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Story by Nick Lichtenberg

The United States national debt crossed $39 trillion for the first time Tuesday, arriving at the grim milestone less than five months after it first hit $38 trillion in late October—a pace of accumulation that budget watchdogs and academic economists are now calling, with unusual unanimity, “unsustainable.”​

The milestone, confirmed in Wednesday’s Daily Treasury Statement, lands amid a politically charged moment: it comes roughly two weeks before the ten-year anniversary of President Trump’s 2016 campaign promise to eliminate the national debt within eight years. Instead, the gross national debt has roughly doubled since Trump first took office—it was $19.9 trillion in January 2017.​

“Our moral duty to the taxpayer requires us to make our Government leaner and more accountable,” President Trump wrote in March 2017, as he issued an executive order directing OMB Director Mick Mulvaney to submit a comprehensive plan to reorganize Executive Branch departments and agencies in order to keep his promise to put in place common sense reforms to eliminate waste so that the Government better serves all Americans. “We’re going to do more with less,” Trump said at the time.
Story by Julia Ainsley

More than a year ago, The GEO Group founder George Zoley asked for a meeting with Corey Lewandowski, a close ally of President Donald Trump who had just started a powerful position as a top adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

As a titan of the private prison industry, GEO Group stood to benefit from Trump’s mass deportation agenda, which would require the federal government to spend tens of billions of dollars to transport, detain, monitor and deport undocumented immigrants. The company’s federal contracts in those areas already totaled more than $1 billion per year.

But Zoley and his advisers were worried that the road to securing new government contracts now ran through Lewandowski. The two had history: Lewandowski and Zoley had butted heads during the transition between Trump’s November 2024 election and his January 2025 inauguration, before Lewandowski officially worked for the government, according to two industry sources and one senior DHS official familiar with the matter.

During the transition, Lewandowski told Zoley that he wanted to be paid in exchange for protecting and growing GEO Group’s DHS contracts, according to a senior DHS official and three people familiar with their discussion. Zoley, concerned about the propriety of the ask, told Lewandowski he would have no part of it, the sources said, describing the confrontation as tense.
Rep. Robert Garcia talks with Jen Psaki about questions Democrats in Congress want answered about Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's role representing the United States in negotiations with countries he has a financial interest in, as well as a new investigation into allegations of impropriety against Corey Lewandowski.
Story by Alexander Willis

In 2007, Ex-Trump official Alexander Acosta, then the top federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Florida, was pressed by his subordinate to pursue a 60-count indictment she had prepared against Jeffrey Epstein.

That subordinate was then-federal sex-crimes prosecutor Marie Villafaña, who Bloomberg reported Friday had “begged” Acosta – who would later go on to become President Donald Trump’s labor secretary during his first term – to “urgently” arrest Epstein, but to no avail.

“I’m having trouble understanding – given how long this case has been pending – what the rush is,” wrote Matthew Menchel, Acosta’s chief criminal prosecutor, in a 2007 email to Villafaña that was released recently by the Justice Department. “This is obviously a very significant case and [Acosta] wants to take his time making sure he is comfortable before proceeding.”

While Epstein was eventually convicted, Acosta’s office had agreed to not pursue federal charges against the disgraced financier, and instead offered him a generous plea deal that saw him plead guilty to the state-level crime of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Travis Gettys

Corey Lewandowski allegedly demanded kickbacks from companies looking to do business with the Department of Homeland Security.

The close ally of President Donald Trump served as de facto chief of staff to recently ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and industry sources told NBC News that Lewandowski positioned himself to skim off a cut from private prison contractors interested in taking part in the administration's mass deportation agenda.

“He wanted payments — what some people would call a success fee,” said a person with knowledge of Lewandowski meeting with a private prison chief executive.

GEO Group founder George Zoley had asked for a meeting with Lewandowski during the presidential transition, before he officially worked for the government in any capacity, and two industry sources told NBC News that he wanted payment to protect and promote the company's DHS contacts. The CEO reportedly told him he wanted no part of that arrangement.

Zoley agreed to a second meeting in March 2025 after Lewandowski took a role as an unpaid “special government employee” after Inauguration Day, and the sources said he offered to put the Trump ally on retainer with GEO Group, but they said Lewandowski demanded a kickback instead – which Zoley declined.
Story by María Teresita Armstrong-Matta

MS NOW's Jen Psaki reported Thursday on two blockbuster corruption stories plaguing the Trump administration.

