Here’s One Smithsonian Painting the White House Wants to Censor

Escalating its mission to eliminate so-called “woke” content from the Smithsonian, Trump’s team has just publicly identified artwork it hopes to censor.

On Thursday, the White House’s official rapid response X account shared a post casting aspersions on a Rigoberto A. Gonzalez painting titled Refugees Crossing the Border Wall Into South Texas.

The piece depicts a family of four in Baroque style: two parents with a young boy and a baby, at a ladder leaning against the southern border wall. A finalist for the National Portrait Gallery’s 2022 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, the piece appeared in that Smithsonian Museum from 2022 to 2023, according to the competition’s website.

The White House social team, seemingly irked by this humanizing portrayal of people demonized by the Trump administration, accused the work of “commemorating the act of illegally crossing the ‘exclusionary’ border.”

“This is what President Trump means when he says the Smithsonian is ‘OUT OF CONTROL,’” the post says—quoting from a recent Truth Social post in which the president lamented that the Smithsonian overemphasizes negative aspects of America, such as “how bad Slavery was.”

In a Thursday press release, the White House listed Gonzalez’s painting with other supposedly damning proof that the institution is in the grip of wokeness, including an American History Museum collection on LGBTQ+ history.

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who was previously criticized for acting like a Russian asset, is planning to gut the agency responsible for monitoring influence from foreign governments.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a fact sheet saying it would begin “refocusing functions” within the supposedly “redundant” Foreign Malign Influence Center, alleging that it had been used by the Biden administration to “justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition.”

ODNI cited FMIC coordinating with Twitter, Facebook, and Google on the companies’ responses to the 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which was removed from several platforms over government concerns that it was part of a Russian disinformation operation. Since it was first reported on, the laptop has been proven to be authentic, but many of Republicans’ allegations that it tied the Bidens to corrupt foreign business dealings have not been.

ODNI claimed that FMIC had developed a “hyper-focus” on election-related issues after a 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “aspired” to see Donald Trump enter the White House. In the last month, Gabbard has launched a campaign to discredit this report, claiming that the Obama administration had sown a false narrative about Putin supporting Trump, even though Putin has openly admitted that he’d preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton.

ODNI’s efforts to “refocus” FMIC are particularly ironic considering that Gabbard has a history of foisting foreign misinformation on the American public herself. Gabbard previously defended Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, claiming that the U.S. had provoked Russian aggression, and that Ukraine housed U.S.-funded biolabs that were developing secret bioweapons—a piece of foreign state propaganda that earned her the reputation of being a Russian asset.

More recently, she parroted the conclusions of Russian spies during a White House press briefing, claiming that Clinton had experienced “psycho-emotional problems, uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness,” a rumor that was based on debunked Russian intelligence.

ODNI’s fact sheet claimed that “refocusing FMIC’s mission” would save taxpayers at least $7 million per year. The massive restructuring would also refocus the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center. Gabbard has announced plans to cut her department’s staff by 50 percent and reduce its annual budget by $700 million.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is boasting about—well, not doing much of anything in regard to gun seizures in Washington, D.C.

“We’ve now made a total of 630 arrests and seized 86 illegal guns in DC. 53 arrests were made yesterday, plus 24 ICE arrests and 10 guns taken off the streets. Our incredible US Marshals even helped recover a missing child,” Bondi wrote Thursday morning on X. “Our mission to make DC safe again isn’t slowing down.”

Bondi’s right about one thing: The mission isn’t “slowing down.” It’s not moving anywhere at all. Law enforcement is taking guns off the street at around the same rate it was last year, even with the increased show of force from the federal government.

“DC police records show they recovered 2,895 firearms in 2024—works out to an average of about 8 per day & ~100 over two weeks,” wrote Courthouse News’s Benjamin S. Weiss. “Federal gun seizures on track to be more or less the same in roughly that same period, per AG.”

This kind of blatant posturing has become commonplace in the past few weeks. The federal government wants so badly for us to believe that its influx of police has made the nation’s capital much safer, when in fact, it’s been a lot more show than substance.

President Donald Trump’s stance on Russia-Ukraine is as volatile and tricky to pin down as his stance on most other issues—which is to say, very.

