Karoline Leavitt Snaps When Asked About Trump Profiting Off Presidency

The White House doesn’t want you looking too closely at Donald Trump’s business deals in the Middle East.

On Wednesday, the president said that he was considering renaming the Persian Gulf (which is thousands of miles away from U.S. shores) the “Arabian Gulf,” just days after his family announced billions of dollars in forthcoming real estate deals in the region. (As a side note, Iran has warned of “wrath” for Trump’s geopolitical meddling.)

But on Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to brush that under the rug, scolding the press for questioning whether Trump had something personal to gain out of the pitch or his upcoming trip to the Middle East. Instead, she implored Americans to believe that Trump—a renowned crook and court-determined fraudster—is completely selfless in his pursuit of power.

“I think it’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit,” Leavitt said. “He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service, not just once but twice.”

“The American public reelected him back to this White House because they trust he acts in the best interests of this country and putting the American public first,” Leavitt continued. “This is a president who has actually lost money for being president.”

But that’s a lie. The Trump family has made plenty of money thanks to Trump’s return to power. Scott Galloway, an NYU Business School professor and podcaster, told MSNBC Thursday that within the first three months of Trump’s second term, his family had become “$3 billion wealthier.” Forbes estimated in March that, in the preceding 12 months, Trump had effectively doubled his fortune, bringing it from $2.3 billion to $5.1 billion.

“So that’s a billion dollars a month,” Galloway said, describing the current administration as a “kleptocracy that would make Putin blush.”

The Trump family’s Middle East real estate plans include a Trump-branded golf course in Qatar (as part of a $5.5 billion development project), a $1 billion Trump hotel and residence in Dubai, and a $2 billion cryptocurrency investment by an Abu Dhabi firm in one of Trump’s cryptocurrency projects, the World Liberty Financial Coin.

The family also revealed in December that they would be expanding their presence in Saudi Arabia, announcing Trump Tower Jeddah. The price tag for the building has not been made public, but one of the developers on the project, Dar Global, compared it to another $530 million Trump Tower in the city, reported Reuters.

The Trumps have held deep financial ties to the region for years. After Trump’s first term, Saudi Arabia invested $2 billion in a firm belonging to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Trump is expected to travel to Saudi Arabia next week, where it’s anticipated that he’ll make the “Arabian Gulf” rumor official, according to two officials who spoke with the Associated Press.

As a reminder, it’s actually unconstitutional for presidents to profit from or receive compensation from foreign governments. The White House has contested that the deals are not a conflict of interest since the president’s assets are managed by his eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. But Trump’s pockets will undoubtedly be lined by the deal—even if he has to wait a handful of years before he’s out of office to see the cashflow. In the meantime, he’ll receive myriad personal benefits from his relationships in the Middle East for arranging the deal.

A two-minute-long takedown of his trade policies on MSNBC sent the president into a rage on Friday.

“Donald Trump is backed into a corner,” said MSNBC business host Stephanie Ruhle. “His grand plans of ‘tariffs, tariffs, tariffs,’ aren’t working. You’re seeing day in and day out more business leaders—whether it’s Warren Buffett, or Jamie Dimon, or Ken Griffin—on big global stages saying, ‘This is going to crush us economically.’ And then you’ve got congressmen, senators from every state, saying to this White House, ‘Our small businesses are strangling, are dying here.’ I’m not saying Donald Trump has changed what he thinks in his heart, but he’s backed into a corner and he needs to get off this crazy tariff train, and he knows it.”

“So what did we see with England.… You’ve got a P.M. there who is a close ally of Donald Trump, and they’re saying, ‘Let’s put on a show, let’s create a theater, and let’s say we’ve got a deal.’ Yes, there aren’t any details to it, there is still a 10 percent tariff, which is why Jay Powell is not cutting rates, cuz 10 percent is more than triple what it was, so it’s still going to be painful, especially for small business,” Ruhle continued. “But what’s most important is the language around China. A week ago, China was like, ‘We’re not showing up unless you lower the tariffs,’ and [they] didn’t. Forty-eight hours ago Donald Trump said, ‘We’re not gonna lower the tariffs.’ Yesterday he said, ‘Yeah, maybe.’ And today things are softening even more.… Donald Trump is looking for some sort of exit here.”

