Even Trump’s Biggest Fan Is Outraged by Private Jet Corruption

MAGA disciple Laura Loomer is deeply disappointed in President Trump for accepting a luxury jet from what she called “jihadists in suits.”

The New York Times reported Sunday that the Trump administration plans to accept a Boeing 747-8 plane as a gift from Qatar’s royal family. The plane will be upgraded into the new Air Force One. This would be one of the most lavish gifts that a U.S. president has ever been given, and may be in use well after Trump’s presidency ends, as it is being given to his presidential library after his term.

“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA.”

Loomer was quick to voice her distaste for the move (even as it was rooted in blatant Islamophobia).

“It’s going to be hard for the admin to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and obliterate Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah when Qatar funds the Muslim Brotherhood, harbors HAMAS, and the US just accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar,” she commented on X. “We are watching an Islamic takeover of our country in real time.”

Loomer continued.

“I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him. But, I have to call a spade a spade. We cannot accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits,” she wrote shortly after the first post. “The Qataris fund the same Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered US Service Members. The same proxies that have worked with the Mexican cartels to get jihadists across our border. This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true. And I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump. I’m so disappointed.”

While Loomer’s reasoning is rooted in her hatred for Muslims, the conflicts of interest she notes are very real.

“It’s hard to see it as a coincidence when Trump’s company just announced a new golf resort in Qatar, reportedly partnered with a company owned by the country’s government, and will soon be meeting with senior Qatari officials in a Middle East trip that also features meetings with heads of state of two other countries he has property developments in,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “At this point, it’s impossible to tell the difference between decisions being made by the White House for the good of the country and for the good of the Trump Organization.”

Donald Trump won’t be so tough on China, after all.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced early Monday that U.S. tariffs on China would temporarily decrease from 145 percent to 30 percent for the next 90 days. The suspension followed a meeting in Geneva where Bessent and other U.S. officials met with their Chinese counterparts and—at least for now—put aside some of their differences.

“We concluded that we have a shared interest,” Bessent said at a news conference following the discussion. “The consensus from both delegations is that neither side wanted a decoupling.”

In a joint statement, both countries said they recognized “the importance of a sustainable, long-term, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship.”

On the flip side, China said it would lower its import tariff on American products to 10 percent from 125 percent.

Both nations agreed to maintain a reciprocal tariff rate of 10 percent, according to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who called the arrangement a “deal.” The extra 20 percent on China is punishment for the country supposedly not doing enough to stop fentanyl from entering the U.S.

The final number stands in stark contrast to the tariff level Trump floated just last week. He posted Friday on Truth Social: “80% Tariff on China seems right!”

But market columnists have been quick to note that the 90-day truce is “not a deal.” The Trump administration has promised sector-specific tariffs—something that could fundamentally undermine the fragile $600 billion trade agreement set in place over the weekend.

Still, the news came as a breath of fresh air to investors, who saw stock futures rally shortly after the news broke. The dollar also flourished, rising 1.1 percent against several other currencies in the wake of the tariff pause to hit a one-month high. It was still down 2.3 percent, however, since Trump first announced his sweeping tariff plan in early April.

“Now the conditions are falling into place for a deeper adjustment and a bigger recovery of the dollar to catch up with U.S. equities and bond yields,” Kenneth Broux, senior strategist at Societe Generale in London, told Reuters.

China and the U.S. will continue discussions over the next three months, either in one of the two countries “or a third country upon agreement of the Parties,” according to the joint statement. Representatives in the talks from the U.S. will include Bessent and Greer, while China appointed Vice Premier of the State Council He Lifeng to serve as the country’s negotiator.

Donald Trump is trying desperately to defend receiving a $400 million luxury jet as a gift from Qatar.

In an angry post on Truth Social Sunday night, Trump claimed that he’d done nothing wrong by agreeing to take a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family to replace Air Force One.

“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” Trump wrote.

“Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!” he added.

Sources familiar with the plans told ABC News that Trump’s supposedly “very public and transparent transaction” was expected to be announced this week. One source told NBC News that talks about gifting Trump that specific plane had been in the works for “quite some time,” and that when the formal offer materialized, the president “happily accepted.”

The jet will be gifted from Qatar’s Defense Ministry to the U.S. Department of Defense, where it will be outfitted with security and communications equipment to military standard. The plane, which will then be worth an estimated $400 million, will be transferred to Trump’s Presidential Library Foundation in 2029, sources told ABC News.

Since news of the gift was first reported, Democrats have been quick to criticize Trump’s brazen corruption. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a post on X that the gift was “not just bribery, it’s premium foreign influence with extra legroom.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who previously worked as a lobbyist to the government of Qatar, provided a legal memo on the legality of the gift to White House Counsel David Warrington, according to ABC News. The two determined that the gift was “legally permissible,” and that it did not violate laws against bribery or the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause, which forbids U.S. government officials accepting gifts “from any King, Prince or foreign State.”

It’s not clear that the deal has actually gone through. Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s media attaché to the U.S., said in a statement to Politico that the transfer was “currently under consideration.”

Trump is scheduled to visit Qatar this week. His family business intends to build a Trump-branded golf course in the Gulf nation, as part of a $5.5 billion development project there.

The White House is “actively looking” at ending habeas corpus as it continues its massive deportation crusade, according to deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

Habeas corpus requires authorities to justify an individual’s confinement.

“Well, the Constitution is clear—and that of course is the supreme law of the land—that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Miller told reporters at the White House Friday.