NBC News revealed that Corey Lewandowski, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's top lieutenant, allegedly demanded kickbacks from federal contractors in exchange for contract growth, specifically targeting the private prison company GEO Group.
Story by Jonathan Limehouse, USA TODAY

As farewells and condolences circulated following the death of Robert Mueller, the former special counsel got no sympathy from the most powerful man he investigated, President Donald Trump.

Mueller, who served as special counsel during the investigation into possible Russian interference in favor of Trump during the 2016 presidential election, died at 81 following a multi-year battle with Parkinson’s disease. He served as FBI director from Sept. 4, 2001, to Sept. 4, 2013.

Trump reacted to Mueller's passing in a March 21 post on Truth Social that said: "Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP."

Former FBI unit chief Paul Bresson, who served under Mueller for 12 years, called Trump's words "devastating," adding that he "admired his integrity, professionalism, and humility." Mueller, he told USA TODAY, "merits better."
Story by Zachary Leeman

President Donald Trump shocked many on Saturday when he openly celebrated the death of former FBI Director Robert Mueller, declaring he was “glad” not long after the news broke.

Mueller’s family confirmed on Saturday that the former special prosecutor died at the age of 81. MS NOW had first reported on Mueller’s death. His passing followed a years-long battle with Parkinson’s.

“Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!” the president wrote on Truth Social.

Mueller was the special prosecutor who oversaw an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller ultimately concluded Russia had interfered with the intention of pushing Trump for their own benefit. Trump often attacked Mueller and referred to the investigation as a “witch hunt.”

Critics were stunned by Trump’s post on Saturday, even with his history with Mueller. Most simply shared Trump’s message without commenting, but even some conservatives had to comment on how cutthroat the message was.
Opinion by Fisher Jack

*If there is one thing the modern political landscape hates more than a nuance, it’s a spreadsheet. Enter The Realist, a truck driver with a camera, a cab, and apparently no fear of the internet.  Dude has spent the 2024 and 2026 cycles dismantling the “MAGA” performance art with something truly offensive: actual data. And the fact that Barack Obama was, by nearly every measurable metric, a more effective president than Donald J. Trump. Botton line: Obama did it better.

In a video amplified by Reese Waters, the speaker bypasses the usual partisan screaming matches to deliver a clinical autopsy of the Trump administration’s supposed “strongman” victories. His conclusion? Barack Obama did the job more effectively, more quietly, and—most annoyingly for the budget hawks—for a lot less money. In effect, he delivers a point-by-point dismantling of the idea that Trump was some sort of strongman savior.

Who Is This Guy?
As we said, The Realist is a truck driver. That’s it. No think tank. No super PAC. No golden escalator. Just a working-class man who apparently knows how to Google deportation statistics.

During the 2024 and 2026 election cycles, he gained a following for his blunt, “common sense” political takes delivered from the driver’s seat. His tone isn’t angry. It’s the tone of someone explaining something to a child who keeps touching a hot stove.

Let’s Run the Tally, Shall We?
The video is essentially a highlight reel of facts that will make certain people choke on their diet sodas.

Military strategy? Obama used surgical strikes to take out targets without starting new forever wars. Trump inherited peace and took a victory lap.

Immigration? Oh, this one is spicy. Obama deported more people than Trump. Not a little more. More. And he did it on “one-tenth of the budget” without rolling “goon squads” through American cities for photo ops. It was efficient. It was effective. It didn’t require a reality TV show.

The economy? Obama inherited a recession and handed Trump a functioning economy. Trump spent four years taking credit for it.

Healthcare? Obama passed the Affordable Care Act. Trump promised a “beautiful” replacement that never materialized. Beautiful like a vacant lot.

Tax cuts? Obama cut taxes for the middle and working class. Trump cut taxes for people who own yachts.

Iran? Obama negotiated a nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Trump tore it up and had nothing to replace it with. Great dealmaking.
Story by The Kenya Times

President Donald Trump is facing renewed criticism over the cost of his frequent golf outings, as new estimates suggest taxpayers have spent as much as $138.6 million on travel and security related to his time on the course since his return to office in January 2025.

The figures, circulated widely on social media in recent days as the Iran War intensifies, indicate that Trump visited golf courses roughly 99 times during his first 14 months back in the White House, about 23 percent of his days in office.

