Trump Has Despicable New Way to Carry Out His Deportations

Donald Trump’s administration falsely declared more than 6,300 immigrants dead in an attempt to get them to self-deport, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Earlier this week, the White House added the names and Social Security numbers of thousands of living, breathing people to the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, which is used to track when a person has died and should stop receiving government benefits. 

But it can have far-ranging effects, as people will no longer be able to access their bank accounts or use their credit cards. The SSA’s website said that the effects of being wrongly included in the DMF can be “devastating to the individual, spouse, and dependent children.”

The outrageous move targeted individuals whose legal status had just been revoked, people who the government claimed were convicted criminals or “suspected terrorists,” according to documents reviewed by the Times. However, the list managed to include eight minors, including one 13-year-old.  

The Trump administration’s system for identifying suspected terrorists has come under scrutiny in recent weeks, after multiple individuals swept up in the mass deportation of alleged Tren de Aragua members said that they were wrongly identified based on their innocuous tattoos.

A White House official told The Washington Post that included in the DMF list were nearly 1,000 people collecting Medicaid payments, 41 collecting unemployment insurance, and 22 receiving student loans. 

The SSA’s acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has also agreed to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the last known addresses of 98,000 people, a major shift for the agency charged with closely guarding citizens’ private information. Twelve current and former officials told the Times that before the Trump administration, the agency had never engaged in widespread data sharing with immigration authorities.

In taking this action, the Trump administration has transformed the SSA into an arm of enforcement for its massive deportation efforts. 

Mere hours after the markets were slightly buoyed by a White House announcement that Donald Trump’s global tariff plan would see a 90-day pause, the president decided to reverse course and threaten more tariffs.

In a nighttime post to Truth Social Thursday, Trump warned that Mexico could be subject to a higher tariff rate as punishment for allegedly violating an 81-year-old water treaty.

“Mexico OWES Texas 1.3 million acre-feet of water under the 1944 Water Treaty, but Mexico is unfortunately violating their Treaty obligation,” Trump wrote. “This is very unfair, and it is hurting South Texas Farmers very badly.

“Last year, the only Sugar Mill in Texas CLOSED, because Mexico has been stealing the water from Texas Farmers. Ted Cruz has been leading the fight to get South Texas the water it is owed, but Sleepy Joe refused to lift a finger to help the Farmers,” he continued.

“THAT ENDS NOW!” the president wrote. “I will make sure Mexico doesn’t violate our Treaties, and doesn’t hurt our Texas Farmers. Just last month, I halted water shipments to Tijuana until Mexico complies with the 1944 Water Treaty. My Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, is standing up for Texas Farmers, and we will keep escalating consequences, including TARIFFS and, maybe even SANCTIONS, until Mexico honors the Treaty, and GIVES TEXAS THE WATER THEY ARE OWED!”

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum didn’t outright reject the claim that her country had violated the water deal, but instead cited a three-year drought induced by climate change as the reason for the decreased shipments, noting on X that “to the extent water is available, Mexico has been complying.

“I have instructed the Secretaries of Agriculture and Rural Development and Foreign Affairs, as well as the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, to immediately contact the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of State,” Sheinbaum wrote. “I am confident that, as with other issues, an agreement will be reached.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s hit-or-miss approach to enacting tariffs has sent the U.S. markets into a tailspin in little more than a week, leaving some financial experts believing that the president had done irreparable damage to America’s trade reputation and its economy. Banks and investment firms are still predicting a high possibility of a recession, even after Trump caved to mounting domestic pressure Wednesday and announced a 90-day pause to his sweeping tariff proposal for 200 countries.

China has fired back at Donald Trump’s tariff hike with one of its own.

The country raised tariff rates against the U.S. from 85 percent to 125 percent Friday morning, following Thursday’s confirmation from the Trump administration that it was placing tariffs of 145 percent on China—125 percent as a reciprocal measure, plus an additional 20 percent because Trump thinks Beijing isn’t doing anything about fentanyl.

“Even if the U.S. continues to impose higher tariffs, it will no longer make economic sense and will become a joke in the history of world economy,” the Chinese Finance Ministry said in a statement, which CNBC translated.

“With tariff rates at the current level, there is no longer a market for U.S. goods imported into China,” the statement added, saying that “if the U.S. government continues to increase tariffs on China, Beijing will ignore.”

