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Donald J. Trump White House 2nd Term Page 15
Rising debt and political gridlock triggered rare dual downgrades of U.S. creditworthiness this year.
Story by Brett Arends

I’m not surprised that President Donald Trump and the Social Security Administration put out the latest inspector-general report the day before Thanksgiving, when nobody is paying attention.

It’s yet another embarrassment.

The latest 57-page report to Congress details a variety of Social Security frauds that took place under Trump’s first administration, only to be caught, stopped and prosecuted … er … under Joe Biden.

And it confirms what has long been suspected, and which will come as no surprise to MarketWatch readers: namely that Elon Musk and Trump were talking total nonsense for the first six months of this year, when they were claiming that there was a “huge” amount of fraud in Social Security, including hundreds of thousands of dead people claiming benefits.

None of this, of course, will catch up with the Trillion-Dollar Man himself, Musk, who got months of juicy headlines promising huge fraud discoveries, then fled town before the facts arrived. Just before the 2024 presidential election, Musk promised voters he would find “$2 trillion” in savings from the federal budget, though it later turned out he was supposed to say only $1 trillion. Well, the great entrepreneur must have had the budget savings number confused with the Tesla pay deal he was simultaneously in pursuit of.
Story by Adam Lynch

Newsbreak reports that millionaire President Donald Trump is diverting donor money straight into his pocket.

“Even as he leverages his presidency to make himself millions, perhaps even billions of dollars, Donald Trump is also funneling Republican donor money into his own cash registers through the political committees he controls,” said Newsbreak writer S.V. Date.

In the 10 months since he retook office, the Republican National Committee has spent at least $796,513 at Trump’s hotels and country clubs, while MAGA Inc., Trump’s super PAC, has spent $60,733, according to a Federal Election Commission data analysis.

The figures are based on most recent filings, with some committees providing updates only twice a year, so that number will likely grow. The total number for 2025 will not be disclosed until the end of January 2026.

But that combined $857,246 represents just under four-fifths of the $1.1 million that the Republican candidate and committees spent at Trump’s properties, reports Date.
Story by Jack Revell

President Donald Trump’s love of golf is costing U.S. taxpayers an eye-watering amount that far exceeds his first-term spending.

New analysis by HuffPost found that Trump’s beloved hobby has already cost American taxpayers nearly $71 million since his return to the Oval Office in January, and is expected to total more than $300 million by the time his second term ends.

If that figure turns out to be accurate, it would be nearly double the $151.5 million Trump spent on similar sporting outings while in office between 2017 and 2021.

“I really wish I could tell you that it would make anyone in America change their mind about him, but the corruption is so baked in, so endemic, and so ludicrous that it feels like the collective reaction will be a shrug,” conservative political consultant Rick Wilson told HuffPost.

“It’s one more example of Trump defining the presidency down. Way, way down,” Wilson continued.
Opinion by John P. Murphy

Painted figures haunt an empty building. A boy leaning on a pair of crutches. A father and son wandering a barren railroad track. A nuclear family at a picnic table. These poignant scenes were painted by two of the foremost American artists of the twentieth century, Ben Shahn and Philip Guston. No one is around to see them. They are on the walls of the Wilbur J. Cohen Building in Washington, DC, one of forty-five federal properties currently earmarked for sale. The staff who worked in the building have been mostly fired, furloughed, or relocated. Only the murals remain—and perhaps not for long.

The Cohen Building has been called the “Sistine Chapel of the New Deal” for its ambitious mural cycles. Shahn and Guston, as well as Seymour Fogel and Ethel and Jenne Magafan, gave indelible form to New Deal tenets: the dignity of labor, the benefit of public works, and the need for a social safety net. A detail of Fogel’s Wealth of the Nation, painted for the lobby, is on the cover of my survey of New Deal art: it crystallizes the period belief in the mutual power of mind and muscle to secure a prosperous future. If the Cohen building is sold, these masterpieces of public art will be in peril. As Timothy Noah has reported, a private developer is unlikely to bear the cost of renovating and maintaining the building, much less the murals. It would be cheaper to tear the whole thing down.

Is it frivolous to worry about art when the world is on fire? The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration didn’t think so. In the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic calamity in the country’s history, FDR’s New Deal invested in culture as essential to a more “abundant life” for US citizens.
A political firestorm is brewing as former U.S. President Donald Trump draws intense backlash over newly surfaced comments and his plan to sharply restrict immigration from at least 19 countries. His remarks—particularly those referencing Somalia—have ignited outrage across communities, diplomatic circles, and human rights advocates.
Brajesh Upadhyay

US lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration for answers about military strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats, after a report alleged that a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors of an initial attack.

Republican-led committees overseeing the Pentagon have vowed to conduct "vigorous oversight" into the US boat strikes in the Caribbean, following the report.

On Friday, The Washington Post reported that a US strike on a boat on 2 September left two survivors, but that a second attack was carried out to comply with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's orders to "kill everybody" on board - raising fresh legality questions.

Hegseth decried the report as "fake news".

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said he believed his defence secretary "100%".

In recent weeks, the US has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and carried out a series of lethal strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in international waters off Venezuela and Colombia, as part of what it calls an anti-narcotics operation.

More than 80 people have been killed since early September.

The Trump administration says it is acting in self-defence by destroying boats carrying illicit drugs to the US.
The ruling further stymies the Trump administration’s use of unusual tactics meant to quickly put or keep largely unqualified U.S. attorneys in place without Senate confirmation.
By Erica Orden

A panel of appeals court judges on Monday upheld the disqualification of Alina Habba, the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, rejecting President Donald Trump’s use of unconventional methods to install loyalists atop U.S. attorney offices across the country.

“It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place,” Judge D. Michael Fisher, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote in the 32-page opinion. “Its efforts to elevate its preferred candidate for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, to the role of Acting U.S. Attorney demonstrate the difficulties it has faced — yet the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability.”

