Trump Goes on Late-Night Rampage About Top Revenge Target

Thirty-three days out from Trump’s inauguration, the president-elect’s comments show he intends to make good on his vows for revenge against his political opponents. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Trump issued yet another warning to former Representative Liz Cheney for her role in the congressional probe into the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol.

Soon after 3 a.m. Wednesday, Trump set his sights on the former Republican representative, writing, “Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee, which states that ‘numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the FBI.’ Thank you to Congressman Barry Loudermilk on a job well done.”

On Tuesday, Republican Representative Barry Loudermilk, who chairs the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, released a 128-page “interim report” by House Republicans on the January 6 committee. Specifically, the report called for Cheney to be criminally investigated, accusing the former January 6 committee vice chair of witness tampering and colluding with former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified before the committee on the events surrounding that day, including Trump’s behavior during the riot.

Loudermilk’s report shows House Republicans in lockstep with Trump’s plans for retribution against his political foes. Recently, Trump has said of everyone on the January 6 committee, but namely Cheney and its former chair, Bennie Thompson: “Yea, honestly, they should go to jail.”

Both Loudermilk’s report and Trump’s continued threats toward Cheney come as the president-elect assembles an administration that shares his ardor for vengeance against MAGA’s enemies, including his pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, who has promised to go after the president-elect’s opponents in the government and media.

Cheney responded to Loudermilk’s interim report Tuesday with a statement on BlueSky.

“The January 6th Committee’s hearings and report featured scores of republican witnesses, including many of the most senior officials from Trump’s own White House, campaign and Administration,” Cheney wrote. “All of this testimony was painstakingly set out in thousands of pages of transcripts, made public along with a highly detailed and meticulously sourced 800 page report. The Department of Justice conducted its own independent investigation and reached the same fundamental conclusions.”

Cheney’s statement said Loudermilk’s report “intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence,” instead spinning up “lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did.”

“No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously.”

Luigi Mangione has been accused of terrorism in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.  

The indictment, released Tuesday evening, lists 10 charges and 11 counts, including one for first-degree murder “in furtherance of an act of terrorism” and “murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism.”

Mangione is also charged with possession of forged instruments, several counts of weapons possession, committing murder “with intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion, and affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping,” and simply with “murder in the second degree.”

In a press release, District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that Mangione faces “a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole.”

Separately, Bragg told a press conference that murder in the second degree carried a mandated sentence of life without parole with “no discretion for the judge at all.”

“One charges that the killing was done as an act of terrorism, and the second [pertains] to the fact that the killing was intentional,” Bragg said. “In its most basic terms, this was a killing that intended to evoke terror.”

Mangione’s lawyer, former Manhattan Chief Assistant District Attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo, declined to comment on the charges.

It’s unclear how exactly Mangione’s alleged crime was intended to “influence the policy of a unit of government,” which companies such as UnitedHealthcare are not, or “intimidate” the civilian population. Rather, Mangione’s alleged act appeared to have been planned to target a specific class of individuals who profit exorbitantly off the suffering of the civilian population. 

“The ruling class is treating killing one of their own, with the motive being related to the evils of our health care system, as a fundamentally different act than if you or I were to be murdered,” wrote journalist J.P. Hill on X Tuesday.

Mangione was reportedly discovered with a manifesto admitting to having worked alone and explaining why he allegedly committed the violent act.

“I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done,” Mangione wrote. “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing the fury of his Republican colleagues over yet another delayed and outsize spending bill.

Conservative lawmakers took to social media to publicly vent their dismay with the 1,500-page continuing resolution, torching the massive omnibus for failing to meet their party goals. At least one member of the upper chamber—Kentucky Senator Rand Paul—took that critique to the next level, outright questioning Johnson’s strength as a party leader.

“I had hoped to see @SpeakerJohnson grow a spine, but this bill full of pork shows he is a weak, weak man,” Paul posted on X early Wednesday. “The debt will continue to grow. Ultimately the dollar will fail. Democrats are clueless and Big Gov Republicans are complicit.

“A sad day for America,” Paul added.

