Trump told Moore.

Cain even admitted that Trump appears to have completely made up parts of the conversation after playing the footage.

“We didn’t hear there ‘greatest president ever,’ but we did hear a lot of enthusiasm and ‘So excited to meet you, Mr. President!’ Who’s telling the truth? We’ll let you decide.”

Moore, who has challenged Trump to walk the streets of Baltimore to disprove his claim it’s a “crime disaster,” also disputed the president’s version of their December 2024 encounter in an interview with WBAL Radio.

“When I say that conversation never happened, that imaginary conversation never happened, I mean that conversation never happened,” Moore said.

A spokesperson for Moore’s office added to the Daily Beast: “It should be surprising to no one that the President would like to distract from his unpopular agenda that is making life more expensive for Marylanders and Americans across the country. We wish he would spend more time focused on addressing the cost of living as he does on making stuff up.”

The White House doubled down on the claim that the Democratic governor—touted as a potential 2028 presidential candidate—secretly praises Trump, insisting he did so “behind the scenes after the President’s landslide victory on November 5th.”

“The only reason lightweight Wes Moore is attacking President Trump now is because he’s desperate for attention and delusional enough to think he has a chance at becoming the next President,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston told the Daily Beast.

“Wes should spend less time attacking President Trump and more time cleaning up the massive crime mess in Baltimore.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-attempt-to-prove-trumps-truth-backfires/?

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Trump says he’s firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, opening new front in fight for central bank control  President Donald Trump said Monday night that he’s firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, an unprecedented move that would constitute a sharp escalation in his battle to exert greater control over what has long been considered an institution independent from day-to-day politics. Read more.

Why this matters: Trump said in a letter posted on his Truth Social platform that he is removing Cook effective immediately because of allegations that she committed mortgage fraud. Cook said Monday night that she would not step down. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” she said in an emailed statement. “I will not resign.”   The law allows a president to fire a Fed governor “for cause,” which typically means for some kind of wrongdoing or dereliction of duty. The president cannot fire a governor simply because of differences over interest rate policy. Establishing a for-cause removal typically requires some type of proceeding that would allow Cook to answer the charges and present evidence, legal experts say, which hasn’t happened in this case.   If Trump succeeds in removing Cook from the board, it could erode the Fed’s political independence, which is considered critical to its ability to fight inflation because it enables it to take unpopular steps like raising interest rates. If bond investors start to lose faith that the Fed will be able to control inflation, they will demand higher rates to own bonds, pushing up borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans and business loans.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Why the Federal Reserve has historically been independent of the White House   World shares sink after Trump escalates feud with the Federal Reserve   Fed Chair Powell faces challenges to Fed independence amid potential rate cuts ps:"Control" being the operative word here!! Putting people, who will bow to him, in place over everything in the government!!

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Trump moves to ban flag burning despite Supreme Court ruling that Constitution allows it President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order requiring the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute people for burning the American flag, an activity that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled is legitimate political expression protected by the U.S. Constitution. Read more.

Why this matters: The order acknowledged the court’s 5-4 ruling in a case from Texas in 1989, but said there is still room to prosecute flag burning if it “is likely to incite imminent lawless action” or amounts to “fighting words.”   The order also called for Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue litigation to challenge the 1989 ruling, an attempt by Trump to get the issue back in front of the Supreme Court. Civil liberties advocates and constitutional scholars questioned both the legality and the merit of Trump’s action. A lawyer working for a free speech group said Trump does not have the power to rewrite the First Amendment.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Judge rules Utah’s congressional map must be redrawn for the 2026 elections   US district judge warns that the government cannot deport Abrego Garcia   Photos of Abrego Garcia turning himself in at ICE office surrounded by family and supporters   Ugandan opposition figures question deal to receive deportees from the US   'Leave our kids alone': Schools reopen in DC with parents on edge over Trump's armed patrols   WATCH: JB Pritzker blasts Trump as a 'wannabe dictator' for plans to militarize policing in Chicago   WATCH: Trump says he’s ‘not a dictator’ responding to critics decrying his DC crackdown   National Guard troops will be picking up trash in DC   What to know about cashless bail after Trump’s executive order   New top admiral takes over the US Navy amid military firings   Maine clinics denied Medicaid funds during lawsuit after Trump cuts to abortion providers   House committee subpoenas Epstein’s estate for documents, including birthday book and contacts   The National Endowment for the Arts has canceled its longtime creative writing fellowships   License plate camera company halts cooperation with federal agencies among investigation concerns   US ambassador to France doesn’t respond to French foreign ministry summons over antisemitic claims   Trump envoy says officials working ‘very, very hard’ on ending Russia-Ukraine war   Trump’s initial warning to South Korea’s Lee turns into warm welcome after flattery   Brazil’s government says it will buy some domestic products hit by Trump’s tariffs   Trump honors fallen US service members and criticizes Biden to mark Afghanistan bombing anniversary   And now for something different, civility unfolds in a Missouri GOP congressman’s town hall

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Court tosses lawsuit by Trump against Maryland federal judges, calling it ‘potentially calamitous’

BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Maryland’s entire federal bench in an emphatic ruling that underscored the extraordinary nature of the suit, slamming it as “potentially calamitous.”

https://apnews.com/article/trump-lawsuit-maryland-judges-dc9c203cfc4ca37814179d2b220e361f?