The ruling further stymies the Trump administration’s use of unusual tactics meant to quickly put or keep largely unqualified U.S. attorneys in place without Senate confirmation. Defendants are also challenging the authority of U.S. attorneys in California and Nevada, where judges have determined the Trump-picked prosecutors are serving unlawfully, and upstate New York.
Opinion by Vaishnavi Shetye

Donald Trump and his attacks on Joe Biden don’t seem to be aging well. The 79-year-old had labeled the former President as “Sleepy Joe” in the past while questioning his ability to lead the nation. A recently surfaced picture of Trump appears to be backfiring on him, and netizens are here for it.

Trump had on several occasions challenged Biden’s presidency, referring to his age. Biden was often seen dozing off in the middle of official engagements, and Trump ruthlessly took jabs at his predecessor for the same.

Time hasn’t been kind to Trump because he has now found himself in the same position that he mocked Biden for. People have raised concerns about the President’s health time and again. At 78 years old, he became the oldest person in U.S. history to be inaugurated as the President, and it’s starting to show.

Trump has repeatedly been caught dozing off in front of cameras, gotten names of people and places wrong, and thrown around numbers without data to back them up. He has also constantly appeared disoriented during speeches since getting reelected.

Theories about him showing early signs of dementia have been floating around the internet for months now. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a new photo that recently surfaced on the internet has solidified the theory that Trump’s age is finally taking a toll on him.
During a MAHA Commission event earlier this year at the White House, Donald Trump called Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer a "Democrat." Chavez-DeRemer is a registered Republican and has never been a Democrat.
Story by S.E. Cupp

I remember it well. It was Oct. 7, 2016, a Friday. That afternoon The Washington Post dropped a bombshell, the perfect October surprise, just a month before the presidential election.

Earlier in the week, Hillary Clinton had been hammering Donald Trump on the news that he may not have paid taxes for 18 years.

The vice presidential candidates, Sen. Tim Kaine and Gov. Mike Pence, had had a feisty debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

It had already been a campaign full of crazy turns and fireworks, and it was about to get even crazier.

"Trump Recorded Having Extremely Lewd Conversation About Women in 2005."

In a never-heard-before recording from an "Access Hollywood" interview, Trump describes how he seduces women as a celebrity to host Billy Bush: "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … grab ‘em by the p*ssy. You can do anything."

It was mayhem after that. Was this the end of Trump's candidacy? Dozens of Republican lawmakers called for him to drop out. The topic took up a considerable amount of attention at the next presidential debate, just two days later. Professional coaches, offended by Trump's excuse that it was merely "locker room talk," condemned the statement.
Story by Lesley Abravanel

President Donald Trump futilely tried to delete his Sunday night Truth Social rant, but his typo-filled fury was captured by various screen shots, The Daily Beast reports.

“Ther [sic] are laws that effect our nation," Trump posted, but then quickly deleted, they note.

On Trump's second attempt at posting, he confused “effect” and “affect,” instead going with what The Daily Beast describes as "the less problematic word" “impact” instead.
During his remarks in a press gaggle today, President Trump tested the limits of his corruption, stating that he wants to throw Representative Ilhan Omar out of the country. Trump stated, "We should throw her the hell out."
Story by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

In yet another gift to corporate criminals, President Donald Trump has reportedly used his executive authority to commute the seven-year prison sentence of a former private equity executive convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors of around $1.6 billion.

David Gentile, the founder and former CEO of GPB Capital, was convicted of securities and wire fraud last year and sentenced to prison in May, but he ended up serving just days behind bars. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the White House “argued that prosecutors had falsely characterized the business as a Ponzi scheme.”

One victim said they lost their “whole life savings” to the scheme and are now living “check to check.” Another, who described themselves as “an elderly victim,” said they “lost a significant portion” of their retirement savings.

“This money was earmarked to help my two grandsons pay for college,” the person said. “They had tragically lost their father and needed some financial assistance. So this loss attached my entire family.”

In a statement following Gentile’s sentencing earlier this year, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia—who was appointed to the role by Trump’s loyalist FBI director, Kash Patel—said the private equity executive and his co-defendant, Jeffry Schneider, “wove a web of lies to steal more than one billion dollars from investors through empty promises of guaranteed profits and unlawfully rerouting funds to provide an illusion of success.”
Story by Sohini Sengupta

It’s Thanksgiving week at the White House, which usually just means turkey pardons and awkward speeches. But not this year! This season, President Donald Trump and his team are more interested in going after female journalists instead.

Their latest target is Kate Bennett, who is a former CNN White House correspondent and the author of Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography. She posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Donald Trump seems to reserve his worst insults for female reporters. Kate Bennett added that she believes that it is not only because they’re women but because they’re typically the ones asking the tough questions. And honestly, it does sound like a reasonable theory, considering the patterns.

Now this is where the White House Rapid Response team comes in, and rather than disagreeing with Kate Bennett’s point, they proved it! We are serious because they snapped on a post:

“Give this a thought: how big of a scumbag you must be to have been fired from CNN of all places.”

Aside from being schoolyard-level in its audacity, the attack was also factually wrong, as expected. Kate Bennett wasn’t fired at all because she left CNN in 2023 to work in strategic communications and now serves as VP of brand strategy at the government communications firm Invariant. Her departure was public and (contrary to the White House’s parrots) completely voluntary.
Sen. Mark Kelly fiercely rebukes President Trump, declaring he won’t be silenced or intimidated—even by what he calls death threats. After Trump lashed out at a video featuring Kelly and other Democrats urging troops to reject illegal orders, Kelly accused the former president of bullying and undermining U.S. credibility. Mocking Pete Hegseth’s behavior as childish, he warned that Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous, embarrassing, and damaging to America’s image, insisting he’ll continue speaking out despite mounting political pressure.
Story by Daniel Hampton

President Donald Trump repeated his call for U.S. troops to obey him after six Democrats released a video urging U.S. military and intelligence personnel to defy illegal orders.