The costs stem largely from the extensive security and logistics required each time the president travels, including flights aboard Air Force One, Secret Service protection, and coordination with local law enforcement.

The issue has drawn sharper attention as Americans continue to grapple with higher prices for everyday goods, including fuel and groceries. Critics argue that the scale of the spending sends the wrong signal at a time when many households are feeling financial strain.

Some of the most detailed spending estimates come from watchdog trackers and past government reports. A 2019 analysis of Trump’s earlier presidency found that each golf trip could cost millions of dollars once all security and travel expenses were included.

These estimates draw from a 2019 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that examined four of Trump’s trips during his first term to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

Moments before President Donald Trump announced that talks with Iran were going well and that he would not make good on his threat to bomb one of their civilian power plants, someone dropped about $580 million in the oil futures market.

"In one move, $1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures were purchased. This trade was so large it sent the entire index +0.3 percent higher that minute," the independent news site Europa posted on X. "$192 million in oil futures were also sold."

It happened five minutes before Trump posted on Truth Social, saying he was de-escalating the situation in Iran.

Professor Adam Cochran pointed out that it was "more than 4x-6x any other trade size during the market close ... Insiders profited from his lies in broad daylight!"

The sell-off is also sparking further questions about huge bets on Polymarket, which allows people to bet on whether something will happen.

In January, a new user on Polymarket suddenly popped up with a huge investment, betting that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be ousted. It happened mere hours before he was taken by U.S. forces.
Story by Allison Bloom

Democrats have unearthed a hypocritical old Tweet of Trump criticizing then-President Barack Obama for golfing during a major air travel disruption caused by a Transport Security Administration staff shortage in 2016.

On May 21, 2016, Trump, a candidate for president at the time, wrote on X: “While our wonderful president was out playing golf all day, the TSA is falling apart, just like our government! Airports a total disaster!”

The Democrats on X responded to the post Monday, saying sarcastically, “While our wonderful president was out playing golf all day, the TSA is falling apart, just like our government! Airports a total disaster!”

President Trump is currently facing the same criticism he once leveled against his predecessor, Obama. In 2016, Trump had criticized Obama for golfing as U.S. airports faced major delays and extremely long security lines. At that time, the chaos was due to a combination of factors: staff shortages, budget cuts, record travel volumes, and increased screening measures. Protests by unionized TSA workers over the need for more hiring, better pay, and expanded bargaining rights also contributed to the disruption at several major airports.
Story by The Detroit News

Washington – Newly released records in the now-dismissed classified documents case against U.S. President Donald Trump raise fresh concerns over national security risks and potential private business motivations, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee said.

The records, handed over by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the Republican-led panel's probe into former U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigations into Trump, show FBI investigators said in a 2023 memo that the classified documents kept by Trump after he left office were "pertinent to his business interests" and were found commingled with other documents created later, U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin said.

Some of the classified documents were also "so sensitive that only six people in the entire U.S. government had access to them", while one box of documents was scanned, stored on a Trump aide's laptop for nearly two years and uploaded to a cloud, raising further security concerns, Raskin added.
The document offers a snapshot of an early moment in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation and adds new shading to the public understanding of Smith’s probes.
By Jeremy Roebuck and Maegan Vazquez

President Donald Trump showed a classified map he retained from his first term in office to passengers on a 2022 private plane flight and retained another record so sensitive that only six high-ranking government officials had access to it, according to a prosecution memo released to Congress this week.

The Justice Department shared those findings, detailed in a January 2023 briefing document written by then-special counsel Jack Smith’s team, with lawmakers as they conduct a review of Smith’s now-abandoned efforts to prosecute Trump.

The memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post, was penned as investigators moved toward indicting Trump on charges of illegally retaining sensitive government material after he left the White House. It offers a snapshot of an early moment in Smith’s investigation and adds new shading to the public understanding of Smith’s probes, even as a final report on his findings remains under court seal.
Story by Thomas Kika

New revelations have emerged in President Donald Trump's classified documents case, per a "damning" memo obtained by MS NOW, showing that he seemingly intended to profit from illegally retaining the sensitive materials.