“Look at the cargo ships coming into Seattle, the Port of Los Angeles; pick the port. We’re getting fewer and fewer ships with less and less cargo. And unless he turns this around, three weeks from now you walk into a store and we’re going to have a Covid-like supply chain crisis, and Trump is looking for an exit.”

Ruhle brilliantly exposed the president’s waffling on tariffs, introducing them with strongman language and massive guarantees while the reality is far more uncompelling. He introduced a trade deal with the U.K. on Thursday that wasn’t even finished. By Friday, he walked back his tariffs on China before even negotiating, announcing a steep 65 percent drop in tariffs is on the table (making it a still outrageous rate of 80 percent tariffs on the country).

Ruhle’s analysis clearly bothered the president, who took to Truth Social to express his disgust.

“I just watched an exhausted, highly neurotic Stephanie Ruhle spew LIES about Tariffs, as do many others, in order not to give me the Victory that they all see coming. Few people know Stephanie Ruhle, but I do, and she doesn’t have what it takes,” he wrote, personally attacking the MSNBC host. “Our Deal with the United Kingdom yesterday was AMAZING for both Countries and, in addition to everything else, British Airways just ordered $10 Billion Dollars worth of new Boeing planes. We’re going to make a fortune with Tariffs, only smart people understand that, and Stephanie was never known as a ‘High IQ’ person. MSDNC has become the Voice of the Democrat Party, and they should be treated as a Political Advocate with all of the Taxes and Penalties therefrom. Their Ratings are terrible, but Brian Roberts and his crew should be forced to TELL THE TRUTH. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump chooses not to engage with any of Ruhle’s arguments, instead choosing to focus on her demeanor and her workplace.

Columbia University’s crackdown on free speech just got even worse: The school tried to suspend four student journalists who covered a pro-Palestinian protest at Butler Library this week, according to The Columbia Spectator.

Columbia College and Barnard College issued interim suspensions to one reporter at the Spectator and three student journalists at WKCR, the student-run radio station that has provided consistent on-the-ground coverage of the student demonstrations at the university—including the massive raid by police at the Gaza solidarity protest in Hamilton Hall last year.

Disciplinary emails obtained by the Spectator cited “information received” from Public Safety, which indicated that Sawyer Huckabee (class of 2026), Natalie Lahr (class of 2028), Celeste Gamble (class of 2027), and Spectator reporter Luisa Sukkar (class of 2026) had been involved in the demonstration in the Lawrence A. Wien Reading Room at Butler Library Wednesday afternoon. However, the student journalists at WCKR wore prominently displayed press placards and Huckabee identified herself as a journalist to public safety officers before leaving the building, the Spectator reported.

New York City Police were dispatched to the university, and 78 students were arrested.

Columbia lifted its suspension on one reporter only five hours after its initial notification Thursday afternoon, but the other three students remained suspended until Friday at 9 a.m.

In an email to alumni Wednesday, Acting President Claire Shipman touted a commitment to free speech while admitting that the university had called the police on its own students. Shipman also made the disturbing move of blaming the protesters for the targeting of its international students.

“I am deeply disturbed at the idea that, at a moment when our international community feels particularly vulnerable, a small group of students would choose to make our institution a target,” Shipman wrote.

But it’s the institution, not the students, that has refused to shield its own community from the Trump administration’s immigration and free speech crackdown. After Donald Trump rescinded $400 million in federal funding, the university administration agreed to the president’s outrageous demands for a complete overhaul of the school’s protest policies, as well as the adoption of a new definition of antisemitism, among several other concessions that severely undermined academic independence from the federal government.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a post on X Wednesday night that the administration was “reviewing the visa status of the trespassers and vandals who took over Columbia University’s library.”

