Trump’s Military Parade Was So Bad That Now He Wants a Redo

Remember that expensive, wasteful military parade that President Trump forced on everyone in June? Now our dear leader wants a redo—by sea.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Navy is planning a larger parade for this fall after the president told aides he was “disappointed” by the marching and paltry attendance. The second parade is reportedly to celebrate the Navy’s 250th anniversary, much like the summer parade was focused on the anniversary of the U.S. Army.

“Through the America 250 celebrations and beyond, President Trump is rightfully restoring patriotism across the administration and giving our brave men and women in uniform the honor they deserve,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said when questioned by The Daily Beast. “Only the anti-American activists at the Daily Beast could possibly take issue with celebrating our U.S. Navy’s 250th Anniversary – sad!”

The Army’s summer spectacle cost U.S. taxpayers $30 million, and was largely a flop.

It’s unclear what else will be different about this parade aside from the personnel. If Trump was upset by the lack of turnout at his earlier parade, especially after comparing it to the March on Washington, it’s unclear how the Navy would change that. And while MAGA loyalists were delighted by this summer’s show of power, the majority of the public was conflicted. Another parade will likely sow the same sentiments.

A Republican official in North Carolina was charged with felony child abuse after he allegedly attempted to drug his two granddaughters with cocaine and MDMA.

The chairman of the Surry County Board of Elections, James Edwin Yokeley Jr., told police earlier this month that he had discovered “two hard objects” in ice cream he had bought from a local Dairy Queen—but video evidence collected during the investigation suggested otherwise.

Yokeley was reportedly caught on tape placing the pills in the girls’ ice cream himself, the Wilmington Police Department said in a press release Wednesday. Neither child ingested the drug-laced pills.

The local Republican chair was arrested and is currently held on a $100,000 bail. Along with the child abuse charges, Yokeley faces two counts of contaminating food or drink with a controlled substance, and felony possession of schedule 1 narcotics.

Yokeley only recently came into power in the artsy beach town: The 66-year-old was appointed in June by State Auditor Dave Boliek, though the state official no longer appears to be one of his supporters. In an interview with WRAL News, Boliek called the matter “very disturbing.”

Yokeley was selected in part because of his previous experience on the board. He had previously run for a seat on the Surry County Board of Education in 2022, winning 26.69 percent of the vote in the Republican primary. Boliek emphasized that “nothing” had appeared in the election officials’ background check “that would suggest this at all.”

Yokeley resigned via letter Thursday afternoon, though he insisted that he had been “falsely accused.”

“Based on the truth and facts, I remain prayerfully confident that I will be exonerated of all accusations levied against me,” Yokeley wrote.

In a statement to the News & Observer, Boliek said that the resignation would allow the board to “move forward with the process of appointing a replacement.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt struggled to defend President Donald Trump’s decision to oust Susan Monarez, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While taking questions at a White House press briefing Thursday, Leavitt was asked about a statement from Monarez lawyer Mark Zaid, who alleged she was fired after she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”

“What specifically did she do wrong?” asked one reporter. 

“Look, what I will say about this individual is that her lawyers’ statement made it abundantly clear themselves that she was not aligned with the president’s mission to make America healthy again,” Leavitt said. “And the secretary asked her to resign, she said she would, and then she said she wouldn’t, so the president fired her, which he has every right to do.”

“It was President Trump who was overwhelmingly re-elected on November 5. This woman has never received a vote in her life, and the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission,” Leavitt continued. 

But Leavitt was wrong. Just one month ago, Monarez was confirmed by a Senate vote along party lines, and was sworn into office shortly after. If she wasn’t aligned with Trump’s mission, it’s unclear why that wouldn’t have been determined in April when he nominated her, or anytime after.

Leavitt said a new nominee would be announced soon. 

Monarez’s firing has sparked outrage at the CDC. Four agency heads resigned Wednesday, warning that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had compromised the agency’s mission with anti-vaccine policies and other growing misinformation. CDC staff also staged a walkout Thursday, in response to the ongoing turmoil.  

President Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda is increasingly at odds with free market economics, and some key conservatives are beginning to notice.

At least one Republican—Texas Representative Chip Roy—has harpooned the president’s Intel deal, reminding CNBC Thursday that government stakes in private entities defies conservative values.

Roy also challenged the Trump administration’s intent to develop a state-owned investment fund known as a sovereign wealth fund.

“I think the problem here is that we built up through the broken system and the swamp, this world in which these corporations depend so heavily on the government, when in fact what they should be doing is producing products and competing in the market,” Roy said.

“What I don’t like is taking up stakes in private entities,” he continued. “And in terms of a sovereign wealth fund, we’ve got a massive amount of ability to produce wealth and capital in this country by virtue of free enterprise.”

Roy then claimed that America’s economics had allowed it to front global innovation, citing the creation of the lightbulb, flight, and space travel.

“Now, in the area of tech and AI and everything else, we’ve done that through our innovation and through private enterprise. We do not want to go down the road of government ownership of these things,” he underscored.

The Texas lawmaker did concede that the White House had rightly identified the need to “clean up” corporate dependence on government and “restore competition,” but added that he doesn’t love the idea of government “getting in the game” of the private sector.