Scientists give harsh grades to Trump administration work aimed at undoing a key climate finding

Two key documents from the Trump administration aimed at revoking the long-standing finding that climate change is dangerous were filled with errors, bias and distortions, according to dozens of scientists surveyed by The Associated Press. Read more.

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Vance Dismisses ‘Wrong’ Conservative Icon Scalia Over Flag-Burning

The VP rejects the originalist jurist’s best-known commitment to the First Amendment.

Vice President JD Vance has rejected a Supreme Court ruling by one of its most feted conservative judges after a Trump order that is pitting MAGA against MAGA.

He brushed aside the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s famous stance that torching the American flag is protected free speech, so that he could support Trump’s new crusade against flag burning.

Vance loyally backed Trump on Tuesday, but several MAGA names and Republican stars have sided with Scalia and his ruling, made decades ago in the Supreme Court.

Vance’s intervention comes after the president signed an executive order requiring that the Justice Department investigate and prosecute people for burning the American flag.

The order, which follows cases of protesters burning the flag at various anti-Israel and anti-ICE demonstrations, also directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to challenge the Supreme Court’s landmark 1989 decision, Texas v. Johnson.

The 5-4 ruling, written by liberal Justice William Brennan and backed by Scalia, declared for the first time that the government cannot criminalize the destruction of an American flag when done as an act of expression.

Four years before he died, the justice spoke about the Texas v. Johnson decision during a CNN interview with Piers Morgan, where he declared that “burning the flag is a form of expression.”

“Yes, if I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag,” Scalia said.

“However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged. And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government. I mean, that was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress.”

And in 2015, he told a meeting in Philadelphia, “If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king.”

The words of Scalia, who died in February 2016, echoed through the MAGA-sphere, presenting a dilemma: To side with Trump or side with the conservative judicial movement’s most significant figure.

Writing on X on Tuesday, Vance said the ruling was wrong and that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who wrote the dissenting opinion, was right.

“Few things. 1) Antonin Scalia was a great Supreme Court Justice and a genuinely kind and decent person,” the Vice President said.

“2) The President’s EO is consistent with Texas v. Johnson. 3) Texas v. Johnson was wrong and William Rehnquist was right.”

Trump’s executive order was one of many signed this week as the president moves to exert control over the nation’s capital.

It instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to look for ways to prosecute people who desecrate the national symbol “to the fullest extent permissible under any available legal authority.”

The move sparked rare criticism from MAGA Republicans and conservatives more broadly, who defended the SCOTUS ruling.

Conservative commentator Jessie Kelly described Trump’s move as “garbage.”

“I would never in a million years harm the American flag. But a president telling me I can’t, has me as close as I’ll ever be to lighting one on fire,” he said. “I am a free American citizen. And if I ever feel like torching one, I will.”

Radio host Dana Loesch shared a similar sentiment. “Flag burning is vile, but the government has no right to control speech or expression,” she wrote.

And Christian broadcaster Erick Erickson responded to a post describing the executive order with, “This is actually not brilliant.”

“While I agree with the sentiment, it is unfortunately well settled constitutional law that burning the flag is a matter of free speech and the executive does not get to create crimes,” he said.

Scalia was an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1986 until he died in 2016.

He was known and respected for his staunch conservatism and textualist approach to constitutional law.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/vance-says-scotus-justice-scalia-was-wrong-amid-maga-flag-burning-backlash/?

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Trump Seeks Death Penalty in D.C. Despite Ban

Capital punishment was abolished in Washington, DC in 1981.

President Donald Trump is demanding the death penalty for all murders in Washington, D.C. despite capital punishment being banned in the capital more than 40 years ago.

The president made his declaration during a rambling Cabinet meeting on Tuesday as his administration carried out its crime crackdown in the nation’s capital with the deployment of the National Guard.

“Anybody murders something in the capital, capital punishment,” Trump said randomly in the middle of the meeting. “If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, D.C., we’re going to be seeking the death penalty.”

The declaration is likely to ruffle feathers in the nation’s capital further, as capital punishment faces a unique situation in the city.

Washington formally repealed the death penalty law in 1981. In 1992, D.C. residents voted against reinstating it in a referendum ordered by Congress.

However, while D.C. has banned the death penalty, federal prosecutors can still push for capital punishment for certain federal crimes, as the District is subject to congressional oversight.

The president said that states would have to make their own decisions, but he wanted capital punishment in D.C. for all murders.

The president’s announcement was his latest attempt at power-grabbing in the district, following the federalization of the metropolitan police more than two weeks ago and his deployment of the National Guard.