Despite its tough talk, China’s Foreign Ministry said that it was open to negotiate with the U.S. on an equal footing in a separate statement, refuting Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s comments on Wednesday that “it’s unfortunate that the Chinese actually don’t want to come and negotiate, because they are the worst offenders in the international trading system.”

The move is a further escalation of the trade war between the two countries instigated by Trump, which doesn’t help either economy. Countless corporations in the U.S. depend on China, and 10 million to 20 million Chinese workers are involved with U.S. exports. Trump’s tariff moves have been so erratic that hedge fund managers are wondering if he is insane. Nobody knows how this is going to end, but it seems likely that a recession is looming.

Donald Trump definitely isn’t spending government funds to throw himself a birthday parade, according to the White House.

The administration denied Thursday that Trump was organizing a military procession to celebrate his 79th birthday in June. That is, despite the fact that several local leaders—including Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and Arlington County Board Chair Takis Karantonis—confirmed to Politico that they had been in conversation with Trump officials to arrange the summertime military procession.

Trump’s birthday on June 14 coincidentally (or perhaps conveniently) falls on the same date as the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army.

“As we enter 2025, the Army’s 250th birthday will be celebrated with a series of commemorations, including leadership engagements, community outreach events and other events showcasing Army units, history, lineage and esprit de corps,” read a February press release by the U.S. Army. It did not make mention of a parade.

Trump wanted a parade in 2018, but the idea was quickly shot down by local and military officials who cited enormous estimated damages to Pennsylvania Avenue and torched the hefty price tag involved in dragging heavy equipment through the U.S. capital. The president reportedly was inspired after watching a Bastille Day celebration in Paris in 2017.

“It was one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen.… We’re gonna have to try and top it,” Trump said at the time, “but we had a lot of planes going over and a lot of military might, and it was really a beautiful thing to see.”

But Washington was unconvinced.

“The military leaders said it would cost too much, nearly $90 million; Mayor Bowser ridiculed the idea on the Twitter system and said it would cost us $20 million just for public safety,” Washington City Paper’s Tom Sherwood told NBC News 4 earlier this week. “So he canceled it—angrily canceled it. But this time around, it doesn’t sound like he is gonna cancel.”

Bowser said that the administration’s current plans would have the military march from the Pentagon to the White House, and underscored that the economic concerns over holding such a parade had not changed, noting that driving military vehicles and equipment through Washington’s streets would likely cost millions in damage.

The White House is now asking people in power to forget the evidence of their eyes and ears.

Two planes bumped wings while taxiing on the runway at Reagan National Airport Thursday, marking yet another critical safety failure at one of the nation’s major airports. One of the planes carried several U.S. lawmakers, including Representative Josh Gottheimer, who blamed the incident on the Trump administration’s recent cuts to the Federal Aviation Administration, claiming that slashes to the agency “weaken our skies and public safety.”

But the White House outright rejected Gottheimer’s explanation, insisting without evidence that the New Jersey representative was “wrong.”

“There have been no cuts to air traffic controllers, safety personnel, or safety-critical positions at the FAA,” the White House official X account posted.

That is, however, not exactly honest—even according to Trump’s own officials. In February, the administration erased 400 FAA roles, including positions that supported air safety. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the cuts that time, though he attempted to minimize them by highlighting the overall staffing of the agency, which Duffy claimed employs some 45,000 workers.

Other representatives aboard the plane shared their experiences, similarly arguing that the White House was distorting the safety of America’s air travel.

“You felt it, and you saw the wing actually flapping up and down, so you knew there was a strong contact there,” Representative Adriano Espaillat told CNN. “They told us that they were going to take us back to the gate. We waited a little bit, we saw some emergency vehicles near us, and then they took us back to the gate.”

When asked if he believed that the White House was attempting to deceive the public about the health of America’s airports, Espaillat said, “They’re downsizing, they want to misguide us about that, but this is an agency that in particular, this airport, has seen already tragic incidents where many people died.” Espaillat said, “They should be beefed up to a level where everyone feels secure.”

“I thought about going Amtrak,” he added, calling the episode “dangerous.”

It’s just the most recent of critical errors occurring at Reagan National Airport. Last week, a physical fight broke out in the air traffic control tower at the politico-favorite airport, resulting in one supervisor being arrested and charged with assault and battery, as well as a managerial shakeup that saw three air traffic control managers being forced out of their roles.

In January, a midair crash between an American Airlines passenger plane and a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter over the airport killed 67 people—the first major deadly crash involving a U.S. airliner since 2009.

