Why Did Cory Booker Vote to Confirm Jared Kushner’s Dad?

Senator Cory Booker broke from the Democratic Party to confirm convicted felon Charles Kushner—father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—as the new U.S. ambassador to France.

Booker was the only Democrat to vote for the elder Kushner’s nomination. Kushner was convicted in 2005 for tax evasion, illegal campaign donations to the Democratic Party, and witness tampering. He even went so far as to retaliate against his sister—who was a cooperating witness against him— by paying a sex worker to seduce her husband and film it, likely for blackmail material. He was sentenced to two years in jail and was pardoned by President Trump at the end of 2020.

“Kushner admitted that he paid a private investigator $25,000 to arrange for the seduction and videotaping of the cooperating witness’ husband. Kushner admitted to personally recruiting the prostitute and instructing that the videotape be mailed to the cooperating witness,” the Department of Justice wrote in 2005. This is the man Booker bent over backward to make the new ambassador to one of our most important European allies.

Chris Christie, New Jersey’s former Republican governor, who investigated Charles Kushner as district attorney, described his case as “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he’d encountered.

“I don’t sit here before you today and tell you I’m a perfect person.… I am not a perfect person.… I made a very, very, very serious mistake, and I paid a very heavy price for that mistake,” Kushner said at his confirmation hearing earlier this month. “I think that my past mistakes actually make me better with my judgment, better in my view of life, better in my values to really make me more qualified to do this job.”

Booker’s break from the party has caused some real backlash, especially after he evoked the “good trouble” of civil rights leader John Lewis in his record-breaking symbolic filibuster in the Senate in April, an act that inspired many and raised his presidential profile. It’s become clear once again that Booker is all talk.

Booker and the Kushners go way back. Charles Kushner helped fund Booker’s first failed mayoral campaign in 2002, and Booker came to his defense when he was convicted in 2005.

“Charlie has helped fuel my hope, as well as made me believe that even in the questionable world of New Jersey politics, there are still spirits who don’t simply act in their self-interest,” Booker wrote glowingly of Kushner before he was sentenced.

Booker maintained his relationship with the Kushners. In 2013, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner hosted Booker at their home in a fundraising event that raised $41,000 for Booker. He defended this relationship in 2017, well after their (unsurprising) conservative turn.

“Listen, I wouldn’t take a dime from them now, but this was a time when they were Democrats,” Booker said at the time. “I mean, they were supporting Hillary Clinton, uh, and the Kushner family were big New Jersey Democrats, and really helped to fight against Chris Christie and a lot of other folks.”

That sounds fine then, but now the Kushners are full MAGA. So how does Booker explain his most recent vote? Especially after his bleeding-heart filibuster?

“Cory Booker losing his newfound Resist Lib credentials by being the only Democrat in the Senate to vote to advance the nomination of convicted felon Charles Kushner (yes that Kushner) to become Ambassador to France is very funny to me,” political analyst Adam Carlson wrote on X. “Jersey gonna Jersey I guess.”

“There’s a lot going on in the world at the moment … and how’s the Senate spending its time?” Democratic Senator Tina Smith asked on X. “We’re voting on Jared Kushner’s dad (a convicted felon who Trump pardoned) to be Ambassador to France, sending a billionaire convicted felon (and relative) to serve as a top diplomat.”

Booker has yet to comment.

There’s no such thing as a free plane.

Donald Trump’s administration specifically sought out the luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar’s government to replace Air Force One, despite the president’s insistence that the plane was a gift, sources informed CNN.

A senior White House official told CNN that Trump tasked Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy to the Middle East (and shady crypto partner), with tracking down a replacement for Air Force One, after Trump learned that Boeing would not have new jets ready for another two years. Witkoff ended up leading initial conversations with the Qatari government, according to the White House official.

Boeing provided the Pentagon with a list of other clients who might be able to help with America’s search for a new plane, three sources told CNN. One of those sources said that Qatar was included on that list of clients and that the U.S. reached out about purchasing the luxury plane from the Qatari Defense Ministry, which indicated it was willing to sell. There were also discussions about leasing the plane, said another source.

Legal negotiations over the plane’s transfer are still ongoing, and it’s unclear how the plane went from being a potential purchase to a $400 million gift. Trump and his administration have repeatedly stressed that the plane will be free of charge, a gift of goodwill from a foreign government—sparking major backlash on both sides of the aisle over concerns of foreign corruption.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the potential transfer a “donation to our country” on Monday, but the plane is much more of a personal gift to Trump himself than to the people of the United States, whose tax-paying dollars could end up funding the costly rebuild for the president’s supposedly free gift.

Trump reportedly toured a Qatari plane with aides in February and began lamenting how luxurious the plane was compared to his own transportation options. Last week, Trump whined that the current Air Force One is a “much less impressive” plane than the lavish ones dictators use.