The six lawmakers, all with military or intelligence backgrounds, circulated a video online last month reminding service members that under U.S. law, they must disobey illegal orders and uphold the Constitution. The video sparked outrage on the right, who accused the lawmakers of urging troops to ignore orders in general from the president.
During his remarks to the White House Liberty Commission at the Museum of the Bible several weeks ago in September, Donald Trump downplayed the seriousness of domestic violence, suggesting that it shouldn't be counted as crime. "If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime," Trump callously stated.
Story by Jason Wilson

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, told soldiers under his command in Iraq to ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement.

The anecdote is contained in a book Hegseth wrote last year in which he also repeatedly railed against the constraints placed on “American warfighters” by the laws of war and the Geneva conventions.

Hegseth is currently under scrutiny for a 2 September attack on a boat purportedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean, where survivors of a first strike on the vessel were reportedly killed in a second strike following a verbal order from Hegseth to “kill everybody”.

Hegseth has denied giving the order and retained the support of Donald Trump. The US president said Hegseth told him “he did not say that, and I believe him, 100%”. But some US senators have raised the possibility that the US war secretary committed a war crime.

In the book, The War on Warriors, Hegseth relates a story about a legal briefing at the beginning of his service in Iraq, in which he told the men under his command to ignore guidance from a military judge advocate general’s (JAG) attorney’s guidance about the rules of engagement in the conflict.

Hegseth writes that “upon arrival in Iraq”, the men were briefed “regarding the latest ‘in theater’ rules of engagement”, adding: “Needless to say, no infantrymen like army lawyers – which is why JAG officers are often not so affectionately known as ‘jagoffs’.”
Story by Lauren Aratani in New York

Costco is suing the Trump administration over its tariffs, arguing that the White House has exceeded its executive authority in instituting tariffs and that it should be entitled to a refund if the tariffs are found unconstitutional.

In a lawsuit filed to the court of international trade last Friday, the retail giant argued the Trump administration had misused the federal law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), it cited to impose the tariffs.

“IEEPA grants the president certain power, but they ‘may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared for purposes of this chapter and may not be exercised for any other purposes’,” Costco said in the lawsuit, quoting the law. The largest warehouse club chain in the US also pointed out the law “does not use the word ‘tariff’ or any term of equivalent meaning”.
Trump: 'The word affordability is a Democrat scam'
Story by Jon Michael Raasch For Dailymail.Com

President Donald Trump downplayed consumers' pricing concerns during a White House Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. He opened his remarks touting his administration's work on lowering prices. 'Our prices now for energy, for gasoline, are really low. Electricity is coming down. And when that comes down, everything comes down,' the president said. He also skewered his political rivals for decrying an affordability crisis under Trump. 'The word affordability is a Democrat scam,' Trump stated. 'They say it, and then they go into the next subject, and everyone thinks, "oh, they had lower prices."'

'No, they had the worst inflation in the history of our country,' the president continued, arguing that inflation was worse under Joe Biden . 'Now, some people will correct me, because they always love to correct me, even though I'm right about everything, but some people like to correct me and they say, "48 years."' His refutation that affordability is an issue stands in stark contrast with the latest Daily Mail/ J.L. Partners poll released last week, which found rising prices were the top concern of American voters .

That survey found that cost of living and inflation, health care costs and economic growth and job creation were the top three worries nationwide. 'Since last January we've stopped inflation in its tracks,' Trump said. 'And there is still more to do. There's always more to do, but we have it down to a very good level.' Democrats have been seizing on the message of affordability following a slew of successful liberal victories in November.
Story by Eleanor Watson

The U.S. military's early September strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat — the first salvo in a months-long string of attacks — has drawn new scrutiny in recent days, as the White House confirmed that the vessel was struck twice.

The confirmation followed a Washington Post report that the first boat was struck a second time, killing a pair of survivors — prompting calls for investigations and concerns in Congress that the follow-up strike may have constituted a war crime. A Pentagon manual on the law of war says combatants that are "wounded, sick, or shipwrecked" no longer pose a threat and should not be attacked.

The Trump administration has defended the series of boat strikes, casting them as a necessary tactic to stem the flow of narcotics from South America. But U.S. officials have not provided specific evidence that the vessels were smuggling drugs or posed a threat to the U.S. Some lawmakers from both parties have questioned the legality of the strikes.
Story by Sarah Ewall-Wice

President Donald Trump quickly distanced himself from a deadly U.S. strike on an alleged drug boat amid growing scrutiny over whether the attack was legal.

The Washington Post reported that two people survived the first blast and were clinging to the side of the burning vessel on September 2. They were then killed in the second strike.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns over the report and have vowed congressional review.

Trump defended blowing up alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, but he said he relied on the defense secretary for information about the September 2 strike.

“As far as the attack is concerned, I didn’t, you know, I still haven’t gotten a lot of information because I rely on Pete,” Trump said.
Story by Alexander Willis

As the fallout grows over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s alleged order to “kill” all survivors of a strike on a suspected drug-carrying sea vessel, recent developments suggest that a growing number of Republican lawmakers may be willing to turn on the top Trump official and impeach him, Zeteo reported Tuesday.

According to a whistleblower, Hegseth allegedly ordered on Sept. 2 a follow-up strike on a sea vessel off of Trinidad’s coast, a strike designed to kill two survivors of an initial attack who were observed clinging to the wreckage.

If proven, experts say it would be a blatant violation of international law and a potential war crime.

