Mike Huckabee Goes to Gaza and Declares Everything Is A-OK

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee met with the U.S.-backed aid organization that’s been setting death traps for starving Palestinians.

Huckabee said Friday morning that he and special envoy Steve Witkoff visited Gaza to “learn the truth” about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, whose aid sites have become the locus of mass casualty events on a near-daily basis.

The United Nations reported Thursday that at least 859 Palestinians have been killed while attempting to receive aid at GHF sites between May 27 and July 31, mostly by the Israeli military.

Huckabee seemed pleased after receiving a briefing from the Israeli military and meeting with GHF workers on the ground. “GHF delivers more than one million meals a day, an incredible feat!” Huckabee wrote in a post on X.

But GHF has now been implicated in hundreds of Palestinians deaths, as the widespread famine in Gaza worsens.

“Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.”

GHF’s funding sources are opaque, but Trump said Friday that Israel had agreed to match a $30 million donation, according to Reuters.

GHF has also been criticized as systematically ineffectual. Anthony Aguilar, a retired 25-year U.S. Army veteran and Green Beret who’d been working for the group as a security contractor described GHF as “an enterprise that has failed from the beginning.”

“It’s abhorrent. If it weren’t so tragic, it would be comedy. It’s not comedy, because it is absolutely tragic,” he told Mother Jones. Aguilar also alleged that his fellow contractors used nonlethal and lethal munitions in unauthorized ways, cheering as they fired blindly into a crowd of Palestinians.

For his part, Huckabee doesn’t seem all that interested in easing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza—seeing that it would require him to acknowledge Palestinians’ humanity. Earlier this week, Huckabee said that France’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state was “like letting the Nazis have a victory after World War II.”

And for all of Trump’s too-little too-late statements about the starvation in Gaza, he seems to feel about the same. After Canada issued a statement backing a two-state solution Thursday, Trump lashed out in a Truth Social post, threatening a prospective trade deal between the U.S. and Canada.

Laura Loomer is feeling emboldened, as the Trump White House this week further deepened the impression that it farms out personnel decisions to the far-right provocateur.

Loomer, who seems to enjoy ready access to the president’s ear, on Thursday unveiled a tip line to help fire more Trump officials. “Know an Obama-Biden holdover inside the Trump admin who needs to be exposed for their misdeeds?” she posted on X. “Contact the Loomered Tip Line.”

“I guess you could say that my tip line has come to serve as a form of therapy for Trump administration officials who want to expose their colleagues who should not be in the positions that they’re in,” Loomer told Politico. She also mentioned that she has “people in the West Wing,” as well as fans and informants “in pretty much every single agency within the federal government.”

Loomer promised that the string of staffing shake-ups for which she’s already responsible—including firings of federal prosecutors, National Security Council personnel, and top National Security Agency officials—is only the beginning. She told Politico she plans to purge “hundreds” more in her effort to address a “vetting crisis” supposedly plaguing the Trump administration, which she considers to be overrun with Democratic sleeper cells.

Strikingly, within the course of 24 hours earlier this week, Loomer played a direct role in two high-profile departures.

First, she ginned up a campaign against supposed “progressive leftist saboteur” Vinay Prasad, a top Food and Drug Administration official, who stepped down on Tuesday so as not to be “a distraction.” Loomer then targeted Jen Easterly, a newly announced distinguished chair at West Point and former Biden official (who also worked for the Bush II administration), as a “Biden holdover.” Not only did the secretary of the Army then order West Point to fire Easterly, but it also announced plans for the academy to adjust its hiring practices, seemingly obliging Loomer’s demands that it further weed out “moles.”

“So many scalps this week! Stacking them up” Loomer posted to X Wednesday, before adding, the following day, “I will continue my independent vetting operation to help protect President Trump, his administration and the American people from nefarious people.”

A federal judge ruled on Thursday against the Trump administration’s plans to end Temporary Protected Status for 60,000 immigrants from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua, saying that the decision was partly motivated by the “discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population.”

TPS is a protected status that allows immigrants to live and work in the United States if conditions in their home countries are deemed unsafe. The administration has already ended the protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Haitians, Ukrainians, and people from Afghanistan and Cameroon.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem put Nepalese, Honduran, and Nicaraguan immigrants next on the chopping block, claiming that the situations in their home countries no longer qualified them for the protections.