“Pro-Hamas thugs are no longer welcome in our great nation,” he added.

Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as permanent U.S. attorney for Washington will soon start walking in a different direction.

Ed Martin has served as acting U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., since Trump’s inauguration. But mounting pressure from Senate Republicans, who seemed increasingly unlikely to advance Martin’s nomination to keep the job, forced the White House to look elsewhere.

Martin, a conservative political operative from Missouri who garnered national attention for his staunch support of January 6 rioters, had used his time at the U.S. attorney’s office to help Trump transform the key prosecutor’s chair into a tool for the president’s political retribution. He threatened to investigate some of Trump’s purported enemies, including Democratic lawmakers, universities and schools, and critics of tech billionaire Elon Musk. But on Thursday, Martin found out that his time at the office was coming to an end.

Instead, he’d be the recipient of an entirely different title.

“Ed Martin has done an AMAZING job as interim U.S. Attorney, and will be moving to the Department of Justice as the new Director of the Weaponization Working Group, Associate Deputy Attorney General, and Pardon Attorney,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday evening. “In these highly important roles, Ed will make sure we finally investigate the Weaponization of our Government under the Biden Regime, and provide much needed Justice for its victims. Congratulations Ed!”

In Martin’s place, Trump tapped ex–Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. The former prosecutor has been one of Trump’s most ardent defenders at a network that already has an apparent soft spot for him. In internal emails made public by the conservative media behemoth’s lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, Pirro’s former executive producer once described the election conspiracist’s beliefs as “completely crazy.” Pirro has not held a law enforcement job in roughly two decades.

But the tap-and-replace strategy may have an underlying motive.

“By replacing one interim U.S. attorney with another, the Trump administration appears to be trying a legal tactic that could essentially eliminate any need to submit U.S. attorney picks to the Senate for confirmation,” assessed The New York Times.

Martin isn’t the only member of Trumpverse to receive a cozy new assignment. After he publicized massive national security risks in the Trump administration’s communication channels by accidentally inviting a journalist to a Signal group chat, former national security adviser Mike Waltz was “promoted” to the role of U.N. ambassador.

Trump was reportedly sensitive to the idea of ousting Waltz, believing that doing so would be interpreted as a bend to public pressure. One source familiar with the situation at the National Security Council told CBS News last week that the president believed enough time had passed that the administration could reasonably reframe Waltz’s departure as part of a larger “reorganization.”

A federal judge ruled Friday that Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk must be released from detention “immediately.”

U.S. District Judge William Sessions ruled that Öztürk, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over an op-ed she wrote advocating for the school to make good on student resolutions to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza and to divest from Israel, had made “substantial claims” that her constitutional rights had been violated.

“That literally is the case. There is no evidence here as to the motivation absent the consideration of the op-ed,” Sessions said, independent journalist Adam Klasfield reported on X. Sessions said that there was no evidence that Öztürk had engaged in violent acts or advocated for violence.

“Her continued detention chills the speech of the millions and millions of people who are not citizens,” Sessions added.

Öztürk was arrested in March, even after the State Department had determined that the Trump administration had no evidence linking her to antisemitic activity. After her shocking abduction on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, by masked federal agents, she was moved to an immigration facility in Basile, Louisiana, where she attended the bail hearing remotely.

Öztürk’s lawyers argued that their client, who suffers from asthma, faced “significant health risks” staying in the facility, and asked Sessions to grant her bail immediately, according to CBS News. Öztürk is now free to travel back to Massachusetts and Vermont.

The judge’s ruling represents a huge defeat for the Trump administration, which has sought to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech by targeting international students for deportation, alleging that they had engaged in vague “antisemitic activities.” The students targeted by these efforts have committed no crime.

Last month, a federal judge ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a graduate student at Columbia University who had been arrested at his citizenship interview. Mahdawi, who was involved in pro-Palestinian organizing on campus, explicitly denounced antisemitism.

Green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, who missed the birth of his child while being detained in Louisiana, and Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri, who is now held in a Texas detention center, still remain in custody.

This story has been updated.