Trump has declared the militarization of D.C. a great success. He and other members of his administration have highlighted that the nation’s capital has had no homicides for twelve days. The president has claimed that has not happened in years, but there were two other seven or more day stretches this year alone where there were no recorded homicides.

Local leaders have argued that crime has been on the decline since its recent peak in Washington, D.C. in 2023. The Trump administration has dismissed crime data from the Metropolitan Police Department as false.

More than 2,000 members of the National Guard have been deployed to the nation’s capital since Trump’s announcement.

The president has suggested that he would bypass Congress if necessary to continue his takeover of Washington, D.C., and declare a national emergency.

But Trump has also signaled he wants to deploy the National Guard to other U.S. cities going forward.

The president on Friday specifically floated Chicago as his next target as he argues crime in the deep blue city is out of control. He also suggested deploying troops to New York and Baltimore.

“I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States,” Trump declared on Tuesday while discussing Chicago. “If I think our country is in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-seeks-return-of-death-penalty-in-dc-despite-ban/?

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I Thought the World Would Stop Trump. Here’s Why I Was Wrong

In President Trump’s mind, what’s legal is what you can get away with.

President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, isn’t the sort of story that will captivate the average American.

But it should: It is the latest in a slew of incidents in which Trump is operating in legally grey area, testing the limits of what he can and can’t do as president. Or, to borrow my favorite metaphor, stretching the rubber band of democracy in ways it simply has never been stretched before.

The Federal Reserve is an independent agency of the federal government. The only way a president is allowed to remove one of the board of governors is “for cause.” Trump has cited allegations that Cook falsified information on two mortgage applications as that cause. But Cook has not been charged with any crime, and is refusing to leave office, insisting that “[Trump] has no authority” to remove her.

Which gets me to this—the single biggest revelation I have had in Trump’s second term: I assumed that there were a series of laws and regulations that would limit Trump’s ability to follow some of his worst instincts in office.

But what has become very clear to me in the last few months is that there are far fewer legal constraints on a president than I assumed. The truth is that most past presidents have operated within a relatively standard definition of the office, not because they were bound by law to do so but because they acted in accordance with accepted norms and traditions.

Over and over again during Trump’s second term, I have found myself turning to experts and asking “Can he do that???” The answer, more times than not, is a shrug of the shoulders.

Because the reality is this: No past president has even tried half of the things—in terms of asserting executive branch powers—that Trump has. And so even our top legal scholars are forced to admit that they aren’t totally sure whether he can do what he is trying to do because, well, no president has ever tried it before.

I made a list off the top of my head this morning. This is far from complete, but you get the idea:

• Attempting to end birthright citizenship.
• Overseeing mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
• Defunding various government agencies like USAID.
• Sending the National Guard into Los Angeles—and now D.C.—against the wishes of state and local politicians.

• Firing the board of the Kennedy Center and inserting himself as chairman.
• Demanding that major colleges and universities change their admissions and DEI practices, or run the risk of losing hundreds of millions in federal funding.
• Threatening major law firms, who he claimed opposed him, and demanding they offer pro bono services
• Oh, and threatening to take back the Panama Canal.

I have long maintained that Trump is effectively amoral—he sees only things that work to his advantage and those that don’t. There is nowhere that the lack of a sense of right and wrong is more apparent than in his willingness to push standards, traditions and boundaries. In Trump’s mind, what’s legal is what you can get away with. And the limit on your power as president is largely dependent on how willing you are to try to push it.

Lisa Cook isn’t a household name. But Trump’s attempt to remove her is a symbol of his broader approach to the presidency. And it’s the thing that I have learned— the hard way—in the past eight months.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-thought-the-world-would-stop-trump-heres-why-i-was-wrong/?

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A Credibility Problem

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If you’re looking for reasons to be skeptical about the FBI’s raid on John Bolton’s home last week, you don’t have to look very hard.

Bolton has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump more or less since the day he left his role as national security adviser in the president’s first administration, and Trump has been calling for his jailing for years, as my colleague David Frum wrote. The raid was conducted by the FBI, which is led by Kash Patel, an unqualified pick who lobbied for the job by promising retribution against Trump’s enemies—including Bolton. The FBI seems to have tipped off the friendly New York Post to the raid. And although Bolton has not been charged with any crimes, he is reportedly being investigated for the mishandling of classified documents, which is particularly rich coming from the Trump administration. (Bolton has not commented directly on the raid, save for an oblique mention in a column published today.)

So many reasons for skepticism exist, in fact, that even if Bolton has committed serious crimes, a substantial chunk of the population might never believe it. A durable minority of Americans appear willing to follow Trump, no matter what he says or does, but the rest are voters who could swing either way or who are hard-set against him. In the immediate aftermath of the raid, even long-standing hatred of Bolton didn’t prevent many left-of-center observers from flocking to his defense. Although Trump’s attempts to undermine objective truth for his own political ends have received much attention, this incident points to how his chronic dishonesty could come back to haunt him. Someday, the president may need the American people to believe something he says—and they won’t.