CNN’s reporting upends a recent claim from Senator Markwayne Mullin—which was then repeated by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—that negotiations to receive a plane from Qatar began under Joe Biden’s administration.

Donald Trump ranted and raved during a speech to Kennedy Center trustees Monday night, complaining about the 2020 election.

At the White House event, Trump bragged about bringing the upcoming Olympics and World Cup to the United States before segueing into the 2020 election.

“We got the Olympics, and then we got, through [FIFA head Gianni Infantino], he’s the boss, he’s a friend of mine, we got the World Cup,” Trump said. “I got them both, and I said, ‘Man, I won’t be president and they’re gonna forget that I got them. Nobody’s gonna mention it.’”

Then he went into his pet subject how the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“And then they rigged the election, and then I said, ‘You know what I’ll do? I’ll run again and I’ll shove it up their ass,’” Trump told the audience.

“If they would’ve left us alone, and wouldn’t have cheated on the election, and wouldn’t have rigged it, I would’ve been retired right now. I would’ve been happily doing something else, and instead they have me for four more years, can you believe that?” Trump continued.

Trump also complained about the Kennedy Center’s programming, which he promised would change.

“The programming was out of control with rampant political propaganda, DEI, and inappropriate shows,” Trump said. “They had dance parties for quote ‘queer and trans youth.’ And I guess that’s all right for certain people.… But that wasn’t working out too well.”

The speech Monday night was another example of Trump’s bitterness and cognitive decline. He’s fixated on perceived slights and wants to take revenge against his enemies. The president also wants to remake Washington in his own image, dictating everything he can, including a nonprofit arts center. Now that Republicans control Congress, there’s little that can stop him except the courts.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa plans to grant billionaire Elon Musk a deal with his Starlink internet network in an effort to smooth over their rocky relationship before Ramaphosa meets with Trump and friends on Wednesday. 

Ramaphosa is circumventing the country’s Black Economic Empowerment laws to bring Musk’s Starlink to rural regions, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news. Musk has lumped the BEE initiative in with his false narrative of white genocide in South Africa, stating that “Starlink is not allowed to operate in South Africa, because I’m not black.” 

Even Musk’s own Grok AI took issue with this claim, writing in March that “Elon Musk’s claim about race based restrictions lacks evidence; the issue is regulatory compliance, not racial discrimination. Similar challenges have delayed Starlink in other African Countries like Cameroon.” This was before Musk forced Grok to reply to everything with claims that there is a white genocide happening in South Africa.

This deal comes before what is expected to be a tense meeting, as Ramaphosa has vehemently denied Trump’s claims of “white genocide,” which caused the administration to bring in 59 Afrikaner “refugees” to the U.S. this month. He may also challenge the Trump administration on its support for Israel’s actual genocide. “[It is] laughable that you can use the genocide word on South Africa, while on the other hand you’re looking the other way where the actual genocide is being committed,” a spokesman for Ramaphosa told The New York Times on Monday.   

Only time will tell if this Starlink deal—made on the tail end of another successful deal-making trip for Trump and Musk in the Middle East—will be enough to soften the blow. 

First there were “concepts of a plan,” then there were tariff trade “subdeals,” and now, per National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, there are trade deals “in principle.”

The Trump administration is running out of time on its self-imposed 90-day deadline to craft 90 trade agreements in the wake of Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff pitch. By mid-April, the administration claimed it had more than a dozen potential deals in the works with nations eager to sort out their trade arrangements with the United States. But since then, the White House has had practically nothing positive to show for its drastic economic overhaul.

“You told us even before ‘Liberation Day’ that you had 15 countries that were on the brink of making a deal. It’s been nearly two months and you’ve had one deal, so what is the holdup?” asked a reporter.

“There’ve been a whole bunch of deals,” Hassett laughed.

“I’m sorry, with what country?” the reporter pressed.

“So you don’t think the deal with China counts as a deal? The deal with the U.K.? We’ve got an agreement in principle with India,” Hassett said.

“Everybody—you could talk to Jamison Greer, Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick—everybody has seen awesome deals that are on the table,” Hassett continued, shrugging, as he referred to the U.S. trade representative, the treasury secretary, and the commerce secretary, respectively. “Last week we were in the Middle East cutting trillions of dollars in deals with our Middle Eastern friends.… Now we’re closing the trade deals because the president is back in the country.”

Meanwhile, “governments from Seoul to Brussels” have taken notice of China’s turtle-pace winning strategy against Trump’s punishing tariffs and are seemingly deciding to slow down their own trade negotiations with U.S. officials, Bloomberg reported Sunday.