Hegseth outright denied that he issued the order to kill the survivors — a claim that President Donald Trump said he believed. Should it have actually happened, however, Trump said that he “wouldn’t have wanted a second strike,” and at least one Republican — Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) — said that Hegseth’s order, if true, would constitute an “illegal act.”
Story by Sarah Nassauer, Gavin Bade

Costco became the latest and one of the biggest companies to sue the Trump administration over tariffs in an effort to secure a full refund should the Supreme Court rule the sweeping duties illegal.

In a filing with the U.S. Court of International Trade on Friday, Costco said the lawsuit is necessary to make sure it is eligible for refunds if the Supreme Court rejects the administration’s reasons for tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Costco executives declined to comment.
Story by Travis Gettys

The family of a Colombian fisherman has filed a formal complaint accusing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of murder.

Alejandro Andres Carranza Medina was killed Sept. 15 in a U.S. military strike on a boat in the Caribbean, and the 42-year-old fisherman's wife and four children filed the complaint Tuesday with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) alleging the United States committed human rights violations in an “extra-judicial killing," reported The Guardian.

“From numerous news reports, we know that Pete Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of Defense, was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all those on such boats," reads the filing. "Secretary Hegseth has admitted that he gave such orders despite the fact that he did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extra-judicial killings."

"U.S. President Donald Trump has ratified the conduct of Secretary Hegseth described herein," the filing adds.
Story by Breanne Deppisch

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Wednesday ordered two Jan. 6 defendants pardoned by President Donald Trump to be refunded in full for restitution payments made and fines incurred as part of their earlier criminal cases — a reversal from just months earlier, when the same judge rejected their bid for repayment.

Boasberg used a memo order Wednesday to outline the fairly complex case history for Cynthia Ballenger and her husband, Christopher Price, both of whom had been tried and convicted on misdemeanor charges in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and ordered to pay hundreds of dollars in assessment fees and restitution.

Boasberg's order effectively clears the way for the government to refund them both in full.
Story by Claude Wooten

While President Donald Trump complained about Somalis living in Minnesota and referred to them as “garbage” during his cabinet meeting on Tuesday, MAGA-aligned U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) wrote on social media: “America was founded by settlers and missionaries, not immigrants. Coming to America was always about duty, not entitlement. Deport all illegals!”

Ogles is getting slammed on social media with responses including: “Settlers are immigrants” and “Settlers are, by definition, people who migrated from one place to another. Labels don't change the fact that movement from one land to another is migration. History is clearer when we use accurate language.”

The arguments represent further evidence of how much the political discourse has changed since then-Senator John F. Kennedy — before his presidency — wrote his book about the founding of America which he titled, simply and uncontroversially, A Nation of Immigrants.
Story by Robert Birsel

President Donald Trump has reportedly asserted executive privilege to prevent his courtroom opponents from getting access to evidence in the lawsuit in which he is accused of stoking violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Newsweek contacted the White House for comment by email after office hours.

Why It Matters
What occurred on January 6, 2021—when Trump supporters attacked the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden‘s win in the 2000 election—has become one of the most contentious political issues of recent years.

The attack caused millions of dollars of damage at the Capitol and about 140 police officers were injured, some of whom brought legal action.

Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was fatally shot by police during the event, while trying to climb through a barricaded door to enter the Speaker’s Lobby on January 6. An investigation found that the officer’s shooting was justified.

What To Know
It is unclear exactly which records Trump is aiming to keep out of the hands of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

However, Politico has reported that a White House spokesperson confirmed that the president has decided to fight disclosure of some material subpoenaed last year from the National Archives and Records Administration.

“The President asserted executive privilege over the discovery requests in this case because the overly broad requests demanded documents that were either presidential communications or communications among the president’s staff that are clearly constitutionally protected from discovery,” the spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, said in a statement.

The police officers who filed the lawsuit say Trump’s remarks to a crowd of supporters fueled the riot that nearly derailed the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden.
Opinion by Chris Lehmann

A barrage of bad economic news has spurred Trump to unleash his hate-infested id on any nonwhite target that flits through his overtaxed brainpan.

Chris Lehmann
Remember “economic anxiety”? That was the central concept in an all-too-representative Democratic effort to explain away the mass movement aligning behind Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Back then, the liberal commentariat was mocking the notion that Trump’s supporters were motivated by questions of economic policy like trade and globalization. What really mattered to the MAGA faithful, in this overconfident diagnosis, was pure race hatred; the alleged economic worries fueling the Trump phenomenon were really only a fig leaf for a resurgence of white supremacist rancor on the right.

Of course, things weren’t that simple, as Brian Beutler, who had pioneered the ironic online usage of “economic anxiety” to underline the racial animus of MAGA insurgents, admitted in August 2016:

Trump’s racism explains why he has essentially no support from poor minorities but, at a time of stagnant wages and high inequality, it doesn’t necessarily explain his appeal entirely. Even if, as I suspect, his stated empathy for the white working class is purely affected, some white workers believe it is sincere and support him for it…. Liberals should be interested in improving economic conditions for everyone, even the most loathsome racists in the Trump coalition, but if we overinterpret racism’s role in Trump’s support, and then find that 40 percent of Americans support him, we will draw inaccurate conclusions about the extent of racial discord in our society, and our inclination to work in tandem with chastened Republicans to lift up downscale whites will start to diminish.
Story by Charlie Nash

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth asked U.S. Navy Admiral Alvin Holsey to retire in October after Holsey expressed concerns about the legality of the Trump administration’s boat bombings in the Caribbean, according to a new report.

Audiologists Tested 17 Hearing Aids. Here’s the Best
Story by The Associated Press

The FBI has made an arrest in its nearly 5-year-old investigation into who placed pipe bombs in Washington on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The arrest marks the first time investigators have settled on a suspect in an act that had long vexed law enforcement, spawned a multitude of conspiracy theories and remained an enduring mystery in the shadow of the dark chapter of American history that is the violent Capitol siege.
Story by Scarlett O'Toole

Donald Trump was ripped apart on CNN after the president made a whopping 13 false claims during a cabinet meeting.