The president took to Truth Social Thursday to chastise former President Joe Biden for, by his reckoning, holding Ukraine back in its war against Russia’s invasion.

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country,” Trump wrote, likening Ukraine to a sports team that has “fantastic defense” but is “not allowed to play offense.”

“Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND,” the president continued. “How did that work out?”

The sentiment is a bit rich coming from someone who’s repeatedly threatened to withdraw support for the beleaguered U.S. ally.

The post also fails to mention Biden’s November 2024 decision to allow Ukraine to use American-made long-range ATACMS missiles to strike deeper into Russia—as well as Trump’s own response to the move: The then–president elect called it “very stupid” and “a big mistake.”

“I wouldn’t have had him do that,” Trump said during a December press conference. His eldest son, Donald Jr., accused Biden of ushering in World War III.

Last month, Trump reportedly asked President Volodymyr Zelenskiy whether he could strike Russia’s two largest cities if provided long-range weaponry by the United States. He even considered providing such munitions, according to The Washington Post. But on July 15, he told reporters he was not willing to do so.

As the Center for Strategic and International Studies put it last month, military aid to Ukraine under Trump “has been on and off, then partially on, then on again, and then increased further.” And his rhetoric has been even more erratic than his actions.

Trump concluded the post with his favorite speculative, counterfactual boast: that the war would never have happened if he were president. “Interesting times ahead!!!” he added, before signing off.

Donald Trump might not have to pay the piper after all.

A New York appeals court threw out the president’s $500 million civil fraud fine Thursday, claiming the resulting penalty for the Trump Organization’s bank fraud case was an “excessive fine.”

“The court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” Justice Peter Moulton wrote in one of three opinions.

The contentious decision from the five-judge panel paves the way for the case to advance to New York’s highest court.

At least two judges on the court agreed with the original ruling that found Trump and his co-defendants liable for fraud, noting that the injunctive relief ordered by the presiding judge  was “well crafted to curb defendants’ business culture.” However, the final page of the order states that “three out of the five members of this panel clearly believe that the judgment should be vacated” on the basis that the “attorney general has not yet proven her case.”

Since Trump lost the case, his attorneys have argued that the fine was “grossly disproportionate” to his offenses, which included defrauding banks, insurance companies, and investors by falsely inflating his wealth and the value of his properties.

The penalty had left Trump and his portfolio in a whopping financial pickle. The former real estate mogul tried and failed to pause growing interest on the judgment, at one point counter-offering the court a $100 million bond in lieu of the full amount. 

He also approached several brokers and upwards of 30 suretors for help in securing a bond, though his attorneys claimed he was unsuccessful in doing so as the suretors refused to accept Trump’s real estate as collateral. Instead, they would only accept cash to the tune of $1 billion, which Trump claimed last year he didn’t have.

New York Attorney General Letitia James had threatened to seize some of Trump’s largest assets—including 40 Wall Street and Trump Tower—to cover the outstanding disgorgement. 

The decision also restricted the Trump Organization from borrowing cash and barred Trump’s two eldest sons from doing business in New York for two years.

James has been a target of Trump’s retribution campaign since he returned to the White House. Earlier this month, the Justice Department opened an investigation into James and her work, accusing her of violating Trump’s constitutional rights by taking legal action against him.

This story has been updated.

The U.S. Department of Justice tried to force a Philadelphia children’s hospital to hand over information on young transgender patients as part of Donald Trump’s crackdown on gender-affirming care for minors, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

A subpoena issued to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in June demanded access to “every writing or record of whatever type” that doctors had made, including everything from emails, Zoom recordings, and texts to names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers.

Notably, gender-affirming care is not illegal in Pennsylvania. Still, the Trump administration is taking efforts to invade young patients’ privacy, endangering them and the health care providers who treat them.

The subpoena became public Monday as part of a separate lawsuit from Washington state Attorney General Nicholas W. Brown, who is suing the Trump administration to block its executive order threatening to end federal funding to medical institutions that provide lifesaving gender-affirming care for anyone under the age of 19.

In a court filing, Brown wrote that the DOJ’s request for info from CHP has “only escalated” Trump’s efforts since a judge blocked his executive orders earlier this year.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the DOJ had issued more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics that it claimed “mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology.” The subpoenas arrived at hospitals in states that had banned gender-affirming care, as well as those that had not.