“This shifts the negotiating dynamic,” Stephen Olson, a former U.S. trade negotiator, told Bloomberg. “Many countries will look at the outcome of the Geneva negotiations and conclude that Trump has begun to realize that he has overplayed his hand.”

Some of those nations could be banking on the fact that the U.S. will be the first to feel the sting of Trump’s tariffs, forcing a policy change from within, before they have to show their own hands.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sold potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock just days before Donald Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariffs went into effect, ProPublica reported Monday.

Duffy sold between $75,000 and $600,000 of stock on February 11, just two days beforeTrump first announced that he had instructed his trade advisers and federal agencies to examine imposing “reciprocal tariffs” on a “country-by-country” basis. Duffy sold $50,000 more the day of the announcement.

Duffy sold stock in 34 different companies, several of which were part of an ethics agreement he’d made to sell stocks where he might have a conflict of interest, according to disclosure records he filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Other companies he sold stock in include some that are projected to take hits as a result of Trump’s tariffs, such as Shopify and John Deere, which is expected to have a whopping $500 million in new costs as a result of Trump’s trade policy. Duffy also sold stocks in companies that are unlikely to be directly affected by the tariffs.

A Transportation Department spokesperson told ProPublica that Duffy “had no input on the timing of the sales” and that his transactions were “part of a retirement account and not managed directly by the Secretary.”

“The Secretary strongly supports the President’s tariff policy, but he isn’t part of the administration’s decisions on tariff levels,” the spokesperson said.

While it’s certainly not clear that Duffy was privy to discussions about Trump’s tariff announcement before it was made, he has credited himself for laying the groundwork for the transformative (i.e., destructive) trade policy through his work on a piece of failed legislation called the U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act during his time in Congress. Duffy has said that Trump’s current policy is the “cumulation” of the work he did on that bill.

Duffy isn’t the only Cabinet member to dump stock at a suspiciously convenient time. Attorney General Pam Bondi sold between $1 million and $5 million of her share in Trump Media on April 2, the same day the president’s “Liberation Day” tariff war announcement broke the stock market, according to reporting from ProPublica. Trump Media stocks specifically fell 13 percent that day.

More than two dozen people were killed by tornadoes across Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia over the weekend—but come Monday, the White House and the executive agency responsible for the emergency response to natural disasters had not publicly addressed it.

St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer told MSNBC Monday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was “not on the ground” and that the area did “not have confirmed assistance” from FEMA, forcing local organizations such as the St. Louis Community Foundation to turn to crowdfunding to rebuild their community.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump made an appearance at the Rose Garden Monday afternoon, offering brief remarks during a bill signing focused on curbing revenge porn. Trump’s comments made mention of his wife, Melania Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a potential peace deal in Ukraine, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz but notably did not address the storm system that killed 28 people across three states (two of which voted for him in November).

And FEMA announced Monday that there was less than a week left to apply for federal aid for homeowners in Kentucky who had their properties damaged during storms in February. The deadline is May 25. Survivors of storms in April have until June 25, the agency advised in a press release.

It made no mention of potential aid application deadlines for survivors of the weekend tornadoes, though the state is reportedly in the process of seeking FEMA assistance, according to the Kentucky Lantern.

But getting the aid they need from the federal government is not a guarantee under the Trump administration. Last month, FEMA rejected North Carolina’s application for an emergency aid extension as the state grapples to recover from Hurricane Helene, a Category Four storm that killed 250 people in September. It was the deadliest hurricane in state history.

In a letter to North Carolina Governor Josh Stein in April, acting FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton said that the agency had determined that an extension with a full cost share was “not warranted.”

Like Kentucky and Missouri, North Carolina had also voted for Trump in November, but months into his presidency, residents of devastated communities are still begging the president to send relief.

Since Helene, Trump and his allies have spread unfounded conspiracies that the lead response agency has run out of money and that the Biden administration had diverted funds from FEMA to assist undocumented immigrants entering the country. (FEMA administrators have fervently and repeatedly denied this.) Conservatives, at the time, claimed that working with the White House to expedite disaster relief “seemed political” and even conspiratorially suggested that the hurricanes were a government manipulation.

Days after his inauguration, Trump pitched that it would be better to do away with FEMA altogether in favor of handing the money directly to the states, though that plan never seemed to gain traction.

Since then, Trump has actively worked to dismantle the agency. The administration has blocked states across the nation, including California and Michigan, from accessing preapproved relief. A coalition of Democratic-led states has sued the federal government, claiming that “hundreds of millions of dollars in FEMA grants” are still inaccessible.

A federal judge on Monday struck down the Department of Government Efficiency’s takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace, saying that DOGE’s actions two months ago were “unlawful” and “null and void.”

