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Israel Set to Take Over All of Gaza After Trump’s Middle East Visit

Israel is planning to seize Gaza and occupy it indefinitely. The takeover will reportedly begin after Trump visits the region.

Benjamin Netanyahu leans over and covers his mouth as he says something to Donald Trump, as he leans in to listen. Both sit in the Oval Office of the White House.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks to Donald Trump during a meeting in the White House on April 7, 2025.

Israel has approved plans to completely seize the Gaza strip and install soldiers there indefinitely. This is yet another clear and obvious human rights violation that aligns with Israel’s greater plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip.

Palestinians will be forcibly moved to Gaza’s south under the plan, which Israel’s ministers voted to approve on Monday morning. Israel will also take control of how food and supplies are distributed to the roughly two million people in Gaza. Israel will shut down hundreds of community kitchens and food depots across the region and instead install its own distribution centers run by a private security company. Israel has blocked all food from coming into Gaza for eight weeks, purposely starving civilians.

Israel also plans to insert Gazans into a facial recognition software to dole out food from its distribution centers. This plan will begin after Trump visits the Middle East next week.

Both the United Nations and the European Union have come out against the plan, opposing anything that would result in Israel taking full control of Gaza, an EU spokesperson told the Associated Press. Israel controls about 50 percent of Gaza at the moment.

MTG Warns Republicans Will Suffer Crushing Election Loss at This Rate

“It’s the Republicans that are the problem,” said GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks during a congressioanl hearing and raises her eyebrows as if in surprise.
Al Drago/Getty Images

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene believes that Republicans in Congress are on track to lose the midterms—because they’re not adhering strictly enough to the MAGA agenda.

The Jewish space lasers conspiracy theorist told Steve Bannon Monday that she would advise Donald Trump to “stick with the agenda and ignore the people here in Washington that are trying to get you to do something different.”

“Here’s the issue. We’re not going to get it done in two years,” Greene said on the former Trump adviser’s podcast, War Room, referring to Trump’s agenda.

“It’s the Republicans that are the problem, Steve,” she said.

“Stick to the program! Deliver the campaign promises we made!” Greene continued, “and understand that the way to win the midterms is by the House and the Senate delivering the campaign promises because Trump’s not on that, he’s not on the ballot in 2026.”

Bannon, in turn, lamented that conservatives in both chambers weren’t completely on board with Trump’s plan.

“The Hill newspapers will say that Republicans are on board, but you’re up there,” Bannon said, gesturing toward Greene. “But you’re up there; you know they’re not on board.”

And Greene agreed, blaming her party’s draining popularity on vaccine conspiracies and tip taxes.

“I’m telling you. If you ignore the parents that are furious over Covid vaccines being on their childhood vaccine schedule, you’re gonna lose the midterms,” Greene argued. “If you ignore the campaign promises of no tax on tips, overtime, and Social Security, you’re going to lose the midterms.”

“If you ignore the executive orders, the American people are like, yes, applauding for every single day, we’re going to lose the midterms,” she said.

Greene further explained that, from her perspective, Republicans will have little to campaign on other than preventing another Trump impeachment by a potentially Democrat-controlled Congress.

“If we’re campaigning in 2026 on, you have to vote for Republicans because the Democrats are going to impeach Trump, the American people are gonna go, we don’t care, we’ve seen that TV show before,” she said.

The rest of the country, meanwhile, has been turned off by the Trump administration’s aggressive proposals for gutting Medicaid, roller-coaster tariff announcements that have whipped the economy and shoved the U.S. closer to a recession, and unsuccessful talks to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Last week, an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that Trump’s approval rating had plummeted to 39 percent—a 6 percent drop from February—marking the lowest first-100-day rating of a president since modern polling began roughly 80 years ago.

More on what Republican wake-up calls:

Trump’s Promise to Pay Undocumented Immigrants to Leave Is a Trap

As with every “deal” the president offers, there’s a huge catch.

Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, at the White House
Al Drago for The Washington Post/Getty Images
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, at the White House last month

Donald Trump’s administration is trying to trick immigrants into self-deporting by offering them $1,000—but it’s just another scam.  

The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that any undocumented immigrant who uses the CBP Home app to self-deport would “receive a stipend of $1,000, paid after their return to their home country has been confirmed through the app.” 