The Trump administration has leaned on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify its immigration crackdown while ignoring immigrants’ due process rights, sometimes defying court orders in the process. Donald Trump has defended the infractions by claiming that immigration into the country is tantamount to an “invasion,” and has described the current era as a “time of war.”

But continuing that rhetoric flies in the face of direction by the Supreme Court, which ruled immigrants must be allowed to challenge their deportations under the centuries-old act via habeas corpus.

Judges in several cases have so far ruled against the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law, deciding that the executive branch was illegally leveraging the Alien Enemies Act to deport residents it perceived to be threats.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez ruled that Tren de Aragua’s presence did not constitute an “invasion,” as Trump had claimed.

“The Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,” Rodriguez decided. “[Administration officials] do not possess the lawful authority under the AEA, and based on the Proclamation, to detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country.”

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Friday after gaining entry to Delaney Hall, which ICE opened as a detention facility this week against the city’s wishes.

Baraka and other city officials repeatedly tried to visit the facility this week to serve a representative of its operating company, Geo Group, with summonses over code violations, including refusing to grant access to the facility and failing to have an evacuation plan in place. They were denied entry.

On Friday, three Democratic members of Congress from New Jersey—Representatives Rob Menendez, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and LaMonica McIver—were admitted to tour the facility, and brought Baraka with them. After the mayor gained entry past the gate, the representatives tried to include Baraka in conversations. At least one of them was shoved by agents, and Baraka was subsequently arrested.

The acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey and Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, announced the arrest on X, saying that Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon.”

Baraka is currently running in the Democratic primary for governor of New Jersey, and in April, the city of Newark filed a lawsuit against the opening of Delaney Hall, seeking to allow the facility to be inspected. Currently, a federal judge is considering whether to block the opening of the facility, and it’s unclear whether anyone is being held there right now.

Coleman said that she and her colleagues, as well as Baraka, were assaulted by guards.

“What we experienced was the weaponization, is the abuse of power.… They know who we are … they manhandled us and arrested the mayor,” Coleman said, adding that “if they can treat members of Congress like that, imagine how they treat people on the streets.”

It’s the first arrest of a sitting U.S. mayor by the Trump administration over immigration. Last month, the FBI arrested a judge in Milwaukee for allegedly “obstructing an immigration operation.”

This story has been updated.

The Trump administration remains delusionally committed to its abuse of executive power, doubling down on threats to Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk after a federal judge ordered her release on Friday.

In March, Öztürk, a Turkish Ph.D. student on a Fulbright scholarship, was disappeared from the Boston area by masked, plainclothes ICE agents after she wrote an op-ed that called for Tufts to acknowledge the ongoing genocide in Palestine and to divest from Israel. Her release—after six weeks in ICE detention—is a direct rebuke of the Trump administration’s actions, as was the release of Palestinian student activist Mohsen Mahdawi last month.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt was tasked with answering for the Trump administration’s legal loss.

“Does the administration have any response to the news today that a federal judge has ordered the immediate release of Rümeysa Öztürk from detention?” a reporter asked Leavitt on Friday afternoon. “Particularly his comments that the government submitted no evidence other than an op-ed that Öztürk wrote last year?”

Leavitt defaulted to one of her go-to answers: It’s the judges who are crazy.

“I think our overall feeling—we’ve made quite clear lower level judges should not be dictating the foreign policy of the United States, and we absolutely believe that the president and the Department of Homeland Security are well within their legal rights to deport illegal immigrants,” Leavitt replied. “As for visa revocations, the secretary of state has the right to do that as well. It is a privilege not a right to come to this country on a visa.”

This is one of many examples of the Trump administration only considering the courts valid when they agree with the rulings they make. Green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, who missed the birth of his child while being detained in Louisiana, and Georgetown student Badar Khan Suri, who is now held in a Texas detention center, are still in custody.

Senate Republicans are defending their Democratic colleague, John Fetterman, after a series of reports called into question his mental fitness to remain in office.

Senators Tom Cotton, Chuck Grassley, and fellow Pennsylvanian Dave McCormick all defended Fetterman in a series of posts on X Thursday, rallying behind the Democrat who has alienated his staff and his constituents by hawkishly supporting Israel in its massacre of Gazans and taking a softer line with President Trump.

Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres, who has also alienated much of the left with his stance on Israel, accused Fetterman’s critics of attacking him for his “unapologetic pro-Israel politics.”

Reports from New York magazine and The Philadelphia Inquirer over the past week exposed how Fetterman frequently loses his temper and patience and has become disengaged from his duties as a senator, missing meetings and votes. Fetterman also reportedly avoids colleagues and spends many hours alone in his Washington, D.C., office. New York reported that Fetterman even misses regular medical check-ups, drives erratically, and has diminished spatial awareness.

Despite these worrying reports, Republicans may be trying to rally around Fetterman because they smell blood in the water. Politico reports that a recent internal poll shows Fetterman losing support from Democratic voters in his own home area of Pittsburgh. While Fetterman has defended Trump in the past few months, he still is a relatively reliable Democratic vote in the Senate, and the GOP could see an opportunity to replace him in 2028 with one of their own.

Republicans could also be trying to convince Fetterman not to resign from the Senate. The New York profile mentioned tension between Fetterman and his wife, Gisele, a formerly undocumented immigrant from Brazil, over his turn toward Trump and his vehement support for Israel—and it’s conceivable that Fetterman chooses to resign, citing health or family reasons.

A replacement senator appointed by Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro would result in a more solid Democratic vote and hurt Republican chances to retake the Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2028. Whatever the reason for the sudden show of support, Republicans probably have an ulterior motive.

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.