Last week, the Trump administration took a 10 percent stake in Intel, purchasing 433.3 million shares for a total price of $8.9 billion. The transaction made the U.S. government Intel’s single largest shareholder, though Intel said that the White House would not have a board seat or hold any governing rights of the company.

Despite widespread concern regarding the federal infiltration, one of Trump’s top economic advisers—National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett—said that Trump is already looking to cut more deals with other companies.

“I’m sure that at some point there’ll be more transactions, if not in this industry, in other industries,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC Monday.

It’s not the only time that Roy has clashed with Trump.

Roy has fielded plenty of criticism from the MAGA leader—including being heckled as “weak and ineffective”—for daring to oppose the president’s agenda. The pair notably split opinions on the “big, beautiful bill,” when the Freedom Caucus member raised hell over the tax cut’s enormous price tag.

President Donald Trump’s administration is asking the naval base outside of Chicago, Illinois for help carrying out the president’s massive deportation campaign, apparently as part of his planned federal takeover of the Windy City.

Navy Captain Stephen Yargosz, the commanding officer of the Naval Station Great Lakes bases, wrote an email to his leadership team alerting them that agents with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be housed at the base starting after Labor Day, and throughout the month of September.

“These operations are similar to what occurred in Los Angeles earlier this summer. Same DHS team,” Yargosz wrote in the email obtained by The Chicago Sun Times. “This morning I received a call that there is the potential to also support National Guard units. Not many details on this right now. Mainly a lot of concerns and questions.”

Naval Station Great Lakes spokesperson Matt Mogle said Wednesday that the Lake Michigan adjacent base had received a request from the DHS, asking for “limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure, and other logistical needs to support DHS operations.”

Mogle said that no decision had been made on the request, and that they’d received no formal request to mobilize National Guard troops in Chicago, according to the Associated Press.

DHS’s request to Naval Station Great Lakes comes as Trump has set his sights on Chicago to expand his baseless law enforcement crackdown in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. (read: intimidation campaign of Democratic cities) using National Guard troops. The president has claimed he has the “the right to do anything” he wants.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin all said that they had not received any information from the White House about the naval support request.

During a press conference earlier this week, Pritzker warned Trump to keep out of Chicago.

President Trump has fired Surface Transportation Board member Robert Primus, a Democrat, who he himself first appointed to the railroad regulator board in 2020. Primus, who was expected to weigh in on a major railroad merger, is at least the fourth top official fired this week, joining ousted Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook, CDC Director Susan Monarez, and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Jeffrey Kruse. 

Primus plans to protest his firing. 

“This is deeply troubling and legally invalid,” he wrote in an email sent to The Wall Street Journal. He also noted that his firing would “adversely affect the freight rail network in a way that may ultimately hurt consumers and the economy.”

The White House disagreed.

“Robert Primus did not align with the President’s America First agenda,” the White House said in a statement. “The Administration intends to nominate new, more qualified members to the Surface Transportation Board in short order.”

It’s possible that Primus’s firing had something to do with his history of opposing megamerger’s for the sake of the public good. In 2023, he was the only member of the Surface Transportation Board to go against the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroad merger. And Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern recently announced a $71.5 billion deal to join together to control all coast-to-coast rail shipments for the first time ever in this country—a megamerger that the Surface Transportation Board was still considering.  

It is unclear whether Trump has tapped a replacement for Primus, even as the ousted board member looks into a potential legal challenge. Cook and Monarez have also refused to vacate their positions. 

Yet another Republican member of Congress was blasted by his constituents at his own town hall over his support for President Donald Trump’s agenda. Barry Moore of Alabama, a U.S. representative and Senate candidate, slipped out the back door of a Wednesday event in Daphne, as the audience erupted in shouts of “Shame!”

According to a video of the event posted online, an early sign of trouble for Moore came at his first mention of Trump’s tax and spending plan, which includes historic rollbacks of the social safety net and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will further enrich the rich and impoverish the poor.

The name of the so-called “big, beautiful bill” alone drew boos.

“So, I guess you guys maybe have read the legislation, I don’t know,” Moore said, leading more than one attendee to shout, “Have you?”

When Moore claimed inflation is the lowest it’s been in decades, attendees laughed in disbelief. The response was even more raucous when he claimed that no Americans will lose Medicaid under Trump’s plan. “That is not true!” “You’re lying!” people shouted.

Then came the Q&A portion, beginning with a question about whether Moore believes consumers pay for Trump’s tariffs. “So, right now, what we just saw in a report is that we haven’t seen inflation at all—” he began. But, sensing his evasiveness, the crowd began to chant: “Who pays the tariffs? Who pays the tariffs?”

Moore similarly struck out with his audience on social issues. He attributed Republican electoral gains in 2024, in part, to voters realizing that “they don’t want men in our daughters’ locker rooms,” a take that elicited outcry. (“There’s a pedophile in the White House!” one woman yelled.)

Asked if he supports “no-exception abortion bans, even if somebody you know were raped,” Moore said, “I am 100 percent pro-life,” and was once again showered in boos.

