Did Trump Know About Bolton Raid or Not?

On Friday, President Donald Trump delivered a series of confusing comments about that morning’s FBI raid on the home of his onetime national security adviser John Bolton.

The president told reporters that he was not yet briefed on the raid on the Maryland residence of Bolton, who is a vocal critic of the president’s decision-making, character, and mental acuity.

“I saw it on television this morning,” Trump said, quickly adding: “I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real, sort of a low life.… He’s not a smart guy. He could be a very unpatriotic guy.”

Since his contentious 17-month stint in Trump’s first administration, Bolton has repeatedly drawn his former boss’s ire—including for publishing a 2020 tell-all, In The Room Where It Happened, which described him as incompetent and unfit for office. Trump’s first-term Justice Department investigated Bolton over the book, claiming it contained classified information. Similarly, Friday’s raid, per NBC, was part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records.”

During his remarks about Bolton, Trump also made a point to assert that he “could” have hypothetically been the one who ordered the search, but insisted this was done by Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department.

In doing so, the president sounded not unlike a Mafia boss describing how he insulates himself from misdeeds.

“I tell Pam [Bondi] and I tell the group, ‘I don’t want to know but just—you have to do what you have to do.’ I don’t want to know about it. It’s not necessary,” Trump said, adding, “I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. I’m actually the chief law enforcement officer, but I feel that it’s better this way.”

Here, Trump all but admitted to borrowing a page from England’s King Henry II, who is said to have uttered, regarding the archbishop of Canterbury, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”—and thereby enjoyed plausible deniability when his underlings killed the man vexing him.

It’s not the first time Trump has sounded like a mob boss or a monarch. And it surely won’t be the last time the administration seemingly wields the government against those deemed guilty of lèse-majesté against him.

Far-right influencer Laura Loomer complained to State Secretary Marco Rubio about U.S. support for injured Gazan children. Then, the aid stopped.

The self-appointed “loyalty enforcer” has had enormous success influencing the Trump administration from the safety of her X account: at least 16 individuals have been fired from the federal government after Loomer singled them out as covert Democratic agents. But the unelected provocateur’s reach apparently extends far beyond snipping federal payrolls and into crafting and implementing foreign policy.

Over the last several weeks, Loomer had become fixated on a small number of injured Palestinian children who had arrived in the U.S. by way of a charity called Heal Palestine for medical treatment related to their injuries of war. The wounded kids suffered from missing limbs, severe burns, and other dire medical needs, but the McCarthy-esque agitator was unsympathetic.

Loomer openly vilified them on social media, referring to the children as “Islamic invaders” and their presence in the U.S. as a “national security threat.” She called on the White House to fire the State Department employee who authorized the children’ s visas.

Last Friday, Loomer claimed that she had elevated her concerns to the agency by speaking directly with Rubio. The next day, the State Department paused all visitor visas from Gaza.

“All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days,” the agency’s official X account announced.

Rubio defended the decision the following day.

“First of all, it’s not just kids,” Rubio told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan. “It’s a bunch of adults that are accompanying them. Second, we had outreach from multiple congressional offices asking questions about it, and so we’re going to re-evaluate how those visas are being granted.”

Loomer, an apparently proud bigot, has often used her social media influence to flaunt and advance her racist and Islamaphobic viewpoints. But her recent proximity to Donald Trump—which she describes as a “friendship”—has hoisted her intolerant and hateful ideologies into the throng of the federal government, contorting critical national and international decisions as little more than a private citizen.

It’s been almost a year since President Donald Trump targeted Springfield, Ohio, with racist lies that Haitian immigrants had begun eating their neighbors’ pets in order to stir up his voter base. Now, the city’s Haitian immigrants, who helped revive Springfield’s struggling economy, are being chased out by Trump’s anti-immigrant policies.

Springfield is currently home to an estimated 10,000-15,000 Haitian immigrants, but The New York Times reported Friday that dozens have already fled the city—and more are sure to follow.