The Trump administration’s basis for seeking to strip pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil of his green card amounts to this: He didn’t do anything illegal, but he holds beliefs that go against “core American interests.” 

In a two-page memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio obtained by the Associated Press, the government alleged that keeping Khalil in the country would undermine “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”

Otherwise, the memo states, Khalil’s actions were “lawful.” 

“Condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” Rubio wrote.

A federal judge, Jamee Comans, had ordered the government to provide evidence by 5 p.m. Wednesday for its justification to deport Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent and Columbia University graduate who was a spokesperson for student activists at the university during protests last year against Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. A hearing is scheduled Friday on whether his detention can continue.

Khalil’s attorneys, Marc Van Der Hout and Johnny Sinodis, said in a joint statement that  “immigration authorities have finally admitted that they have no case whatsoever against him.”

“There is not a single shred of proof that Mahmoud’s presence in America poses any threat,” the statement reads.

When asked if the government had any additional evidence against Khalil, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, provided an emailed statement to the AP stating that “DHS did file evidence, but immigration court dockets are not available to the public.”

Khalil, who is married to a U.S. citizen due to give birth this month, has been held in a detention center in Louisiana after being arrested and detained by immigration agents last month at his university-owned residence. Khalil wrote in a letter last month from Louisiana that his detention was a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”​​ 

Administration officials have alleged that Khalil’s actions support Hamas but failed to provide any evidence in any court filings. That may very well help Khalil, as Comens said Tuesday that if the government’s evidence doesn’t support his deportation, “then I am going to terminate the case on Friday.”

President Donald Trump falsely suggested Thursday that autism may be caused by a “shot,” parroting his anti-vax health secretary. 

During a Cabinet meeting, the president discussed an increase in the rate of autism diagnoses, but seemed to invent some statistics to do it. 

“It was one in 10,000 children had autism, and now it’s one in 31. Not 31,000, 31,” Trump said. 

In reality, about one in 36 children aged 8 years old have been identified with autism spectrum disorder, according to the CDC. That’s an increase from 2000, when only one in 150 children born in 1992 were diagnosed with autism.

Sitting only a few seats away from the president was Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent figure in the anti-vaccine movement, who used the one-in-10,000 statistic during his Senate confirmation hearings. It’s entirely unclear where he got this number, but Trump has since repeated it multiple times. 

“That is horrible—that’s a horrible statistic, isn’t it? And there’s gotta be something artificial out there that’s doing it,” Trump continued, turning to Kennedy. 

“So you think you’re gonna have a pretty good idea, huh?” Trump asked. 

“We will know by September,” Kennedy replied. 

“There will be no bigger news conference than that, so that’s it. If you can come up with that answer: where you stop taking something, you stop eating something, or maybe it’s a shot. But something’s causing it,” Trump said. 

Kennedy has previously claimed that autism comes from vaccines, and it seems that the president has officially bought in—or is at least open to the possibility. Trump’s newest comment comes months after a leaked phone call with Kennedy in July, where the president could be heard tying vaccines to autism. 

Meanwhile, experts have attributed some of the rise in autism diagnoses to a widening definition of autism spectrum disorder, which encapsulates a broader range of symptoms, as well as people being more aware of and willing to get diagnostic testing, according to ABC News.  

While Kennedy claimed he has “never been anti-vaxx,” he has spent his first two months in office pushing alternative, unproven medicines amid a deadly national measles outbreak. Last month, Kennedy suggested that contracting measles had more long-term health benefits than getting the measles vaccine, which he falsely claimed could cause all the same illnesses associated with measles. 

House Republicans approved a budget Thursday, pushing Donald Trump’s dream bill closer to reality.

With the budget framework in the rearview, conservatives in both chambers are now squaring away how they can slice trillions of dollars from the details of the federal budget in order to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for corporations and billionaires, and make an estimated $6.8 trillion addition to the deficit more palatable to their base.

One much-discussed solution includes taking a metaphorical chain saw to indirectly strip $880 billion from Medicaid, but House Speaker Mike Johnson still wasn’t ready to admit the reality of that proposal Thursday—despite the fact that his colleagues have already publicly acknowledged the party’s intention to gut the low-income insurance program.

“No one has talked about cutting one benefit in Medicaid,” Johnson insisted, instead offering another solution to afford Trump’s tax cuts. “What we’ve talked about is returning work requirements, so for example you don’t have able-bodied young men on a program that’s designed for single mothers and the elderly and disabled.”

The eyebrow-raising pitch also came packaged with an insult for young American men, who Johnson argued were wasting their lives playing video games.