The 79-year-old held his last cabinet meting of the year on Tuesday, December 2, with the event being broadcast live on CNN's Inside Politics. Anchor Dana Bash hosted the show and turned to fact-checker Daniel Dale for his thoughts about what Trump said.

Dale accused the president of having dropped "a whole lot of lies on a whole lot of sunjets" as he looked back at what Trump had claimed, accusing the president of making five false statements. Once the cabinet meeting was over, Dale took to X to share a comprehensive list of 13 false claims Trump had made.
We've eliminated $5 trillion worth of federal regulations': Trump brags about making America much more dangerous in Oval Office remarks
Donald Trump signed executive orders from the Oval Office several weeks ago in September. During Q&A with the press, Trump bragged about eliminating more regulations than any other president in U.S. history, applauding himself for making America much more dangerous.
Supreme Court justice issues blistering dissent in Trump redistricting case
Story by William Vaillancourt

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan had a fiery dissent to the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to allow GOP-friendly voting maps in Texas for next year’s midterms.

The ruling reversed a lower court decision calling Republican legislators’ moves to appease Donald Trump’s desire for more seats in Congress racial gerrymandering.

Kagan wrote that the court was not giving the district court’s ruling fair consideration.

“We are a higher court than the District Court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision,” Kagan, an appointee of Barack Obama, argued.

“That is why we are supposed to use a clear-error standard of review—why we are supposed to uphold the District Court’s decision that race-based line-drawing occurred (even if we would have ruled differently) so long as it is plausible,“ she continued. ”Without so much as a word about that standard, this Court today announces that Texas may run next year’s elections with a map the District Court found to have violated all our oft-repeated strictures about the use of race in districting."
Trump’s retribution campaign is going poorly — and could backfire
Story by Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN

It’s so rare for a federal grand jury to reject an indictment that it happened just five times in the fiscal year 2013, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Five times. Nationwide. Out of more than 165,000 cases.

That’s 1 out of every 33,000 cases. In percentage terms, it’s 0.003%.

Yet President Donald Trump and his Justice Department have now managed to achieve this remarkable feat in both of his signature attempts at exacting legal retribution against his foes.

First came the grand jury rejecting 1 of 3 charges against former FBI Director James Comey in September — apparently the most significant charge — and only narrowly agreeing to bring the other two. Then the indictments against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were thrown out because a judge ruled the prosecutor was illegally serving. After the Justice Department managed to find another prosecutor who would try to re-indict James, a grand jury on Thursday said no thanks. It rejected the charges.

The Justice Department is signaling it might press forward and try to indict James again.

But at this point, this whole retribution exercise is going quite poorly for the administration and appears increasingly likely to backfire on Trump.

His campaign has long suffered from a very significant and important deficit — and that’s the actual evidence.

Try as Trump’s allies might to justify this as a lawfare tit-for-tat after his four indictments when he was out of office, the mortgage fraud allegations against James and the perjury allegation against Comey appear rather flimsy — much flimsier than the charges against Trump were, certainly. Even some conservative legal scholars have scoffed at the evidence.

(The classified documents charges against another Trump foe, former national security adviser John Bolton, appear more serious. But the investigation was undertaken by the Biden administration, and Trump didn’t play such a role in orchestrating the charges.)

What’s more, the political nature of this effort is on another level. While Trump and his allies have baselessly claimed then-President Joe Biden was behind Trump’s indictments, Trump’s role in orchestrating these indictments has been rather shameless and very much out in the open, for all to see.
Humiliating ICE data blows up Trump’s crackdown excuse
Story by Tom Latchem

Aggressive federal immigration raids touted by the Trump administration as crime-busting victories have mostly swept up people with no criminal record, according to a new analysis of publicly available data.

President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have justified the deployment of armed masked officers in big Democrat-run cities by claiming local “sanctuary” policies shield criminal immigrants—repeatedly insisting they are targeting the “worst of the worst.”

But in headline operations across Los Angeles, Chicago, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., more than half of those arrested, often in brutal fashion, had no prior convictions at all—compared with roughly a third nationwide, the New York Times found.

The outlet analyzed a trove of arrest and detention records released by the Deportation Data Project that runs through Oct. 15, 2025.

It found that, ironically, the highest-profile sweeps proved the least effective at finding people with criminal histories, especially violent ones.
Hegseth said troops had 'duty' to refuse Trump's illegal orders: Live
Story by Owen Scott and Ariana Baio

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said U.S. troops have a “duty” to refuse illegal orders from President Donald Trump in a series of 2016 interviews, which have resurfaced.

Speaking on ”Fox and Friends” in March 2016, Hegseth criticized the president’s demands that military officials should ignore the rules of war to achieve their goals.

“You’re not just gonna follow that order if it’s unlawful,” Hegseth said on “Fox and Friends” at the time.

Later that month, he told ”Fox Business” that “the military’s not gonna follow illegal orders.”

The resurfaced interview arrives weeks after Hegseth announced the Pentagon would be investigating Democratic Senator Mark Kelly for participating in a video in which he encouraged active service members to ignore any order that defies the U.S. Constitution.

Kelly and other Democrats made the video in response to the Trump administration’s recent lethal attacks on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

One of those attacks from September is currently generating controversy, as reports allege the administration launched multiple strikes on a boat despite there being shipwrecked survivors.
'I will 86 on sight': Trump-supporting 'protector of white people' declares war on 'enemy combatants' who don't support president, police say
Story by Chris Perez

A Florida man has been arrested for spewing racist and terroristic threats at individuals online, claiming he was a "protector of white people" and a "violent felon" who viewed critics of President Donald Trump and reporters as "enemy combatants," police said.