In an Atlantic cover story last summer, my colleague Anne Applebaum chronicled how modern-day authoritarians in countries such as China and Russia erode truth, not by convincing people to believe lies but by just wearing them down with so many:

This tactic—the so-called fire hose of falsehoods—ultimately produces not outrage but nihilism. Given so many explanations, how can you know what actually happened? What if you just can’t know? If you don’t know what happened, you’re not likely to join a great movement for democracy, or to listen when anyone speaks about positive political change. Instead, you are not going to participate in any politics at all.

This will sound familiar to Americans as well. Yesterday, Trump claimed that Maryland Governor Wes Moore—a Democrat who campaigned vociferously against Trump in 2024—told him, “Sir, you’re the greatest president of my lifetime.” This is such a laughable claim that Trump couldn’t have expected people to believe it, yet Moore felt compelled to deny it, and the press felt compelled to fact-check it. That digging is admirable, but it won’t deter Trump from sowing doubt.

Once you see the pattern that Applebaum described, its effectiveness for a political movement seeking power is clear enough, but it also has drawbacks for a government that (for now) depends on democratic legitimacy. One of the first victims might be the FBI itself. As the former special agent Asha Rangappa wrote in The New York Times, “An F.B.I. that is not perceived as legitimate will have a more difficult time gathering information and intelligence for its cases, which are often provided voluntarily by individuals who believe in its mission.”

Last night, Trump announced that he was firing Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, after Bill Pulte, the housing heir whom Trump appointed to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency, levied accusations of mortgage fraud against Cook. Here, again, there are reasons for doubt: Trump has fired many top Black or female leaders in government; he’s waging a campaign of political pressure against the Fed. Cook is challenging the firing in court and has not been charged with a crime, although, ironically, Trump has been found liable for extensive, long-running fraud in real estate. The Supreme Court suggested in May that a president can’t remove a Fed governor except for cause, so Trump is claiming cause. But why should anyone believe him?

Lower courts have become markedly more skeptical of arguments coming from government lawyers, The New York Times reported earlier this month. The court system is adversarial, but judges have heretofore assumed they can defer to representatives of the federal government on some matters. The Trump administration’s equivocations and evasions in arguments this year have led many judges to withdraw that benefit of the doubt, slowing cases down. A president who says he wants swift justice is instead gumming up the system.

This lack of credibility can manifest in ways both large and small. On a global stage, Trump will have a hard time brokering the peace deal in Ukraine that he so badly wants, because his vacillation gives neither side much incentive: Russia’s Vladimir Putin doesn’t fear him, and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and his European allies don’t trust him. But the effects can also be much more direct for American citizens. The government sometimes has to warn people about ill effects of foods, medicines, or products. But who, other than the MAHA faithful, will believe a Department of Health and Human Services that’s led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? If a dangerous storm is coming, the government needs to warn those in the path. But who will believe the Trump administration once they’ve seen a hurricane map that the president altered with a Sharpie?

This is the problem with entirely subjugating governance to immediate political concerns. As one former Trump aide told ABC News in 2020, “He was so focused on the reelection that longer-term considerations fell by the wayside.” That insight came from Bolton himself.

Related:

• Trump is getting close to a complete Federal Reserve takeover.
• David Frum: Trump is sending a terrifyingly clear message.

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Trump's kneecapping playbook

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

President Trump is gradually testing, stretching and gutting the independence of America's major institutions, leaving few stones unturned in his pursuit of unchecked power, Axios' Zachary Basu writes. Why it matters: In Trump's vision of America, authority flows only from his consent. The firing of Fed governor Lisa Cook — a first in modern history — shows that even the central bank's legendary independence is no longer untouchable. "I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States," Trump told reporters yesterday when discussing his threat to send the National Guard into Chicago. ?️ The big picture: In just seven months, Trump has consolidated vast power by following a clear playbook: Capture what he can, contest what he can't and punish those who resist. 1. Captured institutions: Trump has exerted decisive control over every inch of the executive branch, leaving little pretense of independence anywhere in the federal bureaucracy. Justice Department: Trump has declared himself — not the attorney general — as America's "chief law enforcement officer." He's stacked the DOJ with loyalists who are now leading criminal investigations into Democrats, Obama-era intelligence officials and other Trump critics. Intelligence community: Security clearances have been stripped from alleged leakers, and intelligence staff have been cut dramatically. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth even fired the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency after a preliminary assessment by the DIA suggested Trump's Iran strikes were less successful than he claimed. Independent agencies: An executive order moved all regulatory bodies under White House control, erasing decades of autonomy and enabling the gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and U.S. Agency for International Development. Washington, D.C.: Trump has seized control — literally and figuratively — over much of the nation's capital, deploying the National Guard, taking over the Kennedy Center and threatening the Smithsonian over what he deemed "anti-American" content. 2. Contested battlegrounds: These arenas face constant interference, but Trump hasn't yet achieved full capture. Military: Trump has fired top generals and required new four-star nominees to meet with him. Congress: The White House has eroded the legislature's core powers on tariffs, spending and war — sidelining lawmakers with emergency declarations or outright defiance. Academia and law: The Trump administration has extracted over $1 billion in settlements from elite universities and law firms, weaponizing the federal government's enormous funding leverage to browbeat liberal power centers. 3. Remaining resistance: These are the institutions that still act as counterweights, even if Trump is trying to kneecap them. Courts: Federal judges have frozen dozens of Trump's most aggressive policies and spoken out against intimidation. Still, the White House has escalated attacks on "rogue" judges, testing whether the judiciary can withstand sustained pressure. Media: Major outlets continue to investigate and expose contradictions in Trump's presidency, even as he curtails access, threatens regulatory action against broadcasters, and promotes loyalist voices in the press corps. Democratic Party: Despite their unpopularity, Democrats remain a legitimate opposition force — using congressional hearings, lawsuits and state governments to challenge Trump.