The wave of Haitian immigration had helped Springfield, a town of just 60,000, rebound, the Times reported. Now, all that could go away.

The Trump administration has already ended some humanitarian programs that allowed Haitians to live and work legally in the United States, leaving local employers with no choice but to dismiss scores of workers. A nearby Amazon warehouse, a major employer in the area, was forced to dismiss hundreds of employees in June. The Times reported that a local food pantry at the local nonprofit St. Vincent de Paul had received twice as many Haitians families as usual on a recent Tuesday.

Thousands more Haitians are expected to lose work in February 2026, when the administration plans to end Temporary Protected Status, which prevents their deportation.

And the more Haitian immigrants are forced to lean on social services, or fill up emergency rooms because they lack access to health insurance, the more likely it is that politicians will use these changes to stoke the same issues that Trump preyed upon: scarcity and sickness.

Vice President JD Vance pushed rumors on the campaign trail that the city’s new arrivals had contributed to the spread of communicable diseases, though local health officials said there had been no discernable increase in those illnesses.

In July, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who’d refuted but refused to condemn Trump’s racist lies last year, said that “suddenly losing a large number” of workers would have a “significant impact” on businesses. “It’s not going to be good,” he said.

Now, Haitian immigrants face three options. They could go back to Haiti, which is still plagued by widespread violence, or attempt to gain asylum elsewhere, such as Canada. Or they could remain without lawful status, facing steep economic hurdles, as targets for Trump’s massive deportation scheme.

John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser turned vocal Trump critic, is the latest target of the president’s weaponization of the government against his political adversaries.

On Friday morning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the Maryland home of Bolton, whose 17-month stint under the president was characterized by stark foreign policy disagreements until it abruptly ended.

NBC News reports that the raid is part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records”—accusations that echo Trump’s previous attempts to wield the government to silence and punish Bolton for supposedly sharing classified information in his 2020 tell-all book, The Room Where It Happened, which described Trump as incompetent and unfit for the presidency.

Bolton frequently issues scathing criticisms of Trump. In March 2024, he said the then candidate “hasn’t got the brains” to be a dictator. Months later, he said that, while Trump “falls into the general definition of fascist,” he lacks the thoughtfulness to fit the bill: “To be a fascist, you have to have a philosophy. Trump’s not capable of that,” he said.

Last August, Bolton said Trump doesn’t lie a lot, “because to lie, you have to do it consciously. He just can’t tell the difference.” This February, he told CNN the president’s “mind is full of mush.”

He also regularly lays into the president for his perceived friendliness toward Russia in its war against Ukraine. In 2022, he called Trump a “useful idiot” for Putin.

And just last week, Bolton incensed the president by saying he had, in arranging his Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin, handed the Russian president a victory.

Bolton’s barbs have, of course, not been ignored.

Trump, for example, called the ex–national security adviser “really dumb” and a loser for his latest criticisms. And after meeting with Putin, Trump blamed “stupid people like” Bolton for “mak[ing] it much harder” to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

On Friday, top Trump officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, seemed to gloat about the FBI raid in oblique posts on X.

This latest instance of lawfare comes as the Trump administration escalates its attacks against other political opponents—most recently training its sights on Democratic Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. This is not to mention Trump’s threats to launch even more retributive legal attacks against his perceived foe Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, among others.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday that the Trump administration would stop issuing work visas for commercial truck drivers.

“The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” Rubio wrote in a post on X, announcing the new policy. 

The decision appears to be spurred by a recent traffic accident in Florida that officials have described as an alleged “vehicular homicide.” A commercial truck driver was arrested earlier this month after allegedly attempting to make an unauthorized U-turn, resulting in a crash that killed three people. Because the driver, Harjinder Singh, was an undocumented immigrant from India, Republicans have been quick to politicize the accident. 

Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins blamed California Governor Gavin Newsom for the crash on Thursday, because Singh had received his commercial driver’s license in California after illegally entering the United States from Mexico. “Three lives lost because of Gavin Newsom, because of California’s failed policies,” Collins said, according to Fox News. “We’re done with that shit.”

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin was also quick to point the finger at Newsom, writing on X Monday, “How many more innocent people have to die before @GavinNewsom stops playing games with the safety of the American public?”  

It’s not clear what Singh’s country of origin or immigration status could possibly have to do with his driving abilities, but that’s not stopping the Trump administration from using the fatal accident in Florida as justification to punish all immigrants. 

Rubio’s decision comes amid a national shortage of commercial truck drivers. The industry is struggling with a shortage of about 60,000 drivers, according to trade group the American Trucking Association. 

Foreign-born drivers make up about 18 percent of the total commercial truck driver workforce as of October 2024, according to the National Association of Truck Stop Owners, citing Labor Department data.

Donald Trump’s vision of the nation’s capital does not appear to be attuned to reality.

Nearly two hours after midnight, the president claimed that the federalization of Washington’s law enforcement had brought peace to the city, apparently ignoring the citywide protests rejecting the White House occupation. But Trump’s self-praise came part and parcel with an ominous threat: that a “complete and federal takeover” of Washington was still a possibility.

“Washington, D.C. is SAFE AGAIN!” Trump announced on Truth Social. “The crowds are coming back, the spirit is high, and our D.C. National Guard and Police are doing a fantastic job.”

In the first week of the operation, Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed that the administration had made nearly 400 arrests across the capital. At least 160 of those arrests were undocumented immigrants, reported ABC News.

“They are out in force, and are NOT PLAYING GAMES!!!” Trump continued. “As bad as it sounds to say, there were no murders this week for the first time in memory. Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City! Washington D.C. will soon be great again!!!”

Trump deployed 800 National Guard members to Washington and federalized the capital’s police department last week to combat what he described as a crime-riddled hellscape. To justify the government infringement, the president pointed to rising crime rates, immigrant populations, and homelessness—though the figures he used were from 2023, before violent crime plummeted across the country.

More recent numbers from the Metropolitan Police Department told a remarkably different story: Crime in the nation’s capital was actually down 35 percent in 2024 compared to the year prior. But the administration is apparently not satisfied with the narrative of that data. On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced a criminal investigation into the Washington police department to determine whether the law enforcement bureau had manipulated data to make crime in the city seem lower than officers have claimed.

A federal judge ruled Thursday night that the government could no longer send people to Alligator Alcatraz and that the ramshackle detention facility must be dismantled, Politico reported.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams gave the government 60 days to remove the facility’s fencing, lighting, and generators—rendering the facility unusable and forcing it to clear out its detainee population.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit from Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe alleging that construction on the new facility was greenlit without providing time for public notice and comment, or conducting proper environmental reviews required by the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and state and local land-use laws. The facility was built on a defunct Miami-Dade airstrip adjacent to the Big Cypress National Preserve and several tribal villages.

“Every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation and protection of the Everglades,” Williams wrote. “This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”

Earlier this month, Williams had ordered Florida to halt construction at the Trump administration’s premier wetland-themed concentration camp, where both detainees and former employees have alleged horrific living conditions.

The judge also weighed a long-standing question about the hastily constructed facility: Who exactly runs it? Williams rejected the federal and state government’s claim that Alligator Alcatraz was run by the state of Florida and was therefore not subject to NEPA’s requirements.

“That the deputized officers’ regular salaries are paid, required uniforms are bought, and standard work hours are controlled by their state agency supervisors is not germane because their status there as deputized officers and their activities at the camp are controlled by ICE,” she wrote.

The purposeful ambiguity about whether the facility is managed by ICE has resulted in an erosion of detainee rights, as immigration attorneys watch their clients disappear from the ICE detainee tracker and have no idea how to contact them once they’re inside the camp.