"I will 86 on sight," Michael Maguire, 64, wrote on YouTube about CNN reporters, referring to eliminating and identifying them as "active shooters," according to a Volusia County arrest affidavit viewed by Law&Crime on Monday.

"I'm here to protect the white people," Maguire allegedly wrote in another post on Nov. 1, which was made on YouTube. "I'm not a keyboard warrior, (I'm) a violent felon and inmate that's now free."

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office received reports of Maguire's alleged posts, and he was arrested on Nov. 18 for making written threats to kill or do bodily injury. A terrorism charge was filed on Friday after he was rearrested on Thursday.

Maguire's arrest documents outline how he allegedly wanted to take people's heads "off" to keep "as a trophy," while also threatening Jewish and Muslim citizens.
Trump’s own mortgages revealed to be what he calls fraud
Story by Tom Latchem

President Donald Trump’s crusade against political foes he claims have all coincidentally committed mortgage fraud may have just boomeranged and hit him square in the face.

Records show Trump himself has done the very thing he has now routinely claimed constitutes “fraud” when it’s done by his critics, according to a new ProPublica investigation. Years before his rise to the White House, the president signed two mortgages weeks apart, declaring each as his principal residence, and then renting out both, according to a report.

It’s the same move he branded as “deceitful and potentially criminal” when it was done by a political opponent he has since targeted.

Records show Trump, 79, signed a mortgage on a “Bermuda style” Palm Beach house in December 1993 and, seven weeks later, a second on a neighboring seven-bedroom property—attesting that both would be his principal residence.

The outlet found contemporary ads and spoke to the wife of his longtime real estate agent. She said the homes were marketed as rentals “from the beginning,” while there’s no evidence Trump lived in either, with legal papers from that period listing Trump Tower as his address.

Mortgage-law experts told ProPublica that claiming multiple principal-residence loans is not illegal on its own—but the conduct matches what Trump and his loyalists at the Justice Department have labeled as fraud. “He’s going to either need to fire himself or refer himself to the Department of Justice,” said Suffolk University’s Kathleen Engel.
Story by Isabel van Brugen

A Texas man who voted for President Donald Trump at the polls last year now says he feels like he’s been duped, one of a growing number of minority voters who is speaking out to express anger and disappointment.

Arturo Dominguez, a 59-year-old from Laredo, Texas, told The Washington Post that Trump’s second term has so far left him regretful. He said he wasn’t completely sold on Trump even when he voted for him but had hoped Trump would come back to the White House with more experience after the “learning curve” of his first term.

Instead, he said, he has now realized Trump came back “reloaded with vengeance” and lacking any real plan, unleashing a “chaotic” trade policy that’s forcing consumers to suffer.

Dominguez lamented that Trump appears more focused on targeting “everyone he thinks wronged him” than anything else, adding: “You don’t do that. That’s what a little boy, an immature person, does.”

Trump’s support among Latino voters has been waning since he returned to the White House in January, polls show. He won an estimated 48 percent of the Latino vote in 2024, according to the Pew Research Center, after losing that voting bloc decisively in 2016 and 2020.
New emails suggest Trump made insulting bid to fund Epstein-linked modeling project
Story by Alexander Willis

A new batch of more than 20,000 emails reveals that President Donald Trump may have offered to help fund a proposed modeling company spearheaded by Jeffrey Epstein in 2006, a proposal that was described in an email as “ridiculous and insulting.”

The new batch of emails was obtained by Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a nonprofit whistleblower group that shared them selectively with news outlets, including Raw Story. They differ from the document dump of 20,000 pages of files from Epstein’s estate, released by the House Oversight Committee last month.

In early 2006, an individual by the name of Cecilia Steen – who Bloomberg has described as an “assistant” of Epstein’s – sent Epstein an email regarding a new “project,” the creation of a new company, with proposed names being “e models,” “e=mc²,” and “e management.”

According to the email, the proposed company would “take over the assets” of MC2 Model Management, an international modeling agency that operated out of New York, Florida and Tel Aviv, Israel, and was founded by Jean-Luc Brunel, a French model scout who launched MC2 with considerable financial backing from Epstein.
'That's no longer free speech': Trump lashes out at media, says it should be 'illegal' to give him bad publicity in Oval Office tirade
During his remarks at an executive order signing from the Oval Office several weeks ago, Donald Trump lashed out at the media, stating that it should be "illegal" for them to constantly make him look bad. "That's no longer free speech," Trump bemoaned.
These Claims About Donald Trump's Dad Are Absolutely Disturbing
Multiple arrests, allegations of racism, and a tough-as-nails parenting style. Fred Trump may have been the father of a future president, but there are plenty of shocking claims about the domineering patriarch that will make you shudder.
'Donald Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 insurrectionists': Jamie Raskin shuts down GOP's charade, calls them out on their hypocrisy over 'law and order'
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing several weeks ago, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called out the hypocrisy of his Republican colleagues for wanting to "restore" law and order when their master, Donald Trump, pardoned nearly 1,600 criminals who stormed the Capitol and assaulted law enforcement on Jan. 6.
Jessica Tarlov accused Trump of hiding worsening economic data and blaming Biden for GOP-driven issues, citing layoffs, rising costs, and prolonged manufacturing contraction. She also criticized Trump’s tariffs and the $12B farm bailout.
During a hearing on Obamacare subsidy "fraud" held by House Republicans in the Judiciary Committee last week, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) turned the tables on his colleagues by going through a list of fraud and misdeeds committed by President Trump, calling them out on their hypocrisy.
Dem senator sends MS NOW hosts scrambling with mention of Trump check to Epstein
Tom Boggioni

Sen Chris Coons (D-DE) sent the hosts and producers of MS NOW’s “The Weekend” scrambling after he pointed to a photo of a check from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein in payment for a woman that was included in the just-released Epstein files.