According to the report published Friday, special counsel Jack Smith determined that Trump had retained "secret documents that related to his worldwide business interests," revealing a key potential motive for his dogged efforts to hang onto them. Trump held the documents, often in questionable places, at his Mar-a-Lago resort, after departing the White House in 2021, later insisting that he had the right to retain them and that he had declassified them with his mind before leaving office. He was indicted on 32 felony counts related to his retention of the materials, and an additional eight charges for conspiracy to obstruct justice, but the case was halted after his reelection.
Story by Pocharapon Neammanee

A conservative activist in Wisconsin whose organization pushed President Donald Trump’s 2020 election claims was convicted Tuesday night of election fraud ― and said he would do it again.

“When you poke the bear you get that type of outcome, yes. I would do it again,” 71-year-old Harry Wait told local news station WTMJ-TV, adding that he “tested the system” and “the system failed.”

Wait’s conviction comes years after he requested absentee ballots in 2022 for Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Democratic Racine Mayor Cory Mason to be sent to his own address, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by local news station WISN. He had used the politicians’ personal identification information without their consent.  

The activist, who co-founded HOT Government, an organization aimed for government transparency, claimed he requested the ballots in order to prove how vulnerable the MyVote system was.
Story by Chris Melore

The case of a New Mexico mother who vanished without a trace last year has now been connected to the mysterious deaths and disappearances of five other key scientists and defense officials throughout the US.

Melissa Casias has not been seen since June 26, 2025, when her family said she uncharacteristically decided to work from home, but was last spotted miles from their house walking alone without her wallet, phone or keys.

Casias, 54, was an administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a facility founded by the famed Manhattan Project during World War II. It has been tied to nuclear weapons research ever since.

Her disappearance takes the number of people from the scientific community potentially holding highly sensitive secrets who have gone missing or died since June 2025 to six.

Of those six, five had ties to nuclear research or missile technology and four of them can now be shown to have some type of connection to each other.

Casias went missing just four days after respected NASA scientist Monica Reza mysteriously disappeared while hiking with friends in California.

Both women had worked at facilities with ties to retired Air Force General William Neil McCasland, who also vanished near a hiking trail in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on February 27, 2026.
Story by Zachary Leeman

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth struck the names of two Black and two female officers from a military promotions list, sparking bias concerns, according to a new report on Friday.

The New York Times published a lengthy report, citing 11 current and former military administration officials, that suggested Hegseth’s chief of staff told a military leader that President Donald Trump doesn’t “want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events.”

The promotions list in question is for officers who could be jumping to a one-star general position. About three dozen names are reportedly on the list, but Hegseth pushed to remove four, two of whom are Black officers. The other two are women.

Hegseth reportedly struck two of the four names from the list over past statements and performance. One, a Black armor officer, wrote a paper more than a decade prior on why Black service members historically have taken support roles in the military over frontline positions. Another, a female logistics officer, is believed to have been targeted over her involvement in the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members. Hegseth called the operation a disaster.

Some inside the military have reportedly been questioning whether Hegseth even has the legal authority to strike names from promotion lists.
On the Senate floor yesterday, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) pointed out the real reason why Donald Trump and Republicans are trying so hard to pass the SAVE America Act: because they are afraid of the impending wipeout in the midterm elections.
Story by Ewan Palmer

Donald Trump’s legal team is citing racist and xenophobic legal arguments in a bid to get the Supreme Court to allow the president to strip birthright citizenship.

The administration is hoping that the nation’s highest court will side with Trump as he attempts to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, with legal arguments in the high-profile case beginning Wednesday.

As The Washington Post reports, Trump’s legal team, including Solicitor General D. John Sauer, is referencing arguments from three lawyers who had previously attempted to remove birthright citizenship using anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism to bolster their own case.

This includes Alexander Porter Morse, an attorney who was a Confederate officer during the Civil War. In their Supreme Court brief, Trump’s team cites the views of Morse—who also argued against granting Black Americans the right to vote after slavery was abolished and opposed other Reconstruction amendments—as evidence that not everyone agreed with the idea that all people born in the United States are citizens when the principle was enshrined in the 14th Amendment.

Trump’s legal argument also cites Francis Wharton and George D. Collins, two lawyers who pushed anti-Chinese sentiment while arguing against birthright citizenship in the late 1800s. In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark—who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants—was a U.S. citizen, paving the way for birthright citizenship that Trump is now trying to overturn.
Story by Lesley Abravanel

An explosive new report by the South Carolina-based newspaper The Post and Courier has corroborated several personal details provided by a woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted at the age of 13 by Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and a third man, Jimmy Atkins, during the 1980s.