“They’re draining resources from people who actually do that,” the speaker continued. “So if you clean that up and shore it up you save a lot of money and you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be at work instead of playing video games all day.”

But Republican proposals to introduce a work requirement to Medicaid have thus far asked recipients to navigate work-reporting and verification systems on a monthly basis—a detail that would require significant federal funding. The plans would also negate coverage for individuals who find themselves temporarily unemployed, such as those who were recently fired or laid off.

A February report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that introducing work requirements to the insurance program could strip upward of 36 million Americans of their health coverage—half of Medicaid’s 72 million enrollees.

And, at the end of the day, if work requirements for Medicaid are actually intended to encourage employment—rather than punish the poor—then the whole effort is founded on a dud philosophy.

“Research shows that work requirements do not increase employment,” the think tank’s report said.

Republicans, and apparently some Democrats, are still obsessed with limiting noncitizen voting, which is already illegal and exceedingly rare.

The House on Wednesday passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, which would require people to present a passport, birth certificate, or other documentation proving citizenship in person in order to vote in elections. The legislation is so extreme that many have warned that it could even make it harder for married women to vote.

The SAVE Act passed 220–208, with Democrats Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Henry Cuellar, and Ed Case voting in support of a bill that could disenfranchise millions of voters.

This is the second time Republicans have tried to codify the bill, which passed in the House last year but failed in the Senate.

“I voted for the SAVE Act for the simple reason that American elections are for Americans. Requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is common sense,” Golden wrote in a post on X in an attempt to defend himself from his party’s scrutiny. “Some claim that requiring proof of citizenship is too onerous a burden, or that it will ‘disenfranchise’ those whose names have changed for reasons like marriage. The truth is the SAVE Act ensures name changes will not prevent anyone from registering to vote.”

But the bill will no doubt make it more difficult for millions of people to vote, particularly some 69 million married women who have taken their spouse’s name and do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name.

The SAVE Act would also disenfranchise marginalized groups like naturalized citizens, Native American voters, and low-income voters who do not have documents that prove their citizenship readily available, and prevent people from registering to vote online or by mail. It’s yet another form of Republican-led voter suppression disguised as a way to protect the country from voter fraud.

“In order to preserve this republic, we must uphold what it means to be able to vote in a U.S. election,” Representative Chip Roy, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement. “I am grateful that my colleagues answered the call and passed the SAVE Act, as this serves as a critical first step to ensure that we maintain election integrity throughout our country.”

Though noncitizen voting is extremely rare, it’s long been an obsession of the GOP, which frames the practice as an existential threat to democracy. It was a top Republican issue throughout last year’s election, and lawmakers used it to push their fearmongering anti-immigration agenda. Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would similarly boost proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration.

The SAVE Act will now head to the Republican-led Senate, where it will require more betrayal from Democrats in order to pass.

At the White House Thursday, Secretary of State Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump admitted that U.S. troops have been deployed to the Panama Canal.

“We’re taking back the canal. China’s had too much influence, Obama and others let them creep in. We along with Panama are pushing them out, Sir,” Hegseth said to Trump at a Cabinet meeting held in front of the press, adding that after his trip to the country earlier this week, President José Raúl Mulino spoke positively of partnering with U.S. troops to get “the Communist Chinese out.”

“We’ve moved a lot of troops to Panama, and, uh, filled up some areas that we used to have, we didn’t have any longer, but we have them now, and I think it’s in very good control, right?” Trump said, turning to Hegseth, who replied, “Yes, Sir.”

The exchange seems to indicate that Trump has moved to control the canal and is working with Panama’s president, despite Trump previously antagonizing the country by expressing the desire to retake it. Hegseth’s visit to Panama earlier this week seemed to calm down tensions between the two countries, with Hegseth acknowledging Panama’s sovereignty over the canal.

But Trump asked the military last month to draw up plans for retaking the canal, meaning that he prefers to have that option on the table. Panama has taken steps to try to appease Trump, making a deal to reimburse U.S. ships for any transit fees for going through the canal, signing a security cooperation agreement, and agreeing to allow U.S. troops to resume jungle warfare training.

Panama has also agreed to end an infrastructure agreement with China and conduct a financial audit of Hong Kong–based CK Hutchison Holdings, which controls ports on the canal’s opposite sides. Whether all of this will be enough to keep Trump happy and allow Panama not to worry about a full U.S. military takeover of the canal remains to be seen.