Brought on to talk about the Department of Justice’s foot-dragging of the files release in violation of a congressional order, Coons said just before he came on for his interview that he saw mention online about a $22,000 check from the president to sex trafficker Epstein.

“There were some new photos released of different powerful men in and around the company of Epstein,” the senator told the hosts. “One thing that I hadn't seen before was the sort of big fake check of $22,000 to Epstein from Trump, with some reference to having sold a girl. I do think there's more here, and it's worth more investigations to get to the bottom of this and put this to rest and respect the victims.”
Story by Rey Harris

According to AP News, at least 16 files that the department released to the public on Friday appeared to be scrubbed from their website by Saturday.

Among the deleted files was a photo that appears to show a work desk of Epstein's with a number of photos strewn about.

In an open drawer of the desk is a photo of Trump and Epstein alongside current First Lady Melania Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's convicted co-conspirator.

The DOJ has refused to comment on the scrub, but it has sparked heavy speculation among critics.

In an X post, Democrats with the House Oversight Committee shared the removed photo – deemed file 468 – and asked Attorney General Pam Bondi, "Is this true?

"What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public," the group added.
Story by Hannah Broughton

World-renowned whiskey brand Jim Beam has announced plans to pause production in 2026, amid struggles in the face of the Trump administration's trade wars. Operations at the company's Happy Hollow distillery in Clermont will cease on January 1, while the visitor center will remain open.

Bottling and warehousing operations will continue. A statement from the company said, “We are always assessing production levels to best meet consumer demand, and recently met with our team to discuss our volumes for 2026.

“We’ve shared with our teams that while we will continue to distill at our (Freddie Booker Noe) craft distillery in Clermont and at our larger Booker Noe distillery in Boston, we plan to pause distillation at our main distillery on the James B. Beam campus for 2026 while we take the opportunity to invest in site enhancements.
On US military officials...
David McAfee

Donald Trump's name appears on a newly released Epstein file in which a purported victim makes allegations about a newborn baby being murdered and dumped in Lake Michigan.

The Justice Department released this file ahead of Christmas Eve in which an unnamed individual, on Aug. 3, 2020, is looking for an update on the status of their earlier complaint. The report lists an unnamed uncle as the perpetrator and Trump as a witness.

"I previously provided a tip about 3 weeks ago, maybe 4 weeks ago, under an alias I have for myself," the letter says. "All the other details of the previous tip match all the information given in today's tip, except I am giving my real name. A detective from NYPD FBI sex trafficking task force called me a couple of weeks ago from a 212 area code number. I talked to him for about 20 or 30 minutes about my being sex trafficked by my uncle and Jeffrey Epstein in 1984 while I was 13 and [pregnant] ... I told him some other important information about other high profile individuals involved in my sex trafficking and the murder and disposal of my newborn daughter because I gave birth to her while in the middle of this ordeal."
Story by Elizabeth Preza

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who was called a “lowlife” by President Donald Trump on Christmas Day, has turned the tables on the president, the Guardian reports.

Massie drew the president’s ire after he defected from Republicans earlier this year by co-authoring a law requiring the federal government to release files related to the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “Trump has endorsed a retired US navy seal, Ed Gallrein, to run against Massie in the Republican primary,” according to the Guardian.
Story by Layla A. Jones

The thread of partisan power and control is stitched through America’s public education system. In the name of the revisionist Lost Cause history — which holds that the South fought the Civil War over states’ rights and not to maintain the institution of slavery — the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in the early 20th century leveraged the group’s considerable political influence and went after school curricula. The UDC lobbied for ahistorical, pro-South school materials, and its members joined Southern state textbook commissions where they helped control which books would be deemed suitable for children and which would not. For the next several decades, nearly 70 million Southern students were taught that the enslaved were actually servants and that the Confederates fought merely to preserve a Southern way of life.

In the 1950s, the American Legion partnered with the National Education Association to create anti-Communist curricula. Married couple and religious fundamentalists Norma and Mel Gabler imparted their brand of right-wing influence on childhood education through the Texas textbook committee circuit, suppressing science lessons on evolution and upholding “cultural heritage” and patriotism, beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the 70s.

By commandeering state-level commissions and capitalizing on early 20th century state law, reactionaries managed to control the historical curriculum for generations of students, particularly in the South.

Under President Donald Trump, this blueprint is being adapted and disseminated directly from the White House. The president in September announced the Department of Education’s partnership with dozens of conservative and far-right organizations including Turning Point USA, Moms for Liberty, and PragerU. The group will lead the Trump administration’s 250th anniversary civic education efforts “in schools across the nation.” Among the administration’s priorities? “Renewing patriotism,” and “advancing a shared understanding of America’s founding principles in schools across the nation.”
Story by Carl Gibson

President Donald Trump's administration recently intervened to help a disgraced far-right YouTube commentator get back into the United States — even though her channel was exposed as a Russian media front.

The Bulwark's Will Sommer reported Monday that Canadian citizen Lauren Chen of Tenet Media reportedly reentered the U.S. over the Christmas holiday, even though her work visa was suspended in 2024 amid an FBI investigation into her YouTube channel. Tenet Media's funders had been linked to the Russia-funded RT network, and were accused of funneling approximately $10 million to Chen's company, which also housed prominent pro-Trump pundits like Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin.
Story by Tom Latchem

The Trump administration has helped a MAGA YouTuber who was exposed as a Kremlin shill return to the U.S. from her native Canada, despite her links to an alleged Russian influence operation.

Canadian influencer Lauren Chen was forced to leave the U.S. after her work authorization fell apart in the wake of a 2024 federal indictment alleging that Tenet Media, the YouTube network she founded, was bankrolled through a scheme connected to Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT.