The newspaper’s investigation verified roughly 16 personal details from the woman’s 2019 FBI interviews, which investigators suggest bolsters her overall credibility.

The investigation utilized court records, police reports and public documents to verify several key details, including the identity of a third man involved in the abuse.

The report identified "Jim Atkins" as Jimmy L. Atkins, a former educator and real estate professional who moved to Hilton Head in the mid-1980s and died in 2003. Details such as his age, hair color and former role at a college in Ohio were confirmed.

Records confirmed her mother’s employment as a real estate broker on Hilton Head Island and her subsequent conviction for embezzlement.

The woman told FBI agents that two men were extorting her mother, believed to be Atkins and Epstein.
Story by Peter Rubinstein

Two senior sources within the Department of Homeland Security have accused White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the president's most influential adviser and architect of his immigration enforcement agenda, of ordering federal agents in Minneapolis to "force confrontations" with anti-ICE protesters in order to win the "PR battle."

The department sources, speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, said Miller makes orders with the authority of the president himself over matters related to DHS and immigration enforcement, including alleged directives for agents to purposefully initiate conflict with protesters in Operation Metro Surge.

"Miller said on these calls, 'If we let them have the perception that their protesting is successful, then the administration will never successfully prosecute interior operations to remove aliens,'" one source told the Daily Mail. Miller added: "So we need to engage these protesters, and we need to vanquish them by force of arms. They need to be vanquished by any force necessary," another source alleged. It comes after an ICE agent made a chilling three-word order before shooting a woman 5 times.

The aggressive remarks by Miller typically occur during his daily 10 a.m. conference calls with top DHS officials, including former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — now Markwayne Mullin — ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons and others, the Daily Mail reported.

During these briefings, Miller berates department leadership and threatens to fire them if they do not cede to his orders, sources told the Daily Mail. Some of these demands directly conflict with orders from President Donald Trump himself, they added.
Legal observers have filmed several interactions with federal officers in which they reference a domestic terrorist database and threaten to appear at observers' homes
Peter Rubinstein News Reporter

Two legal observers in Maine filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem on Monday, accusing the department of using surveillance technology to track legal observers then threatening to place them on a domestic terrorist watchlist.

The class action suit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Maine, cites several incidents in which plaintiffs say federal immigration agents scanned legal observers' faces and license plates before telling them they would come to their homes. “I hope you know that if you keep coming to things like this, you are going to be on a domestic terrorist watchlist,” one officer told plaintiff Elinor Hilton, according to the complaint. “Then we’re going to come to your house later tonight.”

The complaint, which seeks an injunction that would bar DHS from using surveillance technology to intimidate legal observers, comes after top DHS leaders this month testified that they do not have a domestic terrorist database. Legal observers have filmed several interactions with federal officers, however, in which officers reference such a database and threaten to appear at observers' homes.
Story by Isabel Keane

Half of a Colorado sheriff’s department have been indicted on charges including the abuse a corpse.

Costilla County Sheriff Danny Sanchez, 63, resigned after he and former deputy Keith Schultz, 45, were charged Friday with four counts of official misconduct and one count of abuse of a corpse due to their handling of human remains on October 2, 2024, 9 News reported.

A resident of Costilla County, just north of the New Mexico border, had called the sheriff’s office that fall to report finding human remains, including a skull, teeth and other bones.

Sanchez and Schultz, who resigned last fall, came to the property and collected the skull, but left behind the other remains, according to a grand jury indictment.

“Sheriff Danny R. Sanchez was present at the time of collection, but was only on scene briefly and was reported to be more interested in looking for arrowheads than investigating the human remains,” the indictment stated.

The coroner’s office later received the skull in what “appeared to be a used paper grocery bag, not a forensic evidence bag,” according to the indictment.

The bag had “no markings or labelling describing the items, the date or location of collection, the identity of the collector, or the chain of custody related to the evidence, and had no tape or seals to protect the integrity of the evidence.”
Story by Jim Mishler

The U.S. Army has suspended the aircrew involved in a helicopter flight near entertainer Kid Rock's Tennessee home.

NBC News reported that the action follows a video posted Saturday by Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert Ritchie.

The clip shows him standing in his backyard as a military helicopter hovered nearby and another flew close to the property.

The post on X included the message, "God Bless America and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend her," alongside criticism of California Gov. Gavin Newsom that included profanity.
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