On the topic of immigration, one attendee asked why immigrants are being deported without due process. Moore replied that “due process for a citizen and noncitizen are different,” and the audience fell into chants of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as the congressman headed out the back door.

The congressman licked his wounds during a Thursday appearance on a conservative radio show, where he claimed the event had been “hijacked” by left-wing “agitators.”

After deceiving their base and inadvertently sparking days of national controversy, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel will finally be called to testify before Congress.

Bondi and Patel will appear before the House Judiciary Committee, with the attorney general testifying on September 17 and the FBI director on October 9, according to Politico. The majority of the questioning is expected to focus on the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein case, like how Bondi went from claiming she had the Epstein files “sitting on my desk” to declaring the case closed, and why whatever files the administration has released contain virtually no new information.

While the Epstein files have not dominated the daily news cycle in recent weeks as they initially did, Congress’s return from recess next week may very well kick the discourse back into gear.

Democrats will likely focus on Trump’s relationship to the deceased sex predator, while Republicans will try to appease MAGA loyalists who have been chasing the story for years. Either way, Bondi and Patel are sure to face some tough questioning regarding their apparent mishandling of it all.

Former Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta—who as U.S. Attorney to the Southern District of Florida provided Epstein with the sweetheart plea deal that allowed him to avoid any real punishment for his sex trafficking crimes—has also agreed to be interviewed by the House Oversight Committee on September 19.

Susan Monarez, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, refused to bend to the Trump administration’s demands. Then she was fired.

That’s the explanation behind Wednesday’s sudden events, according to former CDC director Richard Besser.

Speaking with reporters Thursday, Besser explained that he had talked with Monarez hours before the Health Department announced her departure.

“She said that there were two things she would never do in the job,” Besser said. “She said she was asked to do both of those, one in terms of firing her leadership, who are talented civil servants like herself, and the other was to rubber stamp [vaccine] recommendations that flew in the face of science, and she was not going to do either of those things.”

Besser was concerned by her departure, he told ABC News. “She is a very principled scientist, a public servant, and having someone like that in that role gave me some hope there could be pushback against some of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s moves.”

Three top leaders at the agency resigned in the wake of Monarez’s dismissal, including former Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, former National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis, and National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan.

In June, Kennedy replaced independent medical experts on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel with vaccine skeptics. Monarez was confirmed to run the CDC in late July and lasted less than a month in her position.

Monarez’s time was spent constructing guardrails for the newly reconfigured panel, including a failed attempt to make the panel’s evidence and slides publicly available, and an unsuccessful bid to “replace the federal official that oversees the committee with someone with more policy experience,” Houry told Politico.

Skirting direct questions about Monarez’s sudden departure during an interview with Fox & Friends Thursday, Kennedy insisted that the CDC was in trouble.

“We need to fix it, and we are fixing it, and it may be that some people should not be working there anymore,” he said.

With or without Monarez, Kennedy’s policies have already greatly reduced Americans’ ability to access vaccines.

Just this month, he divested $500 million from mRNA research, effectively axing 22 mRNA studies since, according to Kennedy, they “fail to protect” against “upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.” He also deauthorized Covid-19 vaccinations for children and adults under 65, despite evidence that pregnant women and children are some of the most at-risk demographics for serious complications related to Covid infections.

Senator Lindsey Graham on Thursday threatened to slap tariffs on Norway for its sovereign wealth fund’s decision to divest from an American company reportedly complicit in Israeli human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank.

As part of an ongoing ethics review meant to root out investments that contribute to Israeli violations of international law, the Norwegian wealth fund announced this week that it would exclude the construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar. The ethics council concluded, “There is no doubt that Caterpillar’s products are being used to commit extensive and systematic violations of international humani­tarian law.” Namely, “Bulldozers manufactured by Caterpillar are being used by Israeli authorities in the widespread unlawful destruction of Palestinian property,” the council found, as the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has long pointed out.

Graham threatened the fund on X Wednesday, writing, “Your BS decision will not go unanswered.” On Thursday, he specified that he hopes to “put tariffs on countries who refuse to do business with great American companies” or to refuse visas to people punishing U.S. companies “for geopolitical differences.”

“To those who run Norway’s sovereign wealth fund: if you cannot do business with Caterpillar because Israel uses their products, maybe it’s time you’re made aware that doing business or visiting America is a privilege, not a right,” Graham warned.

The intimidation tactic is unsurprising from a politician who has proven himself an unquestioning cheerleader of the Israeli government amid the atrocities it is committing in Palestine. In June, Graham summed up his foreign policy approach regarding Israel as follows: “God blesses those who bless Israel.” (And the Republican senator has been blessed abundantly by pro-Israel lobbying groups, reportedly to the tune of $1 million throughout his political career.)

This is not the first time Graham has threatened hefty punishments on countries seeking to uphold international law.

In November 2024, Graham vowed that countries would face draconian sanctions if they complied with the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity. “If you help the ICC, we’re going to crush the economy,” the senator said at the time. “Because we’re next,” he added. “Why can’t they go after Trump, or any other American president, under this theory?”