After YouTube terminated Tenet Media’s channel and four other channels run by Chen, her social media presence disappeared in September 2024.

Then, on Sept. 4 this year, the married mom-of-two posted on Instagram about what had happened, denying Tenet media employees were “spies, propagandists, [or] traitors” and saying that no criminal charges had ever been filed against her.
Story by Robert Davis

The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report on Tuesday night, revealing the infamous incident that led President Donald Trump to kick disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago Club.

Trump has previously acknowledged that Epstein was a Mar-a-Lago member at one time, and that he was kicked out for being rude to guests. The Journal's reporting reveals that Epstein hit on an 18-year-old beautician who was sent to Epstein's nearby mansion in Palm Springs for a "house call." According to the report, the girl came back to Mar-a-Lago and reported Epstein for attempting to pressure her into having sex with him.
Story by Prerna Verma

Donald Trump sparked controversy again on social media. The President triggered a wave of criticism online with the inappropriate timing of his message, which he posted about John F Kennedy and his family. He mocked the Kennedys after it was announced that the granddaughter of the 35th president of the U.S., Tatiana Schlossberg, passed away at 35.

According to Irish Star, John F Kennedy’s 35-year-old granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg passed away after battling leukaemia. Just hours after this unfortunate news became public, Trump posted on Truth Social about MAGA supporters insulting the Kennedys for their response after the current U.S. President added his own name to the Kennedy Center.

In his post, Trump shared screenshots of MAGA supporters who insulted the Kennedys for their response to the addition of Donald’s name to the Kennedy Center.

One of the users had commented, “I love it! It’s the correct plan, AND it will drive the lefties mad!” Another user wrote, “Perhaps they need to step up to care for the facility and business. They have been grossly negligent.”
Story by US Staff

Two countries in Africa have announced travel restrictions on American nationals in a tit-for-tat move after Donald Trump placed them on a no-entry list.

The US president, who launched a crackdown on immigration on day one of his second term, expanded a travel ban on Dec 19, barring people from seven more countries including Mali and Burkina Faso.

The list included Syrian citizens, as well as Palestinian Authority passport holders, and nationals of some of Africa’s poorest countries, also including Niger, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.

The White House said it was banning foreigners who “intend to threaten” Americans.

The move brought the number of countries whose citizens face restrictions in coming to the United States because of their nationality to nearly 40.

Burkina Faso and Mali, which are both led by military juntas, responded in statements issued separately by their foreign ministries.

They said they were imposing “equivalent measures” on US citizens.
Between the fallout from President Trump's trade war, tariffs and inflation, 2025 has been a rough year for farmers. Founder and President of the National Black Farmers Association and soybean farmer John Boyd, Jr. joins Antonia Hylton to discuss the state of farming heading into the new year.
Story by Marisa Laudadio

Republicans wanted answers. Democrats wanted transparency. What they got was a closed-door deposition that kicked off with a bombshell claim.

In a private interview on Capitol Hill with the House Judiciary Committee, former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith said his team discovered “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump criminally conspired to overturn the 2020 election — testimony that GOP lawmakers have so far kept private.

Smith confirms evidence of criminal conduct
Smith told the committee that his team met the highest legal threshold when investigating Trump’s actions after the 2020 election.

According to Smith’s opening statement, which was obtained by outlets including the Associated Press and NBC News, there was prosecutable evidence Trump engaged in a “criminal scheme” to subvert his election loss — conduct that preceded the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Smith also said investigators uncovered “powerful evidence” that Trump broke the law by retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., and by obstructing government efforts to recover them.

“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said.

He added that party affiliation would not have changed his approach, saying he would prosecute a former president “based on the same facts today … whether the president was a Republican or Democrat.”
Drugmakers plan to raise U.S. prices on at least 350 branded medications including vaccines against COVID, RSV and shingles and blockbuster cancer treatment Ibrance, even as the Trump administration pressures them for cuts, according to data provided exclusively by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors. Alex Cohen has more.
Story by Zac Anderson, USA TODAY

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers that President Donald Trump was responsible for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and staunchly defended his efforts to prosecute the president, according to a newly released transcript of his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee.

"Our view of the evidence was that he caused it and that he exploited it and that it was foreseeable to him," Smith said of Trump's alleged culpability for the Capitol riot.

Smith testified to the committee behind closed doors earlier this month. The committee released video of the deposition and a 255-page transcript on Wednesday, Dec. 31.

During the deposition, Smith adamantly denied that there was any political motivation to the prosecutions, pushing back on the suggestion that he was trying to influence the 2024 election. Trump has repeatedly criticized Smith, calling him "deranged" and a "wacko" who was "used for Crooked Joe Biden’s attack on his Political Opponent."

"I would never take orders from a political leader to hamper another person in an election. That's not who I am," Smith said in the deposition.
It comes amid new restrictions on H1-B visas that took effect Monday.
By Luke Barr

Individuals from seven countries will not be able to travel to the United States starting Thursday, according to updated CBP guidance obtained by ABC News.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed executive orders limiting travel from Burkina Faso, Laos, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Syria -- with those restrictions now going into effect Jan. 1.

This applies to both immigrants and nonimmigrants, according to the CBO document dated Dec. 29.

The White House says the restrictions are for national security and public safety reasons, while immigrant advocates say the ban targets African and Muslim countries.

The travel ban continues restrictions on those from Afghanistan; Burma (Myanmar); Chad; Republic of the Congo; Equatorial Guinea; Eritrea; Haiti; Iran; Libya; Somalia; Sudan; Yemen from entering into the United States.

There are also partial travel restrictions on people from Venezuela and Cuba, according to the document.

It comes amid new restrictions on H1-B visas taking effect earlier this week.

The H-1B visa program allows employers to hire noncitizens that have a specialized skill or trade and was previously done somewhat randomly.
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