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Dems Celebrate Breaking MAGA Stranglehold on Deep Red State

An anti-abortion GOP candidate’s loss broke a supermajority.

Democrats in Iowa are celebrating victory after flipping a state Senate seat to beat an anti-abortion MAGA candidate and break the Republican supermajority stranglehold on the state.

Catelin Drey beat Christopher Prosch, who believes rape victims should carry fetuses to term, in a district President Donald Trump won by over 11 points in November.

The result broke a Republican supermajority in the Iowa chamber and showed that even apparently diehard Republican seats can sometimes be won. The win means the Democrats now hold 17 seats, breaking the GOP’s supermajority of 33 seats.

Drey, 37, is a marketing executive and founder of the left-leaning grassroots organization Moms for Iowa. They champion reproductive rights, including access to abortion, restrictions on guns to curb violence, and an increase in state education.

In preliminary unofficial results, Drey scored 55 percent of the vote, over Republican candidate Christopher Prosch’s 44 percent.

A self-described “strong pro-life conservative,” Prosch also believes Joe Biden stole the 2020 presidential election and that climate change is “a lie.”

On a podcast two years ago, he compared the Holocaust with abortion rights. “Who was worse?” he asked. “The Nazi Germans who killed 10 million Jews and many other people? Or the left’s policies to target an entire generation of babies to death.”

The election was held after the death of Republican Sen. Rocky De Witt in June. In the past, Iowa Republicans have passed restrictive laws on transgender issues, immigration, and abortion rights.

After Drey’s win, DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement, “Iowans are seeing Republicans for who they are: self-serving liars who will throw their constituents under the bus to rubber-stamp Donald Trump’s disastrous agenda—and they’re ready for change."

Martin continued, “They are putting Republicans on notice and making it crystal clear: any Republican pushing Trump’s unpopular, extreme agenda has no place governing on behalf of Iowa families. Make no mistake: when Democrats organize everywhere, we win everywhere, and today is no exception.”

Democratic campaign leader Heather Williams said, “As Trump and Republicans wreck the economy and erode democracy with power-grabbing schemes, Democrats’ special election wins should send a flashing warning to the GOP: voters are rejecting the failing MAGA agenda and leaving Republican candidates in the dust.”

She added, “More special elections are right on the horizon, and we’re just getting started.”

Commenting on the loss, Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann posted on X, “National Democrats were so desperate for a win that they activated 30,000 volunteers and a flood of national money to win a state senate special election by a few hundred votes. ”

He continued, “If the Democrats think things are suddenly so great again for them in Iowa, they will bring back the caucuses.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dems-celebrate-breaking-maga-stranglehold-in-deep-red-state/?

ps:They better stop doing that because it will only bite them in the rear end!!

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Trump Takes Revenge Against FEMA Workers Who Warned He’s Risking Disaster

The staff warned that Trump’s policies were putting lives at risk.

FEMA employees were abruptly placed on administrative leave Tuesday—just 24 hours after they signed an explosive open letter warning Donald Trump that the agency is being dragged back to its pre-Katrina dark ages.

The letter, signed by 191 current and former FEMA staffers, was sent to Congress and top officials on Monday. Its message was blunt—the people now running FEMA are inexperienced, politically driven, and dismantling the very programs that keep Americans safe when disaster strikes.

The writers warned that, left unchecked, the agency could stumble into catastrophe. By Tuesday evening, FEMA’s administrator’s office had fired back with suspension letters.

The employees were told they would remain in “non-duty status” but keep their pay and benefits, effectively being benched for speaking out.

The letter also cited decisions made by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi “ICE Barbie” Noem as a reason the agency could fail to manage disaster responses.

FEMA confirmed that multiple employees were placed on immediate leave, though the exact number remains unclear. Of the nearly 200 signatories, only about 36 revealed their names publicly, The Washington Post and CNN reported.

“It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform. Change is always hard. It is especially for those invested in the status quo, who have forgotten that their duty is to the American people not entrenched bureaucracy,” a FEMA spokesperson told the Daily Beast.“Under the Biden Administration, the American people were abandoned as disasters ravaged North Carolina, and needed aid was denied based on party affiliation in Florida. Our obligation is to survivors, not to protecting broken systems. Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, FEMA will return to its mission of assisting Americans at their most vulnerable.”