But Judge Trina L. Thompson disagreed, saying that the termination was too hasty without an “objective review of the country conditions,” like political violence in Honduras and the impact of recent hurricanes in Nicaragua, as reported by the AP.

“The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek. Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood,” Thompson said.

She also agreed with the plaintiffs’ lawyers that the decision to remove protections was part of upholding racist campaign promises rather than the product of any legitimate review. On the campaign trail, Trump echoed common talking points of the “great replacement” theory, a conspiratorial belief that white people will be replaced by people of color in the U.S.

“Color is neither a poison nor a crime,” Thompson added.

The protections will remain in place while the case proceeds. The next hearing is November 18.

The Smithsonian has removed Donald Trump from its exhibit on impeachments under pressure from the White House, reported The Washington Post. The remainder of the exhibit focuses on Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, effectively returning the exhibit to the way it looked in 2008.

A temporary label had been plastered on the exhibit since 2021, playfully notifying visitors: “case under redesign (history happens).” The “American Presidency” wing’s updated signage now explains that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal” over the course of American history.

The change was the result of a White House–initiated content review in the wake of an art director’s ousting.

“In reviewing our legacy content recently, it became clear that the ‘Limits of Presidential Power’ section in The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden exhibition needed to be addressed,” a Smithsonian spokesperson told the Post in a statement. “The section of this exhibition covers Congress, The Supreme Court, Impeachment, and Public Opinion. Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance.”

Trump is the only U.S. president to be impeached twice—in 2019 and 2021—but a Smithsonian visitor wouldn’t know that by searching the exhibit’s digital companion, which doesn’t offer much information on either of the impeachment cases. And while searches of the museum’s collection yield dozens of results for America’s other impeachment subjects, a search for Trump only provides one “Impeach Trump” button from a 2017 protest.

At least one curator at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum has been on a quest to better document Trump’s impeachments. In 2020, a political history curator told the Post that he was hunting for the right objects to tell that story and that work was underway to amend the exhibit. He did not offer a date for the exhibit’s completion, however.

The Smithsonian responded to the Post in a statement promising that “a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments.”

It is not clear, however, if that future updated exhibit will appear during Trump’s second term.

Donald Trump’s brutal July jobs report appeared to genuinely rattle the hosts at Fox Business.

Several hosts and guests sat in stunned silence on Fox Business’s Mornings With Maria, after host Maria Bartiromo announced the disastrous results of the government’s July jobs report.

As Bartiromo announced that only 73,000 jobs had been created last month, disappointed hums rippled throughout the guests, with one loosing a disheartened “wow.”

“And that’s total,” replied a disheartened-sounding Charles Payne. While the numbers of jobs created trailed the estimates by more than 30,000, the unemployment rate remained on target at 4.2 percent.

The hosts struggled to find someone to blame other than Trump, with Payne eventually landing on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair who Trump moved to usurp Friday.

The report also included significantly revised numbers for May and June—and the difference was startling. The number of jobs created in June came down to 14,000 from the previously stated 147,000; and in May the number was 19,000, revised down from 144,000.

“It’s no wonder the market was down 300 points going into this number. Look at these revisions!” Bartiromo cried.

On the campaign trail, Trump had slammed the Biden administration for publishing massive revisions to its job numbers for the year ending in March 2024. But now his administration has seen a revision of 258,000 jobs in just two months.

Fox Business’s Moore attempted to comfort his fellow host, blaming the trade turmoil sparked by Trump’s tariffs, and tried to get her to focus on the positives. But the jobs report didn’t have much in terms of a silver lining, revealing that health care and social assistance are pretty much the only sectors hiring anymore. Bartiromo had been similarly shocked by June’s ADP jobs report.

It feels like the first eight months of Trump 2.0 have lasted a lifetime—and if deputy White House chief of staff Dan Scavino has his way, maybe they will.

On Thursday, El Salvador approved changes to its constitution to allow for indefinite presidential reelection. Scavino shared the news on X, saying “Want to see heads explode?” and “CC’ing” the president.

Though Scavino’s post is self-admittedly an attempt to spark hysteria among Americans who still care about democracy, the potential for a third Trump term is no joke. Just yesterday during an interview with Fox about Senator Josh Hawley’s stock trading bill, Senator Rand Paul objected to how Trump could hypothetically be impacted by the bill, despite its carveout for the current administration.

“Future presidents wouldn’t be allowed to own things, so Donald Trump or the next president, which, you know, or some say he might run for a third term,” Paul said on Fox Business.