The stopgap spending measure will fund the government through March 14, giving conservatives a chance to organize and reassess their spending priorities once their Republican trifecta takes effect.

The resolution was intended to be a “very skinny, very simple” stopgap solution, but what was ultimately presented to House lawmakers late Tuesday was a thick 84-day measure riddled with unrelated policies, including disaster relief needs related to the devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, an extension on the farm bill, health care policy, and, naturally, a raise for members of Congress.

Lawmakers have only until Friday to iron out their disagreements with the package and pass a version of the bill, or the government will enter a shutdown that will last through the holiday season.

Before the text of the continuing resolution was released on Tuesday, several other lawmakers hurled their own fire at the bipartisan effort, arguing that the three-month spending solution will only add to the federal deficit.

“Since we’ve been given the majority again, we’re adding $30 billion in literally totally unpaid-for additional deficit spending, just since November 5—in 45 days,” Texas Representative Chip Roy told C-SPAN. “I don’t see how that’s doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

“The conference itself owns this. The conference needs to decide whether we’re actually serious about spending.… We’re just fundamentally unserious about spending,” Roy continued, highlighting the fact that his party intends to shift cash away from Social Security, shrinking the time before the program goes bankrupt. “As long as you got a blank check, you can’t shrink government. If you can’t shrink government, you can’t live free.”

Elon Musk’s shady behavior has gotten him and SpaceX flagged for federal review three times, according to reporting from The New York Times. Musk has reportedly failed to cooperate with security clearance reporting rules, hiding info on things like meetings with foreign leaders.

According to disclosure stipulations, Musk is required to report details of his international meetings and travels as well as any drug use. He has apparently shirked that responsibility since at least 2021, according to four people with knowledge of SpaceX, putting his ability to handle highly classified information into question.

Musk, who currently has top secret clearance, gets access to classified information on the U.S. military. But in 2023, the Air Force rejected his request for an even higher level of security clearance, known as Special Access Program. A Pentagon official told the Times that Musk was rejected due to a “lack of explanation” for some of his meetings with foreign leaders.

Without access to the clearance, Musk should theoretically be blocked from joining certain meetings between SpaceX and the Air Force on extremely sensitive classified information. But the Times reported Pentagon officials are concerned Musk is still joining many of those conversations anyway. 

No formal accusations have yet been leveled at Musk, and it is unclear how the reviews will impact the SpaceX CEO, if at all. Donald Trump could unilaterally grant Musk security clearance after his inauguration.

“To have someone who has major contracts with the government who would be in a position to pass along—whether deliberately or inadvertently—secrets is concerning,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen told The New York Times. The New Hampshire Democrat requested that the Air Force and the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General investigate Musk for having inappropriate talks with foreign leaders, like Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The world’s richest man and incoming Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, co-chair has continuously blurred the lines between civilian and elected official—especially as he cements himself further into Trump’s inner circle after stumping for the president-elect all election season.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene really wants you to know that she wants to shoot at the drones.

In a post on Truth Social Tuesday, Greene declared that she was too smart to follow hypothetical government safety guidance related to the recent drone sightings along the eastern states.

“I’m going to tell you right now that if they try to tell us all to stay inside, stay home, shelter in place ‘FOR OUR SAFETY’ from the drones, there is no way in hell I will comply with that absolute bullshit,” Greene wrote. It’s worth noting that the National Security Council has said the drones do not pose a threat to public safety and given no indication it would issue such instructions.

“Not doing it. No way,” she wrote. “I’ll shoot the drones down myself along with every other red blooded freedom loving American.”

As genuinely dangerous as it is for an elected official to declare that they would not follow guidance from the government, Greene’s phony pontificating is nothing more than right-wing cringe.

Luckily for the trigger-happy MAGA lawmaker, D.C. airspace is far more restricted than others around the country, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Desperate to distinguish herself from the establishment she embodies, Greene likely would just as soon start shooting at red traffic lights trying to tell her to stop. One tweet from November already claims she doesn’t obey stop signs.

Greene has seemingly been driven to madness by the recent spate of reported drone sightings over New Jersey and other states, claiming that the U.S. government was responsible for the drones appearing and that U.S. citizens are not safe.