In March, Elon Musk’s DOGE used law enforcement and private security to take over the USIP and its Washington, D.C., headquarters despite the fact that the think tank, created by Congress during the Reagan administration, is an independent nonprofit not controlled by the federal government. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell pointed out these issues in her ruling.

“The removal of USIP’s president, his replacement by officials affiliated with DOGE, the termination of nearly all of USIP’s staff, and the transfer of USIP property to the General Services Administration” were “effectuated by illegitimately installed leaders who lacked legal authority to take these actions, which must therefore be declared null and void,” Howell wrote.

The institute was shuttered without the authorization or consultation of Congress, “rushed through action” with “blunt force, backed up by law enforcement officers from three separate local and federal agencies” to carry out President Trump’s executive order, the ruling states.

Why did DOGE so blatantly target an organization that isn’t part of the executive branch and only receives congressional funding to prevent outside influence? The answer lies in the valuable real estate of USIP’s headquarters: a $500 million building in a prime location between the Potomac River and the National Mall.

DOGE installed its staffer, Nate Cavanaugh, as acting president of the USIP, and he was ordered to transfer the USIP building to the government’s General Services Administration in late March. Russell Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget and an author of Project 2025, also sought to have the building transferred at no cost. Now those plans have been blocked, and the public is wondering what DOGE and Project 2025’s intentions were for that building.

More than 50 of the 240 Venezuelan men that President Trump deported to the CECOT megaprison in El Salvador came to the United States legally, poking yet another hole in the Trump administration’s narrative that these are all dangerous Tren de Aragua gang members. 

“Cato published my review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison,” wrote David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.”

Two dozen of the men were parolees who came in at normal ports of entry, 21 came through CPB One appointments, four were granted refugee status by the U.S. government, and one had a tourist visa, according to Cato’s review. The Trump administration still had them all deported on the grounds that they were gang members who had illegally infiltrated our precious country. He even went so far as to invoke the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798.  

“Well this is a time of war. Because Biden allowed millions of people, many of them criminals, many of them at the highest level.… Other nations emptied their jails into the United States, it’s an invasion,” Trump said at the time of the deportations. “These are criminals, many many criminals … murderers, drug dealers at the highest level, drug lords. People from mental institutions. That’s an invasion.”

We now know this is completely false. 

“DHS continues to slander & lie about [the migrants], calling them all ‘illegal aliens.’ When confronted with the lies, DHS lies more. For instance, it says Ricardo ‘entered illegally at a port of entry via the CBP One.’ It literally just describes a legal entry as ‘illegal,’” Bier wrote. “We found DHS labeling LEGAL immigrants gang members for tattoos: roses, clocks, playing cards covering up a scar from a childhood accident, a Puerto Rican song lyric, the Real Madrid logo, a callout to Call Of Duty videogame, many crowns w/ loved ones’ names like these on Andry [José Hernández Romero].” 

As Bier noted, the Trump administration could care less about the innocence of these men or about the authority of the Supreme Court to stop his deportation crackdown. Anyone getting in his way is simply a leftist, activist judge who is “sabotaging democracy.” The administration continues to spin tall tales of criminality while fathers, sons, brothers, and innocent men rot in a Salvadoran gulag.

The Trump administration is planning to pay the family of January 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt $5 million to settle a lawsuit.

The Washington Post reports that the family of Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer while trying to climb through a broken glass panel of the barricaded Speaker’s Lobby doors inside the Capitol, reached a settlement with the Department of Justice earlier this month. The terms of the settlement had not been disclosed until two unnamed sources spoke with the Post Monday.

The settlement reverses a 2021 DOJ finding that Babbitt’s civil rights were not violated and it was reasonable for the officer who shot her to believe he was acting in self-defense or in defense of members of Congress.

U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd was also cleared by a Capitol Police investigation, which found that his actions “potentially saved members and staff from serious injury and possible death from a large crowd of rioters who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol and to the House Chamber where members and staff were steps away.”

One-third of the settlement will go toward the Babbitt family’s lawyers, which include the right-wing legal group Judicial Watch and Richard Driscoll, an attorney in Alexandria, Virginia. Conservatives, led by Trump, have tried to rewrite the narrative of January 6, 2021, minimizing the violence of the rioters, who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and paint them as victims who were unfairly punished by the justice system for supporting Trump.

The president has in effect legitimized the rioters’ actions by issuing blanket pardons for everyone involved in the insurrection, including violent participants and hate group members such as the Proud Boys. He has also taken steps to punish prosecutors and federal law enforcement officers involved in investigating and bringing cases against the rioters.

The settlement with Babbitt’s family will appease Trump’s die-hard supporters who would be willing to commit violence on his behalf, and is an attempt to rewrite history by painting Babbitt as a victim and martyr rather than one of the many criminals on that day four years ago. It also sends the message that violence committed in Trump’s name won’t lead to punishment but to rewards.