HuffPost conducted an independent review and found that 25 hospitals had ended gender-affirming care services since July, and none of them were in states that had bans. Health care providers are concerned that providing hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgeries could result in them being charged with a felony.

In July, Trump claimed credit for ending gender-affirming care at specialized adolescent programs in several states where it is legal: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s campaign adviser was caught trying to bribe a reporter with a potato chip bag full of cash on Wednesday.

This move comes as more and more of Adams’s inner circle face corruption, fraud, and bribery charges.

It started at what was a very typical event: the opening of Adams’s new Harlem campaign office, which The City’s Katie Honan was in attendance for. She got a text from Winnie Greco—campaign adviser and former Asian community liaison—saying that she’d seen her there, and asking her to meet her for a chat at a nearby Whole Foods.

While they were talking, Greco gave Honan an opened bag of chips with the top smushed closed. Honan told Greco she didn’t want the chips, but Greco insisted. When they went their separate ways, Honan opened the bag and found at least $140 in cash in it.

“I can’t take this, when can I give it back to you?” Honan texted Greco. She did not reply. Honan then took the bag back to The City’s office and gave it to her editors, who then contacted New York’s Department of Investigation. The publication never actually took the money out of the bag.

Following the interaction at the Whole Foods, Honan brought the chip bag and envelope with money back to The City’s office and handed it over to her editors. The City then contacted the city Department of Investigation. Anticipating possible law enforcement investigations, The City did not open the envelope or count the money inside.

After getting caught, Greco apologised profusely and blamed the blatant bribe on her Chinese heritage.

“I’m so sorry. It’s a culture thing,” she said, according to The City. “I don’t know. I don’t understand. I’m so sorry. I feel so bad right now. I’m so sorry, honey.”

Greco told The City to call her lawyer, Steven Brill.

“I can see how this looks strange.… But I assure you that Winnie’s intent was purely innocent,” he said. “In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. Winnie is apologetic and embarrassed by any negative impression or confusion this may have caused.”

Absolutely no one was buying this excuse, not even the Adams campaign. It suspended Greco from any campaign activity, effective immediately.

“We are shocked by these reports,” Adams campaign spokesperson Todd Shapiro said. “Winnie Grecco [sic] holds no position in this campaign and has been suspended from all VOLUNTEER campaign-related activities. Mayor Adams had no prior knowledge of this matter. He has always demanded the highest ethical and legal standards, and his sole focus remains on serving the people of New York City with integrity.”

Decisions like this are why several Adams aides and confidants are being charged with multiple counts of fraud and bribery. This is another extremely serious act of corruption from the campaign of an extremely unserious mayor.

In a sudden about-face, Donald Trump now thinks it would be “better” if Russia and Ukraine met without him.

For the better part of this week, the U.S. leader has bragged that his recent meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were “very successful”—in spite of the fact that the internationally controversial decision to invite his Russian counterpart to Alaska proved fruitless.

On Monday, Trump promised to coordinate a trilateral arrangement between himself, Putin, and Zelenskiy to solidify a peace deal. But just days later, the commander in chief changed his tune.

In an interview with conservative podcaster Mark Levin on Wednesday, Trump claimed the two warring countries should meet without his involvement.

“I had a very successful meeting with President Putin. I had a very successful meeting with President Zelenskiy. And now I thought it would be better if they met without me, just to see. I want to see what goes on. You know, they had a hard relationship, very bad, very bad relationship,” Trump said.

Putin has remained adamant that any peace deal would require “international legal recognition” of its 2014 annexation of Crimea, an internationally recognized portion of Ukraine, along with four regions it has claimed in the three years since it first invaded Ukraine. Ukraine, on the other hand, has remained just as adamant that those regions will remain within its borders.

Trump did suggest that the apparently just-for-fun meeting could be saved by his intervention, if needed.

“And now we’ll see how they do and, if necessary, and it probably would be, but if necessary, I’ll go and I’ll probably be able to get it close,” he continued.