Former President George W. Bush was heavily criticized for his administration’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina particularly in New Orleans, where much of the city was left underwater. In its aftermath, Congress passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (PKEMRA), which added safeguards to prevent another botched response.

The letter from FEMA employees warns that the Trump administration is rolling back those protections and calls on Congress to intervene. Their demands include shielding FEMA from “further interference” from the DHS, stopping “illegal impoundments of appropriated funding,” and protecting FEMA workers from “politically motivated firings.”

Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, was already under fire in July over the response to flooding in Texas that left about 135 people dead. Critics blamed a new rule she insisted upon, which required her personal sign-off on any contract or grant over $100,000, which delayed the deployment of an Urban Search and Rescue team by at least three days.

At least two FEMA staffers placed on leave had been part of that Texas flood response, The Washington Post reported.

Jeremy Edwards, a former FEMA press secretary who signed the “FEMA Katrina Declaration,” said the number of signatories “signifies the severity of the problem.”

“They are that scared of us being so inadequately unprepared. It speaks a lot to the situation right now,” Edwards told The Post.

The Trump administration also placed about 140 Environmental Protection Agency employees on leave in July after they signed a letter protesting the agency’s management and the treatment of federal workers.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-takes-revenge-against-fema-workers-who-warned-hes-risking-disaster/?

ps:Is that all they can do and say????? What a sick administration!!!!!

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Trump Fumes Over Rumor of Good News for an Enemy in Late-Night Meltdown

The president vowed to investigate whether the “dope’s” contract has been extended.

President Donald Trump vowed in a late-night social media rant to get to the bottom of what he sees as a “sick rumor” that long-time Late Night host Seth Meyers’ contract has been extended.

“There is a sick rumor going around that Fake News NBC extended the contract of one of the least talented Late Night television hosts out there, Seth Meyers,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at about 2 a.m. Washington time. “He has no Ratings, Talent, or Intelligence, and the Personality of an insecure child. So, why would Fake News NBC extend this dope’s contract. I don’t know, but I’ll definitely be finding out!!!”

It wasn’t immediately clear what Trump was talking about.

Following a 13-year stint on Saturday Night Live, Meyers took over as the host of Late Night in 2014. Last year, he and NBC inked a renewal deal that will keep him at the helm through 2028, Variety reported at the time.

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

Since taking office in January, Trump has launched a series of crusades against the major TV networks—including NBC—and against late-night TV hosts who have skewered his presidency.

Meyers has mocked the president’s tariff policies, Kennedy Center takeover, and Washington, D.C., troop deployment, among other policies, and called out dysfunction in his administration.

In July, Trump celebrated the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show and predicted Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon would be next.

Meyers, Kimmel, and Fallon joined Jon Stewart, Anderson Cooper, Andy Cohen, and John Oliver to show solidarity with Colbert, appearing on his show soon after the news broke that The Late Show would end in May 2026, when Colbert’s contract expires.

Before the cancellation, Colbert had ripped into his own network for paying Trump a $16 million settlement over allegations that CBS’s 60 Minutes had deceptively edited its 2024 interview with Kamala Harris, calling the payment a “big fat bribe.”

Bosses at CBS’s parent company, Paramount—which made the payment as the network was seeking government approval for an $8 billion merger with Skydance—say the cancellation was purely financial.

But former Paramount boss Shari Redstone later called the $16 million settlement a “no-brainer” given that the company’s shareholders were eager to cash in on the deal and needed the Trump White House to cooperate.

As part of the settlement, CBS agreed to include “multiple viewpoints” in its coverage—which Trump lawyers understood to refer to $20 million worth of public service announcements selected by the White House—and to ends any diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Following his success in pressuring CBS to kowtow to the administration, Trump has set his sights on ABC and Meyers’ network, NBC. Over the weekend, the president accused the networks of being “FAKE NEWS” and producing “crooked journalism,” and said they should lose their licenses.

“Despite a very high popularity and, according to many, among the greatest 8 months in Presidential History, ABC & NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the worst and most biased networks in history, give me 97% BAD STORIES,” he ranted. “IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC. I would be totally in favor of that because they are so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy!!! MAGA.”

Poll after poll has revealed the president’s approval ratings are in the low 40s, and that he’s deep underwater on key issues and with crucial demographics.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-fumes-over-sick-rumor-about-late-night-host-seth-meyers-in-truth-social-meltdown/?

ps:Is that his business?????

[phkrause]

Trump Hands Election Denier Top ‘Election Integrity’ Job

Her disputed findings on voter data appear to have been cited by Trump on the day of the Capitol riots.

The Trump administration has appointed a conservative researcher who falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen to a top “election integrity” post at the Department of Homeland Security.

A DHS leadership chart updated on Aug. 18 shows Pennsylvania activist Heather Honey was politically appointed as deputy assistant secretary for election integrity in the department’s Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans. The position didn’t exist under President Joe Biden.