And Trump himself said in March that there are “methods” for him seeking a third term—and has clarified that he is “not joking.”

In March, GOP leadership discouraged its lawmakers from holding in-person town halls amid mounting backlash to the Trump administration.

Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin was the first Republican in the state to disobey this directive. After constituents held weekly protests outside his office urging him to hold an in-person event, Steil finally relented with what his office called a “listening session.”

After months of virtual-only town halls, there was lots of listening to do.

Steil entered the Elkhorn High School auditorium on Thursday to resounding boos and faced a raucous crowd for the duration of the 80-minute session, including fierce questions on his support of Trump’s agenda, as well as frequent interruptions, chants, and jeering.

Attendees were evidently fired up over Steil’s support of Trump’s budget, poised to tilt taxes in favor of the rich while tattering the social safety net. Steil defended his vote on the bill, which is also estimated to balloon the national debt by trillions of dollars. (When the lawmaker mentioned national debt as a pressing issue, one attendee interjected: “Thanks to you!”)

He also voiced his support of Trump’s controversial immigration policies—a topic that elicited “some of the loudest boos,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

More than one person in attendance referred to the Florida immigrant detention camp callously dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” as a concentration camp, which Steil objected to. A constituent noted that “the difference between a prison or a detention center and a concentration camp is due process.”

Steil also had to address Trump’s tariffs (which one attendee called “a terrible tax that’s going to be placed on the citizens of the United States”), as well as Trump’s push to all but abolish the Department of Education (“Education is best resolved at the local level,” Steil said).

Many questions Steil faced reflected a widespread perception that Steil is in Trump’s pocket. One attendee said, “Southeast Wisconsin has not been represented by you. President Trump seems to run Southeast Wisconsin through you.”

Another made similar remarks in the context of immigration. “What I see happening to our immigrant population embarrasses me—horrifies me,” she said. “You have not raised a voice to complain about it. Where do I see your leadership? I see no leadership—I see you following Trump 100 percent of the time.” In response to this latter question, Steil, ironically, “lauded Trump’s executive orders and deportations,” Wisconsin Public Radio reports.

At another point in the meeting, though, he insisted that he doesn’t “always line up” with GOP leadership.

He has somewhat of a point there, as holding the town hall at all certainly went against his party leadership’s advice.

While resolute on enacting the more destructive elements of the president’s agenda, at least Steil eventually proved willing to hear his constituents’ concerns face to face. It’s more than can be said for many other Republicans in Congress. As one of Steil’s critics in the crowd told him: “I applaud you for standing up here and taking it.”

The president still doesn’t have a clear explanation for his own recent claims about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaking with reporters at the White House Thursday, Trump reiterated that he had thrown the child sex trafficker out of Mar-a-Lago after he learned that Epstein was grooming underage female employees, but failed to elaborate on his understanding of why Epstein had, in Trump’s words, “stolen” the young girls.

“At the time, did you know why he was taking those young women?” asked a journalist in the room.

“No, I didn’t know,” Trump said. “But no, I don’t know really why, but I said if he’s taken anybody from Mar-a-Lago, he’s hiring or whatever, I didn’t like it. We threw him out, we said we didn’t want him.

“I didn’t like it, that he was doing that,” Trump added.

Trump’s comments barely address his stumble aboard Air Force One earlier this week, when he admitted that he knew Virginia Giuffre—one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers—was one of the “stolen” girls. His remarks on Tuesday partially corroborated Giuffre’s account of being abducted in 2000 by Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, at Mar-a-Lago, where Giuffre worked at the time as a pool attendant.

Trump and his allies have alluded to multiple Epstein victims having come into the alleged sex trafficker’s orbit at Mar-a-Lago but only named one: Giuffre. She met Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in 2000—and Trump’s close friendship with Epstein continued for years after. If Trump really was furious, as he now claims, he certainly didn’t show it. Indeed, their friendship didn’t fracture until 2004, when the two found themselves competing for the same glitzy Palm Beach house—and Epstein remained a Mar-a-Lago member until 2007, only being kicked out after a reporter called about his status following a Florida sex crimes conviction.

Donald Trump is finally getting his wish to turn the White House into the gaudy resort he calls home by adding a $200 million ballroom. 

The White House announced that it would begin construction in September on a 90,000-square-foot ballroom that can seat 650 people. 