Whether or not the U.S. president appreciates the gravity of negotiating over Ukraine’s occupied territories is unclear, considering he doesn’t seem to know where or how large they are. In the same interview with Levin, Trump wrongly asserted that Crimea was “the size of Texas” and that the Ukrainian peninsula was “in the middle of the ocean,” a faux pas that was not received well by Kyiv’s news media.

At least 13,883 civilians have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. The monthly death toll reached 67 in July, with 209 injured, marking the highest monthly civilian death and injury count since the conflict began.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement apparently shares the president’s obsession with shiny objects.

After the Department of Homeland Security blinged out ICE vehicles for a vain rap video, the agency now plans to shell out millions more in taxpayer dollars on flashy new rides.

The video, posted on social media last week, showed two ICE vehicles, darkly wrapped with gold accents and emblazoned with the slogan “DEFEND THE HOMELAND,” cruising through Washington, D.C., to DaBaby’s 2019 hit, “Toes.”

The cars in that video reportedly cost over $380,000, but the agency seems ready to dish out millions more on vehicles in the same style.

The Washington Post on Wednesday revealed $2.4 million in planned ICE expenditures—the bulk of which will go toward 25 Chevrolet Tahoes, with about $174,000 covering the custom-wrapping of Tahoes, Ford Expeditions, and other vehicles.

The purchases were detailed in records that the government had to submit in order to forgo the typical competitive bidding process that’s in place to ensure best value for taxpayers.

The decorated cars are, according to the documents, “essential for officers to provide support and a law enforcement presence” in the nation’s capital, and “must be deployed to the streets immediately to provide a visible law enforcement presence, support public safety operations, and reinforce recruitment efforts.”

Beyond seeking cosmeticized cars to aid President Donald Trump’s D.C. crackdown, the agency is also dipping into its congressionally approved slush fund to the tune of hundreds of thousands for vehicles and car-wrapping services as part of recruitment efforts.

ICE is eschewing the open bidding process for these, too, on the grounds that “the need for the services is so urgent and compelling that providing full and open competition would result in unacceptable delays and seriously hinder the Government’s recruiting initiative.”

For example, Ford Mustangs included in this order—in “an immediate request” by the White House—are said to feature “eye-catching design[s]” that help “attract top talent by conveying a culture of excellence and forward momentum.”

Texas appears to have sparked a redistricting domino effect.

Republicans in the Lone Star State forced through their gerrymandered maps Wednesday night by locking state representatives inside the Capitol until they voted on a chart that would carve out five new GOP-favorable districts and erase Democratic areas. The brutal initiative followed weeks of counterefforts by state Democrats, who at one point fled Texas in order to avoid participating in the Donald Trump–directed vote.

Other areas of the country were watching the bedlam to ascertain just how far Texas would go to obey Trump’s command—and now, they’re acting.

Democratic governors on both coasts proclaimed redistricting war in the wake of the vote, announcing on social media that they would work to offset Texas’s maps, intended to help the GOP secure five more House seats in Washington.

“Game on,” wrote New York Governor Kathy Hochul, responding to news of the passed vote.

“It’s on, Texas,” posted California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Congressional maps are typically redrawn every 10 years, after new census data is released. But Texas’s decision to do so in the middle of the decade—at Trump’s direction—has raised alarms, with Democrats across the country labeling the effort a threat to democracy.

Between them, New York (26) and California (52)—two of the country’s most populous states—have 78 representatives, the bulk of whom are Democrats. Their share accounts for nearly 18 percent of the House’s membership. But as Texas worked to obey Trump’s midterm demands, the pair of Democratic strongholds warned that carving out more Democratic seats was well within their power.

“This is radical rigging of a midterm election,” Newsom told The Siren podcast earlier Wednesday. “Radical rigging of an election. Destroying, vandalizing this democracy, the rule of law. So, I’m sorry. I know some people’s sensibilities. I respect and appreciate that. But right now, with all due respect, we’re walking down a damn different path. We’re fighting fire with fire. And we’re gonna punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.”

When asked last month if he was concerned about California following suit in the redistricting department, Trump said that the White House would “fight them.”

“You know they’re so corrupt in California, you never know what’s going to happen,” Trump said at the time. “But we’ve done pretty well in the courts in California, you see. We’re batting about 1,000, ultimately.”

But the Republican stratagem is far from over. Trump issued similar demands of five other states: Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Florida.