DHS attempted to paint self-deportation as a “dignified” way to avoid being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and claimed that it “may help preserve the option for an illegal alien to re-enter the United States legally in the future.”

But Aaron Reichlin-Melchick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wasn’t the least bit convinced by the government’s claim that those who self-deport would ever be welcomed back to the U.S. 

He wrote in a post on X Monday that the government’s offer was an “outright LIE that will trap people into WORSE outcomes for them than if they stayed and fought a case in immigration court.” Having a deportation order would make it harder to return, and the DHS’s offer would “sabotage” immigration cases, he added

Reichlin-Melchick also wrote that there was reason to doubt that DHS even had the authority to offer financial assistance to immigrants who chose to self-deport. “No law directly authorizes DHS to pay plane tickets and offer reimbursements to people leaving the country,” he noted. 

The only legal authority that allowed for the government to deport immigrants “desirous of being so removed” also included a “near-total ban on reentry,” Reichlin-Melchick wrote in another post.

“Any alien so removed shall be ineligible to apply for or receive a visa or other documentation for readmission, or to apply for admission to the United States except with the prior approval of the Attorney General,” states U.S. Code Title 8 Section 1260

In recent weeks, in an effort to encourage self-deportation, DHS has sent notices telling undocumented immigrants that their parole status has been revoked—but reporters discovered that some of these emails wound up in the inboxes of immigration attorneys, forcing DHS to acknowledge its sloppy mistake. 

Trump Whines About Kids Having Too Many Pencils In Wild Tariffs Rant

Trump is once again saying that kids don’t deserve a lot of toys (or pencils, apparently).

Donald Trump sits at a conference table speaking to his Cabinet. In front of each person is a red MAGA cap.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Donald Trump continues to insist that America’s children deserve less.

“I don’t think a beautiful baby girl that’s 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls,” the president said when asked about the prices of goods rising due to his unprecedented tariffs on Chinese imports. “They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”

“A young lady, a 10-year-old girl, a 9-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls,” he continued. “She can be very happy with three or four or five.… Let’s not waste a lot of time on a stupid question.”

The president said something similarly tone deaf less than a week ago.

“[China] made a trillion dollars with Biden, a trillion dollars, even a trillion and one with Biden, selling us stuff,” Trump said, referring to the gargantuan Chinese import market in the United States. “Much of it, we don’t need. Ya know, somebody said, ‘Oh the shelves are gonna be open.’ Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”

This is all part of a tariff normalization campaign from the Trump administration, as they dismiss the legitimate fears that ordinary people have about costs for common goods rising. These asinine comments about pencils and dolls are well beside the point.

Trump Reportedly Told January 6 Militant and Hate Leader “I Love You”

Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and his mother met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio leaves the Capitol, holding up his fingers in a gesture similar to "Rock and Roll."
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The former leader of the Proud Boys claimed that he spoke with Donald Trump on Saturday night, and that the president “loves” him.

Enrique Tarrio, the convicted ex-chief of the far-right hate group, was one of the nearly 1,600 people who received clemency from the president for his actions on January 6, mere hours into Trump’s second term. But that was apparently not the last time that Tarrio would interact with the president. Instead, Tarrio and his mother, Zuny Duarte, were ushered to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where a member had personally invited them to dine, reported The New York Times.

“He called me and my Mother over while we were at dinner and said he was sorry for what Joe Biden did to all J6ers,” Tarrio posted on X. “He knew the hardships me and my family faced for [three] long years.”

“He knew how many times they moved me. And he said he is working on making things right. I thanked him for giving me my life back,” Tarrio continued. “He replied with … I Love You guys.”

“To the J6ers he wanted me to send y’all a message,” Tarrio wrote. “He said … Thank you.”

Tarrio’s presence at Mar-a-Lago was made all the more strange considering that he would have had to be personally screened by the Secret Service before entering the Florida resort.

By Monday, Trump had not denied the exchange, and a White House spokesman contacted by the Times did not respond.

Tarrio was one of four Proud Boys to be convicted of seditious conspiracy for his actions on January 6. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison—the longest sentence received by any Proud Boys member—for effectively planning the attack on the Capitol to keep Trump in power after his 2020 loss. Tarrio served less than two years before Trump’s pen set him free. Since then, Tarrio has sparked a podcast and a Proud Boys–oriented crypto coin, and has become a far-right social media influencer.