Elon Musk will face a lawsuit accusing him of defrauding voters with his shady, pre-2024 election lottery—in which the billionaire dangled a chance for a million-dollar payday over voters who signed a pro-Constitution petition by his America PAC.

“We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election,” Musk told a Pennsylvania crowd in October. But amid a failed attempt by Philadelphia’s district attorney to halt the giveaway, America PAC revealed that the $1 million recipients were not chosen by chance but handpicked, with their personal stories being a factor in the selection process.

This was news to Jacqueline McAferty of Arizona, who had signed the petition and, on Election Day, proposed a class action, claiming that Musk and America PAC had defrauded voters. Musk, McAferty said, induced voters with false statements to sign the petition and submit “personal, private information” in the process.

Musk in January sought to get the case dismissed, insisting that people who signed up for the chance to win $1 million weren’t harmed by sharing their personal information and were told—despite his apparent statements to the contrary—that America PAC staffers would review their cases rather than leave their selection up to chance.

But on Wednesday, a federal judge in Texas ordered Musk to face the lawsuit.

“It is plausible that plaintiff justifiably relied on those statements to believe that defendants were objectively offering her the chance to enter a random lottery—even if that is not what they subjectively intended to do,” wrote U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, per Reuters.

Pitman also suggested that a political data expert could testify and help determine the value of the information that McAferty and other signatories provided to Musk.

Musk’s presence in the political sphere has shrunk in recent months. He funneled millions into the Trump campaign and led the president’s efforts to gut the federal government before the two had a very public falling out over the administration’s sweeping tax and spending plan.

But the world’s richest man remains interested in politics: When The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Musk had given up on his plans to start a political party, which he first cooked up during his feud with Trump, Musk suggested that this wasn’t true.

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday baselessly dismissed a recent report that exposed the regressive nature of the administration’s economic agenda.

During a Thursday visit to Georgia, a reporter with Atlanta News First asked the vice president to justify the fact that, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Trump’s spending plan will exacerbate the wealth gap.

According to the report, the so-called One, Big Beautiful Bill Act will cost the poorest Americans an estimated $1,200 per year from 2026 to 2034, while furnishing the richest with an extra $13,600.

Vance’s reply?

Sometimes, he said, the CBO’s reports are “absolutely atrocious, and I think this is a good example of a very atrocious report.”

To defend the claim, he pointed to the bill’s temporary no-tax-on-tips and no-tax-on-overtime provisions (which were, according to the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, “designed in ways that limit their benefits for less affluent taxpayers”).

Most importantly, Vance said, Trump’s policies will keep jobs in the United States. But rather than explain how, he provided a quite circular argument: “That is the very best thing for the people at the bottom of the income ladder, and that’s why we have the economic policies that we do.”

The vice president went on to tout the president’s mass deportation campaign.

Last month, when Vance was rallying for the bill’s passage, he described its impact on the federal budget (as measured by the CBO) and its historic cuts to the social safety net (“the minutiae of the Medicaid policy,” as he put it) as “immaterial,” in light of the billions it puts toward Trump’s draconian immigration agenda.

Far-right Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy—whom President Donald Trump once described as “weak and ineffective”—is now running for Texas Attorney General.

Roy adds his name to a large group of conservatives looking to replace current Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is now running for Senate. Roy and Paxton were close, with Roy even working as assistant attorney general for Paxton in 2014.

That all changed when Roy called on Paxton to resign in 2020 on allegations of bribery and abuse of office.

Roy has also been a constant agitator within the GOP, as he most recently opposed Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on fiscal grounds. But Roy chose to leave the past conflict out of his campaign announcement ad.

“Today, we draw a line in the sand. Texans’ next attorney general must have a proven record of fighting to preserve, protect, and defend our legacy—an attorney general unafraid to fight, unafraid to win,” Roy said. “That’s why I fought to secure our border and help President Trump deliver results.”

Roy will be running against state Senators Mayes Middleton and Joan Huffman, and former Paxton aide Aaron Reitz.