The appointment has raised eyebrows, given that Honey advanced baseless theories about the 2020 presidential election and has now been elevated into a position of authority. Officials and experts have warned that the appointment could erode public trust in the federal agency.

The Daily Beast has contacted DHS, the White House, and Honey for comment.

Honey, who runs investigations, consulting, and training firm Haystack Group, emerged as one of the most prominent figures promoting false claims of widespread fraud after the 2020 election. President Donald Trump cited her allegations as he sought to challenge and overturn his defeat.

On the day of the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump pushed a false claim that appeared to have come from Honey herself, Democracy Docket reported.

“In Pennsylvania, you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters,” Trump told a rally shortly before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, said in a statement cited by ProPublica that the U.S. is “witnessing a dangerous trend” with the “deeply troubling” appointment of “known bad-faith actors” like Honey.

He cited her “well-documented history of spreading election lies that have been debunked in court.”

Fontes added: “When the agency gives a platform to individuals who have actively worked to erode public trust, it becomes harder to view DHS as a reliable partner in election security.”

Senior White House adviser Kari Lake, another MAGA election denier, welcomed the appointment, writing on X: “This is the most incredible news. America, you should be very, very happy about this.”

Stephen Richer, politician, lawyer, and adjunct scholar with Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, questioned how qualified Honey is for the role, saying she “had no experience in election administration or election law prior to 2020.”

“Re: Heather Honey appointment…the percentage of unqualified nut jobs has gone way up,” he began on X. “She is not smart. She is not qualified. She is not talented. She is crazy.”

“In Arizona, my staff spent hundreds of hours fulfilling her many, many public records requests and responding to her wildly inaccurate claims about election administration, some of which were included in the failed, ridiculous audit by the Cyber Ninjas,” he wrote.

Richer added in a savage takedown: “If you’d asked me in 2021, I’d have said that Heather Honey was better qualified to be in an insane asylum than investigative law enforcement.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hands-election-denier-top-election-integrity-job/?

[phkrause]

Socialism Is Right Here In Donald Trump’s America. Rejoice!

The man with the big brain is going to bring all of his expertise in semiconductor manufacturing to the nation’s largest chip maker.

Comrades, we must celebrate! Our glorious socialist revolution has arrived! With tears streaming down my face, I say, “Thank you, President Trump. You have delivered the means of production to the proletariat! Workers of the world unite!”

OK look, maybe the United States acquiring a 10% stake in the semiconductor chip company Intel doesn’t exactly herald the resurrection of Vladimir Lenin, but when a laissez-faire capitalist like Donald Trump negotiates a minority stake in a privately-held corporation on behalf of the United States, it’s bound to raise some eyebrows.

The odd thing is, the people whose eyebrows you would expect to be leaping off their faces if a President Kamala Harris did something similar are strangely muted in their criticism. The voices who argued most vociferously against encroaching “big government” have, for some reason, opted to keep silent when it’s their Big Government doing the encroaching.

When the Obama administration bailed out the auto industry back in 2009, the US government took a massive 60% equity stake in General Motors, arguing that the manufacturer was vital to preserving the domestic auto industry—along with national security concerns.

At the time, Republicans opposed the plan, decrying it as socialism, or as the government tipping the scales for one company over others. Some argued that GM was a “dinosaur” that needed to go extinct. Others predicted the bailout would only postpone GM’s inevitable collapse. In the end, GM paid back what they owed to the US, escaped bankruptcy and is now back to profitability (although they recently took a 35% drop in profits, largely owing to the Trump tariffs). So, the gamble paid off.

The same thing might happen with Intel, whose business has struggled with the advent of AI, massive debts, leadership changes and a failed foundry business which has cost the company billions. They no doubt need a massive infusion of cash, which the US has now provided.

Win/win?

Not necessarily. The problem with the US government taking ownership positions in private companies is that it brings with it a host of problems related to the awarding of, for example, government contracts. If our government owns a large stake in one company, wouldn’t it be more inclined to dispense lucrative contracts to the company they own—as opposed to the one they don’t?

Obama called the government a “reluctant shareholder” in GM, and promised to unwind its position in the company as quickly as possible—which we did, selling the last of our stock in the company in 2010. The current president, it will surprise no one to hear, has yet to make any such promises. Corporate interference is, very likely, incoming.

More worrisome than the government taking their stake in Intel was economic advisor Kevin Hassett’s response when asked on CNBC whether the American public can expect more of these sorts of deals: He answered in the affirmative, saying it was entirely possible the government would begin taking stake in other companies.

Which is, you know, socialism.

The justification for these acquisitions, according to Hassett, is to provide the American public with equity in companies which receive federal assistance and to build up a sovereign wealth fund, something for which the president has been advocating. I don’t have an opinion one way or the other on the establishment of such a fund except to note that it might be a mistake to have billions of dollars sloshing around in a giant piggy bank that any American president can disperse as they see fit?

Moreover, there very well might be some justification for the US government to take ownership stakes in various companies at various times. But there have to be strong limits.