In an interview with Alex Jones in January, Tarrio promised “retribution” against people who worked on prosecuting January 6 cases.

More on the fascists hanging out with Trump:

Trump Erupts After Republican Guru Rips Him on Fox News

The president can’t handle criticism of his remarks about children’s dolls.

Trump
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Donald Trump blew his top on Sunday night after being skewered by prominent Republican political strategist Karl Rove on Fox News.

During an appearance on Sunday Night in America With Trey Gowdy, the former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush slammed Trump on several areas, including the president’s recent admission that as a result of his tariffs “children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”

“He sounds like Mr. Scrooge, and the ordinary American is like, ‘Wait a minute, I thought you were on my side, I didn’t think you were on the side of saying I need to do with less! You got plenty of money, I gotta make mine stretch as far as I can,” Rove said.

Trump didn’t take kindly to Rove’s feedback.

“I don’t need to have Karl Rove of FoxNews to tell me what to do. The guy’s a total Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.

It’s been almost a month since the president announced a 90-day pause on his so-called reciprocal tariffs (while an across-the-board 10 percent tariff remains in effect), and he has yet to announce a single deal. Last week, Trump claimed he’d struck 200 trade deals, but there aren’t even 200 countries in the world.

Rove didn’t just criticize Trump‘s “really problematic” defense of his tariffs. He also criticized Trump for posting a “deeply offensive” AI-generated picture of himself wearing papal clothes and sitting on a throne, and for his attacks on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was wrongly deported to prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration has claimed without evidence that Abrego Garcia was “one of the top MS-13 members.”

“The fact is, is bring him back to the United States, lay out the facts in a court of law, and get it done,” Rove said. “It does no good to let that then go out there for four or five weeks, and eat away at the president’s approval on immigration.”

Rove also hit Trump for outright lying about inflation, and the price of gas, adding, “And there’s a lot of concern about the economy. The President’s ratings on the economy and tariffs are in the 30s. And his overall approval is in the mid to low 40s. That’s not a good place to be a 100 days in.”

Woman Flashing Peace Signs Carried Out of Republican Town Hall

Representative Mike Lawler was hammered with questions during his town hall. That’s when the police came in.

A police officer escorts two older people outside Lawler’s packed town hall. Another man following them holds up a sign that reads "Impeach Trump."
Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Law enforcement officers remove an attendee for shouting during Representative Mike Lawler’s earlier town hall in West Nyack, New York, on April 27.

New York Republican Representative Mike Lawler had yet another chaotic town hall on Sunday, in which multiple disgruntled constituents of his were forcibly removed by private security and a state trooper.

As his constituents grilled him with questions, and often loudly booed his answers, Lawler remained steadfast in his loyalty to the Trump administration and its destructive positions on tariffs, bureaucracy, Ukraine, and more.

“The courts have given the president the authority on tariffs,” Lawler said. He was met with groans and jeers, and even one “blah, blah, blah.” But he continued as security removed people from the crowd. “Well, if people would behave then there wouldn’t be a problem,’ said Lawler, which led to even more, louder boos from his constituents. “If they do not reach agreements within the next 30 to 45 days, then Congress will have to intervene—”

The crowd drowned Lawler out while more officers rushed to take a woman away by her ankles. An elderly constituent was given the same treatment. She flashed double peace signs as she was manhandled by security, as seen in a viral photo taken by Seth Harrison of The Journal News. The Associated Press reported that at least two more constituents were also removed from the town hall.

X screenshot greg the menace 😈 @mistergeezy White People are resisting at Mike Lawler Town Hall. (photo of an elderly woman being carried out by two men while flashing double peace signs.)

Lawler, who represents a swing district, is one of the few Republicans to keep holding town halls. Late last month, he had a similarly hostile town hall experience, where he lied about cuts to Medicaid as his constituents called him an authoritarian.

This story has been updated.

Here’s Where Trump Got His Idiotic Idea to Tariff Foreign Movies

Someone close to Donald Trump planted the idea in his head that the United States should tariff foreign movies (whatever that means).

Donald Trump disembarks from Air Force One.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s “eyes and ears” in Hollywood seem to have hand-delivered him his shocking idea to tax foreign films.

On Sunday, Trump revealed that he would be instituting a “100 percent tariff” on films produced outside of the United States.

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.