Yes, Trump is laser focused on the issues that matter most to Americans: replacing the “large and unsightly” tent that typically hosts guests just 100 yards away from the building. 

During a press conference Thursday afternoon, Trump confirmed that he wouldn’t spend any taxpayer dollars on the $200 million project. “It’s a private thing, yeah, and we’ll probably have some donors,” he said. 

“They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there’s never been a president that’s good at ballrooms,” he added. 

Trump said the expansion would not “interfere” with the White House. “It’ll be near it but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building,”  

Trump’s mission to add a gaudy event hall to the White House didn’t come out of nowhere—he claims that he pitched it to the last two presidents. During a press conference in February, Trump said he’d asked Joe Biden about building a ballroom in the White House, offering to have it built himself. 

“I was going to build a beautiful, beautiful ballroom like I’ve done before,” Trump said. “It would cost $100 million. I told them again and again. They didn’t know what to do. They had no idea.”

He made a similar claim on the presidential campaign trail in 2016, telling his supporters that he’d offered to have a ballroom built for the Obamas. 

Trump has already begun a massive decor overhaul at the White House, gilding the Oval Office with gaudy gold detailing and ornate crown molding, plastering a golden Trump crest above the door, and shipping in golden cherub statues straight from Mar-a-Lago, according to The Daily Beast. 

It’s clear that Trump much prefers the luxury aesthetics of his resort home, and with the dismal report card he’s received in office so far, the president should feel free to pack his bags any time. 

In 2024, Trump was so protective of judges who ruled in his favor that he claimed it’s illegal to publicly criticize them.

Not so when judges rule against him, apparently. In recent months, as judges serve as bulwarks against his administration’s lawless actions, the president has lashed out, leading his supporters to inundate them with threats.

At a virtual event held by Speak Up for Justice on Thursday, judges spoke up about the vitriol they’ve faced of late.

U.S. District Judge John McConnell, who blocked Trump’s federal aid freeze earlier this year, said his court has received four or five hundred “vile, threatening” voicemails.

“We’re going to come for him,” said one voice message, which was played at the meeting. “You know what, motherfucker? Your ass is going to go to prison. OK, son of a bitch? And I wish somebody would fucking assassinate your ass. Somebody needs to fucking wipe his ass out.”

McConnell has received six credible death threats, he said, recalling one instance in which “someone was on the dark web searching for my home address, because, this is a quote, he wanted, ‘Smith & Wesson to pay me a visit at my home.’”

McConnell said of the threats: “I’ve been on the bench almost 15 years, and I must say it’s the one time that actually shook my faith in the judicial system, in the rule of law, in the work that we do with the Constitution.”

McConnell and others also said they received threats in the form of pizza deliveries to their home addresses to indicate that they’ve been doxed.

Sometimes, in order to make the message clearer and threaten judges’ families, such pizza deliveries are made in the name of Daniel Anderl, the late son of another judge at Thursday’s event, District Judge Esther Salas. Anderl was killed in 2020 by a disgruntled lawyer attempting to attack Salas.

District Judge Robert Lasnik, whose family was sent pizzas in Anderl’s name, said he believes over 50 judges have received pizzas.

Salas spoke to the distressing experience of hearing the name of her late son, who “stands for … love and light,” be weaponized “to inflict fear on” judges.

“What we need is our political leaders, from the top down, to stop fanning these flames, to stop using irresponsible rhetoric, to stop referring to judges as corrupt and biased and monsters that hate America,” Salas said.

District Judge John Coughenour, who blocked Trump’s executive order against birthright citizenship, described being swatted.

“The local sheriff’s office received a call saying that I had murdered my wife, and then arrived at my house with weapons drawn,” Coughenour recalled. Soon after, he said, they received a message from the FBI that there was a bomb at their house.

“There wasn’t, but what kind of people do these things?” Coughenour said.

Toward the end of the event, Lasnik recounted the heroism of federal judges who, during the civil rights era, pushed for the enforcement of desegregation “over the objections of Southern governors.”

Such judges faced “death threats, bombings of their family home,” Lasnik said. “They were under tremendous physical intimidation and threats.”

The difference between then and today? “In that period of time, the presidents of the United States—President Dwight D. Eisenhower and President John F. Kennedy—enforced the courts’ rulings and didn’t support defying them,” Lasnik said.

“And we’re hopeful that this administration will do the same thing and support the courts’ rulings and not defy them going forward.”