President Truman tried in 1952 to nationalize our domestic steel industry to avert a strike. The steelworkers weren’t having it: “Hitler and Mussolini did the same thing in Germany and Italy as Truman has done in the United States,” stormed Thomas Millsop, the president of Weirton Steel. The Supreme Court agreed, declaring that Truman lacked the authority to unilaterally takeover an entire American manufacturing sector. Will this Supreme Court rule similarly if Trump bullies his way into other industries? Hard to say.

Personally, I don’t trust Trump. Nor do I trust any of his minions to act in the best interests of anybody whose telephone numbers they don’t already have on their phones. But I support saving Intel, provided the president keeps his greasy, special-sauce-stained fingers out of the boardroom. And, again, provided the government unwinds its position in the company as soon as possible.

A basic tenet of liberalism is using the levers of the American government to help Americans. That may include, at times, corporations. Government can do good things, even in the hands of bad people. Whether this turns out to be one of those good things remains to be seen, but in the meantime, I’m going to celebrate the Marxist revolution currently emanating from the unlikeliest place.

Today, Intel. Tomorrow, comrades, the world.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/socialism-is-right-here-in-donald-trumps-america-rejoice/?

[phkrause]

How Trump Served an Obscene Double Dose of Loan Hypocrisy

Trump has displayed record gall in recent days.

However else he will be ranked by history, President Trump has already outdone his predecessors in shameless hypocrisy.

And he has outdone even himself with his effort this week to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors after one of his appointees accused her of making false statements concerning her primary residence on a pair of mortgage applications.

“As detailed in the Criminal Referral, you signed one document attesting that a property in Michigan would be your primary residence for the next year,” Trump said in an August 25 letter to Cook that he posted online. “Two weeks later, you signed another document for a property in Georgia stating that it would be your primary residence for the next year. It is inconceivable that you were not aware of your first commitment when making the second. It is impossible that you intended to honor both.”

Compare those alleged transgressions to the 2022 civil case where a New York state judge found that Trump had engaged in decades of loan fraud involving hundreds of millions of dollars on a scale that ”shocks the conscience.” Trump’s prime defense was a real estate variation on an old basketball principle: No harm, no foul.

“There was no fraud, harm, or damage of any kind,” his attorney Chris Kise told the court.

Trump himself repeatedly noted that nobody lost money on the loans in question. He was partially vindicated this month, when the state appellate court tossed out the $515 million fine that the trial judge had imposed when finding Trump liable for business fraud. Trump claimed “total victory,” but the allegations themselves remain. He was still a guy who reported in a list of assets in a loan application that his Trump Tower penthouse is 30,000 square feet when it is in fact just a third of that.

Trump is also somebody who perceives harm whenever his plans are hindered. He then seeks to hang a foul on whoever he considers to be at fault. And he has a host of appointees who are ever eager to ingratiate themselves by assisting him in exacting revenge. Minions on the ascendance include his head of the Federal Housing Financing Agency (FHFA). Bill Pulte has morphed himself from a Twitter philanthropist into an attack dog, managing to lodge criminal referrals for alleged fraud against three Trump political targets out of 50.8 million mortgages on record with the agency.

The numbers say he could only have started with names and then sought out whatever crimes he could allege, however technical. Those who have been accused as a result all deny any wrong doing.

The first of the three criminal referrals was filed in April and concerned Letitia James, who filed the mega fraud case against Trump. Pulte alleges that James listed as her primary residence a Virginia home she purchased with her niece. James is also alleged to have reported in a 2001 mortgage application that her Brooklyn row house has four units, when it is classified as five. Pulte went back 43 years and millions upon millions of mortgages to find an application in which James allegedly listed her father as her spouse.

A second criminal referral was filed in May against U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff of California, a longtime Trump critic. Schiff is alleged to have listed both a condo in Burbank, California and a house in Potomac, Maryland as his primary residence in mortgage applications. Never mind that members of congress often have residences in their home state and in the Washington, DC area.

On August 15, Pulte filed a third criminal referral, this one against Cook. He went on CNBC to say Cook should step down. “I think she will have to resign, or I think she will be fired,” he said.

Trump echoed him on Truth Social: “Cook must resign, now!!!”

Cook made it known she was not going anywhere. Trump responded with the high-toned letter to Cook in which he condemned her for doing what he had done for decades on a HUGE scale.

“You are hereby removed from your position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, effective immediately,” Trump wrote in the letter, which he posted on social media. “I have determined there is sufficient cause to remove you from your position.”

There remains a question of what constitutes cause. Among the dwindling limits of Trump’s power is one that says the president can only remove a governor from the federal reserve for cause. Cook made due note of that in a statement she released through her attorney.

“President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” Cook said. “I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.”

Doubling the dose of the hypocrisy, the three criminal referrals were sent to Ed Martin, director of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, which is tasked with investigating the Biden administration’s supposed use of the law to target political opponents. He is now investigating James, Schiff and Cook. They are not likely to be the last as Trump continues to outdo his predecessors.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-donald-trump-served-an-obscene-double-dose-of-loan-hypocrisy/?

ps:EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!