“It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,” Trump continued. “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”

Days before Trump took office in January, he announced online that he’d be tapping Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight to be his special envoys to Hollywood, mentioning that he would “get done what they suggest” in order to spark another “Golden Age of Hollywood.”

Months later, it appears that Voight—also known as the film industry’s most ardent conservative—spoke with Trump, and Trump listened.

Voight has reportedly spent weeks talking to the Directors Guild of America, Teamsters, and IATSE, Deadline reported Friday. The fruit of those conversations, according to sources with knowledge of them who spoke to the entertainment publication, was supposed to be a tax incentive that Hollywood has been clamoring for.

Instead, Trump went the way of the tariff, which squares into an administration that has aggressively curtailed spending in order to extend extremely expensive tax breaks for billionaires.

The details of the tariff were still being sorted out by Hollywood executives as of Sunday night, reported Reuters. It’s unclear, per Trump’s post, whether the tariffs would only impact movies in the theater or if they would also apply to streaming services. It’s also unclear if the tariffs would be calculated based on production costs or box office revenue, the newswire noted. By Monday, Netflix, Disney, Paramount Global, and Fox Corp stocks went tumbling.

Trump Seems to Have Decided to Reopen Alcatraz Because of a Movie

Is this how the president of the United States is making major decisions now?

An aerial view of Alcatraz island in San Francisco, California.
JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump may have gotten his half-brained idea to reopen and expand the infamous Alcatraz prison from a movie that aired on WLRN this past weekend. 

“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” the president wrote on Truth Social Sunday evening. 

“I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” he continued. “We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally. The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”  

A Bluesky user provided some more details on this seemingly random announcement. 

“I may have context for this! Last night WPBT in Palm Beach broadcast the 1979 Clint Eastwood film ‘Escape from Alcatraz,’” they wrote. Trump was in Palm Beach on the night in question. 

Trump potentially making major policy decisions based on the last movie he watched is bleak but unsurprising. Alcatraz is a dilapidated full-time museum off the coast of San Francisco that closed in the 1960s because it was too expensive to operate and many of the buildings were falling apart. Getting it back to a full-time jail would be incredibly costly and labor intensive. 

“Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago. It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction,” California Representative Nancy Pelosi wrote on X. “The President’s proposal is not a serious one.”

Elon Musk Is Poised to Get Another Huge Payday From the Government

Cuts to NASA mean that Musk’s SpaceX company is well positioned to reap in a billion dollars—at least—in government contracts.

Elon Musk holds out his arms in front of a black background
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
Elon Musk in 2022

The Trump administration did not rule out that its pitch to replace the nation’s space launch system could massively benefit Elon Musk.

In an interview with Fox Business Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought refused to clarify if the “Dark MAGA” tech billionaire would be pocketing off the budget increase.

“The budget phases out the grossly expensive and delayed space launch system,” Fox Business’s Charles Payne said. “Is there a chance that Elon Musk could benefit from that?”

“Look, this is a billion-dollar investment into Mars,” said Vought, a former Project 2025 architect. “We’re doing both, we’re going back to the moon as part of the Artemis. We’ve protected exploration funding that’s open to all companies. Elon Musk hasn’t been a part of the NASA budget conversations at all. And we also provide resources for what we’re doing on Mars.”

As part of its budget proposal Friday, the Trump administration is reportedly looking to slash NASA’s budget by 24 percent year over year, amounting to the largest single-year slice to the agency in its history, with $6 billion in cuts.

The proposal spells the end of the Space Launch System rocket and NASA’s brand-new Orion spacecraft. It also envisions killing the Gateway space station that is crucial to one of the space agency’s biggest missions: a full-fledged, multistep exploration of the moon dubbed the Artemis campaign. (As soon as the U.S. beats China in its space race.)

“We do believe that, after Artemis, it’s time to look for lower cost, commercial, cheaper vehicles that allow us to not have the cost overruns and the delays and the expense that we’ve seen in the SLS and the Orion program,” Vought told Fox. “We’re not doing anything that would in any way delay what’s necessary to get to the moon.”

Instead, the White House envisions that the future of the country’s space funding should be spent on Mars—an idea that isn’t too difficult to trace back to the SpaceX CEO.

Musk has been a vocal opponent of NASA’s Artemis campaign. In January, Musk posted on X that the moon is just a “distraction” and that his company would be looking to go “straight to Mars.”